Ever since the 75th Games, things changed. Amelia had experienced the rapid destruction of the Capitol, and had become witness to one of the biggest changes to Panem, ever. The Capitol was overthrown, and with it, went President Snow, or, as she knew him: grandfather. Immediately after he had been captured, Amelia and her mother and father had been robbed of their freedom as well. Rebel soldiers ripped her from her bed in the middle of the night. Her grandfather had arranged for them to be shipped to safety somewhere the next week... and it was too little, too late, by the time the rebel soldiers appeared. Since then, Amelia had been treated like a prisoner, kept under lock and key at all times, fed nothing but scraps that the soldiers spat on, and abused, verbally and physically, as much as was possible.
Amelia hadn't seen her parents in over a month. The days seemed to blur into each other, and in the matter of a few weeks, Amelia turned from a person of importance, to a person lower on the food chain than the flies that kept her company and sucked the salty sweat off her dirty palms. She was told frequently to shut up, even when she cried. Especially when she cried. After the first week in captivity, Amelia learned that her tears would get her nowhere, and ceased them entirely. She had learned a trick or two from her grandfather, though when the soldiers keeping guard on her weren't looking, she let a few eke out for her mother and father. What had happened to them? There was no news; the only thing she heard of the outside world was courtesy of the eavesdropping she did on the soldiers when they paced outside of the room she was kept in.
Something was happening. Amelia didn't know what, but it had started about a week ago, and whatever it was had the soldiers excited. Public executions, maybe. They'd done that to her grandfather. Thankfully, she hadn't been around to watch that. Amelia figured her parents dead, or at least, the targets of the public executions she figured would be happening.
Instead, on the morning of the fifth Saturday she'd spent confined to a room with barred windows and guarded doors, she was woken by a sudden clanging on the metal of the bed frame she'd been sleeping on.
"Rise and shine, princess." A hoarse, gritty voice called from the source of the clanging.
Amelia jolted awake, her eyes snapping open in a matter of split seconds, for fear of being beaten if she didn't obey. "I-I'm awake." She stammered, throwing the meager, thin blanket off herself. She was still wearing the same thing she'd been captured in. Her nightgown, now tattered and filthy, hung loosely around her shoulders, which had thinned considerably in her month without the food supply she had been used to.
"Come on. Get moving. Reaping's going to start soon. Don't want to be late, do you?" The soldier taunted with a cruel sneer, pointing the tip of his gun in her direction, giving a sharp jab to her side.
Amelia winced, but shuffled forward, her bruised shins, thighs and stiff joints complaining. It took her a few moments before she realized what the soldier had really said. At first, all that registered was 'get moving'. "R-Reaping?" Amelia hesitated, and looked over her shoulder at the solider, eyes wide and eyebrows knit. "I thought-"
"What? You thought you'd get away without being punished?" He chuckled darkly and gave her another jab with his gun to get her moving again. "Nah, darlin'. You're gonna experience first hand what the District kids went through every year for seventy-five years."
At his words, Amelia whimpered lightly. So this was it. Her grandfather was dead, probably her parents too, and this was how she was going to die. By the hands of another Capitol child, reaped from the masses. Odds had nothing to do with it, she knew at once; even if odds had anything to do with it, she would have suspected that her name would have been rigged to show up from the draw. Amelia swallowed thickly, taking small steps forward. She still had a chance.. right?
The soldier led her toward a separate room, which housed a tub and several female soldiers. He gave her one last prod with his gun, ushering her into the room, and closing the door after a few parting words. "Enjoy your bath, Highness."
Amelia heard the sadistic chuckle through the door, and stared at the faces of the women that wore the drab uniforms of District 13. They swarmed on her, stripping her of her clothing before dunking her into the bath, which had been allowed to cool considerably. It was chilly and a disgusting brown shade when she was allowed out again, having been scrubbed down and removed of the muck and dried blood on her wounds.
She was taken out, dried off and done up. A white dress had been selected for her. One of her own, from a different time, now a size too big. Her long blonde hair had been brushed, dried and plaited in Katniss' style, and accentuated with a shimmering white ribbon. Her shoes were fitted, and then, she was told to turn around. A woman pinned a blood red rose to her collar with a smirk, and then marched Amelia out by the tip of her gun.
It took all Amelia had not to burst into tears as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror in the hall. The dress had once been one of her favorites - a gift from her grandfather on her sixteenth birthday. The rose, which had once been one of her favorite flowers, had a putrid, rank scent rolling off of it, and as much as Amelia wished that she was wearing the dress and the rose under different circumstances... it was an outfit designed to draw attention. To call attention to the fact that she was being slowly marched to her death.
The square was already packed with people when Amelia arrived, her troupe of rebel soldiers escorting her to the crowd, guns pointed at her at every turn. She did her best to hold up her chin and keep her eyes pointed forward, as if she wasn't afraid. She clenched her teeth, locked her jaw and kept her spine rigid, stopping only when the troupe permitted her to. The Reaping had yet to begin, but with her arrival, it seemed to get underway. There was a hum amongst the crowd, frantic whispers as she was pointed to, stared at and gossiped about.
Some woman made her way to the stage and read out a mockery of the Treaty of Treason, the Districts swapped for the Capitol, and vice versa. The stage was set with two bowls as usual, except instead of one name from each bowl, twelve would be pulled, one in the name of each of the Districts, starting with 1, so the woman announced, and proceeded to launch the First Annual Capitol Hunger Games.
Amelia's stomach tightened as the woman crossed to the bowl on her right, and fished out one slip of paper, and read out the name into the microphone. It was a familiar name, though not Amelia's own. A weeping girl ascended the stage, and Amelia's heart dropped. One of her friends' sister, barely turned twelve.
The woman did not relent, however, and moved to the boys' bowl, fishing out a name in honor of 1. Another soul ascended the stage - a boy about fourteen, looking about as sullen as the younger girl.
The woman went back and forth ten more times, completing the 11th District's honorary tributes, the stage slowly becoming packed with crying and frightened Capitol children. So far, Amelia's anxiety had gotten worse. She'd been made to sit through twenty-two name drawings, and had to hold her breath for eleven of them. Amelia felt sick to her stomach, having to watch friends, and family and friends of friends be reaped, knowing there was nothing she could do.
It was when the woman was about to draw the final two names, that the woman on stage notified the crowd that there would be a special exception made that year in honor of former President Snow's memory. The final female name would be drawn out of a separate bowl, which was brought to the stage at her words. Amelia swallowed hard, knowing without even having to look at the bowl that there was only one slip of paper in it.
The woman looked Amelia dead in the eyes as she plucked the paper out, and read out Amelia's name into the microphone.
The crowd seemed to hush, and turned to face her, tear-stained and pained faces pressing in on her.
Amelia moved forward on her own account before any of her guard could force her to. She strode onward, up the stairs to the stage, losing her repertoire of guards when she got up onto it. The woman smiled cruelly, and drew the final name, and concluded the Reaping with the famous words of Amelia's grandfather. 'May the odds be ever in your favor'.
One by one, the tributes were branched off into the building, kept in rooms for their final goodbyes. Amelia was held back until everyone else had gone before her, watching the sobbing parents come back from their last goodbyes to their children. Only one would make it out alive... and for twenty-three pairs of parents, they would find nothing but grief.
When everyone else had come and gone, Amelia was led to a room of her own, and shoved inside without supervision for the first time in over a month. She shook lightly as she stumbled into the dusty room and looked around. Her breaths became short and erratic. Was there a way out? She could commit suicide here, in this room... if she was quick about it. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of parading her around like some doll, dressing her up an showing her off to the surviving Capitol citizens to scare them into oblivion.
Amelia nearly tripped over herself in her haste. Soon, the rebel soldiers would come to collect her. It had to be quick. A quick death. Did she deserve that? She hadn't done anything wrong... she had been a good girl her whole life. She did her schoolwork, practiced her flute, and exercised regularly. She was respectful to her parents and her grandfather, and never spoke out of turn to teachers or acquaintances. She had been the picture of a perfect child, and now she was being punished for a crime that she didn't commit.
Stumbling toward the desk in the room, Amelia ripped the drawers open, looking for something sharp, anything to slit her wrists or stab into her gut. Her trembling fingers rooted around in the drawers for a few seconds before they closed around something cold, hard, and heavy. A pair of scissors emerged as she pulled her hand out, and for the first time in over a month, Amelia smiled.
Death would be sweet. She'd see her grandfather again.. and her mother and father as well.
She forced the scissors to open, pressed the blade to the milky flesh of her wrist, and was about to pull it backward along her skin.. when the door opened.
In the doorway, Amelia's parents stood with teary eyes and bruised faces, wasting no time in rushing toward their daughter.
Amelia froze and dropped the scissors, feeling her face contort from one of shaky determination to one of sorrow, pain, and agony. "M-mama.. Papa..." her voice mumbled out. This wasn't possible. Her mother and father were dead. Had she somehow killed herself without realizing it? Amelia didn't have the time to look down at her wrist for blood, because as soon as her parents reached her, she was crushed into a hug by both of them.
"Amelia.." her father cooed, squeezing her tightly.
"T-they told us.. you were k-killed..." her mother mumbled.
Amelia took a deep breath in, harrowed by the fact that she could still smell her mother's permanent perfume, and felt her father's scratchy beard on her cheek.
"I figured y-you both had been.." Amelia replied when she found her voice.
Amelia's mother refused to let go of her daughter, and frantically stroked Amelia's hair, pressing kisses to her daughter's cheeks. "Amelia.. Amelia.. you must be a good and brave girl. You m-must come back to us."
Her father nodded, taking hold of Amelia's hand, kicking the scissors away from all three of them. "If you come back.. we can be together again- b-but if not..." he trailed off, looking at the ground.
If not? Amelia looked up at her father. "If not?"
He took a deep breath and squeezed Amelia's hand. "If not, none of us escape the fate."
Amelia felt her stomach clench and her heart drop. If she didn't win.. it meant certain death, not only for herself, but for her mother and father as well. Her throat tightened, and tears began to well in her eyes. "N-no.." Amelia stammered, shaking her head, "no, no..." Her body began to shake, to quiver with fright.
"Shhh.. Amelia.. my d-darling.." her mother cooed through her own tight throat, "y-you can do this."
Her father nodded, biting back his own tears. "Amelia, you must be courageous. You must come back, and make your grandfather proud."
Amelia sobbed openly into her mother's chest, clinging desperately to her clothing. "I c-c-can't!" she wailed. She was so sure that she wasn't going to win, that only moments prior she had been content with taking her own life. What was she going to do now that it wasn't only her life at stake?
"Shh.. shh... come n-now Amelia... you are a Snow. I-if your grandfather were here, he'd tell you that y-you could do anything you set your mind to. Amelia.. you m-must do this. You must win. No m-matter the cost."
Her mother pulled away, and crouched in front of her, digging something out of her husband's pocket, pressing it into Amelia's palm, curling Amelia's fingers around it and sealing it with a kiss. "Y-your token. Keep it w-with you, darling... and think of us."
Amelia felt sick. Even by the feel of it in her palm, she knew what the token was. Her mother's rose bud necklace, which had belonged to Amelia's grandmother. Amelia began to tear up even more, as she clutched the thing to her chest. "I.."
The door swung open all of a sudden, and rebel soldiers marched in, creating a panic. Her mother yelped in surprise, and Amelia jumped as the soldiers rushed her parents, pulling them away from her with brute force. There was a struggle as her parents tried to get a few more seconds with her, and Amelia tried desperately to cling to her mother and father, grasping for their hands as they were forcibly removed.
"No! No! Mama! Papa! No!" Amelia cried, yelling out for her parents, struggling as she was restrained by a soldier, but the door soon slammed closed, and Amelia's parents had vanished as quickly as they had appeared, with no trace of their existence, except for the necklace in Amelia's fist.
The soldiers did not let much time pass before they hauled Amelia back out into the blinding sun, marching her to a car to bring her to the training center, presumably. She was half walked, half dragged to the awaiting car, and stuffed inside, her face stained with tears and red and puffy from all the crying. Amelia stared straight ahead, almost in disbelief of what had just happened. The car started, and lurched forward, pulling away from the cameras that had been pressed in on Amelia, which she was oblivious of.
It was only when the car passed the first bend that Amelia even noticed there was another soul in the car with her. She wiped her face on the back of her hand, and turned to him, blinking away the residual tears in her eyes so she could focus them on him. "S-sorry.." she mumbled quietly, unsure of what she was even apologizing for, but it seemed like an apology was a good place to start.