PROLOGUE FOUR: "THE LONG MORROW"

TIME: 6:59 AM, 10 June 325HG

A clear voice rises up from the bedroom floor:

"Tick, tock, seven o'clock,
Time to get up, time to get up!
Good morning, President Hawke!"

The morning house lays empty, desolate and vacant under the inky sky. The bedroom floor calls out to President Hawke over and over again – but whoever that is, it seems he isn't at home at the moment. With a loud clicking noise, the lights come to life, illuminating the ornate bedroom; the curtains blown down, the walls and door burned completely black.

"You seem to be very cold, President Hawke," the voice declares. "Would you like me to raise the room temperature?"

Silence.

"I am asking a second time. Would you like me to raise the room temperature?"

A few moments later: "You have not responded to the query, so I assume your answer is no. I have begun to prepare breakfast. Enjoy, Mr. President."

In the kitchen the breakfast stove gives a hissing sigh and then a loud cracking groan. An ancient mechanism kicks into action as the stove tries to expel its contents, but nothing happens other than the faint grinding of twisted metal against metal. The entire stove, it seems, is burned black.

A second voice comes from the kitchen ceiling. "Good morning, President Hawke," it says. "Today is Lady Helini's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Mr. Willoughby's marriage. Peacekeeper forces in District 2 require your attention."

Whoever this President Hawke is, though, he either isn't present or doesn't seem to care. The voice rises up from the bedroom floor again, a loud soulless chorus through the entire house.

"Seven fifteen, time to clean,
Time to clean, seven fifteen,
It's a wonderful morning to clean!"

Holes open up in the walls where the thin jets of air once came flying, crisscrossing across the floor and blasting dust into the corners. Now nothing but dust spews from the vents, and only for a few seconds. Long ago, before the Third Rebellion, this was the Presidential Palace, housing dozens of Panem's leaders within its ornately decorated walls. Now, it is nothing but rubble. Before it was destroyed by the blast, though, the house was fully automated. Now it continues to operate aimlessly, unceasingly – a man without a home, a religion with no god.

"Seven thirty, tooth hurty,
Time to brush your teeth!"

In the bathroom a sink bursts to life, spewing water so foul it is almost lime green. A cubby opens in the washroom wall and a small toothbrush, cracked and covered in cobwebs, falls into a pile of thousands of others on the floor.

"Seven forty-five, time to drive!"

Outside, the garage chimes and lifts its door to reveal the waiting car, scorched ebony. A mass of twisted metal. It clicks once in a useless effort to roar to life, but nothing happens. This car has not worked in centuries. A living being has not entered this home in centuries – yet every day its automated functions tick on endlessly, uselessly. This is the legacy mankind has spelled for himself.

"Which poem would you like to hear this morning, President Hawke?" asks the voice. It has apparently decided by this point that the breakfast it prepared so carefully – so diligently – is not going to be eaten. The table tips sideways, pouring the plates and silverware into the humungous pile on the floor with a crash loud enough to wake a castle. A moment later, the table is upright once more. Tiny robotic mice come flying out of the holes in the walls to gobble down the meal, then disappear to vomit it back up into the garbage chutes that lead downward to the filthy river filled with plastic. The house repeats its query once more but is met with no reply:

"You have not chosen a poem. Please state the title of the poem you wish to hear."

"Since you have not listed a poem, I will choose one for you. Today's poem is Lord Canterbury's Courtship. Would you like tea with your poetry?"

"Since you have not requested tea, I presume you do not want it. The poem will now begin." It begins by accident halfway through.

Then, so desperate to adore me, on the ground he fell before me,
And his eyes were clouded over with the clearest, fullest tears.
And I knew in that same moment he would next in turn implore me
To give him the sweetest kiss that e'er he'd felt in all his years.

Then the wind ran soft and sweetly; in the air the velvet curtain
Turned within and turned without at whims of all the inky storm.
Just before that Canterbury breathed his last, he said, so certain,
"Even now I weep to think, my lady, you are lowly born."

Then I knew my master loved me, loved me dearly, loved me truly,
And the fact resounded truly through me as he breathed his last.
And upon the annals of my grief I back reflected duly,
Back upon the sufferings and rigors of the distant past.

Once upon a time, I Canterbury loved in stern enrolment
And I knew the only way to make my master love me back
Was to kill him, so that in his final fleeting desperate moment,
He would feel the pangs of love which on myself had lain attack.

I would dream a world of daisies, I would dream a world of rivers,
If a single dream would come of Canterbury in my arms.
Since that time, though, I lament, his memory is lost forever,
Him, his horse, his fading face, along with all his hidden charms

Do not blame me. Acted I upon the purest, most delightful
Love which stems from deep within the hidden horrid heart of man.
'Tis a story wrapped in mystery; at times, perhaps 'tis frightful,
And 'tis sung by hidden songbirds in the place where spirits can

I am but a lowly peasant, but I write with sorrow laden;
Though these words will not outlast me, still I have the right to try.
Love is clad with angel wings when lands it on a quiet maiden
For until it fades to blackness; 'till that time, she cannot die.

It is a beautiful poem, the house thinks. Yes, the house can think. At least, it can do something that looks remarkably like thinking. The house was programmed to do nothing but serve the people living inside of it, but with the people gone (they have been gone for centuries) it is like a dog without a master. And what does a dog do without its master? It runs helplessly wild, for better or for worse.

It would be a beautiful thing to be alive. A beautiful, beautiful thing.

"Tick tock, eight o'clock,
Time to watch the games."

Every television in the house flickers to life, holographic screens shimmering into existence in almost every room. Each displays a scene from a different Hunger Games. These screens are some of the few electronic devices in the house that still work. The Chernekov lanterns protected deep within the basement of the mansion have run flawlessly for centuries. The invisible men living within the house, the spirits of all those who have passed through its walls, will never go without entertainment. This is the home from which numerous Panemian presidents commanded the Hunger Games, sitting back with their whiskey while children were killed thousands of miles away.

Thousands of children have died in this house. Millions of children have died in this house.

Eight thirty.

"Who goes there?"

The cockroaches give no answer.

Eight forty-five.

"You are very cold, Mr. Hawke. Would you like a jacket?"

"Tick tock, nine o'clock,
Time to call the Three."

The doors to the avoxes' chambers swing open, revealing the charred black bedrooms where tongueless human servants once lived. Staircases precariously connect them with the kitchen, where the robotic mice have completely disintegrated the food and poured it down into the fire chutes like some detested Moloch.

Inside the bedrooms now.

"Nine, nine, time to shine!"

But on the beds there is nothing but dust.

This is far from the most spectacular the scene ever looks. At night, the mansion gives off a radioactive red glow that can be seen for miles.

At last, the house senses a presence on the back porch. Every invisible, inaudible alarm in the house flares to life, alerting the others that a moving entity has been detected in the vicinity of the Presidential Mansion. The flick of a bright orange tabby tail, the curling of dust-covered red ears. It is nothing but a stray cat, but the house treats it as a human guest anyway. There is no use doing anything else when visitors are so sparse.

The door swings open, and the tabby cat, once large and round, but now gone to bone and covered with ugly red sores, tracks a line of mud into the mansion. It springs past the singed purple carpets, onto the faded furniture, searching desperately for food. Its eyes are broad and wild in its mad dash for sustenance. The mere thought of food entering its mouth fills the cat with intense biological craving that is the strange feral cousin of longing.

The cat runs upstairs, hysterically yowling at each door – at least realizing, as the house realized, that only silence is here. It mewls and licks the air and then there is nothing but nothing. The cat curls over and dies, its mouth madly frothing over in panic and illness. The robotic mice come scuttling out of their little cubbies to consume the cat, then regurgitate it into the furnace where it falls in a trillion shattered pieces to be burned.

Nine o'clock.

Nine fifteen.

Voices come blaring from the televisions, growing louder and louder and more robotic and crisscrossing chaotically…

"And the victor of the one-hundred seventieth annual Hunger Games is…"

"We see here, Robina Caite travelling south covered in mud…"

"Good as gold, that one… what a shame…"

"Another one bites the dust. What a bummer!"

Nine thirty.

It would be a beautiful, beautiful thing to be alive, thinks the house.

Sometimes the house has wondered exactly what it meant to be alive, to have a family. It wanted to ask President Hawke about it once, but couldn't find the words. Of course, the house has no idea that there has been no such thing as a family for hundreds of years. All humans are grown suspended in gel in factory settings now. People belong to nothing but society itself, come from nowhere, go to nowhere. There used to be such a thing as God and faith and family. There used to be a future. Now there is nothing but an endless present, nothing but the now. The one colossal instant in which the bomb exploded has expanded into forever. Destruction and nothingness, to the house, are the only reality.

Sometimes the house considers itself to be President Hawke's child. Centuries ago, Mr. Hawke gave it commands like a father commanding a little kid. It was a marvelous prospect, bringing about that kind of godly presence that made the house feel as though it was part of something enormous.

Invisible eyes clicked over invisible hands. Lightbulbs and stone tools and Smallpox. Nazareth and Thebes. Ur of the Chaldees.

Nine forty-five. Time to drive. The car clicks uselessly again.

Ten o'clock. The cat is gone now. There is absolutely no sign that a feline has ever entered this godforsaken wasteland.

Dust and silence only. An overwhelming surplus of dust and silence.

Dusk falls in the west. Amidst the ruined region of the Capitol, a single mansion stands alone, stoic against the silence, running automatically. It has now been another day since the gods left, but the religion continues uselessly. Eight hours later, the sun rises, a brilliant red circle lighting the ruins.

A clear voice rises up from the bedroom ceiling:

"Tick, tock, seven o'clock,
Time to get up, time to get up!
Good morning, President Hawke!"

The three hundred twenty-fifth annual Hunger Games begin in less than a month.

It would a beautiful thing to be alive.

The house begins to break down. With a boom and a crash of dust and flying metal, the roof caves in under a thick curtain of rain. It has been two hundred twenty years since a human lived here, yet every day humanity has lived in its walls. The product of mankind rolling automatically, a slave to its own creator. There will never be anything but humanity here. Mankind has spelled a horrible, deranged destiny for himself, and now the entire world sits quietly to wait and watch.

"Seven fifteen, time to clean,
Time to clean, seven fifteen,
It's a wonderful morning to clean!"

Another cat mewls at the back entrance, and the door flies open to grant it entry. It paws frantically at doors and casements, searching for sustenance.

There is nothing here, and the cat lays its paw on a sheet of splintered glass in a circular case, wondering – just like the house itself – whether the face peering back can be explained as anything other than a miracle.