Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.
Note: Thank you to torystory93 and dreamgazer86 for Lander and Hazel, respectively.
Prologue, Part II
There is No Victory
Mags
Mentor, District Four
Victor of the 8th Hunger Games
Safe.
It was still a strange feeling, being safe. All across the district, the other girls and boys her age were preparing. Worrying. Dreading this day. Some of them were older than her. Some were younger. Some were her friends. Yet she was safe, and they were not.
Mags pushed the thought aside as she chose a floor-length, blue-grey dress from her closet. She had earned her safety. Bought it with the blood of other tributes, with the deafening screams of the four she had lured to their deaths in the river.
No. No, she didn't want to think about that. She was safe now. Safe from the reaping. Safe from the Games. They had done their worst, but they couldn't hurt her any more.
She would never have to fight again. Never have to kill again. Never be in an arena again.
She was safe.
Jade
Mentor, District One
Victor of the 7th Hunger Games
They had begun to follow his lead.
Well, her lead, really, because she had been his inspiration. The first volunteer. The first to see the Games for what they truly were – not a sentence, but an opportunity. At only ten years old, Jade had known she was right.
So he had followed. Trained. Volunteered. And won. Volunteers were more popular with the Capitol. Sponsors had flocked to him, given him everything he had needed. His victory hadn't come easily, but he had never truly doubted that it would come.
And now others were learning. He had seen them, at the schools, in the streets. Practicing. Training. He had inspired them. He was District One's first victor, but more would follow. And quickly. Maybe even this year.
Something new was beginning. A pattern. And they would all point to him as an example.
But he would point to her.
Lander
Mentor, District Eight
Victor of the 6th Hunger Games
"Would you like some more eggs?" the little maid asked.
Lander looked up with an icy stare, and the young girl took a few steps back. She had that look on her face again. The one that reminded him of the little girl from District Ten. The twelve-year-old who had stood in horror, watching the bloodbath, too scared to move. Blood. It was all he could think of when he saw her.
"Yes," he nodded. "And bacon. Hot and sizzling. I want it to scream while you're roasting it alive." Screaming like the two tributes who hadn't been as fast as him, who had been swallowed up by the lava bubbling across the arena. Screaming. Burning. Dying.
The girl hurried off, and Lander quietly scolded himself. It was reaping day. The girl was probably scared enough.
But she should be. She should be scared. They should all be scared.
Because if he was still scared, they had no right not to be.
Tania
Mentor, District Five
Victor of the 5th Hunger Games
Cold.
Tania pulled her blanket closer around her, her eyes shut tight. Maybe if she refused to get out of bed, they would delay the reaping. Maybe she could stall. Buy the children a little more time with each other, before two of them were ripped from their families – probably forever.
No. No, that would be worse. They were already gathering. Already waiting. And the waiting was worse. The waiting was always worse. Better to have it over with. Better to spring the trap. If it was going to happen anyway, it may as well happen quickly.
She dressed in a warm sweater, despite the heat. She always felt cold now. The same cold that had haunted her for days in the caves as she waited. Waited for them to find her, so that she could pounce. Always trapping them first, like a spider. She had been no match for them physically, but her traps had saved her life. Even a starved, frightened girl with a knife could slit the throat of an opponent who was dangling helplessly from a rope.
She had tried to make it quick. But the only way to do that was to spill more blood. And their blood had been warm. Warm as it had gushed over her, staining her skin and hair. Her hair, which she had dyed red afterwards, because it felt right. She would never truly be rid of the blood, anyway, so she might as well admit it.
She hadn't truly felt warm ever since.
Glenn
Mentor, District Ten
Victor of the 4th Hunger Games
Glenn still wished they would just ignore him.
That was how he made it through the Games, after all. They'd forgotten all about him – the other two. They'd ignored the quiet, pudgy boy from District Ten because he wasn't a threat. They had wounded each other, badly, and each was trying to outlast the other. They'd forgotten they also had to outlast him.
He had been on the other side of the arena when the cannons sounded, one shortly after the other. Then the announcement, proclaiming him the victor. He had never fought. Never killed. He had simply gone unnoticed.
No one had made that mistake again. Tributes now kept a close count of how many others were left. It was a trick that could only work once. But once had been enough to save his life.
Glenn was a joke to the other victors, but, to his district, he was a hero. The only one they had. Everyone loved him. Everyone knew him. Everyone remembered him.
All he wanted was to forget.
Hazel
Mentor, District Seven
Victor of the 3rd Hunger Games
This year would be different. This year, they wouldn't die.
Well, that was only half true. One of them would die. But not both of them. Not this time. She wouldn't let it.
Hazel brushed the tears from her eyes. She had been given a gift. An unspeakable gift. She was alive, against all odds, against all reason. Saved by a friend and spared by a stranger, she had survived the arena.
But for what? What good was it if she was still powerless to save the others? The ten tributes – five girls and five boys – who had died, despite her best efforts. She had failed them. Failed them all.
She would not fail again.
Ivy
Mentor, District Eleven
Victor of the 2nd Hunger Games
It had sounded so easy.
Win, and you were showered with boundless riches. Win, and you would never want for anything. Win, and your life would be perfect. The war had taken everything – her family, her friends, her home. She'd had nothing. Nothing to lose. And everything to gain. And so, at the age of sixteen, Ivy had become the Hunger Games' very first volunteer.
And it had been easy – almost too easy. The arena that year was simple. Unimaginative. A wide open plain, grassy, with no cover. While the others had scrambled around, looking for a place to hide, she had already grabbed what she needed from the Cornucopia. Armed with a crossbow and a deadly patience, she had hidden in the tall grass and taken them out one by one.
They had given her everything they had promised. Everything she had wanted as a small child, everything they had never been able to afford. But they had also given her the burden. The names. The children. The boy who had volunteered four years ago – not for riches and glory, but so his little brother could live. The girl last year who had been blinded in the war. The two children who were about to be chosen. The Capitol had given them all to her keeping.
Ivy flung another dart at the wall, skewering a picture of last year's tributes. She hated the way they looked back at her. The blame. The waste. Now she understood.
Winning the Games had been the easy part.
Vester
Mentor, District Two
Victor of the 1st Hunger Games
Another year. Another lie.
It was all a lie. His victory. His life. Vester's victory had never been his own. It had all been for the Capitol's benefit – to have a young man who had fought on the Capitol's side during the rebellion as their first champion. A final victory of their war.
He knew it. Everyone knew it. Some of them loved him for it. Some of them hated him. It didn't matter.
Another year. Two more tributes. Two more deaths, and all on his hands. He had fought for this. Cheered when the Rebels had surrendered. Saved his most brutal kills in the arena for the tributes who he suspected had been children of Rebels, or even soldiers themselves. He had been exactly what the Capitol wanted him to be.
From his window, Vester watched the children gathering in the square. This was his victory. His reward.
He wanted no part of it.
"You may triumph on the field for a day. But against the Power that now arises there is no victory."