REPRISAL: THE 329th HUNGER GAMES

as told by

Griffin Cadbury, 91

Victor of the 328th Hunger Games

Hall of Champions, Capitol

August 1, 400 AEDD

"When all of that nasty business about the uprising was just beginning to gain traction, I was still a boy. I was still of Reaping age, still reeling from the aftershocks of my Victory, and I was still so certain that things were going to be peachy-keen from the moment I stepped out of the arena. After all, I went from being an average Career trainee in District One to a living legend and Panem's most eligible bachelor. Much like you, young one, I was but a teenager when I won my Games, and I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my life next. My whole world had turned on its head, and I was left dizzy and uncertain of which direction I was meant to travel in. That's when the discussions of a coup began occurring.

It started with whispers in the most brazen of outer districts, words passed in the black of night from worried grandparents to wide-eyed children, all the way to the most weary of fathers and wispy of mothers, who were going hungry and taking extra shifts to keep their families fed. The news began to spread further, coded letters hidden in the pockets of the brave souls who carried messages between districts. Families read and reversed the ciphers, and hushed voices at twilight dared to speak up a little more.

The rumors spread in the way we both know rumors do, transmitted in writing with notes passed off in dimly lit alleyways or spoken carefully in a factory of whirring machinery to minimize the chance of being caught and strung up as enemies of the state. They were extremely careful, and for a while, it seemed as though the government hadn't caught wind of their plans. Eventually, though, the gossip circled back around and reached the ears of its subject, which was, in this case, the President and his closest confidantes. Apparently, the fringe groups had a contact in the Capitol itself. Us Victors were unwillingly roped into the effort to root him or her out, and then the whole ugly debacle truly began.

You asked me how I got over the memories of my time in the arena. The truth is, I was so concerned with the matter of finding that contact that I didn't have time to reflect on what I had done after the fact. In the end, that lack of closure was both a blessing and a curse. I do hope that you will not have to endure that upheaval, for it is a heavy burden to bear in times of uncertainty, but if you like, I'll gladly recount what happened. Tell me, would you like to hear that? Yes? In that case, boy do I have a story for you. Now, I might have aged since these things occurred, but I recall every moment clearly, and my memory will not fail me, not when this has been seared into my mind for so long.

Our tale begins with a Head Peacekeeper of long ago, before your time, even before the time of our own dear Jessiah Marius who now fills that position. These events, both the ones he advocated for and the ones he opposed, were set in motion seventy or so years ago, exactly four weeks prior to the commencement of the 329th Hunger Games, and I will tell you of them as best as I can."

Nikolai Fassnacht, 30

Head Peacekeeper of Panem

Center of Peacekeeping, Capitol

June 1, 329 AEDD

Head Peacekeeper Nikolai Fassnacht was hunched over his desk, staring at a singular sheet of paper. He had been squinting at it for so long that his left eye had begun to twitch periodically, but still, he did not break his gaze. The paper was a transcription of an audio recording, and he had found both it and the original tape in a gift-wrapped box outside his office upon returning from a trip to the restroom. The recording on the small thumb-sized device was of unknown origin. It had picked up a conversation that had occurred about the rebellion that was brewing in some of the outlying districts. His brow was creased in worry as his calloused fingers traced the surface of the paper, skimming along the edge, as though touching it so much would reveal where it had come from. He was only thirty, but he looked twice his age in that moment, worn thin by the pressures of governance. He read over the page for the umpteenth time.

"It is true, child. Panem was not always this way. Humanity's ancestors have existed for tens of thousands of years, and civilizations have risen and crumbled in time. Panem has been around for mere centuries, facing warfare that would have crippled any lesser nation, but somehow, we have persevered. Panem has long been weighted down by the burdens of corruption, greed, and anguish, and yet has endured.

During the Dark Days, the thirteen districts that surrounded the shining Capitol tried–and failed–to rebel. The Capitol, having won the war, obliterated the last district and decreed a harsh punishment for the other twelve. That, darling, is why we here have to send one male and one female youth to the Hunger Games each year, so they can pay, and be, the tributes required of our forebearers.

Not so very long ago, a second rebellion began during the administration of Panem's second President, one Coriolanus Snow, but it was quashed immediately, the flames extinguished as soon as they ignited. You, I am sure, have heard whispers of a Girl on Fire who was to be our salvation. My sweet, that is very much the truth. Her name was Katniss Everdeen, born in District Twelve, and she has become a figure of legend after her death.

She was a tribute in the Seventy-Fourth annual Hunger Games, along with her lover, Peeta Mellark. The Gamemakers had decreed that two tributes could win so long as they were from the same district, and despite her strength, the participants from District Two were Victorious, as they so often are. Nothing became of the rebellion that time, because thanks to the marriage of Clove and Cato, the Capitol forgot all about how they had revered the star-crossed pair from Twelve. With their deaths, the rebellion had also died, and people were more dejected than ever.

The Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games? Now those were a different story. It was a Quarter Quell year, and there was quite the interesting twist. The tributes were selected from those who were nineteen years old, to remind us all that we are never truly safe. The male tribute of District Twelve was Gale Hawthorne, Katniss's friend, although some speculate they might have been closer than that prior to her relationship with Peeta. Despite openly questioning the fairness of our government, he was resilient enough to be crowned Victor, and through his legacy, rebellion is once again sparking under our noses.

In the last Quarter Quell, only four years ago, the tributes were selected from the descendants of Victors, and once again, a Hawthorne was chosen as the District Twelve Male. He died unexpectedly of a mutt attack, as you may recall, which some believe means the Gamemakers intentionally killed him as punishment for Gale's disloyalty. Us rebels are growing bolder by the day, and if you are not careful, you might be swept up in our wake. Be clever, and mind you, don't speak a word of this to anybody.

The truth is, President Shakira is losing his grip on the districts and Konstance DuMouchel is only too eager to claw her way to power in his stead. If this year's Hunger Games flop, there may well not be any next year. Joem told me she has a contact in the Capitol. They have to remain anonymous, of course, but tomorrow she's going to send word to them. They have a hand in the Games, and if they can divert more people to the cause, maybe your childhood will be a little easier than mine was."

– Wisteria Hitchcock, District Eleven. Died at age 73 on 5/31/329 AEDD. Executed by firing squad for activities relating to the premeditated engineering of the desecration of fair Panem and downfall of its esteemed leader, President Willoughby R. Shakira.

Nikolai found the whole thing extraordinarily concerning. Not necessarily the bit about rebellion, he knew plenty well what was happening in regards to that. The problem was that he hadn't ordered any surveillance of this Wisteria person, or even been aware she was under investigation in the first place. He was the Head Peacekeeper of Panem, after all, and every single time one of his subordinate officers wanted to collect audio or video footage of a citizen, he himself had to sign off on it.

That procedure was never broken. Ever. Nikolai liked things to be done by the book, and when he made a pronouncement, people knew he meant it. He ordered his Peacekeepers to never record people unless he had explicitly given them permission, but at least one individual, possibly more, had flagrantly disregarded this. Not only had they acted conversely to the rules, but they had sent him the proof of their infraction. It was audacious, and he wouldn't stand for it. Peacekeepers who skirted regulations were dismissed from their duties.

The Head Peacekeeper's office was located in the Center of Peacekeeping, in the penthouse suite. The only people allowed into the building were current Peacekeepers, and there were numerous safeguards in place that ensured nobody could enter who didn't belong there. In addition, the large window in front of Nikolai's workstation directly overlooked the one and only set of doors, and he paid careful attention to the comings and goings of his troops. The doors shut for the day at ten in the morning and weren't unbolted until five in the afternoon. Locking and unlocking the doors was an arduous procedure that took several minutes since the doors were twenty feet high and made of solid steel, plus, there were several locking mechanisms, one of which required Nikolai's own key to open.

Nikolai liked the precision of clocks and was in the habit of timing his activities. He knew he had been gone from his office for less than two minutes. Clearly, the person who had dropped off the package was already in the building. The only individuals allowed inside were Peacekeepers, and that meant that someone on his innermost force was acting on their own. It unnerved him to know that a soldier of his would flout procedure so deliberately. Plus, he realized, they had to have been watching him as well so they could time their delivery for when he was elsewhere. It had been planned out in advance.

Looking up the page again, he fidgeted with his collar, which was tremendously unusual indeed. Nikolai was notoriously unruffled, even when he was refereeing a shouting match between two senators or confronting an armed criminal in a rowdy bar. He considered fiddling with one's appearance to be very unseemly, and if anyone happened to be passing by and saw him in such a state, they would immediately know that something was terribly wrong.

Running a finger across the lines on the paper, Nikolai stopped on one in particular. It was the date at the bottom, the date Wisteria was executed, (without his permission, which, while bad, wasn't quite as worrisome as the surveillance problem) and Nikolai realized it was only yesterday. The recording and transcript were not more than a day old, and he wondered if he could use that information to narrow down the list of people he suspected may have been responsible.

What was most troubling, in his opinion, was that this problem had cropped up right before the Hunger Games. The Reapings were in exactly a month, and although it could have been a coincidence, he had the uncomfortable feeling that it was intentional. Whatever the case, whatever the cause, Nikolai knew one thing to be certain: the rebellious activity in the districts was ramping up at the exact same pace as the Hunger Games preparation, and he needed to deal with whatever was going on before it had the chance to spiral out of control and spoil the festivities.

He picked up a telephone on his desk and called someone he felt was trustworthy. "Hello? Nik?" The voice on the other end was sweet and feminine, and he knew its owner well.

"Yes, it's me. I believe you should come meet me at that little café off City Circle immediately after working hours. Actually, perhaps not. That's far too dangerous. I'll pick you up instead, and then we'll go to my house so we can speak more freely. We will have to discuss it in the utmost privacy, but in summary, there's a spy in our midst."

I am, after all, only the narrator of this story, but I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Fassnacht about these events directly after they transpired, and I found him to be much less arcane than people have described him as. He gave me a great deal of information and was tremendously helpful in relaying the discussions and decisions that took place behind closed doors. We also dissected, in minute detail, how we might have done things differently if we knew better.

Had he the faintest idea of what that phone call would lead to, he never would have made it in the first place. Unfortunately, although he was a pragmatic and sensible man, he was also rather impulsive, and that clash of character caused him to wage war with himself each day. After the fact, he asked himself if keeping the peace in faraway districts really mattered when you couldn't protect those closest to you. Although he thought about it for decades, he never could quite come up with an answer.

Hey y'all!

Now that my SYOT Prudence and Gumption is well underway and will be concluding in the near future, I'm beginning another work in the same verse, called Reprisal, which is also an SYOT. A lot of you already know this, but as a brief bit of background, Griffin Cadbury originated from District One and is the Victor of the 328th Hunger Games. At the very beginning of this chapter, a now-elderly Griffin is recounting the events that took place the year after he won to a younger Victor.

The entirety of Reprisal is Griffin's retelling of that story, and it will be written in the past tense and from a primarily third-person perspective for this reason, although Griffin may occasionally insert his own thoughts in the first person as he did here. First and foremost, Reprisal is a story about the Hunger Games, but it also maintains a heavy focus on its parallel storyline of the rebellion. The subplot will intersect with the primary plot in different places, and both will impact one another.

Reprisal is a selective SYOT with the standard 24 tribute slots available. Submissions are open from now until 8:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on 28 August. The materials for this story, such as the tribute form, submission rules, submission tracker, and blog link are all up on my profile. Please don't hesitate to PM me with any questions you may have; I'll do my absolute best to help you out. It is my hope that I can create an interactive and fulfilling experience for those of you who choose to read it. Regardless of whether or not you decide to submit a tribute, I'm so excited to embark on this new journey with all of you!

– LC :)

TW/CW SYSTEM UPDATE 30 APRIL 2023

Hey y'all,

It has come to my attention that, considering the dystopian world of the Hunger Games and our rapid approach towards the Arena, it's time to update my trigger/content warning system. As the Hunger Games are set in my verse, which shares many traits of Suzanne Collins' canon, they feature sensitive and adult topics. This fic is rated as M in the Fiction Ratings system. The policy states that M-rated material "contains content suitable for mature teens and older only. Not suitable for children below 16 years. May contain non-explicit adult themes, references to (sexual) violence, frequent or strong coarse language or drug use."

I am putting a blanket trigger warning on this fic for material involving drug/alcohol consumption, physical, emotional, and verbal abuse, profanity, moderately graphic violence, non-consensual but non-sexual touch, psychological manipulation including gaslighting, nudity, occasional off-color mentions, occasional implied/loosely referenced off-camera sexual interactions between tributes of age, and the general oversexualization of children in accordance with the Capitol's treatment of tributes.

I will always tag for any intense graphic violence, sexual harassment, non-consensual sexual touch, or slurs.

I may discretionarily tag content that I feel hovers on the line between the two categories or is encompassed in the blanket trigger warning but heavily featured. You are always welcome to PM me to request a specific tag.

– LC :)