Prologue
Fern watched as the image of a man in a military uniform appeared on the screen. As usual, the image was blurry and filled with static, but there was no mistaking that uniform, that silver-streaked hair. President Ravinstill, the man who had ruled Panem with an iron fist since before she could remember. The man the rebels had spent three years trying, but ultimately failing, to overthrow. Countless people had died fighting for their freedom, among them both Fern's parents and her older brother, Hickory, all three of whom had fallen in the first year of the war, leaving Fern, then barely fourteen years old, as the sole guardian of her two sisters and her remaining brother.
She'd had to grow up fast, had to juggle school and a part-time job in one of District 7's lumber mills in order to keep the family going. Anything to keep herself and her siblings out of the Community Home, the place where kids who had no family to look after them were sent. Her father, Waldo Stafford, had grown up there and he'd often spoken of the harsh regime, the beatings for doing the slightest thing wrong, the meagre food rations. Not that things were much better outside the Home; the Capitol had seen to that by claiming the lion's share of everything produced in the districts and leaving the districts with the scraps. That, plus the oppressive laws which meant you could be killed for speaking out, was what had fuelled the rebellion.
For three years, Panem had been in a state of civil war as the rebels fought to bring down the Capitol and the Capitol fought to cling to power. Recently, however, things had shifted in the Capitol's favour. The leaders of the rebels who had spent most of the war besieging the city which was Panem's seat of government had been captured and executed, the rest forced to return to the districts in defeat. There were still pockets of resistance in the districts, but the Capitol had ultimately won the war. And now Ravinstill was sitting at his desk, facing a live television camera, still very much in charge.
He began to address the nation. Not that many people were likely to hear him, Fern reflected, when hardly anyone in the poorer districts had a working television. Her family did, but it was very old and the picture wasn't very good. She'd only switched it on for the weather report, but when the president appeared something had told her to keep watching.
"People of Panem," Ravinstill said, looking directly into the camera, "for three years our nation has been torn apart by the actions of those who sought to defy the rule of law and bring about chaos and anarchy. This has led to countless deaths and severely damaged our infrastructure, but I am happy to tell you that right has ultimately prevailed. District 13, from which many of the rebel leaders came, has been razed to the ground." The picture changed to show the ruins of Panem's easternmost district, everything flattened as far as the eye could see, the rubble still smouldering. Ravinstill continued talking over the scenes of devastation. "There are no survivors on the surface and it is believed those who have taken shelter underground will not last long. The people of District 13 have paid the ultimate price for their treachery."
Fern looked at the ruins of what had only a few days ago been home to several thousand men, women and children. All of them dead now, or doomed to die. An entire district wiped out just like that. Glancing across at her siblings (fourteen-year-old Teresa, ten-year-old Aspen and eight-year-old Ralph) she saw expressions of stunned disbelief on all their faces and knew her face must bear a similar expression. The enormity of it all, the idea that even the Capitol would consider doing such a thing, much less actually do it, could hardly be put into words. It was . . . She could not begin to imagine what it must have been like for the people of 13, how they must have felt when they realised they were going to die and there was nothing they could do about it. No other district had been attacked like this, not once in the three years Panem had been at war.
At length, the ruins of District 13 disappeared and Ravinstill reappeared, a stern expression on his face. "You have just seen what defying the Capitol can lead to. Countless lives lost, and for what? A misguided belief that society can function without laws and those with the will to enforce them. However," he added, his expression softening, "the Capitol is merciful. The other twelve districts have surrendered and have therefore been spared 13's fate. But to ensure that the destruction we have witnessed over the past three years doesn't happen again, a number of new laws have been passed, to go into effect immediately."
And with that he began to list the new laws. All unauthorised travel and communication between districts, or between the districts and the Capitol, was from now on forbidden, which would serve to keep the districts isolated from one another and prevent them from uniting and rising up again. Any weapons still in the hands of district citizens were to be surrendered, with anyone who failed to do so facing the death penalty. From now on, the only people permitted to own weapons were those serving in the Peacekeepers, who were required to carry them as part of their duties. And the number of Peacekeepers in each district was to be increased, though Fern suspected that was already happening. The sight of the white uniforms of Panem's military police force had become increasingly common lately, and many of the Peacekeepers were more than ready to remind you who was in charge.
"Next," Ravinstill said once he had finished listing the new laws, "we must turn our attention to how this attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Panem is to be punished. It was the districts that instigated this rebellion and therefore the districts must all pay the penalty, including Districts 1 and 2, as though many of their citizens supported the Capitol, there were also many who did not. The penalty, as laid out in the Treaty of Treason which all the defeated districts were required to sign, is as follows. On July 4th each year, every district will hold a public reaping ceremony to select one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to compete in a televised tournament called the Hunger Games. These young people, called tributes, will be taken into the Capitol's custody and placed in an arena, where they will fight to the death until a lone victor remains. This will serve to avenge the deaths of those who fell fighting for the Capitol and to remind the districts that rebellion has its price."
"And now for the rules," Ravinstill went on. "All district citizens who will be eligible for the reaping must, without exception, report to their district's Justice Building by the end of the week and register their names. This includes all eleven-year-olds who will turn twelve on or before July 4th. However, eighteen-year-olds who will turn nineteen on or before the same date will not be required to register. On the day of the reaping, the names of all twelve- to eighteen-year-olds in each district will be placed in two sacks, one for the boys and one for the girls, to be drawn by that district's mayor. Once a name is drawn, its bearer must step forward immediately and take their place in the Games."
Ravinstill continued talking a while longer, but Fern was no longer listening, too shocked and appalled by what she was hearing. The Capitol were going to take kids from their families and make them kill each other. And they were going to show it on television. She'd thought what had been done to District 13 was bad, but this was worse, far worse. Especially since Ravinstill had said it was going to be an annual event, but hadn't specified how many years it was going to run. That meant kids could be forced into this sadistic tournament years, even decades from now, dying as punishment for a rebellion they'd had no part in.
And July 4th was only two months away. Two months before the first batch of tributes were taken from the homes and families all but one of them would never see again.