Panem Dawn: Mockingjay Reimagined

Chapter Nine: Trident Boy's Secrets

The next evening, as the mission to liberate the other victors was getting underway, I waited in the central command room with Mace, Cassandra, Katniss, and Haymitch, in front of the screen that would show us the propo that was much more than just another propo. It was really the very thing that would aid Nathan, Gale, and any other soldiers who volunteered to go into the Capitol to liberate the captive victors without being detected by the enemy. And then it begins, as Finnick appears on the screen and begins speaking without stopping. I can already tell he is about to reveal many disturbing things that he has probably wanted to tell this entire country for years of living under Snow's tyranny.

"This is Finnick Odair, winner of the 65th Hunger Games. Many also know me by other titles. The Playboy Victor, the youngest ever victor of the Hunger Games, and even a smart-mouthed nickname my friend and Freedom Fighter Alyssa Whitestone has recently given me, namely Trident Boy. Allow me to confirm that as I am standing here speaking out to all in Panem who see and hear my message, that I am alive and well and District Thirteen has just survived an assault from the Capitol. But, I'm not here to give you recent news."

"Why is Finnick doing a propo?" I hear Katniss ask Haymitch, who says seriously, "It's a lot more than that." Of course it is. I just keep on listening to everything Finnick has to say. As well as waiting for the others to return safely with the other victors, with Noah.

"Allow me to disillude all those rabid fans of the Hunger Games who were raised in obscene wealth and were fed the glamorized lies about how every victor gets their spoils, about glory for your homeland. All of it is a convenient myth your government has propagated through these seventy-five years. You can't win the Games, you can't even survive with any shreds of your own free will intact. The moment you become a victor and leave the arena, you're a slave. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, was a heartbreaking, bitter, and cruel lesson that has disillusioned me, apart from being trained to become a killer to stay alive. Still, the worst is yet to come.

President Snow, the man they call our noble, glorious, all-powerful leader in the Capitol, is looked upon very differently in the districts. Just ask anyone of the working class who has been forced to watch their children getting murdered for that annually glorified sadistic sport for the twisted pleasures of the one percent.

Ask anyone who has lost loved ones through starvation, illnesses left untreated, brutal, dangerous overwork, or even just for being brave enough to stand up against the corrupt system, about what we in the districts know to be true about Snow, we are the true backbone of Panem. Most people from any district know well in their minds and hearts the dangerous man Snow really is. But just how far has he always been willing to go to maintain his control over our country for so long, you may wonder?"

President Snow used to sell me for my body. I'm sure he raked in a hefty profit for himself from this disgusting fact alone. I wasn't the only one. If a victor is considered desirable enough, he allows the highest bidders to buy them as a reward or offers them up as gifts. So many different women surrounded me day and night when I was called to the Capitol. None who actually gave a damn that they were using me as their playtoy, that I was degraded emotionally and sexually for their own release, their own deviant pleasures.

Many were already the wives of so-called upstanding government officials, whose husbands were never faithful and true as their wedding vows. Women who felt lonely, uncared for, bored with their day-to-day routines. They looked at me and saw nothing more than an object of their perverse fantasies. The legendary Finnick Odair, who was willing to murder for his own taste of fame and glory, who always lived dangerously as though constantly on a knife's edge, and who was always ready and delighted to bed any woman left, right, and center.

They certainly couldn't have known that the real reason I was even trained as a Career in District Four was not because my parents wanted that twisted, dangerous path to be made for me, but because Snow himself made sure they were well informed how they would suffer if they didn't have me enrolled from an early age in the Career Academy back home.