The Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games

Two things happened today, two very important things.

One: I watched my grandfather die. He seemed to choke on his own laughter, or rather, the blood that attempted to escape from his throat because of that laughter. Everyone else I've spoken to seems to be celebrating his death. They were glad that even though Katniss Everdeen trained her arrow on a different target, he still got what was coming to him. He still left his blood-spattered body, never to return again.

I was different. The only thing I thought was that I would never speak to my grandfather again. No matter how much I tried, I could not think of Coriolanus Snow as the power-hungry monster others remember him to be. When I remember him, I think of the days I spent playing in his beautiful rose garden. He always loved roses, so much so that every time he walked into a room the smell of a freshly cut white rose emanated from his pocket. It was always backed by another -less pleasant- aroma. I could never quite put my finger on what that aroma was but it never bothered me much. Maybe if I had been able to see him as a source of evil, like all the others seemed to, it would have eased the pain I felt when he passed.

Two: Plutarch Heavensbee announced that there would be one last group of tributes. Twenty-four capitol children were to be chosen to enter the arena and fight to the death. He said the victors approved of this idea, he said that they voted on whether or not to go ahead with the games one last time. The fact that the majority of past victors wanted to send more children into the arena confused me. Surely they knew better than anyone that innocent children should not be punished for a war they had no part in. We cannot choose what family we're born into, yet we are being punished for it anyway.

Up until the age of about seven, I watched the Hunger Games every year. I never understood that these people, the tributes I watched kill one another, were real kids. Kids just like me, but who were so different as well. We came from completely different families, but if you take away the fancy clothes, shoes and makeup we're the same. Then, during the sixty-eighth annual games, I became less able to watch. After watching the first tribute get stabbed through the heart, I left and wandered around the president's mansion. I was careful to avoid any room that had a television in it.

After about an hour, my grandfather found me. He asked why I wasn't watching the games and I gave him a simple answer. The games scared me. He didn't understand why, but he didn't question it either. I asked him why he didn't ban the games, he was the president after all, surely he had the power to. In return, he too gave me a simple answer. The games were necessary. He told me that the games keep our fragile system from falling apart; it reminded people that a war means consequences, for both sides. Because of the war, districts lost their tributes, and the capitol lost the districts' trust.

I'll admit, I still didn't understand why they were needed. I still don't think they're needed. But I did believe my grandfather thought they were needed, and I knew I would never be able to change his mind.

He brought me to the rose garden after that, he let me play there every day until the games were over. As I got older, I continued to go there every time the games began. I would read, mostly history books until my mother would call me for dinner and my grandfather would ask what I had learned that day.

But now I can't hide, I can't lock myself in the rose garden and wait until the games are over. Now I am part of the games, because my name was picked, and no-one volunteered to take my place. I didn't expect anyone to. Partly because no-one sees me as myself, they only see my grandfather. They see President Snow and his lies hidden in my eyes. Whenever I speak, they hear the screams of millions and the insane laughter they heard when President Coin was killed.

I can't speak for the other tributes, but I can say with complete certainty that I do not know how to fight. I do not know who I can trust as an ally and there is a good chance I will die in the arena.