The Hunger Games- What If's: Book Two

Prologue

   Where am I again?

   Oh, right. I'm in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, part two. It's me against Linsky. Two-on-two. But is that how this really is going to be?

   I feel so alone. So utterly lost, cold, and fear pulses through me. I shudder from the cold. Where am I going? Will I be alone? Am I alone now? Where are the cameras? Will there be cameras? Will I ever see Prim again? Or my mother, or Gale, or...

   No. No, I won't see him again. Not ever. Not even in my sleep, because I refuse to open that door. He is my weakness, my largest flaw. And I have a lot of flaws.

   When did the world come to this? This horrible and ugly fighting and killing of children? I don't know. I don't even know what the rest of the world is.

   I have no idea what's out there, or who, or where, or even if there is an "out there."

   I swear, someday I'll go outside of Panem. I don't care what I have to do to get there, I just know that I must do it. That is my goal. That's my purpose. To get out, to start something, to light a flame throughout the entire world that spreads like wildfire. I've got a spark. I'm holding it in my hand, and all I have to do is throw it. All I have to do is throw the seed, write the story, make the rest of the world believe that this is wrong.

   I shouldn't be here right now. I should either be dead or at home. Hmph. "At home." I say that like I really have a home. Not one person in District 12 actually has "a home." Not one person in all of Panem has "a home."

   Hope and love and faith in another person is what a home is. Not an address you memorize, maybe it's not even a place. Maybe it's a person. Where you never feel lonely, where there is no not-so-lucky lottery of death. Where there is no danger just because you're young. It's where you're not forced to grow up and it's where your father doesn't die and you don't have to toughen up and get on with it just because you have to keep not only yourself but your whole family alive! It's not a place that you should resent going back to! It cannot exist in a country like this! It's hell here! It's damn crazy!

   I refuse to let the evil seep into my brain.

   I am strong; I can resist.

   I shall not be fooled by simple tricks such as smoke and mirrors.

   I am Katniss Everdeen, age sixteen, and I am going to survive. Forever.