18 DAYS

Prologue

Cato had a nightmare last night.

It was very odd because he never had one before for the simple reason that to have a nightmare you need to be afraid of something. And Cato wasn't afraid of anything. Or at least he was pretty sure he wasn't...

Even when he was a infant nothing could scare him. He had been an healthy child raised by loving parents in a very nice neighbourhood and had been trained to fight since he could walk.
At age 16, he probably knew more ways to kill than the Gamemakers that created the Hunger Games each year could fathom. This fact could seem strange, but in Cato's world it was perfectly normal - he was from the luckiest District of the Twelve composing Panem: District Two - Masonry. It was the luckiest in the sense that because it served as a military base for the capitol, President Snow decided to favour its inhabitant with richness and allowed combat training so the children could survive the Hunger Games easier than others. Even most of the Peacekeepers - gendarmerie of the Capitol - was mainly recruited amongst District Two youth.

And it worked. Almost every year it was one of them that won the deadly competition - partly thanks to their advanced fighting and weaponry skills, and partly thanks to the fact that they were well fed from birth, at least compared to District like Eleven and Twelve which mostly produced very unhealthy and rachitic tributes. Tomorrow was the Harvest for the 74th Hunger Games and Cato intended to be its winner. After years of waiting and training for this day he finally was going to volunteer as tribute.

However, running around his house block like every morning he couldn't stop thinking about this nightmare - He was standing a blade in his hand unable to discern anything in the darkness surrounding him. As the fear comes crawling in his veines he starts to see was he had been standing over. Bodies. A mountain of corpses laying at his feet slaughtered by the very blade soaked with blood he is holding. At first they seem to be just random people but as he looks at there faces he starts to recognize them. It's his family, his mentors, his friends. All the person he knows. They are dead and he killed them. 

Then he screamed and woke up. What the fuck was this dream about? He never killed anyone. Well not yet at least, and he never thought he would care when the time came. With a growl, Cato shakes his head and runs faster. 

His mind clouded with unusual doubts, he doesn't immediately notice that his runs led him to the outskirts of the town centre. Running across it, is a large clear river with banks covered in bushy grass growing lazily thanks to the favouring sun-rays District Two never seem to get enough of. The river is a spot where you can always find a handful of students training after school or during the week-end. 

And today was Sunday, which meant the place was packed with his classmates. With controlled movements, a group of girls are carefully performing a combat sequence in perfect synchronisation, their concentration barely making the water move. Meanwhile, some boys around Catos' age are teamed in pairs, wrestling with the goal to make their opponent fall in a splash of chaotic waves. 

Cato's swears under his breath. His muscles tense and he slowly turns around to leave. Leave before anyone see-

"Hey Cato!" 

Fuck. 

Cato plasters a smile on his face, brushing away his nightmare to the back of his head. 

"Hey guys!", he shouts back. 

The troubled teenager gave room to a radiating, very charismatic young man. Cato jogs the river, waving to the group of boys that paused their fights to greet him.