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❝ And I try to be tough, but I want to scream. ❞
━━ Olivia Rodrigo
MY FEET TAP THE FLOOR REPETITIVELY, MY DAMP PALMS RESTING ON THE LEATHER COUCH AND MY HEART DRUMMING AGAINST MY CHEST. I WAIT FOR Snow's face to fill up the screen as the focus of my eyes dart from the clock to the television. The President is to announce the rules for the next Quarter Quell. Prim and my mother sit next to me: their postures seem serene enough, while I look like a total mess. Cato sits behind me on a wooden chair, equally waiting for our President to pop up.
Ever since the party in the Capitol, a part of me lives in certain dread for what measures Snow will adopt to punish me. And, for some reason, apprehension swells my heart as I wait for his next words to suddenly echo around me.
Cato being a few feet away from me does help calm my nerves, but it's not enough. Anyways, since our talk outside my house, we've only seen snippets of each other, both busy enough. What surprises me is how long he lasted in my district, and how his presence has, in a way, satisfied my heart.
Before I can pursue my trail of thought, he anthem plays suddenly, and my throat tightens with revulsion as President Snow takes the stage. He's followed by a young boy dressed in a white suit, holding a simple wooden box. The anthem ends, and President Snow begins to speak, to remind us all of the Dark Days from which the Hunger Games were born. When the laws for the Games were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell. It would call for a glorified version of the Games to make fresh the memory of those killed by the districts' rebellion.
These words could not be more pointed, since I suspect several districts are rebelling right now.
President Snow goes on to tell us what happened in the previous Quarter Quells. "On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it."
I wonder how that would have felt. Picking the kids who had to go. It is worse, I think, to be turned over by your own neighbors than have your name drawn from the reaping ball.
"On the fiftieth anniversary," the president continues, "as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes."
