「 𝑮𝑳𝑶𝑹𝒀 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑮𝑶𝑹𝑬 」
❝𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚. it is the only thing 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 than fear. a little hope is effective. a lot of hope is 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨.❞
𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚜𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎
𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐
𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚑�...
〔 GLORY AND GORE 〕 PROLOGUE:siren delmore, the victor of the 72nd annual hunger games.
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DESPITE THE EVIL THAT OOZES FROM ITS VEINS, THE CAPITOL IS TEN TIMES MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN ANYONE COULD HAVE DESCRIBED IT TO BE. For it to be mid-July, the city does not show it. The breeze surges through the barricades of tall skyscrapers, the sun shining down upon the land, making the city look as if it were something out of a dream. The summer serves the Capitol well, with it's green gardens and bloomed fruit trees, it's bright blue sky and snow-capped mountains that crop in the background so perfectly it could be mistaken for a painting.
The 72nd Hunger Games have just come to a close, and the citizens of the Capitol are alive with mirth, elated to gloat in their contributions to the Games, delighted to claim they had backed the worthy tribute all along. The Games, having enjoyed a resurgence in their interest, had been more brutal than ever — with new head Gamemaker Seneca Crane having developed and crafted the most complex arena to date. The arena had been unlike any before, set in open waters akin to the ocean, with a wasteland of a sunken city at its center.
Somehow, I had managed to escape the arena. No one had expected it — not the citizens of the Capitol, not the Gamemakers, not the districts, not even I could have expected it. Yet, I find myself navigating through the halls of the President's Mansion — a place I had only heard of in the stories they had passed down through the districts. As a child, I had imagined the President's home to be comparable to that of a castle that the princes and princesses in my fairytales had lived in, the Peacekeepers guarding its front in the same way the fairytale knights guarded their moat. I had held the Capitol to the highest degree, wishing I had been lucky enough to claim it as my home — wishing I too could be a princess in a castle rather than a famished little girl living in a shack on the harbor.
How I wish I could go back to being that girl, I think, as I stop in front of the hallway's large windows, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, arched grandly in the center of the hallway's cream colored walls. Outside, in the courtyard, a party is being thrown — a party thrown in my honor, they claim. The lawn is flooded with the Capitol's most elite — Gamemakers, fellow victors and therefore mentors, socialites, designers, Capitol escorts, each of them so obnoxiously proud it makes my head spin. Despite being packed in like sardines, the crowd pulses with life within its confines.
A set of tall bannisters are placed on each side of the sprawling courtyard, occupying a portrait of myself clad in a shimmering golden gown, one that clings to my frame so snuggly it could almost be considered obscene, in any other circumstance. A regal golden crown rests upon my head to announce my revered victory, a bouquet of flawlessly white roses cradled nobly within my arms. The picture-perfect image of a newly crowned and anointed victor.
