The Candidate [A Hunger Games Story]

Prologue

When you have seen a world from both sides, it becomes harder to tell the difference between good and evil. I started my life at the top of the world, looking down from my seat in the Capitol at the peasants in the Districts. I was taught to believe I was better than them. I never saw the appeal of the Games, but I'd laugh along at the jokes of Venus Swift and Claudius Templesmith, charmed by their charisma while they commentated on children dying.

And then I switched to the other side. I put myself in a position where I was just the same as the people who had grown up in the slums and the squalor. I'll never truly know the struggles they went through, but there was one thing I was a part of that linked me to their struggles entirely.

I was a tribute in the Hunger Games.

When I was at the top of my game, living it up in the Capitol, it was easy to pretend we were the good guys. We were safe, oblivious to how our ignorance really affected everyone else. But when I played the Game, I pitied those left in the Capitol. Because being in the Games taught me to love harder, to work harder, to cry harder, and to laugh harder.

But most of all, to die harder.