(After seeing the Hunger Games movie effectively crushed my faith in humanity's innate morality, I wrote this on a whim...I would say I hope you enjoy, but it got me pretty darn depressed.)
Rather, he had been America – before it happened.
Everything they had always taught – the earthquakes, floods, storms, fires, everything that had torn the world apart – all of it had happened. It truly had torn the world apart – torn all of them apart – torn the nations themselves apart. He had seen former enemies, allies, even his own brothers suffer and die in the primal chaos of apocalypse.
In the end, only his former citizens had survived and risen up again.
However, in the process, they had cast him aside – forgotten him completely – and, instead, had hailed a new nation. A nation that, in all honesty, reminded him more of his World War II enemy Italy's Roma Antiqua, Ancient Rome, another nation that had been lost in the vast abyss of forgotten history.
This nation was Rome now, but not Rome in his golden age – this nation was the savage Roman Empire.
He had seen the “saviors of civilization” come to power, seen them establish this nation “Panem”, seen them live like gods while their citizens slaved and starved – for their leisure. It made him sick.
How could his people have forgotten and abandoned him for this?
His hopes of one day being restored were crushed time and time again, one harder than ever after a terrible rebellion. He could feel the life of every fighting citizen being snuffed out as if they were still his own people – he almost couldn’t move for weeks after that, he remembered. Every chance he had to return, they ruined it. They knew how to keep a spark of hope contained, let it flare, and then snuff it out to start the vicious cycle all over again all too well.
He remembered the exact year, month, day, and hour when they had issued their “punishment” on the rebellious nation. Each year, twenty-four of their children would slaughter each other in a bloodbath treated as mere entertainment to them and their citizens.
The Games had begun. Really, it had all been a game from the beginning – a game of power, oppression, and death – and he could do nothing to stop it. His former people had enough hope to keep him alive – but not enough to bring him back.
No. He could only watch…watch as the ice of fear kept the sparks of hope from flaring once again.
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