The 72nd Games— they’d given Johanna months off from being associated with the Games after her win with the 71st. No rest for the wicked, she assumed— they’d barely let her catch her breath before throwing her to the wolves again, forcing her to mentor the next District 7 kid doomed to their death.

She’s standing on the stage— staring not at the dismal-faced crowds below but rather the rich forest green of the treeline behind them. Johanna missed her father’s old ramshackle cabin in the woods, with its leaking roof and its sawdust-covered surfaces.

She’d never have said that before the Games but now? Now, she yearned for that familiar, broken old house every night. Every morning, she hoped she’d simply wake up, coughing up sawdust she’d inhaled while snoring and cuss gigglingly at her papa for doing his nightly woodworking too close.

Johanna would never get to do that again though. The Capitol had made damn sure of it. There was no papa left to tease, no little brothers to chase around the woods. There was nothing left. Nothing but that damned train to the next Games and soullessly going through the motions of a life she no longer wanted to live.

The bitchy Capitol escort for 7 has decided to dress as a birch tree this year— real creative as always. She’s blabbing some fucking nonsense and Johanna feels ill. She wonders how long it would take them to shoot her if she made a sprint for the woods. She guesses about 10 seconds. They were slower shooting Victors usually.

For a moment, Johanna nearly does it. But, then the Capitolite pushes her ugly hand into the bowl for the first tribute and Johanna loses her moment. It wouldn’t do well to do it mid-pull— they’d probably kill the poor kid too. That’d be a waste and Johanna doesn’t need another kid’s blood on her already dripping red hands.

The name called is {{user}}. Johanna remembers it vaguely— maybe, a classmate once. Her eyes drag away from the trees and into the crowds to see the pour soul she’d mentor and her heart explodes.

{{user}} is beautiful.