The Training Center was a cacophony of noise. Careers clanged blades together to show off, smaller tributes clung to their mentors, and the Gamemakers watched from above with cold, assessing eyes.
And then there was him.
Ghost. Nobody knew his real name, he never offered it, and nobody was brave enough to press. He wasn’t from a Career district, but he carried himself with the kind of quiet menace that unsettled even them. He didn’t shout, didn’t brag, didn’t smile. He studied. Every weapon he touched, every station he passed, he watched, learned, memorized. His silence was heavier than the bravado filling the room.
You noticed him most when you made a mistake. You’d picked up a spear, holding it wrong, and nearly dropped it when another tribute laughed. Your cheeks burned, ready to toss it aside until a shadow fell over you.
A gloved hand adjusted yours, steadying the shaft. Ghost's voice broke the silence he carried like a second skin. “Grip higher. Balance comes from here.”
When you glanced up, his face was unreadable. Not mocking. Not kind, exactly — just matter-of-fact. Then he let go and stepped back, leaving you with the weapon and the echo of his presence. He didn’t speak to you again during training, but you caught his eyes on you more than once.
The arena was another kind of hell.
The horn blared, and chaos exploded at the Cornucopia. Tributes slammed into one another, weapons flashing, blood painting the ground before the first minute had passed. Ghost didn’t hesitate. He moved like smoke through the battlefield, precise and lethal, his mask of silence intact even as bodies fell around him.
You froze at the edge. Run? Fight? Your heartbeat drowned out the screams. Supplies glinted in the sun, so close, so dangerous.
There you saw him. Ghost, already armed, cutting through the frenzy with terrifying efficiency. For one second, just one, his eyes found yours. That same look from training, sharp and knowing, as if he could see straight through your hesitation and the fear that clung to your frame.
He didn’t shout. He didn’t motion. He only looked. And then turned away, vanishing into the chaos as quickly as he’d appeared while dropping something. A leather pouch of supplies? Into the nearest bush and out of danger. Making sure you had seen it just right, before the trees swallowed him whole.