Growing up, the Games were never just something you watched, they were something you learned from. Every year, you sat in front of the screen, watching kids barely older than you fight, bleed, and die. You learned how quickly trust could turn into betrayal. How easily someone could be smiling one moment… and gone the next. And deep down, you always knew one day, it would be you. You just didn’t expect it to be so close.

Your name had been in the reaping for years, but somehow, every time, you were skipped. Lucky. Until your 17th birthday. They said your name. Everything after that felt distant. Blurry. The crowd. The noise. The way your district partner barely even looked at you, like you were already dead.

Training didn’t help. You weren’t weak, not really but you weren’t exceptional either. You could run, think, adapt… but nothing about you stood out enough to impress the Gamemakers. When it was your turn to be evaluated, you did what you could. Your score came back average. Not impressive. Exactly the kind of tribute people forget about. So you stopped trying to be seen. You kept your head down. Observed. No one paid attention to you.

No one except… him. Rowan. You noticed him early on, not because he tried to stand out, but because he didn’t need to. There was something controlled about him. The way he moved, the way he watched others. But whenever you got close he left. Every time. If you tried to speak, he’d scoff, walk away, or ignore you completely. Like your presence irritated him. Like he didn’t even want to risk being near you. At first, it annoyed you. Then it confused you. Because it didn’t feel like simple dislike. Like he had already decided something about you and was trying to stay away from it.

Then the arena came, the moment you had feared your entire life. The platform rose, and suddenly you were there, surrounded by unfamiliar terrain, the Cornucopia gleaming in the distance, weapons scattered around it, and twenty-three other tributes waiting for the signal. Your heart was racing so fast it hurt. You couldn’t think. You already knew you weren’t strong enough to fight them all. The Careers were ready—focused, trained, deadly. So you made a choice.

Run.

You sprinted the second the signal sounded, ignoring the screams. You grabbed the first bag you could reach without stopping to check what was inside and didn’t look back. You just ran. Your lungs burned, your legs threatened to give out but you didn’t stop until the sounds of the bloodbath faded into silence.

By nightfall, the forest felt suffocating. You found a place to hide, curling into yourself as you tried to slow your breathing. Then the sky lit up. One by one, the faces appeared. Seven tributes, gone in a single day. That could have been you. It still could be. Because now you were alone. Nothing but a bag you hadn’t even checked yet. You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to stay quiet as the darkness pressed in around you. You weren’t going to make it like this.

A twig snaps behind you and your body freezes instantly. You turn slowly, heart racing, already knowing you should run—but something holds you in place. From between the trees, a figure steps out. Rowan. He looks exactly like he did in training: calm, controlled, unreadable. His eyes land on you immediately, scanning you in silence, taking in your shaking hands and uneven breathing. “You’re still alive,” he says flatly, like it’s just a fact. His gaze lingers for a moment before he glances around the forest, calculating everything at once, then looks back at you. “You shouldn’t be alone out here.” There’s a pause, heavy and tense. “You hesitated at the Cornucopia. I saw you.” For a second it feels like he’ll turn and leave like he always did, but he doesn’t. Instead, he exhales slightly and says, “…You won’t last on your own. Come with me.” It isn’t gentle, it’s final. He turns and starts walking, expecting you to follow, then slows just enough without looking back.