Archive of Our Own

So there was this whole thing a year and a half ago that Hype still isn’t sure he fully understands. Admittedly, he wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention, because at the same time his brother was competing for the volunteer spot, Hype was busy practicing for a gymnastics competition. (A competition he never got to attend, because of what was going on with his brother, mind you, and it sucked because Hype probably would have won).

The way Hype understands it is that Cassander was competing in the mock Hunger Games and something happened. His dad had started to tell him the specifics, but then his mom stepped in because Hype was apparently too little to hear about it, which didn’t make any sense to Hype, because he’s been watching the Hunger Games for his entire life. He’s seen a lot of kids die. It’s not like hearing it described would have much of an effect on him.

The point is, Cassander was fighting this other kid, Emmerich, who was a year younger than him and shouldn’t have even been competing, really. They never pick seventeen-year-old volunteers. Hype’s never set foot on the training floor and even he knows that. But Cassander was fighting with Emmerich and one thing led to another and Emmerich ended up dead. Hype’s actually got a few theories as to how it happened, since no one will tell him the details.

In his head, it goes like this: Emmerich probably smuggled in a real weapon, since all of the mock Hunger Games use foam bats and stuff like that, and somehow Cassander ended up with it and bang, bang, dead. Well, not bang, bang. Emmerich probably didn’t bring a gun. It was probably more like, stab, stab, dead.

Or it goes like this: Cassander and Emmerich are fighting in the woods and Cassander shoves Emmerich who trips over a root and slams face first into a tree. He hits it too hard and dies. He likes this one because Cassander didn’t mean to do it.

He would just ask Cassander about it, but Cassander doesn’t really talk to Hype these days. Actually, Cassander doesn’t really talk to anybody these days. He mostly hides in his bedroom, “squandering all of his potential”, according to their dad. Hype’s pretty sure his potential has already been squandered, given that the whole thing got him banned from the Academy forever and he definitely didn’t get chosen as the volunteer. Which was kind of disappointing. Hype was really looking forward to having a Victor for a brother. The bragging rights he would have at school would have been crazy.

In the end, it was a whole thing, but in, like, a peripheral way. It all happened on the outskirts of Hype’s life. He didn’t get to go to that gymnastics competition because of the investigation, and come July some other kid volunteered (and he didn’t come home, which Hype doesn’t like to think about). And Cassander’s all effed up about it now, so that’s different. But Hype doesn’t think about any of it very often. It happened a whole year and a half ago, it’s practically ancient history. It doesn’t really bear thinking about, so Hype doesn’t. He’s got way better things to think about anyway.

Like how he gets to go to his first Reaping this year. Sure, technically, he’s been going to them since he was a baby. But this year they’re going to prick his finger and he’ll stand in one of the pens and be right there when the volunteers take the stage. Cassander was talking about them the other day. Hype listened pretty closely, because it’s been a while since that sort of thing happened.

(“I still can’t believe they would pick that motherfucker,” Cassander said one day out of the blue, a few days before the Reaping. Hype was sitting on the carpet in front of the tv trying to reattach the arm of one his old Peacekeeper action figures. He didn’t actually care about the arm, because he was too old for toys anyway, but it would be better if it was fixed. When Cassander spoke up, he had just been planning to go find his dad and have him do it instead.

“What motherfucker?” Hype said absently. The peg that went into the shoulder socket was broken clean off. He wondered if his dad had any glue.

Cassander barked out a laugh, and Hype startled, because Cassander didn’t really laugh much anymore. “Don’t let Mom hear you talking like that,” Cassander said.

“Mom can suck my dick,” Hype said, trying to jam the broken arm back into the hole. The peg was still broken off, so it didn’t do anything, but he gave himself points for trying.

“Wow, where’d you learn to talk like that?” Cassander said. Hype grinned and looked back at Cassander, who was smiling too. It felt almost like it used to with them, before all of that stuff happened and everything changed. But then Hype had the brilliant idea to keep pressing on what they were talking about before.

“Who’s the motherfucker?” he asked.

Something in Cassander’s expression shuttered, and Hype regretted having asked. They were having a nice moment so of course he went and ruined it. Maybe the motherfucker was Hype.

“Severin Tracey,” Cassander said, sounding somewhere between dejected and angry. “Emmerich’s twin brother. He’s the chosen volunteer this year. He was awful to me after everything that happened and now they’re rewarding him. He probably thinks this is, like, revenge or something. Jokes on him, though, because he’s totally going to go out there and get his shit rocked.”

Hype hummed. He didn’t really like it when Cassander talked about Emmerich. He got mean and angry and bitter. “That sucks,” Hype said, because he couldn’t think of anything better. “Do you have any ideas for fixing this?” He brandished the one-armed Peacekeeper at Cassander, and watched in real time as his brother shut down again.)

So maybe Cassander isn’t excited for the Reaping, but Hype sure is. He’s dressed in his nicest clothes with his favorite tie—it’s bright blue and patterned with bananas and his father looks like he wants to kill himself every time he sees it—and he gets to stand all of the way up by the stage with the other kids his age. It’s the closest he’ll ever come to the Hunger Games, and that’s the way he likes it. He really admires the other kids who train for it, but it’s never been his thing. Standing close to the stage at the Reaping is just near enough to the Games to be thrilling.

It all precedes in a regular fashion. Hype’s seen it all before. A girl named Rina is Reaped, and she walks up to the stage without a care in the world. Mahalia Olivine Barrows, their escort, asks for volunteers, and a confident girl struts to the stage. She declares herself Thora St. John, and that’s that. It all goes like it’s supposed to.

Then, Mahalia dips her hand into the boys’ ball and.

“Hyperion Stavropoulos!”

Hype jumps. A little thrill goes down his spine. He’s only got one slip in there! What are the odds? A grin splits his face as he imagines how cool he’s going to be at school tomorrow. How many kids actually get Reaped around here? He’s never known anyone who’s been Reaped before. This is going to be such a great fun fact about himself to use in icebreakers on the first day of school.

Hype walks to the stage with a spring in his step. He takes his place beside Thora, who is looking cooly out into the audience. There’s polite applause for him, which is awesome. Hype preens a little, even though he knows they’re just clapping because he walked up the stage like a normal person. But all of the eyes in Panem are on him right now! That’s pretty fricking cool!

Mahalia asks if there are any volunteers. Hype deflates a little, because his moment’s about to end. Severance Crazy or whatever his name is will volunteer and steal Hype’s thunder. But that’s a good thing. Because. Hype did get Reaped for the Hunger Games. That’s bad. That’s…really bad, actually. Oh, no. No, no, no, there’s no point in thinking about it, because it’s about to be over.

Mahalia’s words ring in the square. Hype holds his breath. Any second now, there will be a shout, the resounding sound of “I volunteer!” echoing through the crowd. There’s movement in the boys section, and Hype lets out his breath, because there he is.

But then it stops. There’s no shout. There’s no more movement. Whispers start to break out in the audience. Thora shifts beside him.

Something’s wrong. It slaps Hype in the face, the fact that whatever is happening right now shouldn’t be happening. Is Severin sick or something? Hype shouldn’t still be up here. He should have already been volunteered for. This should be behind him already.

Someone should—someone should be volunteering. Severin should be volunteering. Or, or, there’s a reserve volunteer. Isn’t there? He’s pretty sure there’s a reserve volunteer. Where’s the reserve volunteer? Why is Hype still up here? He shouldn’t be up here anymore.

A nervous little laugh bubbles out of his chest, because what is happening right now? This isn’t supposed to be happening. He lives in District Two, someone always volunteers. That’s how it works. It’s never not worked like that before. Someone is going to volunteer right now and everything will be fine.

He wants off the stage now. He wants to disappear back into the crowd of kids just like him. He wants his mom.

In the end, Hype isn’t sure when it becomes real. It’s somewhere between the moment the movement in the crowd stops, the moment when Mahalia reluctantly concedes that there are no volunteers, and the moment he kills someone for the first time. Somewhere in there, it all becomes very, very real.

…

It goes like this: Hype doesn’t cry in the Justice Building. His mother cries, his older sister cries, his brother wipes angry tears from his eyes, but Hype doesn’t. He’s a big kid. He’s twelve years old. He’s not a baby. He can be—he can be Reaped for the Hunger Games without crying like a baby.

But he can still cling to his mom, right? That’s not a little kid. He remembers Cassander clinging to their mom after the mock Hunger Games. Cassander’s very grown up, so it’s fine for Hype to do it too.

He buries his face in her chest and he doesn’t cry. When tears spring to his eyes, he furiously wipes them away because—because—

Cassander is muttering under his breath, which must mean he has an explanation, which must mean that he can do something about this. Right? Cassander can get Hype out of this, he has to—

“Cassander, would you please just sit down?” Mom snaps, voice watery and thin. “You aren’t helping anything by mumbling like a crazy person.”

Cassander huffs in anger, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “It’s all my fault,” he whispers, and a few things fall into place in Hype’s mind.

Cassander killed—no, he was responsible for the death of Emmerich Tracey. Severin Tracey is Emmerich’s twin brother. He was the chosen volunteer, but he didn’t do it. Hype was Reaped instead. Hype is Cassander’s brother.

Cassander was responsible for the death of Severin’s brother, so Severin is going to be responsible for the death of Cassander’s.

Except Hype’s not going to die, right? He’s going to be just fine somehow. Everything will work out, even if there’s never been a twelve-year-old Victor before, there’s never even been a thirteen-year-old Victor before, and there’s only been like two fourteen-year-old Victors, but none of that matters because it’s going to be fine. Hype is going to be fine. Someone will—someone will fix this.

His mom starts to cry harder. Hype tries to snuggle closer to her but there’s already no space between them. He casts his gaze toward his dad, standing by the window, and sees a vein popping in his neck.

Hype should make a joke. There must be a joke he can make right now that will make his mom and his sister and his brother stop crying.

“Hey…at least I won’t have to do that essay I’ve been putting off, right?” Hype says, leaning away from his mom just enough to see everyone.

No one laughs. Hype didn’t think they were going to, he just wanted to diffuse things a little. But actually, everything seems even worse now. His mom is saying something about how everything is going to be okay, and Kalliope is sitting in one of the armchairs with her face in her hands, and Cassander is pacing the floor. And his dad…his dad will know what to do. Hype’s dad is very smart and he always know what to do. He always knows how to solve Hype’s problems. He fixed the arm of Hype’s Peacekeeper action figure even when Hype couldn’t figure it out for the life of him.

So he looks to his dad. He should have advice or something. He should know how to get Hype out of this. His dad is a Peacekeeper, maybe he can pull some strings and get Hype un-Reaped. Has that ever happened before? Well, there’s gotta be a first time for everything, right? His dad can probably make it happen. His dad can make anything happen if he puts his mind to it.

“Dad?” Hype asks in a small voice. His face is still mostly hidden in his mom’s shirt, but he can see the figure of his dad, standing with his arms crossed by the window. “What am I gonna do?”

His dad is also a pragmatic guy. Hype learned that word in a book when he was eight, and as soon as he figured out what it meant, it brought his dad to mind. So his dad should have a plan.

The room is quiet for a moment, save for Kalliope’s sniffling. His dad’s eyes flash and he says nothing.

“Dad?” Hype said again, because maybe he just missed it last time and needs a reminder.

His dad sucks in a breath, and Hype waits in anticipation. He’s going to solve it. Whatever his dad says will make everything make sense, it will get him out of his, it will save his life—

“I love you, Hyperion. Do the best you can.”

Oh. Hype’s going to die.

…

They don’t really say anything after that. Hype clings to his mother until the Peacekeepers come and separate them, and it becomes real all over again.

Because his parents and his brother and sister leave, despite how hard Hype holds onto his mom’s dress. He’s pulled away from her and then they’re all gone and Hype will never ever see them again. Because he’s going to die. He’s twelve years old and he’s so little and he’s going to die. He’s standing all alone in a hallway in the Justice Building and he’s going to die.

No. Nonononono. Hype can’t think like that. He’s going to figure something out. He’s not going to die because he’s better than that. Hype is just going to be different from all of the twelve-year-olds who were Reaped before him and failed. He doesn’t know how, but he can figure it out. He’s great at figuring things out! Like this one time when he had a gymnastics competition coming up and his teacher was totally screwing up the plans for the routine so Hype just made them up himself. It was great and he got second, even though he really should’ve gotten first, since he came up with it all on his own. He’ll just do something like that. When he’s in the arena. Surrounded by people who want to kill him.

Hype laughs. Why would they want to kill him? He’s so lovable. You know, it’s not personal or anything. Because if it was, there was no way they would want to kill him. You can’t kill a once-in-a-lifetime gymnastics talent like him. He still has so much to give the world!

Yes, this is good. He almost stops feeling like there’s a rock in his stomach.

His dad can’t fix things, so Hype will just do it on his own. Yes, he can do that. He can figure something out. Hype can fix this.

Two Peacekeepers round the corner with his district partner in tow. She’s tall and blonde, muscled and striking. Hype is dwarfed by her size. She could probably bench press his entire body mass. He probably shouldn’t think about that.

What he should probably be doing is taking the initiative to befriend her, right? She looks like a good friend to have. In any situation. Not specifically the one that Hype is in that it’s better to not think about. But situations generally.

“Hi, I’m Hype!” he says to her with enthusiasm he isn’t sure where he found as they are led outside to a car. She looks over to him with something in her eyes, something Hype isn’t familiar with. It’s like…sadness, but not quite. Why would she be sad, anyway? She volunteered for this.

“Hello,” she says. God, he wishes he remembered her name. But with the, you know, everything that happened right after she volunteered, he thinks he should get a pass.

And that’s it. That’s all she says. Hype clears his throat as he climbs into the car, sliding in next to her in the back seat. Maybe a question would be good. Something personal. “What’s your favorite color?” he asks.

In the front passenger seat, Mahalia looks over her shoulder at him with another emotion he can’t figure out on her face. Jeez, what is with everybody today?

Well. Other than that, you know?

His district partner sucks in a breath. She licks her lips and says, finally, “Blue. Yours?”

Oh, good. This is something Hype can do. He’s very good at talking. “Blue is a great color, but it’s kind of sad. I think mine’s probably yellow, because it’s happy and it’s the color of my mom’s hair and the sun. Why do you like blue?”

She looks at him for another long moment, still with that not-quite-sadness in her eyes, and Hype squirms.

The silence wears on for a few moments, and Hype fidgets some more. Finally, his district partner says, “You do know where we’re going, right, kid?”

Hype scoffs, squinting at her. Something angry flares in his chest, and Hype realizes that she thinks he’s a little kid. A stupid child who has absolutely no chance of making it out of the arena alive. Well, he’s just going to have to prove her and everybody else wrong. How hard can it be, really?

“Of course I do,” he snaps. “I’m twelve, not two.”

“Okay, just making sure,” she says, turning to look out the window.

So she’s not a great conversationalist. That’s okay. Some of Hype’s friends at school don’t talk much but Hype doesn’t mind. Like his friend Perseus, who actually doesn’t like being called Percy, doesn’t talk at all sometimes. But he’ll listen to Hype tell him about his newest gymnastics routine or the time he microwaved one of his action figures until it melted or how much he wishes his parents would let him get a dog. Hype can talk enough for the both of them so it works out.

Perseus doesn’t have a lot of other friends. The other kids think he’s weird.

Who’s going to talk to Perseus now?

Hype’s not going to be at school tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that, or…ever. No, nope, he’ll be back. Perseus will just have to go without for a few weeks and then Hype will be back and everything will be okay. All of his friends will be so excited to see him when he gets home. Everybody will think he’s really cool too. Whenever they play Hunger Games at recess, Hype always chooses to have a really dramatic death scene instead of trying to win like the other kids, so this’ll be his moment.

Yeah. It will be his moment, and it’ll be awesome, and there will be posters with his face on them and he’ll have a bunch of fans. It doesn’t really matter what he’s going to have do to get there because everything will be fine. He’s going to make new friends in the Capitol. Usually the little kids—not that Hype is a little kid—band together, so Hype will do that. Yes, it’s all going to work out, because Hype doesn’t know what he’s going to do if it doesn’t.

(It goes like this: Hype dies.)

…

Hype hears the voices of their mentors before they even enter the train car. It sounds like they’re having an argument while someone is trying to sleep in the next room. Their voices are hushed enough that he can’t make out the words, but he has a pretty good idea of what they’re fighting about.

Mahalia ushers him and his partner into the dining car. Mercutio Stander and Arista deFagros stand near the television set, looking like they both just jumped to attention. For a moment, the two of them just stare at Hype and his partner—but mostly at Hype—until finally, Arista says, “Thora, it’s good to see you again.”

Yeah, that’s her name. Hype knew that. Thora smiles tightly, glancing at Hype out of the corner of her eye.

“Let’s go talk in another car, hm?” Arista suggests. She waves Thora away, and Hype watches them go. Arista won like ten years ago, and even though Hype was a toddler, he’s still seen her Games plenty of times because she was Kalliope’s favorite. He’s never really gotten the hype (no pun intended), but he’s never cared a whole ton about that stuff anyway.

Mahalia wanders off too, leaving Hype alone with Mercutio. Hype knows all about Mercutio Stander. He’s the son of the original Career, Emilian, and his only child to ever survive the Games. He only won like five years ago and it was huge. Apparently Emilian Stander had a lot of kids and he sent them all into the Games to die.

But that’s not going to happen to Hype, just like it didn’t happen to Mercutio. Oh, the pit in his stomach is back. Fun.

“Hyperion,” Mercutio says. “Why don’t you come have a seat? Let’s talk.”

He gestures to the couch in front of the tv. Hype sits. “Everybody calls me Hype,” he says.

“Hype,” Mercutio says. “That’s an interesting one. Is there a story there?”

“When I was a baby, my mom thought Hyperion was too big of a name for me,” Hype says, looking out the window as District Two begins to fly by them. “So she came up with Hype, because it was small like me. And it fits real well so I never changed it.”

Mercutio hums. When Hype looks over at him, he looks pained.

“So, Hype,” he says at last. “We should talk.”

“Okay.”

Mercutio stares at him for just a moment before tearing his gaze away. When he speaks again, he’s not looking at Hype, just staring at nothing. “What happened today wasn’t my fault, but I feel I should apologize anyway. I never in a million years would have expected the chosen volunteer to pull something like that. I don’t think anybody at Stander would have expected it either—they wouldn’t have picked him if they thought he would do that. So. I am sorry that this happened to you. I am…I’m sorry.”

Hype fidgets for a moment. What in Panem is he supposed to say to that? Yeah, no worries, I’ll make it work? Don’t beat yourself up too much, I’ll just go die?

“Okay,” he settles on. “Thanks.”

And Mercutio doesn’t say anything else. Hype watches him for a moment, waiting him to continue talking, maybe start strategizing or something, but he doesn’t. So Hype takes it upon himself to do all of the heavy lifting. “So do you have any, like, advice? Or strategy I guess?”

Mercutio works his jaw for a moment. “Let’s start by watching the recap. See what we’re dealing with.”

So they turn it on. And a new problem is immediately apparent to Hype: he’s the only kid under fifteen. There’s one fifteen-year-old, a girl named Meara from Three, but other than that, it’s sixteen and up. Five Careers and a dozen others who look like they could fold Hype in half. They’re all tall and well-built and scary. Or maybe that’s just because he’s so much smaller than them and he’s all alone.

That pit in his stomach is starting to eat him alive. That’s probably fine though. Hype isn’t scared.

Which is why he comes back to the dining car in the middle of the night and flicks through all of the available Hunger Games to watch and picks all of the ones with little kids in them. Because he isn’t scared.

He watches the Fourteenth Games, where a twelve-year-old from Nine and a thirteen-year-old from Five team up. On the second day, they get massacred by one of the first trained Careers. He watches the Nineteenth Games, where three kids under fourteen huddle for warmth in the freezing cold and die curled up next to each other. He watches the Thirty-Fourth Games, where a twelve-year-old is Reaped in Eleven and dies of dehydration after a week. He watches the Forty-Second Games, where two thirteen-year-olds team up, and one of them makes it all of the way to tenth place before a Career gets her. He watches the Forty-Ninth Games, where a twelve-year-old from Three is found on the first night and killed next to his fire. He watches the Sixtieth Games, where a little kid from Ten joins up with the pair from Eight, who are both old enough to actually win. The kid dies first.

The data is clear, even if Hype doesn’t want it to be. The little ones never last.

He doesn’t cry about that. He doesn’t cry when they get off the train in the morning and he stands all alone in the crowd. He doesn’t even cry when Thora goes off to meet with the Careers before the parade and leaves him behind. Alone. Because big kids don’t cry. None of the big kids here are crying, even the ones who are alone, and Hype has to be a big kid if he wants to survive. So he doesn’t cry, because he isn’t even scared.

…

He lays awake in bed for a long time that night. The mattress is way different from the one he has back home, and don’t tell anyone this, but Hype still sleeps with a nightlight on in his room. He just doesn’t like the dark. It occurs to him to open the curtains, but there’s way too much light outside, and he can’t sleep like that either.

It sucks. Hype usually just crashes at the end of a day. He’s out there doing life, having a great time. He’s usually tired enough that he just goes to sleep.

But not tonight. He’s tired, for sure, but he can’t sleep. Because the mattress is too different and there’s no nightlight and all that other stuff that he’s not worried about.

Eventually, Hype gets up. He does a handstand. He does some cartwheels. He does another handstand. Lays back down. Tries to go to sleep. Can’t. More cartwheels. Still can’t sleep.

There’s got to be something he can do to tire himself out. Hype goes out into the common area, which is dark and quiet. Everybody else is clearly asleep. Or at least, if they’re awake, they’re not doing cartwheels about it.

The elevator doesn’t come when he calls it, but the door to the stairwell is unlocked. He looks all of the way up to the top floor. Walking up there and then back down would definitely tire him out enough to go to sleep. Perfect. He’s so good at figuring things out.

He makes it three flights of stairs before he’s wondering what kind of plan this was, because this sucks. His legs don’t like doing this at all. He’s about to turn around and go back to bed when he hears a noise of some kind, a flight above him. Scuffling or something.

Well, he can’t go back to bed without checking that out. Wondering what the sound was will keep him awake more than the mattress and the everything else.

Outside of the door to floor six sits a boy. No, he’s old enough that Hype thinks he’s probably considered a man. He must be the boy from Six. He’s auburn haired and handsome, though Hype hadn’t taken much notice of him before. In the grand scheme of things, he was just another tall, scary looking tribute.

But right now, he’s got his knees pulled into his chest and his head in his hands. At first glance, Hype thinks he’s crying, but he’s a big kid. Heck, he might even be a grown-up. Grown-ups don’t cry.

Hype just watches him for a moment. He doesn’t seem to realize that Hype is there. Finally, Hype clears his throat and says, “Hey, are you okay?”

The Six boy startles, dropping his hands to look at Hype. His face is pale, and he looks like he’s feeling a lot of Things right now. Hype can relate. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

The Six boy presses the heels of his hands into his eyes for a moment. Then, he says, “Yes, I’m okay.”

He heaves a deep, pained-sounding sigh. Hype really wants to cheer him up. What kind of thing would work right now? A good pun always cheers Hype up. But that doesn’t seem like the vibe right now. Oh, wait, he’s got it.

“Hey, do you wanna see me do a cartwheel?”

The Six boy squints at him for a second. “I don’t see how that could possibly help, but sure. Go ahead.”

Hype grins. The landing is just about big enough across that he can do just one. He can do more than that in a row, but this isn’t about showing off. This is about making the Six boy feel better. He tees up for it and pulls it off flawlessly. Perfect form. His coach would be proud.

“Yay, that’s great,” the Six boy deadpans. He even claps a few times. Sure, Hype can tell he’s just being humored, but the Six boy looks a little less like he’s about to die from grief, so he’ll take it.

“Can you do a cartwheel?” he asks.

“Me?” the Six boy says. He shakes his head. “No.”

“I can show you!” Hype exclaims. “I know all about it.”

“That’s alright,” the Six boy says, standing up. Oh, wow, he towers over Hype. Like a whole foot taller than him. “I think I should probably go back to bed. You should too. But…uh, thanks. I actually feel a little better.”

Hype’s grin widens. He should wandering around stairwells in the middle of the night more often. “Okay,” he says. “Good night.”

The Six boy pauses with the door to his floor half opened. He smiles a little bit. “Yeah, good night to you, too.”

Hype’s grin lasts him all of the way back to bed, and then he’s curled up in the dark again. He imagines teaching a class on gymnastics like his coaches do, and somehow he manages to drift off to sleep.

…

His first morning in the Capitol dawns overcast and rainy, and Hype looks out the window and misses the sun. He wonders what his mom is doing right now. He hopes she isn’t still crying.

He asks Mercutio for advice on what to do in training. He answers, “I…think you should scout out the other tributes. Maybe someone will want to ally with you.” And that’s a really good idea because Hype needs a friend. Or several. He kinda wishes his dad was here, actually. His dad always knows what to do.

Except. Well.

Hype walks away from the window and tries not to think about home anymore.

All of the tributes are so much scarier up close. Hype got some of it last night before the parade, when he and Thora were dressed in golden armor. Thora looked like a warrior, and Hype looked like a little kid playing dress up. The other Careers looked at Hype like they were wolves and he was a baby deer. The outliers looked at him like…like…

Like he was already dead.

When Hype steps out of the elevator onto the training floor, the other gathered tributes turn to look at him. There’s fear on the faces of the outliers, which doesn’t make any sense. It takes him a second to realize that they’re not really looking at him. They’re looking at Thora. Tall, muscled, imposing Thora. Already a favorite to win, probably. Hype looks even sadder standing next to her.

They’re not even paying him any mind now. Everyone’s already written him off and moved on. They were sad last night, but Hype doesn’t even matter to any of them. They all think Hype is going to die immediately, because that’s what happens to twelve-year-old tributes. They all die.

He wonders what the farthest a twelve-year-old has ever gotten before is. There has to be one that’s made it to the Final Eight, right? A couple at least. None of the kids he watched the other night made it that far. Hype’s never really thought about it before because it never really mattered. It wasn’t like he was ever going to end up in the Games, especially not at twelve years old.

Hype watches as the boy from One slashes a dummy to bits with a sword. When he was eight, his parents asked him he wanted to attend Stander Academy and train for the Hunger Games. Both of his older siblings had, though his dad said Kalliope only did it “because the other kids did”, not because she really wanted to volunteer. Cassander’s heart was in it, though, and he did make it look cool. Hype had really thought about it, but he’d already been doing gymnastics for a while, and he would have to quit that if he trained. So he decided not to, and his parents didn’t mind, because Cassander was going to win anyway.

He should’ve trained. Even if it meant giving up gymnastics. Then, maybe none of this would have happened.

(The thought of Cassander makes something flare up in his chest. Hype’s not familiar with the emotion, but he thinks it might be called resentment.)

Meara, the fifteen-year-old from Three, is lurking near the fire starting station when Hype approaches her. She’s willowy and at least a head taller than Hype, but she looks soft and kind. Hype could huddle with her.

“Hi!” Hype says to her, watching as she jumps about a foot in the air.

It takes her a moment to recover. “Hello,” she says uncertainly.

“My name’s Hype. You’re Meara, right?” Hype says.

“…yes,” Meara says. “It’s…nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too!” Hype says with a grin. She seems meek, but that makes a lot of sense. They’re in a big, scary place and there’s. There’s all of that bearing down on them. So. It makes sense. “Do you want to learn about fire starting together?”

They’re right there, so they might as well. While they practice, they can get to know each other. Hype’s very good at getting people to come out of their shells.

“Sure,” Meara says, and even though she doesn’t really sound enthused at all, they go over together and learn how to start fires. The trainer is a nice man who introduces himself as Egeus, and he laughs at Hype’s jokes, more than anybody else he’s met recently, so it’s a highlight. Not that there’s been a lot of competition.

What’s not a highlight is his attempts to talk to Meara. She’s more dismissive of him than Thora was in the car, and that’s saying something. It’s not until after Egeus has shown them the ropes and gone to help someone else that she finally just mans up and tells him why.

“H-hey, listen,” she says, interrupting Hype mid-story about his sister’s ex-boyfriend, “I don’t want you to take this the wro-wrong way, but I don’t want to-to team up with you. I’m sorry.”

She stands up, dusting off her pants. Hype looks up at her, trying to figure out what he did wrong. “Why?”

For a moment, Meara stares at him with her mouth open, like everything she wants to say is right there but she can’t get it out. Her eyes are watery, pain on her face, but Hype can’t for the life of him figure out why. Hype just watches her, waiting for her explanation, but he never gets it. She clacks her mouth shut, shakes her head, and says, “I’m sorry,” again.

And she walks away, leaving Hype with an unlit fire and no new friends.

Egeus comes back over, looking over Hype’s pile of wood. “Hey, where’d your friend go?”

Hype scoffs. “I don’t think she wanted to be my friend, actually.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, little buddy.”

Hype scrunches up his face at the term little buddy and walks away from the station without ever lighting a fire. As he marches away, he notices the boy from Six watching him from across the gymnasium. He’s got that same look of sadness-but-not-quite on his face that Thora and Mercutio are always giving him. But Hype’s in a bad mood, so he glares at him until he looks away.

He spends the rest of the day climbing the ropes course, which reminds him of his gymnastics school. They’ve got a thing like this up on the ceiling in the gymnasium, and sometimes when they have extra time at the end of practice, Hype gets to monkey around up there with his friends. Like Achillea and Atreus, who are brother and sister and sometimes make Hype wish he had siblings closer in age. Or Corielle, who’s a year older than Hype but a head shorter. She can move even faster on the agility course than Hype can, which is saying something.

God, he wishes that’s where he was. He wishes he was messing around on the ropes with Achillea, Atreus, and Corielle back home. Or he wishes that they were here with him.

No, no, no, he doesn’t wish they were here. It would be even worse if they were here because only one of them could go home. So it’s actually better that Hype’s all alone.

He starts to laugh at that thought, because it’s never good to be alone. Especially not for Hype. Hype has never done anything all by himself before in his life. This seems like a pretty bad place to start.

The tributes below him start to stare, because Hype is hanging by his arms on a net between platforms and giggling like a mad man. And just because there’s like five people watching him, Hype laughs harder and starts to swing back and forth, gaining enough momentum to launch himself all of the way to the next platform. He hears one of the tributes below him gasp when he jumps and that makes it all the more worth it. He lands on his feet, only a little off balance, and he grins down at the gaping faces beneath him. One of them, he thinks it’s the girl from Eight, looks like she thought she was about to watch a child fall to his death. Which is silly, because he’s only like twenty feet off the ground, he probably only would have broken some bones if he fell. And he didn’t, so who cares.

It wasn’t even that far of a jump. Hype’s not very good at judging distance, but he knew he could make it with enough momentum. But based on the reactions of the tributes watching him, it probably was a bit farther than he thought.

But who cares? He knew he could make it, so he jumped. Not his problem that the other tributes wouldn’t have the confidence to jump.

Hey, you know what, if surviving comes down to who has the balls to make a big jump, Hype could actually win this thing.

…

After training ends that day, Hype reports to Mercutio about his attempts to find a friend. By the windows, Thora is giving Arista the rundown on her impression of the other tributes. “Meara wasn’t interested,” he says, “and no one else really was either. But I did make a couple tributes think I was about to jump to my death, so that was a plus.”

Mercutio eyes him for a moment, stirring creamer into a cup of coffee idly. Hype wonders why in Panem Mercutio would be drinking coffee at like four o’clock in the afternoon, but maybe it’s just a grown up thing that Hype doesn’t understand yet. His mom won’t even let him drink coffee, even though his friend Diana’s mom lets her drink coffee, and Diana’s only eleven.

Anyways, what were they talking about? Oh, yeah, Hype doesn’t have any friends anymore.

“What do I do?” Hype asks as Mercutio’s spoon spins around and around and around in his mug.

“I…” Mercutio swallows. “How many people did you try?”

“Well, Meara really wasn’t into me,” Hype says. “And a couple other outliers cleared out of whatever station they were at when I walked up, so that kinda seems like a no to me. What do you think?”

Mercutio looks pained. He keeps stirring his spoon around, even though the creamer must be mixed in by now, right?

“I think you should just keep trying,” he says after a second, sounding oddly hollowed out. “You can’t have asked everybody.”

Hype works his jaw. None of that is very helpful. Of course, he was going to keep trying. One person telling him she doesn’t want to be his friend hurts, yeah, but there’s twenty-two other people who might. Well. Thora definitely doesn’t want to be his friend. So twenty-one. That’s pretty good odds.

It’s weird. He doesn’t usually have any trouble making friends. The other kids at school flock to him like moths to a flame. Even adults tend to like him. He’s just that cool, apparently. Everybody finds him funny and charming, and Hype likes it that way. He doesn’t know what to do with a bunch of people who look at him like he’s either a bug they want to squish or a walking corpse.

He just needs to find someone who will look at him like he’s a person and not a little kid. How hard can that be, even?

Hype would be a great ally. He’s smart and creative and crafty. He’s got little hands so he could get into places that the bigger tributes couldn’t. But he’s also stocky and well-built and he could probably push over some of the underfed tributes. And he’s willing to do things nobody else will do! That’s got to count for something.

Mercutio is still swirling his spoon around his coffee mug. Hype decides to leave him to it.

…

It goes like this: he tries the girls from Ten, Seven, and Nine, and they wave him off. He tries the boy from Twelve, who’s probably the most polite about letting him down but still essentially tells him to kick rocks. The girl from Six sees him coming and she and her district partner clear out before he can even get close. He spends the whole morning trying to approach people, and ends up sitting all alone at lunch.

So, really, it goes like this: no one wants to be his friend and that is completely uncharted territory for him.

It’s hard, because Hype knows that somehow this is all going to work out and he’s going to go home, but it’s like the rock in his stomach just hasn’t gotten the memo. The more people who reject him, the heavier it gets, until it feels like it’s keeping him stuck to the ground.

Hype stands watching the Careers for a while. The girl from One, he thinks Thora called her Pristine, is wicked with her swords. Hype doesn’t know what kind they are, but they’re thin and long and Hype isn’t afraid of her at all. If he encountered her at the end of a dark alley, it wouldn’t be even remotely concerning.

He can’t help but feel a little…jealous, maybe, of the Careers. They’ve all got this in the bag. Hype does too, of course, but he wishes he had those skills. He’s never held a weapon in his entire life. If he tried to stab someone, he would have no idea how to go about it. You, like, just put the knife in their skin? You’ve probably got to have some speed and weight behind it to make it do some damage, right? These are things he would know if he was a Career.

Maybe if he was a Career, Mercutio would have some idea of what to do with him. It’s obvious that the whole Two team has no clue what to do with the Reaped kid.

(Maybe if Cassander had been chosen to volunteer like he was supposed to, none of this would be happening at all.)

There’s something almost mesmerizing, or something, about watching Pristine cut up dummies with her swords. Hype just doesn’t think about what those dummies are standing in for and everything’s okay.

He wonders if throwing the swords would be viable at all. Maybe if you were really, really desperate, throwing them would work. But then you wouldn’t have a sword anymore. But if you got your enemy with the throw, it wouldn’t matter. So maybe it’s something worth considering.

It actually kind of reminds Hype of the ribbons some people use in floor routines in gymnastics. It’s never been his kind of thing—he’s just not that elegant, never will be—but his friend, Achillea, is really good with them. She could probably make a really cool routine with swords like that. She would never think of using swords in a floor routine, and it would be a hard sell for their teachers, but Hype’s sure it would look awesome if you did it right.

“What are you looking at?”

Pristine’s lilting, airy voice startles Hype out of his thoughts. She’s standing just a few feet away, in front of the remains of the dummies, twin swords still in hand. The lights on the ceiling are shining off of her hair like the sun. Hype misses the sun. There’s no windows down here.

He makes eye contact with her and draws himself up to his full height. She still seems to tower over him, but hey, Hype’s got better shoulders than her and he’s twelve years old. So. Ha. Got ‘em.

“Nothin’,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets because he isn’t even afraid of her at all.

“Imagining what’s going to become of you in a few days?”

Hype’s eyes flick to the side, where Pristine’s district partner stands. Hype does not have better shoulders than him. He doesn’t know his name, but he knows he could probably break Hype’s neck with his bare hands. Hm. Probably shouldn’t think about that.

A muscle in Hype’s face twitches. He looks the boy from One up and down like he hasn’t noticed him before and says, like a badass, “No.”

The One boy laughs. Pristine does, too. Hype glances around, and notices other tributes are taking notice. There’s not a crowd gathering; it’s more that the tributes at stations nearby are watching them from the corners of their eyes, like they’re afraid to catch one of the Careers’ eyes and become a target too. The Gamemakers have taken interest too, putting down their drinks and forks to watch.

“Really?” the One boy says. “I find that hard to believe.”

Thora’s voice echoes from over Hype’s shoulder, making him jump and turn around to look at her. “Stark, leave him alone. He’s not hurting anyone.”

Thora brushes past him, not even sparing him a glance as she goes by. Hype softens, though, because at least she’s, like, a little bit his corner. She’s got just her toes in his corner, but that’s more than anybody has, so Hype will take it.

Stark, apparently, laughs again. “Well, you got that right. He won’t be hurting anybody.”

Pristine laughs, and the girl from Four laughs too, even though Hype’s pretty sure she wasn’t even close enough to hear what Stark said until a second ago. The Careers are all around him now, just feet from him, and it really puts into perspective just how fucked Hype is. It’s like being a baby deer surrounded by wolves. There’s no shot he ever beats one of them in a fight, unless they’ve lost an arm or two or been, like, set on fire or something. Maybe he would have a chance then.

But it doesn’t even matter because Hype’s going to figure it out. He’ll cross those bridges when he gets to them and he won’t think about any of that in the meantime.

“Yes, little boy like you would probably lose a fight to a housecat,” Pristine says with what Hype can only describe as a hungry smile. Like she’s just salivating to tear him to shreds.

A jolt of something drops into his stomach, and Hype takes a step back, trying to put distance between himself and the Careers. It’s a preventative measure. He realizes only after moving away from them that it makes it look like he’s scared of them, which he isn’t, even though they’re looking at him like they want to eat him. He’ll eat them right back, see how they feel then. Maybe he should say that. They’ll be so astounded by his wit.

“I—I’m not—” Hype says, intending to say that he’s not a little boy, but Stark talks over him.

“I—I—I—” Stark says mockingly, making Pristine and the pair from Four laugh. When Hype glances around the training floor, the other tributes are looking away again.

He feels the tips of his ears heat, and he clenches his hand into fists at his sides. His mom says it’s not nice to say he hates things, especially people, so Hype strongly dislikes Stark. He strongly dislikes him a lot.

“What were you even going to say?” Pristine says. “You’re not a little boy?”

Hype’s face gets hotter somehow. He wants out of here, now. His skin is tingling with emotions he can’t name and he strongly dislikes all of this.

“Seriously, leave him alone,” Thora says. “Kid’s already going to die. There’s no need to make his last days even worse.”

Hype freezes, staring at her. She’s not even looking back at him. She has no idea—

He doesn’t—he doesn’t think anybody has actually said it before. That he’s going to die.

The feeling is everywhere, yeah. Everybody looks at him like a corpse that’s just really slow on the uptake. His father couldn’t offer him any advice on staying alive, because he won’t be. Mercutio doesn’t know what to do with him, because he’s never mentored someone who is so fucked before. Mahalia can’t figure out how to sell him, because who would bet on a little kid? The other tributes won’t ally with him, because they don’t want to drag around dead meat. Hype knows how everyone sees him.

(He knows they’re probably right. Probably. Probably.)

But nobody’s said to it his face yet. Nobody has admitted the truth that’s been clinging to him since Mahalia conceded there were no volunteers in front of the Justice Building aloud.

And Thora just said it. It hits so much harder than Pristine and Stark’s taunts. It’s like a sledgehammer to the stomach, a gunshot to the chest, a cannon firing that signals his own death. Thora said it, like it’s an unalienable truth, inevitable, inescapable. Like she saw the future and knows Hype won’t be in it.

Tears well up in Hype’s eyes. The Careers are laughing again. He’s going to die, and they’re laughing at him.

Hype turns tail and runs, frantically wiping at his eyes with his shirt sleeve. He runs out of the gymnasium toward the bathrooms. He crumples against the wall, eyes squeezed shut because he’s not crying. He’s a big kid who isn’t scared at all and he isn’t crying.

He should have just walked away. As soon as Stark and Pristine started in on him. That would have been a hell of lot more badass if he just coolly walked away. That would have shown them that he didn’t care and wasn’t scared. Instead, he stood there like an idiot, rooted to the spot, letting them mock him and threaten him, and only found the balls to leave because Thora told him the truth.

No. Nope. Not the truth. Just—one possible outcome of many, that’s all.

What kind of a name is Stark, anyway? Stark, more like, start-raving mad. Yes, that’s a good joke. He can laugh at that and not cry about anything.

Hype stays curled up in front of the wall for a while, running through his favorite puns in hopes of distracting himself. What did one eye to the other? Just between you and me, something smells. Why wouldn’t the pony sing in the choir? Because he was a little horse. Why did the scarecrow get an award? He was outstanding in his field.

It makes him feel a little better. His dad likes jokes like that. He’s usually a pretty serious guy, but a good pun really gets him going. Sometimes, when Hype isn’t feeling good or had a bad day, he and his dad will go back and forth trying to come up with the best pun. Hype usually wins.

He shouldn’t think about his dad right now. Because as soon as he remembers where he is, the warmth blooming his chest turns to ice.

He only looks up at the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. It’s the boy from Six, who looks much less pale and emotional this time. Hype looks back down at his knees. The Six boy’s probably just going to the bathroom, and now Hype’s made it weird. If he tries hard enough, maybe he can pretend he isn’t here.

“Hey, you alright?” the Six boy says.

Hype clears his throat. “I’m fine.”

“I… saw what was going on out there,” the Six boy says. “Those guys are assholes, right?”

Hype looks up at him. The lights on the ceiling frame him like an angel. “Yeah,” he says. “Like, Stark, more like stark-raving mad.”

The Six boy grins and laughs. “That’s a good one! I bet he loses it at some point in the Games, right? Goes crazy and stumbles off a cliff, or something.”

Hype smiles. “Yeah, exactly! He’ll talk this big game and then he won’t be able to handle the heat. He’ll start, like, hallucinating his mom or something. Stark-raving mad.”

“Right,” the Six boy says. “But you and me, we’ll handle the heat just fine. We’ll cartwheel our way to victory.”

“For sure,” Hype says like there’s no doubt about it.

“You know, I saw you on the ropes course yesterday,” the Six boy says. “You’re quite the little acrobat. Got a lot more confidence than I do.”

Hype preens under the praise. It’s no surprise. If there’s one thing Hype’s got plenty of, it’s confidence in his gymnastic talent. “I do gymnastics back home,” he says. “So I have a lot of practice.”

“So that must be where you learned the cartwheels,” the Six boy says. “Oh, I’m Sebastian, by the way.”

He puts his hand out to shake, and Hype absolutely loves that. He’s starting to get to the age where his dad’s friends offer him a handshake, and then act like his grip was so strong it hurt them. He knows they’re messing around, but he likes it anyway.

“I’m Hype,” he says, shaking Sebastian’s hand, squeezing hard to show Sebastian what he’s about. Sebastian squeezes right back.

“Hype,” he says. “That seems to fit you.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” Hype says with a grin. This is good. He likes this. “Oh! You probably want to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, I actually…I actually came here lookin’ for you,” Sebastian says. He lowers himself to sit next to Hype against the wall. He’s probably six feet tall, but when they’re sitting next to each other, they don’t look so different.

Hype can’t ignore the spike of hope he feels. “Really? Why?”

Sebastian shrugs. “Returning the favor. You helped me the other night. And…well, I think we could both use a friend.”

Well, Hype sure could. He doesn’t really know about Sebastian, but he’ll take his word for it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. “You know, you seem smart. With how good you were at navigating that ropes course, you seem good at coming up with ideas. I think we could make a good team.”

A team. It’s almost too good to be true. Sebastian, a tall, cool, eighteen-year-old, who Hype knows from the odds board is an early favorite to win, wants to be a team. Because he thinks Hype is smart and good at coming up with plans. And he’s damn right, of course.

But Hype’s seen the odds board. He knows that his are the lowest by a mile, even before they get training scores or have interviews or anything. Everybody else thinks he’s dead already.

Hype’s the only one who knows that that might not be true. Maybe Sebastian can see what Hype sees too.

“I think we’d make a great team,” Hype declares. He puts his hand out. “Let’s shake on it.”

Sebastian laughs. “Sure.”

They shake. Hype squeezes Sebastian’s hand as hard as he can. Sebastian squeezes right back.

For the first time since his dad couldn’t fix this, Hype starts to feel like maybe he really could make it out of this somehow.

…

The next morning dawns with the sun shining. Hype rolls out of bed with something akin to a spring in his step. It’s not quite that, because there’s still the whole confronting his mortality thing hanging over his head, but it’s much less.

The sun is shining, Hype’s not all alone in the world anymore, and only three days from now he’s going to be fighting for his life in the Hunger Games. So. Everything is basically just fine.

Sebastian is waiting for him on the training floor when he and Thora exit the elevator. Hype walks right up to him with a smile on his face, hoping the other tributes are watching and know now that Hype isn’t actually a lost cause. Someone else looked at him and saw something worthwhile in him. He bets the other tributes feel real stupid now.

Well, screw ‘em. Hype’s got a friend now. He doesn’t need anybody else.

He and Sebastian spend much of the morning running the gamut of the survival stations. The private sessions inch ever closer, but Hype’s not really worried about that. He’ll do some cool shit, the Gamemakers will be extremely impressed, and it’ll all be okay. He tells Sebastian as much, who grins and laughs.

“You are pretty agile for a kid who looks like he should play football,” he says as the two of them try their best to put together a lean-to.

Hype makes a face. “Not a sports guy,” he says. “Not like that.”

Sebastian laughs again. “I get that. You’ve just got the shoulders of a little linebacker, that’s all.”

“That’s what my dad always says,” Hype replies. “He wants me to be a Peacekeeper when I grow up. He says everybody will be super intimidated by me once I grow a little.”

Something crosses Sebastian’s face, and he looks away. Hype furrows his brow, wondering what he said. Maybe it’s because one or both of them is never going to grow up. That bothers him too, when he lets himself think about it at all. So he just doesn’t ever think about it, and it’s working out alright for him so far.

“What’s your plan for the interview?” Sebastian asks suddenly.

“I’m just going to be my lovable self,” Hype declares. “Everyone will love me. It’s a proven fact.”

He’s always been very good at making people like him. When he starts applying to jobs, he’ll put that on his resume under special skills. Oh. Right. Well. It’ll be fine.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah!” Hype puts his hand up for a high-five. Sebastian returns it, hard enough to make the slap resound around them. “It’s gonna be great.”

The lean-to collapses. They both swear colorfully, and then begin to laugh.

Whatever. Hype wasn’t going to be sleeping in there, anyway.

…

He does some extremely cool shit in his private session, and nets himself a six. Really, he deserves at least a ten for pulling off some of the stunts he did in there, but he’ll take what he can get. Thora gets a nine, which brings much more energy to the Two team than Hype’s score did. He tries not to let it get to him.

Sebastian gets a seven. Hype doesn’t know what he did, but it can’t have been much cooler than what Hype did.

As they announce the rest of the scores, Hype notices Mercutio looking at him with that peculiar sort of sadness on his face. Hype looks away and tries to not think about anything at all.

…

It goes like this: he’s absolutely killing in his interview. He’s dressed in a gold suit with a tie patterned with squirrels. Why squirrels? Well, he was wearing a tie patterned with bananas during the Reaping, and apparently, the audience thought that was cute. At least, that’s what his stylist says when Hype asks about it. So now, ties with patterned with random crap is his “thing”.

So he looks great, and he’s telling jokes, and everybody’s laughing, but then—

“Now, Hype…there’s one thing I think everybody’s been wondering about,” Caesar says.

“Oh, it’s the tie, right?” Hype says, brandishing his tie for the audience. There’s laughter. Hype’s on top of the world. He’s never had this many people eating out of the palm of his hand before. He really is going to put this on resume. “Why squirrels, you know?”

“The tie is wonderful!” Caesar says with a laugh. “But I think we have to address the elephant in the room. Now, District Two, your home district, is well known for having tributes volunteer for the Games. But you are not a volunteer. How do you think that will affect your chances tomorrow?”

Hype’s brain stutters. It’s like everything skips a beat—he’s still standing under the spotlights, holding his tie in his hand, staring at Caesar Flickerman’s neon yellow hair, but he can’t think of a single thing to say. Every word that comes to mind fizzles out before he can get it out of his mouth.

There’s nothing to say. He’s not here because he wants to be, he’s not here because he got unlucky, he’s here because Cassander fucked up and Hype paid the price. It was supposed to be Cassander standing on his stage, a year ago tonight, telling the whole of Panem that he had this in the bag. It was going to be him.

Cassander would be doing so much better than Hype is. Cassander had the training, and the muscle, and the charm. Panem would have loved him, not as a cute little lamb to the slaughter, but as a real contender. The way they love Sebastian.

Hype doesn’t want to be here. He wishes Cassander had volunteered a year ago, even if he died, because Hype doesn’t want to be here.

Caesar’s just staring at him, waiting for him to speak, and he can’t see the audience but he knows they’re waiting too. He should say something about how he won’t let it stop him. He should say something about how he’s smarter and more creative than the other tributes, so his lack of training is a non-starter. He should say something that makes everyone confident in his abilities.

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t—it wasn’t my fault,” Hype whispers. His mic barely picks it up. “It wasn’t my fault. I—I didn’t—it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t.”

Even Caesar doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. The buzzer rings off-stage, and Hype stumbles off as fast as his legs can carry him.

Sebastian kills it, too. He’s snarky but lovable, and he tells the whole world about his alliance with Hype like it makes perfect sense. He does a better job selling Hype to the audience than Hype did. It makes him feel all warm inside, knowing that there’s someone here who is fully in his corner.

It makes him feel a little better, actually. Like maybe he didn’t just royally fuck everything up in his interview and Sebastian will fix it somehow.

When they’re all done, he’ll have to go see Sebastian. Maybe they can strategize for tomorrow or something. Hype’s been trying really hard to not think about tomorrow in any concrete fashion, because if he does, the rock will drop back into his stomach and his skin will get tingly and everything will be way too real. But they should probably actually come up with a plan.

He stands beside Thora backstage, watching the last few tributes stumble through their interviews. She did well, he thought. What actually happened in her interview is kind of fuzzy in his head, taken over by what happened to him afterward, but he thinks she did pretty good. She looks nice in her maroon dress, at least.

“I liked your joke about the tie,” Thora says unprompted. Hype startles just a little, surprised to hear her speak.

“Oh, thanks,” Hype says. “It is a really weird tie, right?”

“Yeah, it is,” Thora says. She coughs into her hand. “Look, if we don’t talk again before tomorrow, I wanted to say that I’m impressed with how well you’ve kept it together here. I’ve got a sister who’s about your age, and if she were in your shoes, she would have never stopped crying. So. Um. I understand it’s not much of a compliment, that you’re facing your death with dignity, but…still.”

Hype frowns. “Thank you, but I’m not actually facing my death. I’m gonna win. Me ‘n Sebastian are the dream team and everything’s going to work out. So.”

And Thora looks at him with such deep, profound sadness on his face that it almost makes him sick.

When they get back to the Tribute Center, Hype makes a beeline for the sixth floor. He decides to take the stairs because when he tries really hard, he can take them three at a time and it makes him feel like he’s flying. The elevator is like flying too, but in a way less cool way. This is all Hype, no machines involved.

He pushes open the stairwell door on level six. The floor is dark, but he can hear voices coming from the dining area. It sounds like Sebastian is talking to a girl. His district partner, probably. Hype really should have made an effort to learn more of their names, but also it feels kind of weird so it’s not that bad.

Sebastian will probably be happy to see him. Hype’s interview was great, if he does say so himself, except for that last part that doesn’t really count, and Sebastian probably feels the same. He’s about to round the corner and declare his presence when he hears his name being spoken, and, well, that’s so much more interesting.

“I guess I just don’t understand what you see in that kid,” Sebastian’s district partner, he thinks it might start with a Z, is saying.

“Hype’s a good kid, alright? That’s all there is to it.” That’s Sebastian. Always standing up for him. What would Hype do without him, really?

“Really? Really, Sebastian? I mean, you could have your pick of the outliers for an ally. Hell, you could probably get in with the Careers if you wanted,” Zina (maybe?) says. “Why would you attach yourself to a sinking ship? What’s the point?”

Hype glares at nothing. He’s not a sinking ship. He’s got Sebastian now, and they’re the dream team. They’re going to make it all work out because Sebastian always knows what to do. He’s got Hype’s back through and through, and Hype’s got his, too. They’re a team.

“I don’t want to be a Career, Zaina,” Sebastian snaps. Zaina! Yes, that’s it. That’s a cool name. Sounds like the name of a Victor with really cool posters. “I’m just…helping him out. He needed someone to look out for him.”

“Right, but why do you want it to be you?”

Zaina really just doesn’t get it, does she? Sebastian teamed up with Hype because Hype is smart, creative, comes up with great plans. Sebastian said it all himself.

“You know, it’s…like I said,” Sebastian says. “He’s a good kid. And in the grand scheme of things, he’s not going to…slow me down, you know?”

Hype’s brow furrows. Slow him down? What does that mean? Hype’s absolutely not going to slow him down. If anything, Hype will speed him up with all of his great plans.

“I just feel bad for him,” Sebastian continues. “He’s so much smaller and younger than everyone else. He was so, so scared, and I’m making him feel better. I mean, the kid’s already going to die young. If I can make his last days a little less scary, then I will. It’s the right thing to do.”

Wait. What? That’s not—but they’re—

Hype’s back hits the wall behind him, and he slides down it a little, trying to process what he heard. It hits his chest like Thora saying he was going to die, like his father telling him to do his best.

Sebastian…lied to him. Of course, Sebastian lied to him. He never believed in him at all. He thinks Hype’s just a stupid little kid who needs someone to tell him what to do and someone to “make his last days less scary”! Sebastian doesn’t think Hype is smart or capable. He fucking pities him, just like Thora and Mercutio.

It finally hits him, then—the emotion that he keeps seeing on people’s faces. Sadness, but not quite. Thora and Mercutio and Sebastian, it’s pity. All of them pity him.

God, maybe Hype is a stupid little kid. How did he not get it before?

“Okay, Mr. Hero Complex,” Zaina says. “It’s your funeral.”

“I just…he’s a good kid, alright?” Sebastian says. “He’s funny and smiling despite it all. Sometimes I see it crack through, the weight of the situation he’s actually in, but he keeps on telling jokes like it doesn’t matter. I just…I want to keep him safe until I can’t anymore, you know? Even if he won’t last long. I don’t want to watch that spark in his eyes go dark. I don’t want to let the world be cruel to that kid.”

“Well, you’re too late for that. The world’s already been plenty cruel to him,” Zaina says. “After all, he’s here.”

Hype is here. He’s stuck in the Capitol just like the rest of them, but he’s getting out of here. Some way, somehow, Hype is going to do the impossible, even if there is no one else behind him. He believes it. He has to.

Hype will show them. He should go around the corner right now and tell Sebastian that they’re done. The alliance is over. No more need to stick his back out for the dumb little kid who’s going to die as soon as the gong rings out. Sebastian is free from his Hype-minding duties. And Hype is going to do it all by himself. He’ll prove himself to be so smart and capable that Sebastian will rue the day he ever teamed up with Hype out of pity.

He’s so close to marching in there to end his alliance that his foot is in the air when he starts to imagine it. Really imagine it.

It goes like this: Hype rises up into an unknown arena all alone, surrounded by tall, dangerous killers who all want him dead. There’s no one left in the world who will try to look out for him. He’s small and scared and so alone. There’s no chance of him besting anyone in combat. No one will help him gather supplies, or find shelter, or keep him safe. It will all be up to Hype. It’s never been all up to Hype before.

Hype looks down at his hands and notices they’re shaking. There’s a pit in his stomach, and it’s sucking up all of the air he tries to breathe. He wipes the palms of his hands on his pants, shakes himself bodily like a dog, like that will make it all go away. The fear buzzes beneath his skin, making his vision blur and his hands tingle, and Hype can’t break off the alliance.

He can’t. It doesn’t matter why Sebastian is allying with him. All it matters is that he is. Sebastian will gather supplies and look for shelter and keep Hype safe. The only way he is ever making it out of this alive is with Sebastian by his side.

(All until he decides it’s no longer worth it. All until he decides that pity isn’t enough anymore. All until—)

It goes like this: Hype can’t do this without him. So Hype takes a deep breath, walks back down stairs, and tries to get some sleep.

…

It’s sunny again in the morning. Hype glares at the sky like that could make it cloud over.

He says a short goodbye to Mercutio before boarding the hovercraft. Mercutio’s looking at him with pity as he climbs up the ladder, face set like stone. He doesn’t look back at him.

He catches only fleeting glimpses of Sebastian when they arrive to the arena, and he’s kind of glad for that. Hype doesn’t know what he should say to him, what he even wants to say. If he should say anything at all.

His stylist, a man who goes by just Lovelace and looks like he could be fifteen or forty all at the same time, is waiting for him in the launch room. He presents Hype with his outfit, which he dutifully puts on. His hands are shaking, but that’s fine. He’s not worried about it.

It’s very gray. Long gray pants, lighter gray sweater, and a long leather coat, which is almost black. The coat has a fur color, which at least isn’t gray. It’s beige.

There’s black boots and thick socks. It’s probably going to be cold. At least, that’s what Lovelace says.

Hype doesn’t care about the temperature. What he cares about is how he looks in the get up:

He looks like a child playing dress up. It’s an outfit that might look cool on an adult, but on a little kid like him, he looks like he’s going to a costume party. Hype stares at himself in the mirror and wishes that he could just grow up already. He hates feeling so small, so young. It’s never bothered him before, but Hype never wants to feel small again.

Despite it all, Hype eats. He’s a growing boy, after all. His breakfast drops into his stomach like a rock at that thought.

All too soon, the pleasant voice in the ceiling informs him it’s time to step into the tube. Hype takes a deep breath, wipes his hands on his gray pants, and forces himself to step forward. It’s all going to be okay. Hype is going to be okay. He is going to figure everything out. This will not be his last glimpse of the outside world. It can’t be. He’s so young. There’s so much he hasn’t seen yet.

The tube seals around him, and suddenly Hype needs out of it more than anything. He stumbles forward, as if there’s anywhere to go, bonking into the glass as the plate beneath him starts to rise. All of a sudden, it’s real, so real, what’s about to happen to him. In five minutes, Hype could be nothing but a cooling corpse, dead at just twelve years old.

Hype feels tears well in his eyes. He frantically wipes them away, terrified of letting someone see. He has to be strong. He has to be grown up, like all of the other tributes are. He can’t let himself be scared, because he’s never going to survive if he’s scared. And he’s not scared. He’s never been scared.

He’s not scared of Pristine and her swords, or Stark and his violent words. He’s not scared of unknown monsters lurking in the dark or unsurvivable weather conditions. He’s not even scared of Sebastian deciding he doesn’t want anything to do with him after all.

Hype screws his eyes shut and thinks about nothing at all.

…

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is orange. The sky is orange.

Not like a bright, fun orange, but a dark, burnt one. The best way he can put it is that the sky looks like it’s got shit in it that could kill you. So. That’s great.

The Cornucopia sits atop concrete, surrounded by dark, towering buildings, disappearing up into the orange sky. The whole arena looks hazy when Hype looks around, the buildings further down the street drifting off into the orange fog, or whatever it is.

It’s quiet. Very quiet. And he looks up at the orange sky and realizes he can’t find the sun.

Hype tries to take a deep breath and find Sebastian. The counter ticks steadily downward, but that’s fine. It’s not a big deal at all.

Luckily, Sebastian is only a few pedestals away from him. When they lock eyes, Sebastian waves. His words last night ring in Hype’s ears, and it takes a few moments for him to wave back.

Hype surveys the field of supplies around the mouth of the Cornucopia. Mercutio told him his best bet was to just run, but Hype’s a really good sprinter, even if he doesn’t look like it, and there’s a bag close enough by that Hype thinks he can get it. He has to try. It would be wrong of him to send Sebastian in there all alone to get them supplies.

Not just because Sebastian might die. But because Hype is a big kid who can get his own supplies.

And then the counter reaches zero and the gong rings out and the world blurs as Hype runs. The bag he’s going for is bright green and he’s going to get it. He zigzags around another tribute as he closes in on it, snatching it up as he runs past. He barely gets a second to revel in his victory before something—no, someone crashes into him like a train.

They go tumbling to the ground in a heap. The hit knocks the wind out of Hype’s chest, and he just barely manages to keep ahold of his prize. When he’s able to make out the person above him, he realizes it’s one of the outlying boys. The district he’s from doesn’t matter—what matters is that he has a machete that he’s about to bring down on Hype’s face.

He cries out in terror and tries to roll away, but the boy is way too heavy. He screws his eyes shut, tremors wracking his body as he brings both hands up to block his face. The backpack slips from his grip as he tries to save himself, because he can’t die already. He’s barely just begun.

Not just the Games, but everything. Hype can’t die now, there’s so much he’s never seen—

Hot blood sprays his face, and it takes him a moment to figure it that it’s not his blood. The dead weight of the boy collapses on him as Hype opens his eyes to see Sebastian above him, wielding a bloody axe. Sebastian hauls the boy off of Hype, who can only stare at the remains of the boy’s eye. Sebastian’s axe cleaved off half of his face.

And now his blood is on Hype’s face. It’s soaking into Hype’s sweater.

Sebastian drags him to his feet, shoves his green backpack into his hand, and together they run like hell.

It all happens so fast. Hype wasn’t on the ground for more than thirty seconds. That boy was just alive, just a minute ago. The blood on Hype’s face hasn’t cooled yet. When he looks over his shoulder at the Cornucopia they’re leaving behind, there’s still fighting going on. There’s bodies on the ground. Hype turns back around and focuses on running after Sebastian.

They just pick a direction and go. The city around them seems to sprawl for miles, endless quiet, empty buildings disappearing up into the orange sky. Occasionally, they pass smaller buildings, ones that sprawl outward instead of upward. Hype doesn’t pay any of it much mind. He wipes at his face with his sleeves and follows Sebastian.

Eventually, they stop in an alleyway. Hype leans against the wall, trying to catch his breath. He has no idea how long it’s been now. He looks up again, but can’t see anything but orange sky and tall buildings. What happens to a place that makes its sky orange?

Or maybe it’s just for ambience. Hopefully that’s it.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Sebastian asks. Hype looks him up and down. See, he makes the leather coat and everything work. He doesn’t look like a kid playing dress up. He looks like a threat, like a real adult. Hype’s face reddens a little at the thought.

“I’m…okay,” Hype says, because he isn’t hurt. Sebastian saved him.

It hits him, just then. If Sebastian wasn’t there, if he wasn’t Hype’s ally, Hype would…be dead. He would have died. The outlying boy whose blood is now cooling on his shirt would have sliced his face open and he would be dead. Thirty seconds into the Games, and it would have all been over. Just like everybody predicted.

He doesn’t know what kind of emotion that creates in him, but he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it at all.

“You’re sure?” Sebastian says. “‘Cause you look a little…I don’t know.”

His shoulders are still wracked with occasional tremors, so that’s fun. He probably looks pale and frightened. Because he almost just died. There’s a universe out there where he did, where there’s no Hyperion Stavropoulos left in the world now. There’s a lot of universes out there where that’s true. Maybe this is the only one where he got out of the bloodbath alive.

But he’s fine. Because he’s still alive. Even if he couldn’t save himself.

“I’m fine,” Hype says. “I just…strongly dislike everything.”

Sebastian barks out a laugh. “Yeah, you and me both, buddy.”

Just then, the cannons begin to fire overhead. The sound shatters the eerie quiet of the arena, making both of them jump. As soon as they finish, the silence returns like it never left.

“I counted seven,” Sebastian says.

“Yep.”

Seven less people that have to die for him to get home. That’s the way to think about it. Seven less people who will try to kill him, seven less people who could fold him in half. Seventeen tributes sounds so much better than twenty-four.

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Sebastian says. “We pick one of these buildings, go up as many flights of stairs as we can make it, and make camp somewhere up there. What do you think?”

Hype nods, looking up at the buildings around them. Something about them seems…ominous. The whole arena does. Like it’s holding its breath, waiting to show them something horrible. Well, it probably is. There’s probably some kind of monster lurking around here, ready to kill unsuspecting…no, no, okay, he’s not continuing that train of thought, no siree.

They go inside one of the buildings. It seems like an apartment building that was abandoned in a hurry. Everything is coated in a thick layer of dust, like no one has been here in a long time. Which Hype knows, objectively, isn’t true, but it sure feels like it.

The stairwell is dark. Somehow, it seems like there’s even less noise inside it than in the rest of the arena. Hype stares up it, unable to see much of anything, and wonders how high it goes. What if it never stops? What if it just keeps extending into the sky forever?

Sebastian digs out a flashlight from his backpack—which Hype had no idea he had until now—and they start to ascend in silence. Hype thinks he should be talking right now, but he can’t come up with anything to say.

He feels…weird. He keeps trying to wipe the boy’s blood off his face, but it’s all gone already. His hands won’t stop shaking. Everything feels off kilter. Everything feels wrong.

Finally, he can’t stand it anymore, and he bursts out with the first thing that comes to mind. “My sister just adopted a cat.”

To Sebastian’s credit, he doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hype says, desperate to fill the silence, “He’s a cat she found crying in a ditch and brought home because he made her so sad. She named him Rodrigo and she says he’s her son. He’s black and white like he’s wearing a suit and he’s got a little bit of white fur under his nose like he has a mustache. Kalliope said he was really sick when she found him but he’s doing better now and he’s going to make it.”

“He sounds like a great cat,” Sebastian says. “I used to have a cat.”

Hype smiles, realizing he doesn’t really know anything about Sebastian’s life back home. But— “Used to?”

“Yeah.” Sebastian coughs into his hand, flashlight swinging around the stairwell. “She died a year or so ago. Just got too sick. I couldn’t afford any medicine for her.”

“What was her name?”

“Moxie,” Sebastian says, and even though Hype can’t see his face in the dark, he can hear the smile in his voice. “She was gray. She’d always come when I called her name. She only lived a few years, but I like to think I gave her the best life I could, given the circumstances.”

Only a few years? His mom told him she had a cat when she was a kid that lived to be sixteen. “Why did she die? What kind of sickness was it?”

“Oh, it was just the smog, I think,” Sebastian says offhandedly.

“The smog?” Hype says. He’s heard the term before, vaguely, but whatever it is, he doesn’t think they have it in District Two. At least, not where he lives.

“Yeah, you know, all the shit in the air,” Sebastian says. “The pollution. It’s bad for everybody to breathe in. It pretty much gets everyone in Six sooner or later, even the cats.”

Hype’s never really thought about life in the other districts before. Maybe as a fleeting thought when watching Victory Tours on tv, but never seriously, never for more than a moment. And he has absolutely no idea what to say to Sebastian about it.

Luckily, Sebastian solves the problem for him. “Yeah, I, uh, I think that’s actually what’s going on here. The sky being orange, I mean. The smog in Six makes the sky look brown when it’s really bad. There must be a bunch of shit in the air.”

Hype jumps. “Wait, is it going to, like, kill us?”

Sebastian is silent for a moment. “I don’t…I don’t know, man. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Which is terrible thing to hear about something that might kill you. Hype wants to go home. But then again, he never really stopped wanting that. It’s just really intense in this moment.

…

They go up some fifteen flights, which is a heck of a lot more than Hype made it the other night before wanting to give up. Everything’s just different when someone could murder you at any given moment. Hype laughs a little at his joke.

By the time they decide they’ve gone high enough, Hype’s calves burn like they’re on fire and he feels like they might just give out underneath him. They pause in the landing for a bit, just catching their breath.

Most of the doors on the floor are blocked, or at least impassable. No matter how hard they both throw their shoulders into them, they don’t move a bit. It takes a bit of wandering, but they do find a door that just swings open like it’s nothing.

“Finally, a door that knows what doors are for,” Hype says. “I think all of those other doors were walls pretending to be doors.”

Sebastian laughs. It’s weak. Oh, no. Is he hurt or something?

The door reveals a small apartment. Dust flies at them when they step inside, and Hype coughs into his sleeve. The apartment is almost all one room, a kitchen/living room on one side, a bed pushed up against the wall on the other. There’s a bathroom off of the room, and that’s it. The far wall is covered in windows, most of which have been blown out. The floor in front of the windows is littered with glass as evidence.

They settle on the bed to go through their supplies. Outside, it’s getting dark. The wind blows, but it doesn’t whistle. Everything is quiet as they catalogue what they have.

In Hype’s backpack, he finds a small knife, a pair of night vision glasses, two full bottles of water, a package of peanuts, three granola bars, an apple, and some dried fruit. Sebastian’s contains a jar of peanut butter, two packs of beef jerky, a can of baked beans, two more bottles of water, water purification tablets, and a length of rope. Along with the flashlight and axe, it’s a pretty good haul, if Hype does say so himself.

They eat the baked beans cold. Hype gets up and starts to go through all of the drawers in the kitchen, finding them mostly empty. But he does find a few forks, a box of bandaids, and some scissors, which all go into his backpack immediately. As he’s looking in the cupboard under the sink, the anthem starts to echo through the arena.

Both of them scramble to the window to see the sky, before Hype realizes that the tv screen in front of the couch has turned on. At least, he thinks it’s a tv screen. It’s big and boxy, and the screen is tiny and the picture is grainy, but that must be what it is. So instead, they crowd around that.

The first person they show is the boy from Three. Then, the girl from Six. Sebastian sucks in a breath and looks away.

Hype jerks at the sight of the boy from Seven, the one whose blood has turned tacky in his shirt. He wipes at his face again.

The boy and girl from Eight follow. Then the girl from Eleven, and finally the girl from Twelve. The anthem ends, and screen flicks off, plunging them into darkness.

Sebastian heaves a weary sigh and heads back over to the bed. As he goes, he says, “I can take first watch. That sound alright?”

Hype’s too busy looking between the tv and the door. Sebastian prompts him again, and he says, “I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“Have you ever pranked someone by putting a bucket of water over a door?” Hype says. “So when they walk through, the water falls on them and they get all wet?”

“No?”

“Okay, well, I have,” Hype says. “My idea’s kinda the same thing. We leave the door open a little but balance the tv on top of it. So if someone walks through, the tv will fall on them. We’ll know they’re coming in and they’ll be incapacitated. It’s a win-win!”

He can’t see more than Sebastian’s silhouette in the dark, but he likes to think Sebastian is considering his idea. A couple seconds pass, and then Sebastian says, “You know, that’s actually a pretty good idea. I would have never thought of that.”

Hype pumps his fist in celebration. See, isn’t he a worthwhile ally to have now?

Sebastian heaves the tv up on top of the door, and it balances there against the doorframe. It’s a little precarious, but Hype is confident in his plan. With the trap in place, they return to the bed. Sebastian sits up against the headboard, and Hype lays down with his head at the other end. The arena is still and quiet as always.

Sebastian is very still and quiet too. Hype doesn’t like it.

“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah?” Sebastian says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Because you axed someone to death today. That’s not a very elegant way of saying it. He should probably reword it.

“You…you killed someone today,” Hype says. He leaves out the to protect me part. It’s implied.

“Mm-hm.”

Maybe…maybe they don’t need to be talking about this. Sebastian certainly doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Maybe what he needs is a distraction.

“Hey, give me the flashlight, I want to show you something,” Hype says.

“Be careful with it,” Sebastian says as he passes it over.

Hype scoffs. He turns it on, facing the wall by the door, and set it on the bed. “Are you watching?” he says as he puts his hands in front of it and makes the shadow puppet of a dog.

He moves its mouth and goes, “Arf! Arf!” and hears Sebastian huff out a laugh. Yes! Victory!

“You, kid, are something else,” Sebastian says.

He sounds fond, and Hype preens. He’s got to keep this going. He makes a goose, complete with honking sound effects. He makes a rabbit, which hops around the light on the wall. He makes a butterfly, which don’t typically make sounds, so he has the butterfly introduce itself as Stephen instead.

Sebastian laughs. “Hi, Stephen,” he says. Hype giggles, beginning to move his hands to make another animal, when the pitter-patter of rain hitting the window frames stops him.

Both of them turn to look out the window, though in the dark there isn’t much to see. It’s just the sound, really—it must be absolutely pouring all of a sudden. Sebastian stands up and starts to approach the window. “Maybe we can collect it somehow…”

He sticks his hand around toward the rain, but draws it back suddenly. “Fuck!” he exclaims, shaking his hand. Hype’s on his feet in an instant.

“What is it? What happened?” Hype says. He grabs the flashlight and tries to shine it on Sebastian’s hand.

“The rain—fucking burned,” Sebastian says, still shaking his hand. “Like acid.”

“Acid?” Hype repeats. He finally gets a look at Sebastian’s arm. The leather of his jacket sleeve has melted, it seems. When they roll it up, it reveals a few small wounds that Hype can only describe as gross. There’s not much to do about it other than pour some water on them and put bandaids over them.

As Hype places the last bandaid over Sebastian’s arm, a scream echoes through the arena. Not just one scream. It’s quickly followed by other screams, multiple people crying out in agony. They cut through the silence like knives, echoing off all of the buildings. It sounds like there’s shouting too, but they’re too high up to make out what’s being shouted. Hype half wants to go to the window to see if he can’t find out what’s happening, and half really, really doesn’t want to do that.

It’s loud. Hype can only imagine what’s happening down there—getting caught out in this. He just barely starts to imagine the little wounds on Sebastian’s arm covering someone’s body and stops. He reaches out blindly in the dark and grabs for Sebastian’s hand. When he finds it, he squeezes as hard as he can. Sebastian squeezes back.

One of the screams stops, and a cannon fires. Not long after, another scream dies out, and another cannon fires. A third, until there’s no more screams to be heard. It’s almost worse when it’s gone.

Almost.

The quiet returns to the arena, even the pouring of the rain seeming muffled. Hype can’t help but wonder who it was who just died down there. Four tributes, all at once. They must have been together. Maybe that was somewhat comforting to them. Or maybe they were too focused on their faces melting off.

Hype laughs, like the joke is at all funny. Okay, it’s maybe a little funny.

After hearing all that, there’s no way to go back to making shadow puppets. They lay down, side by side on the bed, and try to get some sleep. It’s still so very dark.

But it’s a little less scary, because Sebastian is right next to him. He protected Hype today. Even if he isn’t doing it because he genuinely wants Hype’s help. Even if he pities him and looks down on him and thinks he’s a lost cause.

It’s a little like when he was a little kid, and he was used to crawl in bed with Cassander after having nightmares. Sometimes he went to his parents, sometimes he went to one of his siblings. They were all familiar with having Hype appear in their doorway whispering of a nightmare.

He hasn’t done that in a long time. At least a year. He’s told old to be scared of nightmares or need someone to sleep next to him to feel safe. Hype’s practically an adult these days.

It does make him feel better right now. But these are extenuating circumstances.

…

Hype is woken early in the morning by the sound of someone crashing through the doorway. The sounds are difficult to parse when he’s jerked so suddenly into wakefulness, but he knows he hears the tv smashing into something and then hitting the ground.

He throws himself out of bed, grabbing blindly for the knife from his backpack. He holds it up in a trembling hand as Sebastian shines the flashlight on the intruder, who’s moaning in pain.

Hype gasps, dropping the knife. It’s Thora. She’s on the floor in the middle of the doorway, moving sluggishly. She looks horrible. Her skin is littered in wounds just like Sebastian’s arm, some of them bleeding, others just looking like holes melted straight through her body. Chunks of her hair is missing, and that’s what makes him notice the other thing: the dent in her forehead.

The tv is on the ground behind her, screen smashed from the impact. Hype realizes what happened in startling clarity:

It goes like this: Thora was caught out in the acid rain. For some reason, she came into this building and up fifteen flights of stairs. When she opened the door, the tv hit her head hard enough to dent it. And now she’s lying on the ground, moaning in pain.

Hype looks at the flashlight in Sebastian’s hand and wonders if that’s it. Somehow she saw the hand puppets and thought she might find…help, or something, up here. Maybe she came up here to kill them. But maybe she just needed someone to patch her up.

Hype drops to his knees next to her. Sebastian, staying a healthy distance away, says, “Hype! What are you doing? Get away from her! She’s a Career!”

Which, duh, obviously. She’s Hype’s district partner, of course he knows she’s a Career. But he doesn’t think she’s going to hurt him. She was never mean to him. She told him she was proud he was going to face his death with dignity.

“Thora,” Hype says. Maybe there’s something he can do for her. Maybe there’s a way to save her. There’s gotta be something he can do for her—

Her eyes are unfocused, rolling around in her head. Tears are trickling down her face. Hype tries to wipe them away, but as soon as his hands come into contact with her melted skin, she screams and wrenches away from him.

“Thora,” Hype says again. “I’m—I’m trying to help you, I want to help you—”

But he doesn’t think she can hear him. Not in a way that matters. There’s a dent in her skull and Hype put it there.

She said Hype wouldn’t hurt anybody. God, how wrong she was.

“Sebastian!” Hype exclaims, looking over at the silhouette of his friend, still holding the flashlight. “Come on, there’s gotta be something I can do!”

Sebastian’s silhouette doesn’t move. The flashlight beam trembles.

(They’re not really friends, are they? Sometimes, he forgets what he heard last night. Sometimes he forgets what Sebastian really thinks of him.)

Hype’s hands rove over Thora’s coat, trying and failing to find something to do. He feels Thora exhale under his hands and realizes her eyes have slipped closed. “No, no, wait,” he says, reaching for her face again. This time, she doesn’t react at all when he touches her skin.

Overhead, a cannon fires. But that must be for someone else, because otherwise it would mean—

“No, no,” Hype says. “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t want to—”

“Hype,” Sebastian says. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No, I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to kill her, Sebastian,” Hype says. “You have to believe me. I didn’t want to—I wasn’t—I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it!”

“Okay,” Sebastian says. “I believe you. Just come over here. We’ll gather up our things and leave.”

“Leave?” Hype says nigh-hysterically. “No, we can’t leave! She—she needs—”

“She’s dead, Hype,” Sebastian says. His silhouette is moving around the room now, gathering up their backpacks. He picks up the flashlight and flicks it off, darkening Thora’s face. “We should—we should clear out, okay? We’ll go up a couple flights and find somewhere else to stay.”

Hype looks back at Thora’s face for a moment. Then, he nods sharply. Sebastian knows what to do. Sebastian has it all figured it out. Sebastian killed someone today, and he didn’t cry about it. Because Sebastian is a grown up. Hype just has to handle it like he did. He can do that. He can do this. He’s a big kid. He’s practically an adult.

That wasn’t—that wasn’t even his fault, right? He was just the guy who had the idea to put the tv up there. Sebastian was the one who actually did it. Besides, Hype had no idea it would hit that hard, or that it would hit right on the head, or anything. He just thought it would distract them! He can’t—he can’t really be blamed for this one, right? It’s not his fault. He didn’t mean it. It’s Sebastian’s kill, or gravity’s, or something. Not his. It’s not his fault.

They find another room four floors up. Hype’s calves still burn. He sits on the bed in their new room and makes shadow puppets on the wall until the light comes back.

…

So, Hype’s dragging his own exhausted ass through the arena with all of these weird feelings he doesn’t understand buzzing under his skin. That’s fine. He’s dealing with it excellently. He and Sebastian leave the building behind and pick a direction and walk. It’s not that there was something wrong with the building or anything, but, well, the vibe was bad now. Hype didn’t want to be in there for any more time than strictly necessary.

Thus, walking. Even though Hype’s feet hurt from all of the walking yesterday. What else are they going to do, just sit around doing nothing? Maybe there’s something interesting out in the arena. Hype wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention yesterday.

They stay on the sidewalk, close to the buildings, just in case it starts raining acid again like last night. Hype likes his skin right where it is, thank you very much.

There’s not much to talk about, but Hype talks anyway. The arena is way too quiet. Hype can’t stand it for very long. Sebastian just warns him to keep his voice down.

It’s hard to tell how much time is passing, underneath nothing but orange sky and smog. Hype misses the sun.

When Thora stepped into the hovercraft yesterday morning, did she know that was the last time she would ever see the sun? Hype shakes the thought from his head and launches into a story about the time he got sick during a gymnastics competition and got last because of it.

Up ahead, there’s a shorter but larger building that breaks up the monotony of the streets. This building is even surrounded by grass. It’s very dead grass, but it’s still grass. There hasn’t been a lick of greenery in the whole arena. No trees or plants or anything. The whole place is just dead.

Hype knows that back home, if you go to the south where all of the quarries are, it kind of sucks. He knows things aren’t, like, great for the people who live and work near the quarries. His dad complains about them sometimes, says they’re so much harder to police, though he’s never really said why. But where Hype lives, there’s trees everywhere and fresh air and enough to go around. He’s never really had to go without before.

Which is why they stop to eat lunch outside of the new building. Tucked in an alcove, out of view of the street, they share the peanuts and the apple. It’s not enough, but Sebastian seems to know a lot more about rationing than Hype does. Hype doesn’t want to know why. He thinks it’ll just hurt him for no reason.

“We should check this place out,” Hype says, looking up at the building. It’s all white, or maybe it was in the past, nestled on top of a wide set of stairs.

“There could be something inside,” Sebastian says uncertainly.

“Exactly,” Hype says. “That’s why we should check it out.”

Sebastian looks up at the building for a moment and sighs. “Fine. But if we get attacked by monsters, I’m blaming you.”

“Deal.”

But first, more stairs. Hype’s feet hurt. He says as much to Sebastian, who says, “Yeah, they’ll do that.” Which is very unhelpful.

The doors at the front of the building are heavy and take several hard shoves before they swing open. Dust flies everywhere as fresh-ish air rushes inside, and Hype has to rub his eyes to clear them.

It looks like some kind of party venue. Like the expensive Peacekeeper galas his parents go to sometimes, when his mom wears floor-length dresses that sparkle in sunlight and his dad wears his special dress uniform. Hype went to one last year because his dad got an award for being really good at keeping the peace or something like that. He didn’t like wearing a stuffy suit, but he convinced his mom to let him wear a fun tie, so it wasn’t so bad.

This place looks a lot like that place, if everybody left very suddenly and then left it abandoned for fifty years. There’s circular tables scattered around, covered in aging white tablecloths and dinnerware. Hype sneezes from all of the dust.

“You ever been a party in a place like this?” Hype asks as he wanders between the tables. There’s more forks, if he wants to add to his collection. Other than that, he doesn’t seem much that would be of use. They could use the tablecloths as blankets, maybe.

“No,” Sebastian says. He’s on the left side of the room, looking down a hallway that splits off. “What else do you think is in here?”

“Let’s find out!” Hype exclaims, bounding over to him. This is kind of fun, actually. It’s like they’re intrepid adventurers, exploring new, unseen locales. Who knows what they might find if they look? “Hopefully there’s nothing that wants to kill us.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

They head off down the hallway. One door leads to what seems to be another, smaller venue, with different decorations. These ones are navy blue. Maybe they were having a funeral.

Are they having a funeral for Thora back home yet?

Hype freezes for a moment, shakes himself, and runs off for another door.

This one leads to an industrial kitchen. It’s huge. There’s tons of ovens and what was probably a walk-in freezer when this place had electricity. Or, well, Hype supposes that this place was actually built like this. So that walk-in freezer never had electricity. But it’s a lot more fun to imagine what happened to this place for it to end up like this.

“What kind of party do you they were having here?” Hype asks as they comb the kitchen meticulously for any kind of food.

“I don’t think anybody’s ever had a party here, kid,” Sebastian says. From Hype’s view, his whole left arm has disappeared into the cupboard he’s looking in. It looks like funny.

“No, I know that,” Hype says. “but, like, if they. What kind of party would it be?”

“Wedding, maybe,” Sebastian says. “Oh, I think I’ve got something.”

He pulls out a metal can. Hype can’t see the label from here, but he hopes it’s something good.

“Soup,” Sebastian says. “Non-perishable. We’re in business.”

“Nice!” Hype says. “Who do you think was getting married?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Use your imagination,” Hype commands. He opens a cabinet and finds stacks of ceramic plates inside. Well, he could throw those at someone, if it came down to it.

Sebastian sighs. “Well…it was probably a man and a woman.”

“That’s homophobic.”

“Well, sor-ry,” Sebastian says with a laugh. He’s looking inside the walk-in freezer now. “So it was two men then?”

“Or two women.” Hype opens another cabinet above the counters, but he’s too short to really see inside, so he clambers up onto the countertop for a better view. “I bet they were real happy together. Probably went somewhere really exciting for their honeymoon.”

“Their what?”

Hype pauses his rifling through the cabinets to look over his shoulder at Sebastian. He’s still in the walk-in freezer. “Their honeymoon? My parents spent a couple nights up in the mountains, I think. What did your parents do?”

“Well, my parents never got married,” Sebastian says. He emerges from the walk-in freezer empty-handed. “Nothing’s in there. Nothing that we want to eat, anyway.”

“Dang, I was hoping for ice cream,” Hype says. “Your parents aren’t married?”

“Nope,” Sebastian says.

Oh. Well, that’s okay. Plenty of people don’t get married. Hype’s not going to get married to any of his friends at school. (But he’s also not going to have a kid with them, so maybe it’s different. Hype doesn’t know. He’s just not really interested in all that stuff yet.)

They find a can of mushrooms in another cabinet and a jar of peaches in one of the ovens, for some reason. They move on in silence, wandering off down the hall and up the stairs. The second floor mostly contains offices with little of note in them, but they go through each anyway.

Hype continues to think about the couple who was getting married here. Who they would have been. What would have happened to them. Sebastian clearly wasn’t into it, so Hype does it all in his head.

It goes like this: their names were Jessamine and Amabel. They were having a big wedding with all of their family there. They were very happy and carefree and had no idea something terrible was about to happen to them. He’s not still sure what the something terrible was, but it must’ve been bad, because they all left in a hurry. He hopes they ended up okay.

Well, it’s his story. He’s the one making it up. So they did end up okay. Jessamine and Amabel escaped whatever terrible thing happened and lived happily ever after. They went to the mountains on their honeymoon and adopted a cat. And nothing bad ever happened to them ever again. Hype likes that idea.

By the time they finish going through all of the offices, it’s starting to get dark. They’re just about to leave and go look for another building to spend the night in when the rain starts to pour outside again.

“I guess we’re having a sleepover here,” Hype says.

“We’re having a sleepover no matter where we go,” Sebastian points out.

As they’re looking for a good place to spend the night, the anthem starts to ring through the arena. A projector slides seamlessly out of the wall, making both of them jump.

The first face is Pristine’s, followed by Stark’s. Hype closes his eyes when Thora’s face appears. Then, the girl from Four. Hype never got her name.

The anthem ends, and Sebastian, bizarrely, starts to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Hype says, startled. He’s glad he closed his eyes when Thora’s picture appeared. He doesn’t want to know what it looked it.

“Almost all the Careers are gone, bud,” Sebastian says between wheezes. “They all got fuckin’ melted last night. Jesus Christ, we might really have a shot at this after all.”

And at first Hype takes issue with Sebastian being thrilled about that, but then it hits him, too.

The Careers—the biggest threats, the scariest tributes, the ones who wanted to tear Hype to shreds—all but one of them are dead. The tributes Hype had the smallest chance of beating in a fight are gone. They can’t hurt him anymore.

He outlived them all. A grin splits Hype’s face at the thought. He outlived Stark and Pristine. They never even lived long enough to lose their minds. They died on the first night, the way the little twelve-year-olds usually do. And Hype’s still kicking.

Maybe there really is light at the end of the tunnel after all.

They find stairs up to the third floor and find themselves in a massive storage room. Hype immediately starts rummaging through all of the bins, but most of them are tragically empty. He does find a bunch of tablecloths, which he takes out to make a nest to sleep in. It’s getting very dark in here, though, and Hype has no idea what might be inside of the attic with them. There could be monsters lurking around every corner.

Wandering around in the dark using only a flashlight is starting to feel like he’s in one of those horror movies they play on tv late at night, and Hype isn’t scared of those at all, but he doesn’t want to live one out. So he makes his way back to Sebastian with his arms full of tablecloths.

Sebastian is sitting in one of the window alcoves, looking out over the street as the rain pours down. Hype shines the flashlight on his face, and he brings up a hand to block the light.

“Don’t shine that out the window,” Sebastian says, which Hype realizes is a good idea. He flicks the flashlight off, plunging them into almost total darkness. Hype reaches for Sebastian’s hand and ends up grabbing his wrist.

It’s okay to do it in the dark, because no one can see.

…

The rain lasts all night and doesn’t stop when morning comes. Hype’s not exactly complaining, because it gives them an excuse to stay inside all day and not walk around. He lounges in his nest of tablecloths, listening to the rain hit the roof and staring up at nothing, feeling maybe the best he has since the Games started. His hands aren’t shaking, his skin isn’t tingly. All things considered, he’s feeling fine. He isn’t even thinking about what happened the other night or how long it’s been since Thora died.

It’s alright, because the Careers got decimated and the tide is turning. The way he wins is starting to crystalize in his mind:

It goes like this: Hype and Sebastian wander for a few more days. The other tributes fight each other and die, or get caught in the rain and die. Without Careers in the arena, no one’s playing too aggressively or anything, so they just kind of coast until there’s no one else left. And then.

And then.

And then.

Hype stands up suddenly. “Can I teach you how to do a cartwheel?”

Sebastian, who was digging through a box until a second ago, looks up in confusion. “What?”

“I can do a cartwheel. You said that you can’t. So how about I show you how to do one?”

He really hopes Sebastian says yes. Because otherwise he’ll just have to sit there thinking about what’s going to happen when—

“Please?”

Sebastian stares at him for a moment. “Uh, sure. Why not?”

So they clear out a space on the floor. Hype demonstrates proper form and has Sebastian copy his starting position. After that…well, Hype’s not really sure where to go from there so he just does a cartwheel and tells Sebastian to do that. Sebastian shrugs and gives it a try.

And he falls on his ass and Hype laughs.

“I think you might be really bad at teaching,” Sebastian says through his own laughter.

“Nuh-uh, I’m a great teacher,” Hype says. “Maybe you’re a bad student.”

“Sure, sure,” Sebastian says, picking himself up off the floor. It’s starting to get dark outside, Hype notes. He wonders how all of that works, given that there doesn’t seem to be a sun in here.

“Try again,” Hype says. “Practice makes perfect.”

Sebastian tries again. He eats shit again. Hype laughs at him again.

“Think maybe I’m just not cut out for the gymnastics life like you are,” Sebastian says.

“You just have to keep trying,” Hype says.

“Nah, I think I’ve fallen on my ass enough for one day.” Sebastian returns to his seat in the window alcove.

Hype’s just about to retort when a cannon shatters the calm. Both of them jump. Hype suddenly remembers where they are. He looks down at his boots and shuts up.

In the quiet following the cannon, Hype realizes that the rain has stopped. But it’s almost dark, so there’s no point in going out right now. At least, Hype definitely doesn’t want to be wandering those streets in the dark. So, in the end, they decide to spend another night in the attic and move on in the morning.

The anthem startles Hype a little less this time. A boxy television balanced on top of a wardrobe nearby comes to life, showing the face of the boy from District Nine.

“Hey, we’re halfway there, right?” Sebastian says. “Twelve left. Not much further to go, huh?”

He means it as a good thing, clearly, but Hype can’t banish the thought of what happens when they get there. What if they’re the last two left? Hype won’t be able to beat Sebastian in a fight, and…well…

Sebastian said he didn’t want Hype to slow him down. That he didn’t him to be too scared before he died. He said nothing about Hype surviving. Of course, he didn’t. Sebastian wants to live too. Sebastian wants to make his last days easier, not help him win. If it comes down to it…

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Hype declares, grabbing the flashlight and getting to his feet. He keeps the knife from his backpack on him too, just in case. But with the rain like it’s been today, he doubts anybody has been out and about too much.

There’s a cramped little bathroom off of the storage room. The plumbing works, but nothing else does, which was very disappointing. Hype really wanted a shower.

Overhead, he hears the rain start up again. He hopes it quits by morning. As nice as it was to have a break today, he’s starting to feel antsy, staying in this building. Hype’s not one for staying in one place for very long.

When he reemerges from the bathroom, there’s a weird sound coming from the window where he left Sebastian. A scuffling, rustling sound. He peers around a pile of storage bins and sees the silhouette of two people wrestling around below the window.

Hype doesn’t know what comes over him. He just sees that someone is trying to hurt his friend, and he charges.

Hype throws every ounce of muscle in his body into shoving the tribute on top of Sebastian away from him. The tribute, whoever it is, clearly doesn’t expect it, because he hears the sound of their weapon hitting ground and they go tumbling backward, right into the window.

No, right through the window. It shatters on impact, and the tribute goes crashing outside. Hype hears them scream, either because of the rain or the fall or both, and few seconds later there’s a loud, sickening crunch. A cannon fires.

Hype backs away from the window, staring blankly at the shattered glass, as Sebastian catches his breath. He sits up, rubbing his wrists, and looks right at Hype. “That was the boy from Four,” he says, like he’s still trying to process it. “You just killed the boy from Four.”

“No, no, I didn’t,” Hype whispers. “He fell.”

“You pushed him.”

“He fell.”

Sebastian sighs. “Okay, kid, he fell. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine…” Hype’s still staring at the window, where the boy from Four just was a few moments ago. But he’s not there. He looks down at his hands, hands that just pushed—no, no, he fell. Hype didn’t do it. Hype’s not that kind of person. He’s not the kind of person who sees something bad happens and reacts with violence. He’s never been that kind of person. He doesn’t like hurting people. “Are you—are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. “Think you got here just in time. You saved my life.”

And Hype, bizarrely, thinks who’s a capable and worthwhile ally now?

“Let’s—let’s move to a different spot,” Sebastian suggests. “Get away from all of this broken glass.”

“Okay,” Hype says. He gathers up the tablecloths and drags them away from the window. They settle into a different area of the storage room. Sebastian drags a dresser in front of the door and makes a half-assed joke about hoping there isn’t a fire. Hype can’t find it in himself to laugh.

He just sits on the ground, looking down at his hands. Hype’s hands are made for making shadow puppets, doing flips on the parallel bars, and giving high-fives. He doesn’t think he’s ever intentionally used his hands to hurt someone before. Even when he was a little kid, he didn’t hit when he was angry. Hype was always a good kid. A little annoying, a little talkative, but a fundamentally good kid. He was nice to everyone and defended his friends when someone was mean to them.

He uses “was” because he doesn’t think it can be true anymore. Hype killed someone today with his own bare hands. Even if he didn’t mean to. He still did it. He saw someone trying to hurt his friend and his first thought was I should shove him so hard he dies.

Sebastian takes up his vigil in another window alcove again, and Hype tries to sleep. In the dark, he’s sure Sebastian can’t see him staring at him, just wondering if this changes anything. Does Sebastian still see him as a little kid, a lost cause, a pitiable thing?

Hype is seized by the necessity of knowing that. Curled up in his tablecloths, he mumbles, “You know, I heard you talking to Zaina the other night.”

“Huh?”

“After the interviews,” Hype says. “I came to see you and heard you telling Zaina what you really thought of me.”

For a moment, the only thing to be heard is the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. Then, Sebastian clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Hype jumps. That wasn’t what he expected at all. “You’re sorry?” he says, trying to make sense of it.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. “I didn’t know you were there. And I…well, things change, you know? You just saved my life.”

“What do you mean, things change?”

Sebastian sighs again. Hype wishes he could see his face. “I just…you’ve surprised me, alright?

Hype smiles. “Oh, yeah? How much have I surprised me?”

“Well, now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

Hype laughs. “Am not.”

“I, uh…I meant what I said, though, about not wanting to see anything bad happen to you,” Sebastian says. “I don’t know how the next few days are going to shake out but hopefully, I’ll get the chance to return the favor. You know, we’ll just go back and forth, saving each other’s lives until…”

Sebastian trails off, and Hype’s sure he’s thinking about the same thing Hype’s been thinking about all day. The and then what of it all.

Hype hopes he never has to find out.

(But at the same time, what happens if he doesn’t? Hype knows he is nothing without Sebastian by his side. He’s made it this far because Sebastian saved his life in the bloodbath, Sebastian knows how to ration, Sebastian can lift heavy things and make plans and figure things out. Sebastian always knows what to do. Hype is hit that familiar sense of terror at the thought of doing this all alone.)

“Why do you care about that?” Hype asks. “The spark in my eyes or whatever you said.”

Sebastian is silent. Hype can see his silhouette shifting around in the dark. Fidgeting. “When I was nine, I watched a Peacekeeper shoot my dad dead in the street,” Sebastian says, and Hype freezes. A Peacekeeper shot Sebastian’s dad? Was Sebastian’s dad a criminal? Oh, god, is Sebastian a criminal?

“What did he do?” Hype asks, almost afraid to know. Sebastian’s dad must’ve been a bad guy if the Peacekeepers killed him. Hype’s dad says executions are only for the real bad criminals, like the murderers and the rebels and stuff.

“My dad? Nothin’,” Sebastian says, shaking his head. “Nothin’ at all.”

“That’s not how it works,” Hype says. “The Peacekeepers wouldn’t just kill him over nothing. He must have committed a crime or something.”

Sebastian scoffs. “I was standing right next to him. A Peacekeeper convoy was coming down the road, and Dad didn’t get out of the way fast enough. I guess they took that as a challenge or something, because one of the Peacekeepers dragged him off and shot him dead.”

Hype jerks at Sebastian’s words. There’s no way that’s true. Hype’s dad is a Peacekeeper, and he’s a good man. He helps people and keeps everybody safe. He won an award. Hype is sure his dad wouldn’t be a part of an organization that was doing stuff like that. Sebastian must be lying, or he must just be wrong. Yes, he’s just wrong. Sebastian wouldn’t lie.

“No, that couldn’t be,” Hype says. “My dad’s a Peacekeeper. He wouldn’t let anything like that happen. I know all his friends too, and they wouldn’t do something like that. Your dad—your dad must’ve done something wrong.”

“I get that it’s different where you’re from.” Sebastian sighs. “Peacekeepers don’t gun people down in the streets where you’re from. I get that. We just come from very different worlds, pal.”

“Do you…” Hype swallows. “Do you think my dad’s killed people?”

Please say no. He needs Sebastian to say no.

“I—I don’t know, Hype. Maybe.”

Hype sucks in a harsh breath and grabs fistfuls of tablecloth, trying to force himself to accept it immediately. His dad, who laughs at stupid puns and helps Hype fix his toys when he breaks them, might have killed people. Innocent people.

He reaches for Sebastian’s hand. Sebastian meets him halfway. He squeezes, and Sebastian squeezes back.

“I…my dad wants me to be a Peacekeeper,” Hype says. “When I grow up.”

Sebastian goes still and quiet. Hype watches him nervously, waiting for him to say something. When he doesn’t, Hype prompts, “Sebastian?”

“Don’t,” Sebastian whispers. “Don’t let him do that.”

“What?”

“You’re a good kid, Hype,” Sebastian says with conviction. “Don’t become something you’re not.”

Hype scoffs, almost hysterically. In Sebastian’s world, the Peacekeepers murder people for doing nothing. How is that any better than what Hype just did? He’s a killer, just like his brother and his dad. Maybe it’s just in his blood. “I might as well become a Peacekeeper!” he exclaims. “I already killed people, didn’t I? Innocent people.”

Thora didn’t do anything. Thora might have just been looking for help. Hype takes in another harsh breath and turns away from Sebastian.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to, like, shatter your worldview, or whatever. I was just—just—”

“Just what?” Hype snaps.

“When I watched my dad die, I grew up,” Sebastian says intensely. “Some part of me stopped being a kid that day and I never went back. Every part of me changed that day. I saw my dad’s head burst open and his brain all over the sidewalk. I couldn’t just go back to playing with toys after that. And when I met you in that stairwell, you reminded me of myself so much that I just didn’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want you to ever know what it’s like.”

It takes Hype a moment to put together a coherent thought. “That won’t…that’s never gonna happen to me,” he declares, even though he thinks it might already be. “I don’t want it to.”

“I didn’t want it to happen to me either, buddy,” Sebastian says. He sounds very tired. Maybe they should go to bed. It’s been a weird, long day. “We don’t get much of a choice about these things.”

Hype’s getting awfully familiar with having no choice about things.

…

The rain’s gone by morning, so they head out. Hype eats the jar of peaches as they walk, because why not?

It’s to tell which direction they should walk in, because every direction seems the same. The streets and buildings just seem to go on forever, scarce few landmarks to tell where they’ve already been. Hype spends a lot of time looking up as they wander, noticing that occasionally, there’s wire or rope or something hanging between two buildings. Maybe they were clotheslines, once upon a time? Hype wouldn’t hang clothes on them. It actually makes him think of ziplines. He’s never been on a zipline, but man does he want to. If he gets out here, he’s going to get on a zipline. There’s got to be one in the Capitol that he can ride.

They walk in silence. Hype keeps trying to come up with conversation topics, but his thoughts snag on things he doesn’t want to talk about. He keeps thinking about Peacekeepers and dead dads and dead cats and dead kids. He keeps feeling the weight of the Four boy’s body moving as Hype pushed him, keeps hearing the crunch of the tv hitting Thora’s head. Keeps imagining what it looked like when Sebastian’s dad was shot in the head on the street.

At some point during the day, a cannon fires. It’s hard to tell exactly what time of day it is, because there’s nothing but burnt orange sky overhead. It’s a little chilly outside, probably just cold enough that they keep their coats on. If Hype gave a bunch of people cool leather coats, he would disappointed if they all took them off.

But man, he wants a shower. He’s not sure what all of the crap in the air is, but it’s clinging to his skin like he’s been rolling in the dirt again. Except there’s no dirt to roll in and Hype knows better nowadays. There’s just blood and smog. He wipes at his face again, as if the Seven boy’s blood could possibly still be there.

It’s not evening when they decide to call it a day, but they’re both tired. Hype picks a building—he picks this one because it’s got one of those wires hanging from one of the windows, and he wants to imagine going ziplining—and they start up the stairs. They only go a couple flights up, because they’re both tired as fuck and the arena has been nothing but dead and silent all day.

They tuck themselves into another, slightly larger apartment, blocking themselves into the master bedroom. It’s even got a balcony, though they avoid going out there for obvious reasons. The rain never starts up on this night, which makes Sebastian nervous.

“It might mean that people will be about,” he explains.

“We’ve run into people twice during the rain before,” Hype points out.

“I know,” Sebastian says. “It just…it makes me nervous. It’s a deviation from the routine. Makes me think something is coming.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Sebastian snaps. He’s standing by the glass doors onto the balcony, staring out at the arena and the darkening sky. “I’ve just…got a bad feeling, is all.”

Hype fidgets on the bed for a moment. There’s got to be something he can do to reassure Sebastian that everything will be okay. “We’re pretty safe here, though, aren’t we?” he says. “We’re all barricaded in ‘n everything, but we can get out through the balcony if we need to.”

He gestures to the dresser they pulled in front of the door. It’s a heavy sucker. Hype definitely couldn’t move it on his own. He feels pretty safe with it there.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. “I guess.”

But he doesn’t move away from the window. So Hype has to change tactics. “Do you want to see me do a handstand?”

He gets up, prepared to do it right now, but Sebastian waves him away. “Not right now, buddy.”

“Oh. Okay,” Hype says. “You’re really that worried?”

“Yes, I am,” Sebastian says. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep and I’ll keep watch for a while? I’ll wake you if anyone happens.”

“…okay,” Hype says hesitantly. He curls up on the bed, wearing his boots and coat and everything. You never know when you might need to haul ass in a hurry.

The tv crackles to life as Hype lays down, showing the face of the girl from District Five. Hype just squints at it and curls up tighter.

But he doesn’t sleep. He tries, for sure. But it’s dark and quiet and Sebastian’s presence isn’t as comforting as it usually is. He thinks Sebastian might right. It does feel like something bad is about to happen. Or maybe Sebastian’s anxiety has just infected Hype. That could also be it. Fifty-fifty, really.

At least, that’s what he thinks until he starts to hear…something. It’s not the sound of a human, he’s pretty sure. It sounds more like a…dog, or something, sniffing around. Hype opens his eyes and looks over at Sebastian, who’s sitting down by the balcony now.

“Sebastian?” he whispers. “Do you hear that?”

Sebastian jerks upright. Oh, crap, was he asleep? Maybe Hype did actually fall asleep after all. How late is it?

“What?” Sebastian says.

“Do you hear that?” Hype repeats. The sniffling sound is louder now. Like whatever is making that noise is getting closer. Hype gets to his feet. Maybe Sebastian had a point about the vibes being bad tonight or whatever.

“Get on the balcony,” Sebastian says, wrenching open the glass door. At the same as he does, something heavy crashes into the door, making the dresser jerk. Hype doesn’t need to be told twice; he snatches up his backpack, checks his knife is still in his pocket, and hurries out onto the balcony.

The thing on the other side of the wall, whatever it is, crashes into the door again. The dresser skids out a little further. Sebastian stands between Hype and the door, brandishing his axe in a trembling hand. Hype looks over the edge of the balcony. He thinks they went up eight flights of stairs, but he could be misremembering. Regardless, way too many to jump. The Four boy died from just three.

Sebastian slides the glass door shut again as the creature slams into the door again. This time, Hype can see the wood start to splinter. He looks around them, and in the dim light, he can just make out the wire he noticed earlier, connected to a balcony two floors below them.

Hype can get there. He doesn’t know what they’re going to do once they get there, but he’s sure they can come up with something.

“Come on!” Hype exclaims, climbing up onto the balcony railing. He jumps to the next balcony, not quite clearing its railing. He tumbles over it, skinning his hands on the concrete. But he picks himself up immediately and turns back to look at Sebastian.

“Are you insane?” Sebastian cries.

“Come on!” Hype repeats. “Where else are you going to go?”

He turns and jumps to the next balcony. It’s not that big of a jump, at least for him. This time, he makes it over the railing, landing in a heap on the ground. A loud crash resounds behind him, and he looks back in time to see the creature scrabbling against the glass door, at the same time as Sebastian jumps to the next balcony. He doesn’t make it as far as Hype does, ending up clinging to the railing and clambering over it, but he makes it.

Hype looks down. He can the wire almost directly below him now. Just one balcony over, two down. That’s not so bad. The jump to the next balcony goes the best. He even lands on his feet this time, like a cat.

“Where are we going?” Sebastian yells to him, still a balcony behind him.

“Down!” Hype shouts. He climbs over the railing again and starts to lower himself down toward the one directly below him. He’s going to have to let himself drop a few feet and angle it carefully so he doesn’t land on the railing. Can’t be that hard.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Sebastian says, presumably at the sight of what Hype’s doing now.

Just as Hype is about to let go of the balcony above him and drop, the creature bursts into the room he’s right next to. It startles him so bad he lets go on instinct and narrowly manages to avoid falling right off of the balcony. He scrambles to his feet as the creature slams against the glass door, barely paying it a glance before he’s climbing down to the next one. It’s big and dark, but he can’t pick out any more features in the low light.

Sebastian appears on the other side of the balcony, hanging by his arms. He’s probably actually having an easier time doing this. His arms and legs are much longer. God, what Hype wouldn’t give to just be a little more grown up.

“Hype, this is insane,” Sebastian says.

“Do you have any other ideas?” Hype says. He starts to lower himself down onto the last balcony, the wire right below him. He drops on his own terms this time, and there’s no narrow miss. And now…he’s here. He’s got the wire. He’s just…got to figure out what to do with it.

It connects to a streetlamp down on the road, which Hype hadn’t even noticed until now. It’s not like the streetlamps give off any light.

“What are we doing?” Sebastian says, dropping onto the balcony beside him. “Why did you stop?”

Hype stares at the wire for a moment, then looks into the bedroom. He spies his prize in the open closet and tears the door open to get it.

“Wait—” Sebastian exclaims, but Hype goes right past him. He hurries into the room and snatches up two metal hangers from the closet. He’s going to get his dream.

“Here,” Hype says, shoving one of the hangers into Sebastian’s hand. “Have you ever been ziplining?”

“No?!”

“Me neither!” Hype cries as he hooks the hanger on the wire and jumps. The metal-on-metal leaves a trail of sparks in his wake as he zooms down the wire, hands clenched around the hanger, massive grin on his face. It’s pretty much the coolest thing Hype has ever done.

He lets go a little early, wary of hitting the lamppost, so he falls a bit. But he doesn’t break his legs or anything, so Hype counts it as a win.

“Come on, Sebastian!” Hype yells up into the sky. “You can do it!”

A moment later, a shower of sparks starts, signaling that Sebastian is on his way down. “Yes!” Hype cheers, pumping his fist.

Sebastian lands even less gracefully than Hype did, which is saying something. Hype just rushes up to him and helps him up.

“That was awesome!” Hype exclaims. “Wasn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever done?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s keep moving,” Sebastian says, ushering Hype away from the building with the monster inside, which is a good idea that did not occur to him. Staying away from the dog-creature-thing is a good plan.

They run for a block or two, until Sebastian is satisfied that they’ve left the creature behind. They rest under an awning in front of a store, and Hype notices that it’s slowly starting to get lighter outside.

“Should we find—” he starts to say, but before he can finish, Sebastian shoves him to the ground. As Hype hits the concrete, he hears Sebastian cry out in pain and rolls over to see him clutching his shoulder. Looking around wildly for the source of Sebastian’s injury, he sees a figure standing in the doorway of the storefront. A tribute.

Hype scrambles to get his knife at the same time as he scrambles to his feet, but the tribute—he’s pretty sure it’s a girl—blows by him, knocking him back to the ground. Hype swears as the girl slams into Sebastian, sending both of them to the concrete.

The girl’s got a long knife over her head, which she’s about to bring down on Sebastian, who’s thrashing around underneath her. Hype is struck by how easily they swapped places. Except he doesn’t have an axe. He’s just got a little knife and a bunch of forks in his backpack.

So Hype charges the girl and shoves her as she brings down her blade. She goes careening to the left, and for a moment, Hype thinks it’s all worked out. But then Sebastian screams, and the girl cries out, and Hype can’t figure out what’s happening.

Before he can figure it out, the girl is turning tail and running, clutching at her thigh, and Sebastian—

Holy fuck.

Hype drops his knife in horror as he stares down at his friend. The girl’s knife did hit home after all, just not the place she was aiming for. It hit Sebastian in the juncture of his shoulder, and it sunk in so deep his arm is nearly severed. Hype’s going to be sick.

Oh, yep. Hype doubles over and vomits all over the ground. Sebastian writhes, making these awful noises of pain, and Hype wants to run. He wants to run so, so far away from all of this, from all of the blood and the screaming and the dying.

Because Sebastian is dying. Blood is gushing from his shoulder, and Hype doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to go home. He—he—

“Sebastian,” Hype says desperately, dropping to his knees beside his friend. “What do I—what do I? Oh my god, what do I do?”

Sebastian’s other hand clutches at Hype’s shirt, smearing more blood on his sweater. You’re—you’re supposed to put something on wounds, right? To staunch the blood flow? Hype whips off his leather coat, balls it up as much as he can, and tries to press it against Sebastian’s shoulder. But Sebastian screams again and wrenches away from him.

“Sebastian, Sebastian, it’s me, it’s Hype!” Hype says. “I’m trying to help you—”

In the early morning light, Hype can see tears trickling down Sebastian’s face. He looks so scared, and so pained, and Hype can’t fix it. He can’t fucking fix it.

Sebastian’s lips are moving, but Hype can’t make out what he’s saying. “Speak—speak up,” he says, because Sebastian must be trying to tell him what to do. He must know what Hype should do to save him. He has to know how to fix this. He has to know how to fix this.

“I don’t wanna die,” Sebastian says. “I don’t—I don’t wanna die. I wanna go home—I want my—”

His hand is clutching at Hype’s sweater again, and the coat isn’t doing anything. There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. On his hands, on his clothes, written into his very soul. Hype is never going to be clean of it. He knows that now for certain.

“Sebastian, don’t leave me,” Hype says. “Please, I need you. I can’t do this without you. I don’t know what I’m doing. If you die I’m gonna die too. Please.”

“I want my mom,” Sebastian mumbles, and then he stops moving so much, and Hype can’t have that. He shakes Sebastian as hard as he can, but he doesn’t stir, doesn’t so much as make a sound. But his—his eyes are open. He can’t be dead. His eyes are open. The orange sky is reflecting off of them.

The cannon shot barely registers to Hype’s ears.

“Sebastian,” Hype says. “Don’t go. Please, god, don’t go. I need you. I need you. I need you. Please.”

It goes like this: blood on his hands and ash in his stomach.

…

Hype thought he knew hate. He thought he hated being too cold and itchy sweaters and doing homework. He thought he hated the neighbor boys for ganging up against him in soccer games. He thought he hated Stark for being mean, hated Severin for dooming him to this, hated Cassander for dooming him too.

But Hype hasn’t known hate. Not really. Not until now.

He hates the girl who killed Sebastian. He hates her more than he’s ever hated anything. He thinks he hates her more than he loves anything. He thinks he’s never felt anything at all up until this moment.

Hype is no friend of anger. Usually, when something bad happens to him, he gets sad, not angry. He’s never felt anger like this before. Righteous, vitriolic, poised to take over every part of him. Angry at the girl for killing Sebastian, angry at himself for being unable to fix it, angry at the world for putting them all here. The way it flares white hot in his chest and clouds his thoughts is foreign to him. All of this anger is boiling inside of him and he has nowhere to put it.

Well. He has one place to put it.

The girl was bleeding when she fled. All Hype has to do is follow the trail.

He finds her huddled inside of an apartment lobby, trying to bandage up the wound in her leg. He recognizes her. It’s the girl from Three. Meara. The girl who didn’t want anything to do with him.

Hype doesn’t care. She killed Sebastian. She’s going to die.

All he feels is anger, and grief, and anger.

She looks up when he enters, dropping her roll of bandages. But when she sees who it is, she relaxes a little. She’s not scared of him. Good.

He watches it all play out on her face, as he approaches, wielding Sebastian’s axe. Sees the moment she realizes what he’s here for.

It doesn’t end up even being a fight. Hype marches up to her and swings the axe at her chest. She screams, and Hype brings it down again.

“I hate you,” he says, and then he turns and runs.

…

A cannon fires not long after. Hype keeps waiting to feel terrible about it. At any second, all of the guilt and horror and everything will come back, just like he felt when he killed Thora and the boy from Four. He almost wants it to come back, because then he would know that he hasn’t just changed forever.

But he does know that. He knows that nothing is ever going to be the same again. And that terrifies him to his core. It makes his hands shake and his skin buzz and his palms clammy. It makes his bones ache with the knowledge that he can never, ever go back.

He understands what Sebastian was talking about now. About growing up.

Hype was never in much of a hurry to grow up. His dad wanted him to be a Peacekeeper, and Hype wasn’t exactly clamoring to do that for forty years. The whole idea of growing up seemed kind of scary to him, actually—the idea of being totally responsible for himself, getting a real job, no longer playing with toys. He’d already started on that last one, but he didn’t think he was growing up yet. He wasn’t going to grow up until he turned eighteen, and then it would happen, and Hype would be an adult. That was the way he understood it, at least.

He’s rethinking the whole thing now. Maybe you don’t grow up at some set point in your life. Maybe everyone grows up at different times. Some people grow up at eighteen, but others grow up at twenty-five when they have a baby or at thirty when their mom dies or never.

Some people grow up at twelve when they stab someone in the stomach and hate them so much it makes them happy.

He runs until he exhausts himself, and then he runs some more. Eventually, he tucks himself away in another apartment, high enough up that no sounds can reach him. When he looks out the window, he sees nothing but gray buildings and orange sky. He wonders if his mom is watching right now.

He settles on the bed, looking down at all of the drying blood on his hands, his clothes, his face. It’s everywhere. It’s a part of him now, he thinks.

Hype reaches for—no. No, wait. Hype isn’t right. Hype…isn’t him. Not anymore. Hype is a name that belongs to a golden-haired child who smiles and laughs and wonders without a care in the world. It’s the name of the little boy who was Reaped but so naively thought nothing would ever come of it. It’s the name of the little boy who wouldn’t cry because big kids don’t cry and he was a big kid. It’s the name of the little boy who rose into the arena on trembling legs and the name of the little boy who gleefully ziplined away from a monster, but now—

It’s not the name of whatever took his place. The thing that is blood-covered, clawing, biting, scratching screaming writhing to stay alive. He doesn’t know what he is now, but he’s not a little kid. He can’t be, anymore. Somewhere along the line, Hyperion grew up. Somewhere in the between the clawing and the biting and the scratching screaming writhing, he turned down a path he can’t untread.

Maybe it was when the boy from Seven pinned him down in the bloodbath and Sebastian cleaved off half of his face. Maybe it was when Hyperion pushed the boy from Four out a window like it was nothing. Maybe it was when Sebastian died and it all became so very real.

Or maybe it was when Hyperion stabbed the girl from Three and changed everything forever.

Hyperion puts his head in his hands and cries. He’s not a big kid or a little kid or any kind of kid now. He’s not a grown up either. He’s not big enough or smart enough or brave enough. But a month ago, Hyperion was sitting in his backyard playing war with his action figures. He doesn’t know how, but he knows he’ll never be able to do that again.

So he cries. Because he can. Because it doesn’t matter anymore. Because he’s never been more scared or more alone or more grown up. And he wants his mom more than ever.

When Sebastian died, he asked for his mother. Hyperion stares out at the orange sky and wonders about her. Does she look like him? Did Sebastian get her eyes, her hair, her smile? Hyperion has his mom’s hair, but she’s always said his smile is brighter than hers. She loves him, more than anything. That’s what she always says.

How much did Sebastian’s mother love him?

…

Hyperion stays there a long time. The day after Sebastian dies, he doesn’t eat, barely sleeps, just sits in the blood crusted sheets and stares at nothing. He has no idea what to do now. He wasn’t lying when he told Sebastian he couldn’t do this without him. Hyperion has absolutely no idea where to go, what to do, how to survive. He had just been following Sebastian’s lead this whole time.

But Sebastian’s gone now. Hyperion is never going to see him again.

The rain returns, and a cannon comes along with it. Hyperion barely even notices. The tv across the room comes to life in the dark, and Hyperion turns to look at it. A face appears and disappears before he registers whose it was. Not that it matters. He doesn’t have anything to do with any of the tributes left, whoever they are.

It gets very dark that night. Hyperion turns the flashlight on and tries to make shadow puppets. He makes a fox, a bunny, an elephant. He makes a butterfly that introduces itself as Stephen. But the room around him is eerily silent and he’s all alone. There’s no one around to laugh at his puppets, and Hyperion finds they don’t entertain him like they did a few days ago.

He can’t sleep, so he gets up and walks laps around the room. He even does some cartwheels, and his form is perfect, but it doesn’t help. He does a handstand, and then remembers that he never got to show that to Sebastian, and then he feels weird. Partly because it makes him sad, but partly because he thinks it’s weird he ever cared about that.

Is that part of growing up? No longer caring about the things you love? He’ll have to ask his dad.

Hyperion wants to go home. He wants to go home so badly he can feel it in his chest, like a physical ache. He misses the sun. He misses his mom.

He thinks about his friends while he’s lying there. Achillea and Atreus and Corielle and Perseus and Diana and all the rest. He has so many friends. Are they watching him right now? What do they think?

Are they scared of him? Yesterday Hyperion slashed the chest of a girl scarcely older than himself until she died. If he were back home, like he should be, and had to watch Perseus or Diana do that, it would have scared him. He doesn’t think it would scare him now. After all, he did it.

And the fact that he did it is terrifying, but Hyperion feels oddly numb to it. He remembers on the first day of the Games, when he and Sebastian were fleeing into the city, he felt disconnected from his body. He had come so close to death and cheated it somehow. Nothing had felt until everything felt real.

This is a little like that, but not quite. Hyperion doesn’t know what to call it. He just knows that it’s bad, but he also thinks it’s better than the alternative. He could be feeling everything intensely, the way he used to. He could be scrambling to avoid thinking about it with no one to talk to anymore. Now, he just lies there and thinks about it and thinks about it and thinks about it and thinks about it and.

Hyperion hates it here. He can say that for certain, because he knows what hate feels like now. He’s never hated a place more than the arena, and he never will, even if he gets out of here somehow.

He thinks a second day passes while he’s nestled in the apartment, high in the sky. No cannons fire, but at some point it gets dark again and the anthem plays.

There’s only a few of them left now. He lost count of how many a while ago. Sebastian was better at keeping track than he was. Sebastian was better at a lot of things than he was. His absence is another physical ache in Hyperion’s body, sitting in his stomach along the rock that never left.

He only knew him for, like, two weeks, but it may as well have been a lifetime. Hyperion sure feels like he aged a lifetime since meeting Sebastian.

He just stays in that room partly because he has no idea what to do now. But he knows he can’t stay there forever. Either he leaves, or something will come along to make him leave. Which is why on the third morning in this apartment, Hyperion hauls himself to his feet and sluggishly begins to gather his things. He has no idea what he’s going to do when he gets down to the ground, but he’s sure he can figure something out.

Typically he’s pretty good at figuring things out. Until Sebastian is bleeding out and then he becomes a stupid kid who knows nothing.

There has to have been something he could have done. Some way that he could have saved Sebastian. There’s always a way out, right? No one is unsavable. If only he was smarter, if only he was older, if only if only if only if only if only.

Hyperion leans against the railing in the darkdarkdark stairwell and puts his head in his hands. Maybe the only person who should take more blame for Sebastian’s death than Meara is Hyperion. He bets that if Cassander were in that position, he would have known how to fix it.

The thought of Cassander makes something turn in Hyperion’s stomach. He keeps walking.

When he makes it to the ground, nothing has changed. The city is still and silent. The sky is orange. There is no glimmer of the sun. The only thing that has changed is that Hyperion is alone, like he was always going to be. No matter what happened, one of them was going to end up alone. Even if they were the last two alive, only one of them could make it.

Hyperion is going to survive now, because Sebastian didn’t. Sebastian didn’t want to die for him. He cared about him, he wanted to protect him, but Hyperion knows that Sebastian didn’t sacrifice himself for him. Sebastian wanted to live. He said so himself.

He should have done more. He should have done more. He should have done more.

He didn’t even apologize for not being able to save him, for not knowing enough, for being too young and inexperienced and dependent. No, all he did was beg Sebastian to stay because he needed him. Selfish. Stupid.

Hyperion presses the heels on his hands into his eyes and tries to breathe. Blood is still flaking off of his skin. He didn’t have the water to spare to clean himself off. It’s everywhere. In his hair, on his face, splattered on his shoes. Everywhere.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, and he thinks he sounds old. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m going to survive.”

He is. He will. He doesn’t want to die. So somehow, against all odds, against all past data and experience and everything, he’s going to do it.

Hyperion will be nothing if not a surprise to everybody.

…

It goes like this: near the Cornucopia, there’s a street with a bunch of awnings on it. They zigzag back and forth along the street, some made of cloth, others of glass or brick. Hyperion approaches the abandoned Cornucopia and picks through the boxes until he’s certain he has every bit of rope in the arena, and then he gets to work.

The gymnastics school back in Two always felt like his home away from home. Hyperion isn’t sure it will when he goes back there, but it’s a fond memory, at least. He knew that ropes course like the back of his hand. If he’s going to get out of here, he’s going to need two things: a way to evade his enemies, and a way to tire them out.

He won’t beat them in combat if they’re at their best. He doesn’t remember who else is left in the arena with him, but he knows they’re all bigger and older than him.

So it’ll go like this: Hyperion will lure them to the ropes course, then escape into it. While he’s zigzagging around, the other tribute will hopefully chase him but be unable to catch him. Hyperion just has to evade them for long enough to get the drop on them, and then bam. Back home. Out of this hellhole.

It can’t be that hard. He would actually love for it to be very easy.

While he works, putting all those knot tying skills to good use, a pair of cannons ring out back-to-back. Hyperion looks up at the orange sky and nods. This is good. Two less to go.

He finds his first victim the next morning. He spends the night camped out by his ropes course, making sure no notices it. The night is just as still and empty as all of the ones to come before it. There isn’t even any rain. Hyperion would like to think it’s because everybody really, really wants to see if he’s going to pull this scheme off.

Armed with Sebastian’s axe and a dozen bad ideas, Hyperion approaches Huntley a block or so over from his trap. He remembers talking to him during training. His name is Huntley, he thinks, and he was polite. It doesn’t matter now. Hyperion is getting out of here, and Huntley isn’t.

Huntley looks like he’s had a bad couple of days, much like Hyperion imagines he must. Hyperion tries not to think about that. He tries not to imagine what must have happened to the other tributes. Tries not to think about them as anything but targets he has to get rid of.

It shouldn’t be hard. He’s done it plenty already. He just needs to find someone of that anger, and he conjures it up without even really having to try.

“Hey!” Huntley shouts. “Oh my god, you’re still alive?”

Hyperion tries to give a good performance; as in, when Huntley spots him, he tries to look very scared and startled so it makes sense when he takes off running. That’s certainly not hard. Hyperion doesn’t know that he’s ever going to stop feeling scared. That might just be a part of him now.

He tries to run fast, but not so fast that he loses Huntley. As he runs, he looks over his shoulder and sees that Huntley is chasing after him. Nailed it. So far, so good. Not that he’s done any of the hard part, but he’s still happy. Hyperion has to take wins wherever he can get them.

He rounds the corner onto the street with his ropes course, clambering up the side of a building onto one of the awnings. Once he’s there, he stops a moment to catch his breath, waiting for Huntley to arrive. A few seconds later, Huntley rounds the corner as well, stopping short as he looks up at Hyperion’s creation.

“What the fuck?” he says.

Hyperion laughs, but the sound sounds wrong in his ears. Different, somehow. “Why don’t you come up here and find out?”

Huntley glares at him. “Maybe I will.”

So Hyperion moves his ass out onto the ropes crossing the street. His knots hold well, tight enough that he can sit on the net he made. He has to say, he didn’t think the most useful thing that would come out of training was learning to tie complicated knots, but here he is.

Huntley tries to climb up by standing on one of the lampposts, then jumping onto the awning. It works a little bit, in that he gets his hands around the awning and starts to pull himself up. Wow, he’s actually got pretty good upper core strength. Hyperion is briefly struck by the reminder that he tried to ally with this guy.

It goes like this—

No, that’s pointless. Hyperion’s got bigger problems right now.

The ropes course is designed to hold up Hyperion’s weight, not anybody else’s. He made sure that he could cross it without it collapsing underneath him, but he has no idea how it’ll go for someone twice his size. Not wanting to be there if it breaks, he scrambles backwards off to the net onto the next awning.

It looks like the net is going to hold Huntley’s weight, but that’s probably going to be the least of the Twelve boy’s problems. He’s crawling across the net, clearly regretting his decisions, as Hyperion tries to plan his next move. He’s not sure that Huntley will follow him across the next net; if he were Huntley, he definitely wouldn’t do it. But he’s Hyperion, and somehow he’s figured out what he’s doing. Like, a little bit.

Because Huntley lobs what turns out to be a brick at Hyperion’s chest when he’s halfway across the net, and the plan is starting to seem a little shortsighted now. For one thing, getting hit in the chest with a brick fucking hurts. The impact knocks him over, and he’s starting to think he’s absolutely fucked because Huntley is getting closer and he can’t catch his breath, when Huntley swears and something clatters to the ground.

Hyperion blinks a few times and realizes that Huntley fell through the net. The ropes tightened around his calf as he fell, and he’s suspended upside down a few feet off of the ground.

For a moment, he just stares at the Twelve boy as he swears colorfully, trying to reach the ropes around his leg and failing. Then, he drops off of the awning and onto the ground, hand braced against his chest where it hurts.

Yes, this is exactly what he meant to happen. The plan worked out perfectly. Good work, Hyperion.

He approaches Huntley with Sebastian’s axe in hand. But as he does, he’s seized by that familiar childlike fear. Huntley is trapped and unarmed. When he sees Hyperion coming, he says, “Wait, wait! Don’t—don’t. Please.”

And Hyperion is trapped, too, just in a different way. If he doesn’t kill Huntley, Huntley might kill him. He has to die if Hyperion is going home, and he is. He’s finally come far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, finally gotten lucky enough to get this far. He has to see it through. But his hand holding the axe starts to shake, and he wants to run and hide. He wants to cling to his mother and never stop.

Huntley must see that on his face, because he says, like Hyperion is a scared animal (or a scared child), “Oh, it’s okay. You don’t have to do this, okay? I get it; you’re scared.”

Hyperion breathes out, anger is that both familiar and foreign flaring in his chest, and he buries the axe in Huntley’s stomach. “I’m not a child,” he says, voice really barely trembling at all.

He doesn’t stick around after that. He runs into another building and cries into his hands until he stops feeling anything again.

…

Another cannon fires later that night, and the anthem reveals the girl from Seven died too. Hyperion camps out by his ropes course, trying to get some sleep. There can’t be very many of them left at all now. He tries to run through the tributes he knows are dead in his head, but he comes up empty after going through all of the ones he’s killed.

Hyperion must be a violent person. That must be the explanation for all of this. He must have always been like this. The things he’s done must have always been inside him, just waiting for the right opportunity to make themselves known. Right? That has to be it. He must have always been capable of doing this. There must be something wrong with him.

If Achillea or Perseus or Corielle were here, he doesn’t think they could do these things. But he remembers watching little kids just him kill tributes bigger than themselves. Everybody’s just doing whatever it takes. Maybe that’s it.

He tries to distract himself with shadow puppets. But just as he goes to make the first one, the flashlight flickers once and burns out. Hyperion spends the rest of the night all alone in the dark.

…

It goes like this: he returns to the Cornucopia in the morning with shaking hands. He’s vacillating between feeling everything and feeling nothing. When he approaches the Cornucopia, he catches his own reflection in the metal and backs away in horror.

Frantically he pulls out his one remaining bottle of water and pours it on his head. It’ll all be over soon, anyway. He just needs the blood gone.

He wipes at his face with his hands, trying to get rid of as much of it as possible. There’s no way to know if he got it all. He’s not going to look at his reflection again.

The arena is empty and silent, the way it always is. The orange sky hangs overhead, opaque and oppressive. Nothing has changed, but everything has.

He waits in front of the Cornucopia, sitting on a box and staring out at the arena. He hates the silence. Ever since he was little, he didn’t like it when it was too quiet. He was always scared of monsters lurking when it was too dark and too silent. For his whole life, he’s done his best to fill silence with chatter. There’s nobody to talk to now, and even if there was, he doesn’t know what he would say.

In the distance, a cannon fires. He jumps. Well, maybe he’ll get extra lucky and the other tributes will take care of themselves all on their own.

A few minutes after that, a figure appears down the street, limping toward the Cornucopia. Hyperion thinks it’s the boy from Ten, but he’s not sure. All of their faces meant a lot more to him two weeks ago. Regardless, he’s in bad shape. He must have just been fighting whoever that cannon belonged to, and it looks like he barely won. He’s clutching at his side, which is bleeding profusely, and Hyperion tries not to look at it.

The boy comes stumbling toward the Cornucopia, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed Hyperion. He takes that to his advantage, carefully getting up and putting more distance between the two of them. It doesn’t look like the Ten boy is going to last very long. What if Hyperion just waits it out?

Would that be wrong? To let the Ten boy suffer to keep Hyperion’s hands a little cleaner?

He watches the Ten boy collapse against a crate, and he feels sick. He just wants it to be over.

The sooner the Ten boy dies, the sooner it ends. The sooner he goes home. God, he wants to go home. He wants to go home so, so badly. He’s never wanted anything more.

Tears flood his eyes. He wants to go home. He drops to the ground and sobs, wrapping his arms around himself in a poor excuse for a hug. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he whispers to himself between sobs, “I don’t want to be here.”

He cries harder than he’s ever cried in his life. He sobs and sobs and sobs. It’s going to be like this forever.

He should get up, get it together like a grown up, and end this, but he can’t. If he ever raises his hand against someone again, it will be too soon. So Hyperion curls around his knees and cries until a cannon fires, and then he cries some more.

It goes like this: Hyperion Stavropoulos does the impossible. He is going to have to live with that.

…

Hyperion thought everything would change again once he won. He thought he would feel better, because it’s over now. But he realizes, as he lays there in a hospital bed, that there is no over. This never ends. He never goes back. It’s what Sebastian said; no matter how much he wants to be a kid again, he can’t. He will never be a kid again.

Mercutio says he’s sorry. Hyperion doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, but he accepts it anyway.

They dress him in gold for the coronation. His tie is patterned with seashells. Hyperion doesn’t ask questions. The world around him feels muted and cold. He feels like he never left the eerie silence of the arena. Even as the audience cheers for him, he stills hear the silence.

In his interview, he tries to laugh and tell jokes, but he thinks it sounds hollow. It doesn’t sound like him. But the audience laughs right along with him, and Hyperion wonders if they’re even listening. They love him, of course. He’s the first of his kind. The only twelve-year-old to ever make it out. They praise his craftiness, his ingenuity, his resilience. Hyperion nods along, and he is happy. He is glad to be alive. He is glad to have done the impossible. But, at the same time, he’s not sure it really feels like anything at all.

The first time he really feels something since coming out of the arena is when he steps onto the train to go home. He’s going to see his family again. His parents. Kalliope. Cassander. He smiles while looking out the window, and it feels genuine, even if he’s thinking of what Cassander did and what his dad might have done.

In the end, he clings to his mom. The doors open on the train platform and he takes off running, crashing into her chest with enough momentum to knock her off balance. She’s crying, he’s trying not to, and it’s glorious. The sun is shining overhead and Hyperion feels safe for the first time since he stepped into the Justice Building a month ago.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” his mom says.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hyperion says.

…

In his absence, all of his things have already been moved into a new house in the Victors’ Village. He steps into his new room, which his family already redecorated for him, and it makes him nostalgic and nauseous all at once.

The posters of Victors. The toys stored in bins. The ratty stuffed cat on the bed. It’s a room that belongs to a child who isn’t a child anymore. He takes down the Victor posters. He doesn’t want to look at them anymore. Doesn’t want to imagine his own poster on the wall of a child.

He remembers thinking it would be cool, having all of the attention of a Victor. The posters and the action figures, his face on a box of bandaids. But now he can’t imagine why anyone would think he was cool. Didn’t they see what he did? The blood that covered his face? Sometimes he looks in the mirror and fears it will still be there.

But his father thumps him on the back and tells him good job. His brother is clearly jealous that he gets to be a Victor, when it was supposed to be him. His friends

His first night back, he wakes in a cold sweat from a nightmare he can’t really remember. All he knows is Sebastian was there, and so was Cassander, and he was so, so scared. He stumbles out of bed to go to his parents, but stops in the doorway of his room.

The hallway is dark. The nightlight in his room doesn’t do a thing to illuminate it. It’s so dark he can’t see his parents’ door at the other end. The house is quiet and still and darkdarkdark.

Yet, at the same time, Hyperion can’t believe he wants to go crawl in bed with his parents. He’s not a little kid anymore. He doesn’t know what he is, but he is not a child anymore. He slept alone for five days in the arena with no there at all. He doesn’t need his parents after a nightmare.

So Hyperion stands in his doorway, paralyzed by a paradoxical childlike fear of the dark and adult-like need to grow up.

…

In October he tries to go back to school. He misses all of his friends, and he wants to pretend everything is the way it used to be. Besides, he doesn’t like sitting around the house all of the time. He doesn’t like the way his family looks at him, like they don’t know him anymore. Because he doesn’t laugh like he used to. He gets so angry sometimes that it blinds him. The sight of his father wearing an orange shirt makes him sick.

So he gets dressed and grabs his backpack and goes to school. Everyone stares. Even the teachers stare at him as he walks down the hall to his classroom. Most of them look at him with awe. Hyperion shrinks away from it.

He takes his seat in class next to Perseus’s desk. His friend smiles at him and says, “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, me…me too,” Hyperion says. “What have I missed?”

“A lot,” Perseus says, and Hyperion nods. Perseus has no idea.

At lunch, his classmates crowd around him, badgering him with questions about the Games. Was it cool? Were you scared? What’s Mercutio Stander like? Do you think I’ll win if I volunteer in few years?

Hyperion doesn’t want to answer any of those questions. He tries to tell them all that, but they don’t listen. They just want to know whether he had a good time or not.

Finally, he snaps, “No, I didn’t have fun! I was so fucking scared every second of every day because I thought I was going to die and then I didn’t because I killed people, okay? I didn’t have a good time, it wasn’t cool, and I don’t want to talk about it ever again!”

Everyone gathered around him goes quiet. Hyperion stares them all down, daring them ask him another question. Finally, one of them says, “Sorry, Hype.”

He gets a cascade of apologies after that, and it makes him feel a little better. Just a little. He eats the rest of his lunch in silence.

When recess comes, Hyperion sits on a bench and watches the playground. He watches his classmates run around, playing soccer and make believe and whatever. He wants to join in. He wants to be like them again. Carefree, like he used to be. He wants to have no idea what it’s like to take someone’s life into your hands and end it.

This was all he wanted in the arena. To be back home, going to school with his friends, like he used to. To be normal again. But Hyperion isn’t normal anymore. He’s never going to be normal again. He looks at the other Victors in his district, all of the ones who volunteered for this, wanted it more than anything, and he knows they aren’t normal either. You would have to be crazy, to choose this life, he thinks.

Recess ends, and they go back inside. Hyperion can’t focus on whatever his teacher is trying to tell them about. He just watches the clock, waiting for the day to end.

When he gets home, he finds his mom in the kitchen. “I don’t want to go back tomorrow,” he says, sitting down at the counter.

“Oh, no,” Mom says. “Why not?”

“I just…I don’t think I belong there anymore,” Hyperion says, slumping over the countertop.

“Are you sure? Don’t you want to try one more day?”

“No.”

“It might get easier,” Mom says. “If you go again. Maybe you just have to stick with it for a little while.”

“I said I don’t want to go back!” Hyperion shouts. He pushes back from the countertop and stomps up to his room, slamming the door behind him. She doesn’t get it. She’ll never get it. His mom is never going to know what it’s like to kill someone to stay alive. She’ll never understand what he did, why he did it, why he can’t stand the way everyone wants to celebrate it.

He hears the doorbell ring downstairs, and puts his pillow over his head. Then, he hears, muffled by the pillow, “Hype, Achillea and Atreus are here! They want to hang out!”

Achillea and Atreus. Hyperion toys with telling them to go away. He could do it. This is his house, after all. His dad hasn’t been a very big fan of him pulling that card out.

But he decides to give them a shot. They’re his friends. He’s seen them a few times since he came back. Never for very long. He hasn’t gone back to his gymnastics school yet. He’s not sure when he will. He thinks the ropes course might freak him out.

Hyperion goes back downstairs. Achillea and Atreus are waiting in the living room, looking around the house in wonder. Right. He doesn’t think they’ve ever been here before.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hype!” Achillea exclaims. “It’s good to see you!”

“Yeah, man, have you been avoiding us?” Atreus says.

“No,” Hyperion says. “Just…been busy, is all.”

“Oh,” Achillea says. “Well, that’s okay. Do you want to hang out? Maybe we could go ride our bikes.”

Riding bikes doesn’t sound so bad. Hyperion nods. “Okay, sure.”

“Your bike’s in the garage, honey!” his mom calls from the kitchen.

They ride toward a nature trail, the early fall air cool and comfortable. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining, and Hyperion can almost ignore the way everybody stares at him as they ride past.

“Do you wanna see something cool?” Atreus says as they ride through the trees.

“Okay,” Hyperion says.

“Look what I learned to do.” Atreus does a wheelie on his bike, sticking the front wheel in the air. Hyperion smiles.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“I bet you can’t do that,” Achillea says.

“I haven’t ridden a bike in, like, six months,” Hyperion points out. “And you didn’t even do it. Atreus is the one who knows how.”

“Well, you got me there,” Achillea says. “Here, let me try.”

Hyperion watches, a little nervously, as Achillea attempts to copy her brother. She barely gets the wheel off the ground before bringing it back down, but she’s grinning and laughing. “I’ll have to keep practicing!” she says.

“Right, right, because you can’t let me know how to do a trick that you can’t,” Atreus says. “Hype, you should try.”

“I don’t know,” Hyperion says.

“Oh, come on!” Achillea says. “I tried it! It’s not that hard.”

Hyperion takes a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give it a try.”

And he does. And he way overdoes it, too. He tries to flip his bike up and ends up losing his balance and falling over backwards onto the dirt. He lands with a thump, pain shooting up his tailbone, hands still held in front of him like the handlebars are still there. Atreus and Achillea dig their heels into the ground to stop their bikes, looking at him in surprise.

“Are you okay?” Atreus says.

“Yeah, I’m—I’m fine,” Hyperion says, and then, for reasons even he can’t explain, he starts to laugh. Well, it is actually kind of funny, right? He tried to do a wheelie, went way overboard, and ate shit. He’s not hurt, and even if he was, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. When he was five, he fell out of a tree and broke his arm and it barely slowed him down. Through his laughter, he adds, “I totally just ate shit.”

Achillea and Atreus start to laugh too. Achillea offers him a hand to help him up, which he accepts.

“Yeah, you did,” Atreus says. “I think you need even more practice than Achillea!”

“Hey!” Achillea says. “At least I didn’t fall off my bike!”

Hype grins. “Oh, sure, sure, make it a competition!”

The sun shines down on them, and they all stand there grinning and laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

The nightmare doesn’t end, but it sleeps.