Breathe in, Breathe out • F Odair² •

Prologue

"They wouldn't. Would they?"

•∘♔∘•

It was only a matter of time now. There were only two tributes left. A girl and a boy, both from the same district, all alone in an arena that was now filled with nobody else but ghosts. It was a scenario with which she was very familiar personally. The boy was even the same age he had been... there were some differences, though. The girl was younger than she had been by a year, and the way they interacted was so very different... still, the familiarity of it all was overwhelming.

Athena Maris was watching from the District Four floor of the Training Center in the Capitol. She was seated on the sofa, her eyes glued to the television. Finnick Odair was right beside her, similarly transfixed by what was on the television. Neither of them were speaking. They were both tense. Alayne Stentor wasn't there; she was with friends, probably watching this moment with excitement with them. She didn't really need to be around anymore, admittedly; her duties as an escort were essentially over now...

The girl and the boy, Katniss Everdeen, with her long dark hair and grey eyes and olive skin that was characteristic of people from District Twelve's Seam, and Peeta Mellark, with his blonde hair and blue eyes that was characteristic of people from District Twelve's Merchant class, were standing across from each other, their eyes transfixed on one another. They had been through much in such a short time, and the frustrated, desperate, and most of all, fearful looks on their faces made that much clear.

First had been the muttations, the worst from the Capitol that Athena had ever seen. They were wolves, she supposed, but they were no natural-born animal. They were mutated so that they resembled each of the fallen tributes from these Games; their furs would match the hair of the tributes, their eyes the exact same colour as their human counterpart and their behaviours and features far too human to be anything else.

It was horrific enough as it was, but the sight of two mutts in particular, one with a sleek brown coat and nut brown eyes, the other with a curlier blond coat and dark blue eyes, hit her worst of all. Their tributes, they were supposed to be their tributes, Mollie Finbar and Dylan Kent. Mollie Finbar was an eighteen year-old girl who had volunteered for her younger sister, more to protect her than out of a belief that she could really win. Still, she was strong and determined, and Athena and Finnick had done all they could to prepare her for that arena, but who could have predicted the nest of Tracker Jackers that Katniss Everdeen of District Twelve would set upon the Career pack, killing both Mollie and Glimmer of District One? The stings seemed to cover her, all over her body, until nut brown eyes that were once bright and sharp were glazed and lifeless. Athena watched as the stings killed her, listened to her cries of pain and her last breaths, and thought of the way she'd said she had some hope for herself because of them.

Dylan Kent died so much earlier, and was gone before he could ever really have a chance for himself. He wasn't particularly strong, so Athena and Finnick had stressed to him over and over to use his speed and his stealth to his advantage, and yet it had not saved him when his neck had been cut open and blood spurted out from the wound... Dylan was only fourteen, but he was a volunteer; he had said he wanted to be just like his hero... just like Finnick. He had been so determined, so certain that he could do it. Athena and Finnick had tried to help him, had tried to prepare him, but it had been all for nothing... Finnick, unsurprisingly, had taken his death hard. Dylan had looked up to him; he felt like it had been his responsibility to look after him, even more than usual.

This was her fifth year mentoring, and Finnick had been doing it for nearly twice as long. Their experience with mentoring did not make seeing those tributes die and seeing their muttation form any easier. It was clear that this burden, raising these children up only to see them fall and not get back up again, was not one that became easier with time.