Bury your secrets

Amelia Storm, District 11 Victor-Age 17

70th Hunger Games.

They say drowning is peaceful.

They lied.

She had drowned before. Not in the poetic, fade-into-the-light kind of way. Not in the way Capitol citizens romanticize it over wine and glitter pills, whispering about the tragic girl from District 11 who clawed her way out of death. No. It was ugly. Violent. Her lungs didn't fill with serenity-they filled with panic and saltwater.

She still tastes it sometimes. The water. It haunts her like a second skin she can't shed.

"It should've ended there," She murmured to no one but the empty air in her compartment.

She's lying across the sleek velvet couch of the Victor's train, the one they give you after you've killed enough kids to earn a crown. Her fingers curled around the cool rim of a water glass, and she stared at the swirling liquid like it's got answers. it doesn't. Just reflections of a girl who looks like her, but isn't her anymore.

"Sixteen," She whispered. "Sixteen, and they threw me into an ocean that wanted me dead."