Serendipity: The 32nd Hunger Games
Prologue
Rosamund Currant, 17
District Eleven
Victor of the 31st Hunger Games
Rosamund couldn't stop thinking about how random it all seemed. One moment, she had been a tribute – the next moment, a Victor. One moment, she had been hungry and dirty and tired, caked with mud from the mudslide she had barely survived, struggling to keep her head above the mud a little longer than her opponent. The next moment, none of it had mattered. The fanfare had sounded, and they had come to save her.
That had been almost a year ago. Almost a year since they had lifted her out of the arena and brought her to safety. Almost a year since she had realized that she would be the one coming home. She had survived, when so many others had failed.
It didn't seem fair. It didn't seem to make any sense. But she was alive.
And she wasn't going to let that go to waste.
Rosamund threw on a long red dress, ready to head to the square for the reaping. Maybe there was no rhyme or reason to it. Maybe there was no reason why she had been the one to survive. Why she had lasted a little longer than the boy from Five in the muddy waters that had threatened to envelope them both. Maybe it was just luck.
Just chance.
Just serendipity.
The word made Rosamund smile a little. It was luck, but, for once, it had been good luck. Bad luck had led to her being reaped. Well, bad luck and the amount of tesserae she'd had to take to support her family. But good luck had kept her alive when so many others had died.
And this year, good luck would keep another tribute alive. Maybe one of hers. Maybe someone else's. She would do her best, of course, but in the end, it was out of her hands.
Rosalind looked out at the children who had already begun to gather in the square. Under her breath, she whispered the same words she had heard at her own reaping.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
This is an open SYOT. The guidelines and tribute form are on my profile.