I am trying to branch out my Fanfiction writing so bare with me. Next chapter will be uploaded Sunday.

Asa Cross is my OC and Johanna Mason's lover. He will be frequent throughout most of my stories and I thought I'd introduce you all to him through this three-shot. One day I might make a full-length story about his life, his games, and his and Johanna's love story. For now, enjoy this preview?

So the run down is three chapters, three books. Chapter One is Pre Hunger Games because he won the Seventy-Third Hunger Games. Chapter Two is during Catching Fire and all that good jazz, with maybe a little on how he felt during Hunger Games. Chapter Three will be MockingJay and possibly a little Post MockingJay as well, y'know, the Epilogue.

I tried keep it as Canon as possible but it was unavoidable at certain parts. Johanna is effected greatly because now she does have someone she loves, which effects people like Finnick, Katniss, and so in - in the long run. But the main plots happen - Peeta and Katniss win the 74th Hungers Games, the Quarter Quell happens, Katniss starts a rebellion, the War, District Thirteen. All that good stuff.

Anyways, Enjoy! And sorry for the mistakes, it's Unbeta'd.

"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love."

A Cry For Help

Human

But I'm only human

And I bleed when I fall down

I'm only human

And I crash and I break down

Your words in my head, knives in my heart

You build me up and then I fall apart

'Cause I'm only human

Seventy-Third Hunger Games.

That was seventy-three years of murder, suffering and agonizing pain that one thousand, seven hundred and three families went through - assuming their was no relations within the Tributes. That was one thousand, seven hundred and three innocent children dead. That was seventy-three children left with nightmares and horror for the years to come before they finally succumb to the drought that their lives hold and just drop.

And he hated nothing more than being apart of that group of seventy-three children. Why couldn't he be one of the one thousand, seven hundred and three children? They had it so much better, thought one wouldn't assume so. But they had peace and serenity and power. They had power. The power that no one that survived The Games would ever be able to obtain. The power that no one in the Districts or the Capital or on this earth could ever obtain because those one thousand, six hundred and seventy-nine children all died and never had to face the pain or betrayal or brutality that was life after. They were untouchable and sure, their families and friends grieved but life went on.

Those one thousand, seven hundred and three children didn't have to face nightmares or anxiety or fears or pain or war or betrayal or torture or anger or hurt or anything. Screw the seventy-three children that survived and became heroes, and winners, and Victors. He absolutely loathed that word - Victor. At what cost did he and the other seventy-two children pay to become a Victor. They sold their souls, their morals were taken and they no longer were they even considered human but simply robots; puppets that the Capital children played with when they were bored.

He never wanted that life. He never wanted to be anyone other than himself. He only wanted to die himself and he couldn't even do that because he no longer belonged to himself. He was not his own person and never would be - never again. And at what cost? Twenty-three other children dying - one of those children being his only friend - his sister? At what cost? Going home to a family he never had and friends he never knew? At what cost? Losing himself in secrets that he never wanted to have nor keep in the first place? At what cost? Waking up every hour and a half because he kept reliving everything that happened during those horrible two weeks? At what cost? Having to sell himself to the devil?

The cost would always be love - be her.

Because she was the reason he was alive, she was his inside on the outside. She was the reason twenty-three innocent children died at his expense. She was the reason his best friend - his sister died. She was the reason he went home to no body being there. She was the reason he was tortured with the answers to questions he shouldn't have been asked in the first place. She was the reason he screamed bloody murder and begged no one and everyone for forgiveness. She was the reason he was controlled and silenced and put on a pedestal as someone no one ever wanted to be. She was his reason. And that's why he couldn't ever hate her - no matter how many times he wished he did.

She was his reason to wake up each morning like he had the best night's sleep ever. She was his reason to smile and wave off the compliments he got - the compliments that he did not deserve. She was his reason to breathe and eat and drink and bathe. She was his reason to keep going no matter how much he wanted to stop. She was his reason to laugh at the irony itself because he would die himself being someone else.

She made him.

She made him himself.

And she also broke him.

The first time I saw her was when she was reaped in the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games.

I was fourteen and didn't know who she was other than the fact she was known to be highly rude to teachers and ignored every male that ever hit on her. She had wide-set doe eyes that held what I recognized as intelligence and fake fear. She was fairly tall, possibly the same height as me at five feet six inches. Her skin was milky white and scarred with years of getting nicked by the axes while lumbering with her parents. Her mouth was set in a small, shaky frown but I could see the barely upturned grin on the right side. I had noticed her hand shaking when she brought it up to cover her mouth, but the shakes were far too forceful and they didn't feel real. I watched as they somewhat forcefully brought her frail body onto the stage and she looked up at the District's Escort with the same fear in her eyes and she did when she was interviewed by Caesar Fickleman. I calculated everything about her because honestly? I felt like it was all some sick joke.

She was a year older than me, I found out later.

I normally didn't care for The Games, I usually blanked out while watching them on the jumbo screen in the town square but that year was different - she made that year different. I found myself making it a game of my own, trying to find out what was real and what wasn't. Because she was like a story book on her own, filled with twists and turns that I loved to catch and laugh about on my own because everyone was fooled, the Capital people were fooled but I wasn't and I didn't know it then but I had decided that I would never be. Not when it came to her.

The gasp of surprise that left her lips when she saw all the people during the District Chariot Run was fake. I thought it was real at first because some of them looked beautiful and majestic but really she was just a genius playing the game of an innocent. She looked... odd. Dressed in black slacks and a brown top, her hair in a high ponytail. There was a inflatable ax thrown over her shoulder and honestly, at the time, I thought she looked a bit... stupid. Though I'd never dare say that to her.

The quiver in her lips during her interview with Caesar Fickleman was real but in the sense that he probably smelled bad rather than she was scared of him. She looked innocent it the soft brown dress that filtered past her knees and was low-cut on her generous-sized breasts. Her eyes were bright and her hair was styles back and held with some ribbon. It didn't look like her at all.

Her tears when the countdown from sixty started before the gong sounded to start The Games was also fake and I felt a bit worried because they could blur her vision and that would be her downfall. But of course she knew what she was doing - she knew what she was doing from the beginning. And I hated myself for doubting her ability to win this thing because I knew she would - she had to win.

Her eagerness to get a pack and run from the bloodbath was a hard choice for me, considering. I knew she was eager to get a pack, and that was real, but I didn't know if her eagerness overflew to running away or not. I thought she was itching to stay and fight but logic hit her and she knew she wouldn't stand a chance. It was smart of her because she wouldn't have stood a chance against the girl from Two or the boys from Four and Nine.

The way she ruthlessly killed at day and cried herself to sleep at night was very real. I could see the pain in her eyes and the way her hand twitched just barely whenever she was to make the final blow. She was hesitant. She knew what she had to do to get out of that arena but she also knew where her morals stood. Maybe that's why it hurt so much - because she couldn't detach herself fully, she didn't know how to.

The way she wielded the ax and made a promise to remember the name of each Tribute she killed was the realist of it all. She would recite the name and District of each Tribute she killed every night and as the list grew so did her desperate cried for everything to be over. One stuck out most, the name she repeated that last night. The girl from eight, Freya Vernt - her only ally.

And in the end, I believed that she was real - as a whole.

When they named her Victor, the entire District cheered. We'd never had a female Victor before and the two we had at the time both won well over ten years before. So, I watched the whole District - men, women, children - I watched them all jump around and cry out in happiness and glee because holy shit if Seven could come out with a female Victor of only fifteen then what else could we do?

I didn't cheer, though.

I smiled, watching as she broke down into sobs and fell to her knees, ignoring the ladder attached to the hovercraft that was trying to pick her up. It was simply beautiful to me that she could play the Capitol, play the Districts, play everyone but me. She was perfect in what she did - pretending. She was simply perfect at putting on a mask and hiding all of her anger and rage.

And when she screamed those words, I just wanted to know what made her break. So many questions ran through my brain. Questions I wanted to ask her. Who made her? Who made her herself? Who broke her? Why did she do what she did? What was she thinking the entire time? Who fixed the big fraud? I wanted to know so many things - I wanted to know everything. I was intrigued with three simple words and if that made me fall harder down my already made grave, how weak was I as a person? Who was she? Who was I?

Who were we?

It was four years later that my life turned for the worst.

"Last year," Ally whispered to me, her blonde hair tied in a bun of braids. She was beautiful and many of the boys around the district courted her. Unlike me, who had pale blues eyes and almost white hair, Ally had hair almost as bright as the sun and her eyes were so green it was unreal. Her skin was milk-white and smooth like butter, her smile was heart-warming and when she was was really happy her dimples popped.

I didn't reply, instead just nodding. I still don't know why I didn't reply. I don't understand my hesitation to love my sister while she was still my sister. While she was still Ally and not some capitol creation.

"Stay safe, little brother." She hugged me, her small frame pressed to my lanky, tall form. I didn't hug her back, I didn't cry.

I did not cry.

"Ally!" He screamed, his blue eyes finding her green one. She looked like an angel. She shook her head, whispering something to him. The smile on her face was beautiful, and her dimples popped.

He couldn't hear. He couldn't hear her and these were her last words. He couldn't hear her, why? Fuck, why couldn't he hear her? "Ally?" He cried into her chest, ignoring the blood that oozed from her stomach.

"Stay safe, little brother."

"Ally! Ally! Ally! ALLY!"

"Stay safe, little brother."

"Ladies first!" I blinked. Daydream. I daydreamed a lot. Mama used to tell me it was because sometimes my imagination was so big that I couldn't just dream these things during the night - it had to be during the day too.

I looked over to my sister to find her already watching me. She smiled and blew a kiss my way, much to my dismay. I flushed a brilliant red in embarrassment because she had always done that. But she was okay, that's all I wanted - her safety.

"Allison Cross!"

Oh.

I felt like I was in a different body.

I felt like I was watching the scene play out from a different person's perspective. I didn't feel like I was in my body, there is no possible way I was in my own body, feeling my own feelings, living my own life.

It was impossible and I didn't like it. At all.

Because I didn't do anything when she huffed a stubborn breath of annoyance and grumbled the entire way to the stage. I didn't do anything when everyone looked at me, because they all knew. They knew she was the last of my family and she was my sanity - or, at least, that's what I thought but really I was the last of her sanity - because honestly, I wasn't okay. With Ally gone, I was simply an eighteen year old boy that was nothing more than a waste of space.

"Asa Cross!"

Oh.

"Remember when mom and dad died? And I told you they were in a better place?"

"Ally... please don't-"

"And remember how I told you one day we'd see them again and be better too?"

"Ally seriously-"

"Well it isn't time for you to go see them yet, little brother. Not you, not yet."

"But I-"

"No."

"I can't let you die, Ally."

"And I won't let you stop me."

I didn't feel right, I didn't feel normal - I never did but this time it was different.

I never forgot her or her secret obsession. I'd always watch her stumble off the trains at random hours when I would sneak out at night time. Sometimes her face would be bruised a little and sometimes she'd be crying. I didn't know what she did or where she went - all Victors had free realm to visit other Districts or the Capitol. Sometimes she was gone for weeks and other times it was only a day or two.

I always wondered who hurt her. I wondered what made her hurt herself.

Sometimes she would go out to the District Center and just sit. People never confronted her, but they had always noticed her. I would always noticed her.

She didn't have any addictions like most Victors did. Some went on morphine and never went off. Some would drink and drink and drink. Some killed themselves. And some, some that were just like her - they just watched. They'd sit alone because everyone they loved was dead and they just watched others. The others that lived and didn't go through The Games. The others that were too young to be reaped or made it through the ones they had already gotten through.

She was like stone.

She never moved.

She just sat and people watched and never made eye contact with anyone - she just watched. Maybe she did what I did. Maybe she made up stories for the people of District Seven. Like the boy who's father owned the Market Store. He was twenty-seven and still not married. Most people in District Seven got married around twenty-three - I'd read about it somewhere. But this boy, Marcus.. he was twenty-seven and as far as the rumors say, he'd never had a girlfriend.

Some people say it's because he liked... boys. I personally didn't see the problem with Marcus liking boys but some people did.

I thought Marcus was just in love with someone unreachable at the moment. A girl in my grade, turning eighteen soon. She was pretty enough - bright red hair and golden-green eyes. She frequently went to the Market Store and just sat and talked with Marcus. I figured when she was finally legal Marcus would marry her. At least, that was what it looked like to me.

Anyways, she would watch people like Marcus and just.. breathe. She never moved to speak to the people she watched and they never engaged her in conversation. Sometimes she would help an elderly person with their things or she'd pick a child up if they fell while playing. But she never spoke, just tilted her head as a sign of You're welcome and then sat back down and watched.

She never watched me, though. I'd look her way and sometimes she'd be staring at Ally or someone nearby me but never me.

It made me feel as broken as she looked.

It was weird.

It was like when she looked at me, I was the strongest man in the world - I felt like I had a chance at winning this thing, even if I didn't really want to.

I wasn't her tribute. Johanna trained the girl, which was Ally, my sister. With Blight, who traded off every year. Training me was Enote. He was a buff man that was well into his fifties but looked thirty-two and could have easily broken anyone's neck had he had the will to. Enote was rude, hardcore and didn't give any bullshit advise to me - I honestly preferred it that way.

"You're going to die." Enote told me the first night on the train, a drink in hand.

"I know." I had simply shrugged. I had planned on dying, honestly. I had truly wanted Ally to go home. I wanted her to move on and live her life - find love and get married and have children.

"Then that's that." The gruff man had said, his face in a mask of indifference as he took a swig of his drink and left the room. Left me.

And that was that.

I had only spoken to her once. It was the night before The Games started and she found me on the roof top, where I was admittedly contemplating suicide.

"You're not made for this." She told me, her voice raspy and her eyes too dark to even really see them. It was the first time she had ever acknowledged my existence.

"Neither were you." I whispered back. I didn't really know, then, why I had said that. But now I realize I said it to tell her I understood. I understood her pain and sorrow and what she went through to get out of bed every morning and whisper that everything was going to be alright. I don't know how I knew but I did. I did know more than I possibly should had at that point.

That was it. We sat and watched the stars - they were the one thing the Capitol couldn't taint, I had noticed. The stars.

She walked me to my room and nodded. I didn't understand what it meant - not at the time and really not even now.

Then she left me. I had wondered if I'd ever see her again. Then I realized I didn't know if I liked the answer to that question.

The countdown was the freakiest part of it all, I had thought.

I counted aloud, with the woman's voice. A few tributes looked at me oddly. I couldn't see Ally.

"Thirty-six... Thirty-five... Thirty-four," I counted aloud.

Somehow I knew she was watching, counting along with me.

I didn't kill in the arena. I wasn't that person. Instead I found Ally and was more of the supplier for us. I gathered the food and hid us in the tall trees whenever a Career Tribute was close.

She killed. Ally was fierce and protective. She was swift with an ax. Districts One and Four had taken to calling her 'Mason 2.0'.

I disagreed with that nickname. I disagreed because Johanna was a pretender in the arena and Ally was a pretender in real life. They were nothing alike.

Ally moved fast. She wasn't faking. Ally liked hurting those that would hurt her if she didn't do so first. Ally wasn't okay.

Ally wasn't Ally.

At night, we sat together in a overly large tree. There were twelve trees in the entire arena. We happened to be in the tallest that night.

She would tell me who in the sky she killed. I would make up a story of their lives back at their home.

"District Three girl. I pounded her face in with the butt of the ax." Ally explained. I didn't stop her. I didn't flinch. I wanted to cover my ears and tell her to just stop. She was no longer my sister. She was the Capitol's Tribute, now.

"District Three is technology and things," I said, my voice too even to be considered normal anymore. "She was really smart - top of her class. She fixed things quickly and was liked by everyone in her District. She had a boyfriend, her neighbor since birth. They were best friends when they were little. On her twelfth birthday he kissed her - gently because it was her first kiss. His too. They've been together ever since."

Ally laid her head on my shoulder.

I wanted to push her off.

"Go on." She told me.

"She was sixteen, just turned so last month. He cried when she was reaped. No one volunteered, not even her eighteen year old sister. He proposed to her when saying goodbye and she promised to come home and be his."

"She didn't make it home, though."

"No. And he'll kill himself one day. Maybe after he marries her sister, the one that didn't volunteer. They'll have a few children, name one after her. She'll be reaped like her aunt did and then he'll commit suicide because what's the point anymore?" I continued.

There was three people remaining - I couldn't remember how many days I'd spent in that arena.

Ally was weak. She'd killed District Four boy. He took out one of her eyes before she gutted him.

All that was left was me, Ally and District Four girl.

I wasn't scared. I was tired. I wanted to die.

I hadn't slept a wink in the past three days.

"Ally?" I asked, my voice raw. They drained all the streams before we had woken up. The Gamemakers planned on that being the last day - definitely.

"Hush." She replied sharply, spinning to face me and holding her spear to my throat. I didn't even blink. She had been more temperamental the last few hours, I had noticed. I had wondered if that meant she would kill me after the District Four girl was gone.

"Well well well, looky what I found. Did I interrupt?"

She shouldn't have even said anything. Ally threw her ax at the girl's head without even batting her eye - hitting her right between the eyes.

She turned and continued walking without a second thought.

The gong sounded.

"One last story, Little Brother." Ally grinned as we walked to the cornucopia. I wished she didn't call me that. I wasn't her brother any longer. She wasn't my sister. We weren't anything but the last two in the Games.

"One last story." I agreed. Then thought. "She was an average child growing up. She had a mom, dad, little sister and a little brother. Her little sister was about two years younger than her. Her little brother was only a toddler, he probably won't remember her in a few years."

"Pity."

"She was into things that Career Tributes saw weird - reading, poetry, the future. Her mother will shut down, just staring out windows and remembering how she would run around their yard and wait for her father to return home from the shipyard. Her father will turn to alcohol, probably kill himself with poisoning in a few years. Her sister will try to forget her, but end up volunteering in a few years just so she could avenge her sister. The little brother will feel neglected and turn into an anti-social freak. He'll get married eventually and end up abusive, not that anyone care-"

Ally cut me off there, lodging the spear into her stomach. I watched with indifferent eyes for twenty minutes while she bled out.

The gong sounded.

I. Did. Not. Cry.

Johanna was there, in the hovercraft. Waiting for me.

I was fine. I had two cuts on my face and a sprained ankle. I was dehydrated and underweight. The doctors left us alone.

It was only when the doors were firmly shut did I finally cry - falling to my knees and hugging her waist. I had buried my face in her stomach and she played with my hair. I didn't talk, neither did she. My breathing was irregular and my sobs were hard, racking my entire body and jolting her around. I don't think she minded much. At least she hadn't made me stop. She only held me, whispering soothing words that only a Victor could whisper because really, only a Victor knew.

I didn't cry after that. I didn't find reason to need too.

I made it through the Recap. Caesar tried to ask me questions, but I didn't answer. I made the crowd uneasy. I made everyone uneasy. I wasn't myself, anymore. I wasn't anyone. I wasn't even really there but they couldn't do anything about it.

It was on the train ride home that I finally spoke for the first time since out of the arena. I was sitting on a plush couch, my legs crossed with her sitting in my lap. I didn't let her go when she tried to move. She didn't blame me.

"I wasn't made for this." I croaked.

"Neither was I." She responded.

District Seven was the same as it was when I left. Everyone cheered and smiled at me because now they had two Victors come home within the span of four years. That only happened to Career Districts.

I rejected the District, walking to the Victor Village and ignoring the cameras. I had hoped Snow would have killed me for it. Sadly, he didn't.

She followed behind me, leaving Blight and Enote to deal with the District and cameras. I let her.

We laid down together and it was only then that I realized I didn't belong to the Capitol like every other Victor. I belonged to her. Johanna Mason.

The reason I was still me.

I cried again.

She let me.

"Who am I?" I asked her the day before the Victory Tour.

She didn't answer because she didn't know.

An I was oddly okay with that.