September 28th, 173PA

Agean Darreth, 23—District Four Victor

He screws his eyes shut, willing himself not to think about it. To block it away, to shut everything out, but it doesn't work. Not like he'd been promised by the rest of them, not like that at all. Just another lie.

He knows he should head out, that he doesn't have all the time in the world to delay. But he feels like he can't. He doesn't want to think about the Hunger Games, about the time when he lost the tribute he thought would win, about the numerous Games he watched play out, hoping that his district would emerge victorious. About his own Games, the ones where he, at seventeen, was not supposed to go in.

He just can't forget the memories from six years ago, the agonizing pain that he felt at all times. The people at the Academy were wrong. There is no pride, no glory. Only regret.

Not even relief at cheating death, not in the slightest.

He remembers his first kill. The girl from Nine. Not her name, just her face—jet black hair pulled into a ponytail, fear plain in her dark brown eyes as he carelessly slaughtered her. He was only acting out of survival instinct. It wasn't until later, when he was moving the bodies, that he realized.

He had killed a person.

The boy from Six was his second and final kill. They were both on the ground near the Cornucopia, both desperate to survive. He had a trident, Six had a sword. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Six was dead.

He desperately wishes that Six was the winner. Wanted to go back as soon as the cannon sounded.

Too late.

Agean forces himself to take deep breaths. The rest of the District Four victors won't wait for him; they'll just fill him in later. And he'd rather not that. He forces himself to stand, he forces himself to walk across to the door, to get out of his house and two doors down, on the other side, to get to Pyke's home. The place of the surprise meeting Pyke has called.

"Agean. Glad to see your finally here." Pyke sits in a large plush chair, and the rest of the victors sit in smaller plush chairs. Agean scans around. Neena, Jack, Plet, and Aeke are also there. He's the last one, as he suspected.

Pyke gestures to the remaining chair between Neena and Aeke. "Sit down, mentor." He says this with a smile, and it seals the District Four tributes' fate. Because Agean Darreth is, without a single doubt, District Four's worst mentor.

"Really?" Agean asks as he takes a seat.

But, then again, the Mentor Rule decrees it.

"Every tribute must have a mentor, and every victor must mentor at least five tributes," Aeke responds, quoting said Mentor Rule. "Pyke convinced us to pick you and Neena, trust me. If I had any say in it, both of you wouldn't be allowed in the same district as any of our tributes." Even though she's insulting him, Agean appreciates her concern for this years' monsters-to-be. Aeke had been, as she said herself, "young and foolish" when she first volunteered, and had grown up since then. She doesn't want to win as a district, she wants to win as a mentor. She wants her tributes to survive.

"Do you have anything else, or can we leave now?" It's Jack, the oldest living Victor, who speaks next. In District Four, of course—Chay Crestin of Eight claims the title of oldest overall.

Pyke beckons for him to stay seating. "This year isn't going to be easy. I have a feeling. We need to have meetings, we need a strategy, we need to win no matter what. Do it for your district, everyone. Do it so that Four gets another win, and we all get honor. Here's what we'll do. Aeke, you'll be strategy."

"Plet will help," Agean interrupts.

Pyke regards him for a second. "Alright, fine. Aeke and Plet will figure out strategy for this year. Jack will be the, ah, symbol of District Four, so to say. A figurehead. I'll check up on the candidates in the Training Center, and Agean and Neena will execute everything. Alright?" Nobody seems to have any qualms with this. "We can do this. Let's bring home a tribute, for District Four!" He paused. "Now you're dismissed."

Agean makes sure to leave as soon as possible.

Neena and Plet go with him. It seems like they're walking to Neena's house, right across from Agean's. Plet sighs when they're out of earshot. "Did you have to volunteer me for that?" he asks.

"If he hadn't, you'd probably be on coffee duty or something like that. Bosra's personal servant, cleaning his house. He'd find a way to make the rest of the so-called Career victors bow down to him and call him God if he managed to convince them that it was in the good of the Games."

Both Agean and Plet snort at that. "Oh, I'm surprised he hasn't heard that yet. Don't let him hear it, or he'll be wanting to try it," Agean responds. It's amazing how he can let loose with these two—Neena is fifteen years older than him, and Plet could be his father—but he treats them like they were his best friends on the playground and have been ever since. Like they're all he has left.

Which, for the record, isn't far off the truth, but at least he has Reana too.

Neena seems to read his mind, because the next subject she brings up is none other than Agean's fiancée. "So, how's the wedding planning going, Darreth?"

Agean lets out an audible sigh. Then, realizing his mistake, he verbally corrects himself. "It's fine. The wedding planning itself is great, neither of us are thinking of cancelling, it's just…" he trails off, unsure of how to say what he wants to say next. He knows he can tell these two, he just doesn't know how. And he's not sure whether anything he says next makes sense, but he knows that it'll just be better to get the words out. "I don't want to move on. When we first considered…all this, it was the August after Rainbow's games." Tears are threatening to spring out. "The Hunger Games taught me to live life in the moment, because it could be taken away from you at any time, and I—I appreciate that, you know? I appreciate that if nothing else."

He chokes back on his tears, helpless to stop them from falling down his face.

"But now—now, it feels like we're moving too fast. Like, I don't know…like…"

"Like you shouldn't move on if they can't?"

Agean nods slowly at Plet's words.

"I understand that. I feel it too, still. Can't get rid of them. Don't want to get rid of them. But Agean, they gave their lives so you could come out alive. You shouldn't dishonor them by not really living, and that's the truth. Okay?"

Agean looks up at Plet, surprised. Plet's games had happened thirty-one years ago. He hadn't expected it to be so bad for the senior victor still, after all these years passing.

Worse: is he doomed for this too?

But he doesn't say that. He doesn't ask that, because he knows that he just can't, no matter how much the question begs him to escape. Instead, he stays quiet, before responding quietly. "It's hard to, though."

"I know," Plet responds simply. "I know. Just try."

And that's that.

Ten minutes later, Agean finds himself walking in the door of his house again. He's hit by the unmistakable smell of dinner, fresh fish from the marketplace that was already cooked into a delicious meal.

Reana gives him a close-lipped smile from the dining table. "Just finished dinner," she says. "How are you?"

Agean sighs.

"You're mentoring next year?"

Agean knows he shouldn't be shocked—it is fairly obvious, after all—but he can't help but always be amazed by Reana's ability to correctly predict everything that Agean's feeling. He slumps down into the chair and starts eating, even though he's lost all his appetite. It's good, it's just that he's not in the mood for dinner.

"Ag," she says, and a ghost-smile quickly appears on Agean's face at the nickname. "You know you can tell me anything, right? You can talk to me, and I won't judge you at all. Ever. You know that, right?" He doesn't want to bother her, doesn't want her to worry. But she has that way of saying things so gently that he knows she wants to care.

Reana is all that Agean has left. He was never really one to go out and socialize the way his parents would encourage it. And his family disowned him shortly after his victory. Not that family's much anyways; his older sister's grave and spiteful parents and his Games-obsessed younger sister. He doesn't love his parents at all, and his sister hasn't talked to him in years.

He breathes in calmly, holds it, lets out. Like he's been told to. "It's just—it's not getting any better," he finally responds. "And I don't know how I can…carry on, if it's always going to be like this."

She reaches her hand over the table and takes his in it. "Ag, if you want to cancel everything, just know that I'll understand, and I—" Agean hastily shakes his head, remembering what Plet told him. Then he looks at her, the beautiful, wonderful woman who's trying to take the broken pieces of his soul and put them back together, like he was as easy to heal as a puzzle.

He wished it were that way, for a long time. But in the last year, he's realized that there's not much use in hoping anymore.

"No," he says, his voice hoarse. "No. I'm not doing that, Reana. Never."

She nods. "Well, is there anything I can do to help?"

Agean shakes his head, hating how helpless he feels. "Maybe if I hadn't been so foolish as to volunteer in the first place, but you can't control that."

"I just feel so…so…" she drifts off, lost for words.

"I know," and it's Agean this time, not Plet, who says those words. "I know."

Alright! Hello! Welcome! (That was probably too many exclamations.) I'm super excited to finally share this SYOT, which will be the first in a series. Firstly, I want to start off with a disclaimer—yes, I AM FULLY AWARE THAT THE AEGEAN SEA IS SPELLED LIKE SO. It was a typo at first, but then it just kind of stuck with me, so here we are. Please don't mention this in the reviews.

I hope you enjoyed all the characters in here; they were all really fun to write. Who were your favorites? How do you think the District Four tributes will fare underneath their district's 'two worst mentors?' Feedback and thoughts on the chapter are much appreciated.

If you're interested in submitting, and you're reading this when it's still open: please do! All the information for this SYOT, including the form, rules, and worldbuilding can be found at https : / / thescreamsdontstop . carrd . co and you can PM me if you have any more questions. Looking forward to your submissions!

-Izzi