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לברוח
lee⬩vro⬩ach
to flee
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Misty Yearwood was never afraid.

From the moment her parents taught her about her true origins, about the responsibilities her family upheld for their country even from across the ocean, nothing filled the girl but a deep sense of duty. She was a guardian of her country, responsible for protecting her homeland from those in Panem who sought to destroy her. Even when she was relocated to the Capitol, in the shadow of the very people she was taught to distrust, she never once showed one sign of panic. This is her duty, her opportunity to serve that nobody else could ever claim to have.

Misty Yearwood is never afraid.

Until, on one fateful April day, Alexios Nox is executed.

And Misty Yearwood is petrified.

Like she's a sprinter, the gunshot signals to Misty that it is time to run.

She bolts through the streets of the Capitol, down a familiar path that she's traveled hundreds of times before, skidding to a stop in front of an inconspicuous door. Her eyes gloss over the dents and scratches and scrapes that she swears are new as her trembling hands open the flap on the lockbox. It takes one, two, three tries before she finally opens the small padlock inside with a yank.

For a moment, she hesitates. There's no way to tell if this is a trap, if someone is waiting for her inside, tipped off by some torturer deep in the walls of the prison that held Alexios. But she quickly shoves all thoughts of that risk aside.

Misty Yearwood cannot let herself be afraid. The fate of her country depends on her.

She pulls the door open, throwing herself down the stairs towards whatever waits underground.

Immediately, she's hit by the strongest stench of blood she's ever smelled. Fumbling for a moment, Misty barely manages to flip the light switch, a single, dingy lightbulb illuminating the path down to the basement. Misty shudders; she remembers leaving the light on the last time she left this room, days before Alexios's capture. He insisted that everything would be OK, but that she stay away from headquarters until "everything blew over." And Misty - foolish, blind Misty - accepted his directive without hesitation.

Had she known that his plan would lead to his death on live television, broadcasted to the entire country, Misty would have fought harder to stop Alexios. But even now, the image of his dead body burned in her mind, she knows he never would have listened. Alexios would never have hesitated to sacrifice himself for his country. Misty hopes that, someday, she can do the same.

She takes a moment to compose herself, then keeps pushing forward.

With each step she takes, Misty's heart beats faster. She can only begin to imagine what awaits her at the foot of these stairs. Images flash through her mind of the stories her parents told her about Panem, of white-coated menaces who steal innocent children from their homes and execute them without warning, of brutal dictators who prioritize the lives of a wealthy few over those who sustain them. These people break down far more than they build up – and if they've discovered the headquarters of those hell-bent on destruction in return, Misty can only assume that nothing remains.

What she finds is even worse.

Her gaze snaps first to the filing cabinet bolted to the left-hand wall. The frame still stands, but its drawers are scattered across the room, blood-soaked papers strewn everywhere. Her eyes dart to the control station next, or more accurately, what's left of it. All of its screens are smashed, its keyboards unusable, its mouse nowhere to be found. A trail of blood drips down from the desk, leading to the table in the center of the room.

There, sprawled out on its surface, rests the dead body of a girl whom Misty recognizes only from photos, whom she was never supposed to meet in the flesh. Her eyes are open in shock, her mouth frozen in the shape of an "o". One of her hands grips the edge of the table. The other is limp by her side, covered in the blood that must have come from the bullet wounds that dot her torso; another puddle of blood sits innocuously beneath her head.

Alexios Nox is dead. Pacifica Corwin lies dead in front of her. And Cerise Emerald, the only other person who knows the location of their hideout, must have betrayed them both.

Misty Yearwood may very well be next.

Unless…

Misty's mind begins to whirr, finally understanding Alexios's plan. He was right to remain wary of Cerise Emerald; no matter how much they claim to be trustworthy, Snows are never up to any good. By hiding Misty from Cerise, Alexios kept her – and their entire operation – alive for another day. But if even a single file mentions her name, the entire Capitol will be looking for her by nightfall.

Perhaps they already are. There's no easy way to tell if any of the files are missing.

The government could be luring Misty into a trap.

Never before has Misty made a decision so quickly. She rushes to the filing cabinet and pries off its false back, breathing a huge sigh of relief when she sees that the document cache is intact. Misty rips the cache out of the wall and takes off, up the stairs and through the door and away from the remnants of everything Alexios Nox built.

Misty Yearwood carries the future of her people on her back. And she refuses to let them down.

Once you start running, you never really stop.

Her feet pound against the pavement, her body running on autopilot as she ducks into yet another alleyway, one that takes her into a veritable labyrinth of barely-lit streets and broken pavement. This is the seediest section of the Capitol by far, the one area that no tribute, Victor, or camera will ever be allowed to set foot into.

All the better for Misty. The worse the Capitol thinks of the people that live around her, the more likely it is that she'll fly under their radar. For her purposes, this cheap, disintegrating apartment building is the best place she could have found to call home.

As she slides into her basement apartment through the tiny window just inches from the ceiling, Misty reminds herself that she knows exactly what to do. She knows which cables to unplug and in what order. She knows the precise whereabouts of every personal belonging that she wants to save. She knows how to make sure that nobody dares come into her room until she's long, long gone.

Of course she knows all of this. Alexios insisted that she practice for this very scenario at least twice a day. It had seemed foolish to Misty at the time, but now she could not be more grateful for the fact that her body is running on autopilot. She can already hear the ticking of a clock in her ear – though in her paranoid mind, it might as well be the click of a gun. If she had to think at all about what to do in this moment, she'd be dead in a heartbeat. Instead, she is in and out in less than fifteen minutes.

She has just enough time before she slips out to spare a single glance around the room that has been a haven for her since she arrived here in the Capitol. The fact that she first set foot here ten years ago to the day is not lost on Misty.

It's a shame she will likely never see it again.

The woods are far from foreign to Misty Yearwood.

She spent her childhood in District Seven, after all, growing up underneath towering redwoods and sequoias. There was hardly a day where she went straight home from school, preferring instead to linger in the neatly kept groves of maple trees and evergreens.

If she closes her eyes, Misty can almost imagine that the wilderness between Panem's districts is just as pleasant.

Misty lets the small silver compass sit in her palm, allowing it to guide her to the next cache of supplies. She isn't expecting much – the others have had little more than a few cans of food and some jerky, along with the next compass – but even little gifts are enough to keep her going. They serve as yet another reminder of just how prepared Alexios was for the prospect that their entire cause would come down to Misty's survival.

That thought should by all accounts be terrifying to Misty. Alexios's posthumous guidance via doctored compasses and pre-built shelters will do nothing to save her from injury, illness, or worse; quite simply, there is no guarantee that Misty will reach the safehouse. But Misty won't let herself be afraid. She's already completed the hardest part of her mission – escaping the Capitol unscathed and unnoticed – and done so with flying colors at that. All she has to do now is follow the path laid out for her long ago.

Follow the compasses until you find one painted a pale pink. Once you find it, keep your eyes out for the fence - and the gaps within it. Your contact will meet you there and take you to our stronghold.

There is much about the future that Misty cannot predict. But as long as she has faith in her own abilities, and in the value of her cause, she knows she cannot fail.

The path to the safehouse is long and winding, weaving through the wilds rather aimlessly as far as Misty is concerned. She understands why Alexios chose this trail to blaze: the more difficult the trail is to follow, the less likely it is for the wrong person to keep trying. It is only with the help of his compasses that Misty is able to keep going.

But Misty can't deny she's getting tired – and more importantly, lonely.

Through the trees, she can just make out the fields of Nine, its wheat a radiant golden color in the light of the setting sun. A group of laborers work together to harvest the grain, and yet they do not seem nearly as miserable as the stories say; rather, they seem to be laughing together as they run their sickles through the amber waves.

Misty cannot remember the last time she was in a group that large. In fact, she can't remember the last time she spent time with more than one other person, maybe two. The last ten years of her life have been entirely under the thumb of Alexios Nox, who insisted on keeping her shielded, separate… alone. For a brief moment, she begins to doubt his methods, but she quickly puts those thoughts aside.

Every decision Alexios made in his life was for the sake of their homeland, to better the lives of the people who have suffered because of the Snows. Misty cannot doubt him now, not when they are at the critical waypoint between success and failure. If she lets him down now, the very people she's been sworn to oppose her entire life will win.

Her own shallow desires cannot come above the needs of her entire country.

And so she presses on, redirecting every ounce of energy into the deceptively simple act of pushing forward.

At this point, there's nothing else she can do.

Time begins to blur together.

She has no idea how long she's been out in the wilderness. Every sunrise and sunset begins to look like the last, until not even a particularly vibrant pink or gorgeous orange is enough to make any one morning or evening stand out. It would have been intelligent to find some way to keep track of how much time she'd spent in the woods. But it's far too late for that; all Misty can do is hope that she makes it to Six before a month passes and the officials across the ocean pronounce her dead.

It would be a shame to rush an attack because she wasn't fast enough. Everything Alexois had planned would be for nothing.

He would be so disappointed in me.

The thought only causes her to push harder. She begins to cut down on sleep, walking through the night when she can and sleeping minimally when she can't. Misty knows that she can only sustain this pace for so long. She just has to hope she reaches the fence before her body gives out.

It's not like she has anything else to give.

She's beginning to lose faith – in Alexios, in her countrymen, in herself, she's not sure. But as she opens up yet another cache of supplies in the early morning darkness, the rays of dawn finally pierce through.

The compass is painted pink. She'll make it before nightfall.

In fact, she makes it long before; barely has the sun crested the horizon when she catches glints of gold reflecting off of some sort of metal. It's only a moment more before the trees thin out and, through a smoggy haze, she catches her first glimpses of District Six.

It's somehow worse than she expects.

Not like Misty expected much. The northern half of District Six is the part of Panem that the Capitol cares the least about by a landslide. But this shithole makes her shithole neighborhood in the Capitol look like… well, like the Capitol. There's no way that even a single building in the area has had any form of upkeep in at least the last decade, more likely longer. Though it's early in the morning, there is plenty of activity in the streets, ranging from fairly typical to less-than-legal. Even the fence shows signs of disrepair; Misty is easily able to slip through a gap in the chain-link to meet one Mira Gresley, and the electric buzz Alexios warned her about is noticeably absent.

But as Mira explains to Misty as they walk through Six's streets, the advantages of such a neglected area are tremendous. As long as things remain relatively calm, the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to most of the goings-on in the district. Misty sees this for herself; while she must look like an absolute mess after so many days in the woods, not a single official pays her (or Mira, for that matter) any mind.

All the better for Misty. In a way, the Peacekeepers' apathy provides her protection, as close to a guarantee as she can that her work will go uninterrupted.

Misty follows Mira into a particularly run-down building, navigating through darkened corridors and rusted doorframes until they arrive at a small, metal-plated room. She doesn't waste a minute, immediately opening her suitcase and beginning to set up her equipment. Every second now is precious time Misty can't afford to give up.

Before she or Mira knows it, Misty's sent the first blast of energy into the barrier that blocks anyone else from connecting to their secure frequency. She'll only have to repeat the process once a day before she's finally allowed in - and do so exactly the same way every time.

Fortunately, she knows exactly what to do. And, just as Alexios prepared her for, Misty executes her work perfectly. Two weeks to the minute after she arrives in District Six, Sasaki Akimitsu makes contact with intelligence forces in Kazanato, a country she has never seen but loves with all her heart.

A day later, Kazanato mobilizes.

Welcome back to the chaos.

It's been a bit since I've been here! And kind of by design to be fair - camp was busy and I wanted to make sure I had updates spaced out within my sub period. I hope y'all enjoyed our next peek into this new phase of my verse! And I hope you liked Misty because I have many fun plans for her (especially because this prologue turned out sadder than I expected whoops). Huge huge thanks to both Linds and R-B for looking over this chapter all the way, and Laney for her little nudges in the right direction near the end! Your help is always appreciated and I'm very happy to have y'all to support me.

Anyways, as I said last time, subs are closing on October 22nd. I was originally gonna wait to post Prologue 4 until the list drops around October 30th but I'm loosely toying with the idea of moving it up by a month and dropping the list with intros 1? We'll see how things pan out. Sub info is both on my FFN Profile, in my Verses channel, and at bit . ly / ngdgu136, whichever access point you prefer.

Also! As I will mention on Verses momentarily, I'm going to be sending out some check-in DMs to anyone who's already told me they were subbing. This is NOT to pressure you, this is to make sure that camp brain and post-camp brain Goldie are on the same page before I get my wisdom teeth out this weekend in terms of who I heard murmurings from, what slots people are eyeing, etc. Again, y'all have two months, don't worry about it.

I think that's all? I'll see you maybe in a month, maybe more :0

xoxo, xxxi