Warning: Suicide and torture. Some bad language. It wouldn't really be Johanna if it didn't have any bad language.


Johanna Mason, District 7

"My name is Leslie Anne Levine

And I've got no one left to mourn for me."

The Decemberists, Leslie Anne Levine


Johanna Mason didn't allow herself to love many people.

Her parents had a loveless marriage. Her paternal grandparents were wealthy and strict, strict enough to force their son to marry the woman he'd accidentally made pregnant. As a child, Johanna was forced to choose sides so she chose her mother.

She had a reason to choose her mother over her father. Her father treated her like a worthless commoner. Her mother treated her like a strong, independent woman. Both of them taught her not to take any shit from anybody but in very different ways.

Eventually, Johanna's father had enough of her and kicked her out of the house. She gave him the middle finger and got a job at a lumber yard. That was one reason why she won her games. She could swing an axe like nobody's business.

After her victory, when President Snow asked Johanna if she'd rather be sold or lose her parents, she knew what they'd both want from her. Different things. She chose a side.

So the peacekeepers arrested Johanna's parents for some bullshit reason. They sentenced them both to a public hanging only to find Johanna's mother's body hanging from a noose in her cell. Johanna cried about it, but only for a day.

Her mother had gone out on her own terms.

She didn't even watch her father's hanging.


Johanna Mason allowed herself one friend.

Johanna's father had sent her to some fancy school for rich kids with big egos in the hope of turning her into something a little more marriageable. Even when he'd kicked her out of the house, her mother kept paying the school fees out of spite.

Johanna became very good at picking and choosing when to show up at school. She always picked drama lessons. Johanna loved acting. The vain part of her loved it because she loved being on a stage and the centre of attention. The insecure part of her loved it because she preferred being someone who wasn't weird, angry, lonely Johanna Mason.

The only other kid at the school who shared Johanna's passion for theatre was Bramble Alvares. He was tall, athletic, impossibly popular. Someone who Johanna usually would rather die than talk to.

But onstage, he could be anything. He was the boy with a thousand faces.

Johanna and Bramble had a weird sort of friendship, forged over years of rehearsals and school productions. She was the one he came to when his popular friends annoyed him too much. He'd complained so much to her about his girlfriends being awful that she'd got the sense that he wasn't really interested in girls.

When Johanna Mason was reaped for the Seventy-First Hunger Games, it became the role of a lifetime. She sobbed. She shivered. She begged for volunteers.

She didn't expect someone to volunteer.

She didn't expect that someone to be Bramble Alvares.

"Bram, you idiot!" She yelled on the train. "Why did you volunteer?"

"You asked for it," Bramble said, shakily. "You're my best friend. What was I supposed to do?"

"I was acting," she said. "I'm perfectly capable of winning without your help. I just don't want my opponents knowing that. Now you've just made my job twice as hard."

"I'm sorry," Bramble sobbed. "I didn't know. I just saw you up there and I panicked."

They made a deal to protect each other until the final two. Bramble played the hero, the confident athlete who got the sponsors' attention. Johanna played the helpless damsel, hiding all her skills with an axe. They both took comfort from playing a part. Maybe if they convinced themselves that their characters were the ones in danger, they'd feel safer.

But that changed when the girl from District 5 dropped her district token before the countdown ended.

That changed when it rolled a little too close to Bramble's platform.

That changed when an explosion blew off his arm and left him easy prey for the Careers.

Johanna Mason ran away from the bloodbath with an axe, a small backpack and anger, blooming cold in her heart. In her rush to escape, she hadn't seen who'd killed Bramble, her boy with a thousand faces. But she was sure it was a Career.

She'd have to make sure they were killed by a girl with even more.

She lured them away from their pack, one by one. Then she struck with her axe. Once she had them injured and helpless, she started slicing at their faces. It was scarily easy to pull the skin away from their skulls.

It was only when Johanna was standing over the faceless body of the girl from Four, the girl who'd once been so beautiful, that she realised what a monster she'd become. She accepted it with a bitter laugh. She'd got her revenge, on the Careers for killing Bramble. She'd got her revenge on herself as well. She'd made sure that nobody would ever be able to forget this. Nobody would ever love or trust her again, apart from other victors, other murderers.

She blamed herself more than she blamed the Careers. She was the reason why Bramble had volunteered. She was the reason why he'd died.

Johanna Mason had made herself famous as one of the most brutal killers in Hunger Games history.

But what really bothered her was how easy it'd been. Not the act of torture but winning the games. She could've won, even if Bramble hadn't volunteered.

By winning without his help, she'd made sure that he'd died for nothing.


The only other person that Johanna let herself love was her mentor, Blight. He was like a father to her. He knew what it was like to be hated by a parent. He also knew what it was like to lose a close ally.

He convinced her that she could be human again, one day.

But Johanna only knew Blight for four years. Then came the Quell, the blinding, bloody rain and the force field.

Johanna shrugged off his death, trying to hide that she'd lost the one person she had left. She convinced all the others, even Finnick. She was an actress.

She acted as if there was nobody left she loved. It was true. But she never let on how her final loss had been so recent.

She was still lucky that she never encountered the jabberjays. The gamemakers had a way to alter footage from past games and interviews to make it sound like people were screaming. They could've easily used Johanna's mother, her best friend or her mentor against her.


As outliers go, Johanna's probably one of the most vicious. She tortured the Careers in a pretty scary way but it mostly stems from her blaming herself for her best friend's death. Johanna being a vicious killer isn't as surprising as Seeder being a vicious killer since she was already aggressive in Catching Fire. It's a common theme among victors that they struggle to connect with other people and Johanna's probably one of the most isolated victors. After the war, she'll be a lot more likely to move on from everyone she's lost but it'll be slow progress.

Speaking of slow progress, next chapter will be long. I've got something elaborate planned, since it's based on the games from the first story I've ever written.