"Coffee's for closers"

A/N: Things'll cheer up once we get to Reapings, I promise lol. Until then here's another of our remaining victors. Next chapter is the final prologue, and I'll be posting a full tribute list/blog with the chapter. Submissions will close at 11:59 PM on Friday, so make sure to submit by then!

~We never believe again

Kick drum beating in my chest again

Oh we will never believe again

Preach electric to a microphone stand~

Audra Lee, 17, Victor of the 98th Hunger Games

The room seemed devoid of oxygen. People passed along, dancing and laughing and smiling, lost in the moment, as if they had forgotten all that had happened. Everybody seemed happy, and Audra hated it. She resented every smiling face and exchange of laughter. She felt suffocated, trapped in a place she never wanted to be.

The Victory Tour had come to District Five. Hailey had stood up on stage, mumbling her words as she gave a half-hearted thanks to Levi and Sigma. Levi's parents stood in tears, Sigma's in stoicism. Both grieved their own ways, but all of them hurt all the same.

Audra hadn't slept the night before, and didn't allow herself the reprieve of coffee. Instead she sat on the stage, with heavy eyes and a numbness that left her unable to show what she truly felt. That was how it would have to be now. There was no room for another broken, teary-eyed victor. She needed to be something greater than that, something that could show people a better way, inspire hope again. That was what she told herself, but every passing day found herself slipping further from that dream. Each lonely night, filled with terrors that didn't cease when she woke with a cold sweat, and each long day that would always feel wasted, no matter how hard she tried to find purpose.

And now there was the after-party. She reckoned with herself she should set a good example. If she were really the person she convinced herself she had to be, then she would do so much more than just sit and brood, fighting tooth and nail just to avoid breaking down. She would meet with Hailey and congratulate her, forgive her for what she had to do in the Games, the children whose lives she took. That was the person Panem needed. But it wasn't the person Audra was able to give. She had pretended for too long, so that only the thinnest veil remained before the full truth was out, and the broken, damaged girl who had emerged from that arena four years ago finally reared her head.

It wasn't like anyone else was doing any better. There wasn't some shining example of a heroic victor, someone to aspire to be, and feel ashamed for not rising to their lofty expectations. Hailey and Glory were just as much a mess as herself, Mira was even worse off and had been for nearly a decade, and Dalton was a prick. Audra was the best of the unwanted bunch, the last one clinging on to even the tiniest shred of hope. Even then that hope wasn't her own, just a construction, a pretension of belief that something better could be on the horizon. A construed faith that she prayed would spread to others who were unaware of just how little hope she really felt.

Audra sighed, leaning into the table as she sloshed her glass of water, watching as the ice cubes made circles around the cup. The new escort for District Five sat next to her. She was young, hardly older than Audra, but decked out with enough makeup to make her look twice her age. Her blonde hair and unnaturally bright blue eyes seemed to shine against her blemish free skin. She wore a strapless red dress that was studded with jewelry on every free inch of fabric. The woman spoke in that typical, posh accent that the Capitolites seemed to have, and Audra couldn't find it in her to actually listen to what the woman was saying.

Someone else managed to catch her attention, though. The man spotted Audra at the same time she laid eyes on him, and immediately began to move towards her. His hair had greyed more than should be possible in the past two years since she had first met him, pronounced wrinkles began to appear on the forehead of his pale skin. He wore a half-hearted smile, dressed for a funeral in his full black attire.

"Hello, Audra," the man said.

"Hi, Jaycen," she replied.

He took a seat opposite the table from her, asking for the rest of the table to excuse them for a moment. They did so hesitantly, Jaycen sitting patiently as he waited until it was only the two of them.

"It's been quite some time, Audra." Jaycen reached into his coat pocket, fiddling with something as he struggled to keep eye contact. "What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?"

"I'm not," she said bluntly.

"Not?"

"Busy," she said. Her voice was robotic, devoid of any sort of emotion. "I sit around and watch television all day. Every month I get sent a dozen books from the Capitol, and those keep me busy for a week until it's back to soap operas and reality television."

"I see," he said, his attention now hardly on Audra at all.

"And what about you, anything exciting?" She asked.

"Nothing too much, no." Jaycen smiled. "We got the rebels who were responsible behind all the attacks, and with that mess now dealt with, things have gotten quiet for the CDA. Being a rebel isn't exactly something supported by your common man at the moment, so all the groups have gone quiet for the time being. Now we just get to. . ." he trailed off, wincing in effort for a moment before popping something into place, a clicking sound barely audible to Audra's ears. Jaycen lifted a small, grey, circular device and placed it onto the table between the two of them. ". . . rebuild."

"What's that?" She asked, her interest ever so slightly lifted by her curiosity.

"Just one of our newest toys, don't mind it. This, however," he said, sliding a similar device across the table, though this one had a blue button on its top. "Is something you should hold on to."

Audra didn't make a move towards the device. She continued to stare at Jaycen, her murky, blue eyes hazily looking at him with expectancy.

"It's just something so that you and I can keep in touch, that's all." Jaycen drummed his fingers along the table impatiently, his pupils making their way around the room.

"Is my telephone not good enough?" Audra asked.

"The Capitol is a very different place than it was a year ago. The attacks left many gaps in Panem's leadership and Games staff, gaps that have not always been filled with those who share the previous governments ideals. Coira and myself are about all that remains of my sister's regime."

"I thought Coira left her job as the interviewer," Audra interrupted. "That's what everyone on all the Capitol shows are saying, anyway."

"She'll come around," Jaycen said, not showing any worry about the likeliness of his statement. "In the meantime, Audra Lee, you have become quite invaluable to many of these new people of power."

This was the first thing that seemed to break past Audra's shell. She dropped her pretension of disinterest, her eyes twinkling with curiosity as she gazed at Jaycen. "Why me?"

Jaycen shrugged, as if it were obvious. "Victors have always held a lot of sway among the populace. Right now, only five victors are still alive, and you're unequivocally the most popular one of them. There's quite a few people who desire the level of control and impact your words and actions can make. There's also a significant group who fear that power. We have an old president, one who remembers all too well the Mockingjay rebellion, and the impact a single victor can make on Panem."

"So then why do you care?" Audra asked, unable to find within her an emotional response to what was just said to her. All it did was add onto that weight she already felt on her shoulders.

"I care because you're more than just a tool in someone else's political game," Jaycen said with bitterness. Audra could see there was something else behind that statement, but she didn't bother to push it any further. "I want you to hold on to that device, and if anything, anything at all that I can help you with comes up, you need to call and let me know."

Audra nodded her head. She felt unsure, overwhelmed, and entirely unprepared for the expectations that so many apparently held for her. But still, if those expectations existed, she would have to strive for them. Even if they were hopelessly out of reach, she would stretch out as far as she could, and pull herself further forward.

Jaycen stood up, taking the first device with him as he walked away. Audra sat alone at the table, and wondered about the year that she had ahead of her. Things couldn't stay the same, that much she was sure of. Something would give. Something would break and be left unrepaired. She thought to herself that things will have to get better this year, that this would be where her story turned around. She had reached her rock bottom, but as long as she continued to look up, and see that as distant and blurred as it may be, the sun still shone, there was always hope that she would rise again.

After all, she decided, how can things not get better, when it's impossible for them to get any worse.