living life in the city

it will never be pretty

we can plan if we make it

we won't let 'em, they won't take it from me

prologue

Ananke Island is a tiny island that sits right off the coast of California, beautiful but small, too small to even be seen on most maps. For the few who had heard of it before, it is known mostly for its luxurious resort, with a grand view that overlooks the Pacific and architecture that is said to rival even the Ancient Greeks. If this is true, not many can vouch for it; it is not a very popular vacation destination, despite what its beauty may lead one to believe. There are not many pictures of Ananke that can be found on the internet, and if someone is lucky to come across one, it is often the same image used again and again. Strangely, no one has thought of this fact as peculiar.

Of course, it has its accidents, as every tourist destination does—an unusual amount of accidents, given its baffling unpopularity. A couple decades back, several tourists' belongings were said to have vanished, as if into thin air. Another year, part of the resort was flooded, but everything seemed fine, when backup arrived a couple hours later. A miracle, the resort owners claimed, it was a miracle. The headline didn't even last on the news for more than a couple of days. Nobody thought to wonder beyond their definition of a miracle. Nobody thought.

Still, over the years, Ananke Island has remained fairly under the radar. No strange events have occurred there as of recent, but a tourist running a travel blog had once vaguely mentioned in a post—now deleted—that there seemed to be some kind of unsettling aura surrounding the island. As most things are nowadays, this was not questioned.

julia connolly (28)

"This is the last I'll be seeing of the city for awhile," Julia said wistfully to her boyfriend, wiping her hands off on her jeans. Her suitcase, now packed, laid on the carpet right next to her bed, so when she woke up in the morning, it would be easy to just grab and go. Matt slipped an arm around her waist and grinned, pulling her closer to him. Julia pretended to roll her eyes, but she was biting back a grin of her own as she hid her face in his shoulder. "I'm going to miss you when I'm on this trip, you know."

"Are you kidding me?" Matt laughed, releasing her. The city lights that slipped through their apartment window illuminated his face, casting them both in a dim afterglow. Just for a moment, the golden flecks in his eyes looked like stars. "Chicago to some beautiful island in California. Feel free to forget about home as much as you want."

She groaned. "It's for a field trip, you know. I have to supervise my students."

"It's still a vacation, though."

"Well, it won't be very relaxing," Julia deadpanned, and he just laughed again, kissing her on the forehead before bidding her goodnight. Julia couldn't help the tiny, infectious smile that threatened to spread across her face as Matt shut the door behind him, as if she was a teenager again, a young girl with a crush. It had been five years since they'd met for the first time—two since she'd moved in—but most people needed an anchor in life, something to focus on when they want to block the world out. For her, that anchor was him. "Maybe you should just book an airplane ticket now," she called through the door a couple seconds later, half-meaning it.

"Maybe I should," Matt called back, but his voice was lilting, teasing, and hers wasn't. Quietly, Julia looked at her suitcase on the carpet and sighed. She would just have to accept the fact that she was going by herself, after all—herself, that was, and twenty four high school students.

Later on, Julia hitched the bedsheets higher up around her shoulders and rolled over to face the window. Chicago was laid out underneath the apartment like a map, with its streets that college students tended to stumble down from whatever bar they were in on nights like these and traffic lights that flickered from red to green in the dark, almost like neon stars. It was funny, the fact that she had wanted so badly to move here when she was younger. It was a city. It was close to her parents. Now, it was just Chicago, the place she lived; it was the place where she struggled to pay her half of the rent, even though Matt swore up and down that it was okay, the place where the students were incredibly rowdy and she was just that new teacher. "You know," she whispered softly into the darkness, not turning around to check if Matt was still awake behind her, "at least Ananke will have stars at night."

Matt stirred a little, only half awake. "You're right," he mumbled, mostly into his pillow, but he was already drifting off, she could tell.

"I don't know. I just have a weird feeling about this trip."

He yawned. "Flight jitters?"

"Not really," Julia said, thinking aloud. "It's just…" But then Matt let out a soft snore, and she had to stop talking to herself, because he had fallen asleep.

It seemed like the entire city had practically fallen asleep already, or at least had crawled under their covers to get ready for bed. The traffic light closest to the building outside switched from green to red, and it was strange, Julia thought, that she was dreading this trip so much, when usually, she wanted nothing more than to catch a break. "You'll be fine," she murmured to herself, just because she had to hear it out loud, even if it was her own voice. Still, an unsettling feeling had tied itself into a knot in the pit of her stomach, and she could not shake the feeling that something was about to happen, not even when she fell asleep, the field trip and her students on her mind. I'm probably overreacting.

That night, Julia dreamed of a flood.

A/N: Welcome to this new SYOT! As you could tell by the story, this is going to be a modern Hunger Games, taking place in America and not Panem. The year is 2020. Submission forms and rules will be on my profile, so I hope you can submit! Updates will definitely not be super fast but I'll try to be consistent. Of course, school and sports have to come first.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

(The song lyrics at the top are by The Lumineers. They are not mine.)