Prologue I

Lars Florian | 32 years
Head Gamemaker
170th Hunger Games

"You can't be serious."

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"Because I'm talking about you, you're never serious. About anything."

"Just because I don't take you seriously doesn't mean I don't take anything seriously. I know you love to think of yourself as everything that was ever important in the world, just accept that it's not true." Lars threw the last of the melon in his mouth and smirked. "I am."

The look of disgust on his companion's face could have won an award. She rolled her eyes and sighed. "You won't be for much longer. You'll be in about twenty-fifth place in four days." Vinicia continued to stare at the brightly coloured fruit laid out on the silver platter in front of them. Food was everywhere, at every hour of the day. For a grown ass man he ate like a pregnant woman with triplets. And just as much as he loved his food he loved the attention he garnered through becoming the Head Gamemaker.

"You doubt me. I'm almost offended," Lars murmured around the fruit at his lips. He did his best to keep a snicker from his face but failed miserably when his shoulders rolled forward with the small snort.

"This is what I mean! You know the arena is a good month away from being completed and you still laugh. That's insane even for you!" She exclaimed much louder than necessary, her smile barely concealed.

"At least I don't yell secrets so District 12 can hear them too!" He hissed, shooting his hands out and pushed the air down like it would muffle their voices. It wasn't really a secret. The control room was sealed tight from everything, built like a bomb bunker it seemed at times. There were cameras everywhere, in every nook and cranny of the ceiling and Lars could point out every single one of them. He'd have to get Stasia to edit this little conversation out somehow if that was remotely possible. She was the tech guru for a reason, not him.

Vin gave him a rather ugly snort, brushing away his concerns. "How could Roda put you in charge?"

"I've got pretty eyes."

If that's what the President cared about they'd be up to their noses in empty-headed dreamers with the right connected genetics to match what people liked to call pretty. They were all still dreamers. Everyone that stepped through those glass doors entered a dream world. Funny thing was, it was all something different for each of them. You needed a certain kind of insanity to take these positions. To take the ups and downs that weren't written in the fine print. They all took that mostly obliviously and rode the waves through the storms until they drowned in them. Those dreamers are the only ones capable of finding the eye to it all and thriving.

Vinicia shakes her head, crossing her legs and tapping the toe of her heel against the table leg. She watches him silently for a few seconds with her fist at her chin.

He didn't like how she watched him like that. Like he could feel her judgment melting into his skin. "I'm not even the only one to blame. Loxas has said he's got everything under control-"

If the sliding glass doors could crash against the wall beside them like every good ol' metal door, that's the sound that would have echoed through the otherwise empty room. That on its own was a rare sight. People liked to crowd around the control panels and desks lined with screens to make it look like they knew what they were doing, which only prevented that exact work from getting done.

Speak of the devil.

Loxas's hand shoots up to his forehead and from where the pair are sitting the wince is clear. So is the puff of pink that spreads across his cheeks. He brushes his hand over his face trying to wipe off the look of utter shock, the doors slide open properly this time and he stalks in. He looks like he's on a mission. He untucks the tablet and slaps it into Lars's hands, smiling. There's something unsettling about it though, just the way it doesn't match the urgency in his steps that literally caused a collision with the doors he knows are there. Same as every other day.

Lars sits back. The tablet is already on, brightness as high as it could be apparently, causing him to squint at first. Vin's seat squeaks a bit as she leans forward to poke her nose over the edge. A rough few sketches sit in front of him, the lines all scraggly and sprawling, but the image and idea are there.

"Absolutely not," she blurts at first sight of the thing. Lars quirks a brow at her as if he were asking why she cared. She never did otherwise, but pique of curiosity at the moment he guessed.

"Are you high?" He asks with a shift of his eyes to the blue haired man. Nearly bending over backward in his seat to shoot prying eyes over him. He was almost hoping to see something poking out of the other's pockets but there was nothing there. It would have been taken off his person by security anyway. Security was also supposed to stop interruptions for the next half hour and that had gone perfectly.

"You ask me to give you everything me and my team think of, not my fault you might not like some of the things that come out," Loxas murmurs.

"I didn't ask for bigfoot."

"You asked for mutts." Loxas was unfazed by their Gamemakers denial. He straightens again, tucking the tablet under his arm. He watched Loxas walk around with that thing like it was an extension of his brain, everything stored onto it and away from the chaos that was the rest of the man. The rest of their jobs in truth. Loxas taps his fingers against the screen, glancing to Vin then back to him. "Fine, I see how it is." And promptly walks out of the room without any more of a fight.

Lars smiles, rubbing at his chin while the mop of cyan hair receded. He wouldn't put it past him to of rushed in there so hastily and left just as quick to get the answer he already knew he'd get. Pushed on it by his team members to at least ask what Lars thought.

The doors slide shut at Loxas's back, leaving them alone again. He brings his finger up and points it directly between Vin's eyes, slamming his elbow against the table in the process to make the effect more dramatic. "And Roda already knows," he states.

Her head falls back and mouth gapes open in mock exasperation. Clearly, she thought he'd let that subject die with their interruption, but that was her mistake. He wasn't about to let it slip by when he knew he could prove her wrong of something.

"It's not like he really cares either way. I think he only cares if the trail leads back up to him, which it won't, and he gets even more cameras in his face." He continues, wagging his finger in circles in the air. Being the president meant that everything was Roda's fault in some way to the press. Something that's been left in Lars's hands leading back up to him was an automatic death sentence. In a way he hoped was never literal.

Their president never showed much affection for anyone. Lars was quite positive the most he'd seen from Roda was a gentle pat on someone's shoulder, and that had been his husband's. Roda had a heart in there somewhere. Lars didn't have the desire to go searching for it if he didn't have to, and so far he hadn't. The tragedy in Four two years ago was close, but the noose fell to someone else.

"Alright if it makes you feel better," he huffs. He slides closer to her, locking his hand around the arm of her chair and dragging her along for the ride over to a screen. He's already halfway through the process of accessing the files when Vinicia's chair settles into place. For the past few weeks he's been going through them, so he wasn't slacking entirely. "Naida's crews have been monitoring the Centers in One, Two, Four and the half center in Seven. Footage will be easy to get from there, six out of twenty-four already handled. Adirain might get something while he's there too." he says as if he's listing off bullet points. "The rest will be gathered at the goodbyes. Any kind of reaction is what we need from them; good, bad, catastrophic, whatever."

Vin watches him flip through what they already had gathered and the few pieces of experimentation that Loxas took the initiative to record. "Do these count?" She cocks her head, looking at him with a subtle snicker. "Is this legal." Now if that wasn't the joke of one hundred seventy years.

"That's why we have the bird." Lars shrugs his shoulders.

He couldn't care less whether they counted or not. Late night hours are bound to be logged by his entire team all the way up to the launch to make final touches. It could be seen as a stretch but all they needed was one solid reaction to make it a success. There were countless moving parts in the scheme of things, but there always were. This game was no different than any other he'd played in his earlier years. He'd taken the safe steps of their proverbial handbook, but that didn't bring him anywhere new.

Risks were guessing games of which one would eventually kill him.

Welcome dear readers!

Do I know what I'm doing? No of course not, but twist seems to have enough faith.

This is my first go at one of these myself, just been a casual spectator for the past while but let's just take the dive shall we? The form is on my profile and hard to miss. PM me your completed submissions please and thank, review submissions will just be ignored, no matter how interesting it might be.

I have a makeshift blog for the capitol crew up on my profile so you guys can get a look at who the cast is. You can probably already tell that I like to have things out in the open to look at for my own sanity and organization. Mentors are there too and I love them too much already. I have three prologues planned for now to give ample time for submissions, and updates I plan on being for Sundays from now on. Hopefully.

This will be a pleasant and painful experience for all of us. My heart already aches.