Sup guys!

Still looking for a great deal of tributes (aren't I always?) This is the last prologue chapter I'm going to upload, and hopefully it'll drum up some more interest, because I really want to write this story. But if it doesn't and I can't write this SYOT for lack of tributes I promise I'll write something for each of the tributes already submitted, because you guys are amazing and I really appreciate your work and the tributes I've received.

That being said, hopefully I can write this story; I've got some really fun ideas for it. So if you're on the fence about submitting, please do! I'd appreciate it fam

Moving on, here's the last prologue chapter!

Prologue, Part Three

Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38

Peacekeeper, District Five

From the chaos in my mind a single keening voice breaks free and arrests my attention in its panic. Celeukos, it wails, don't go under, not again, you need to think, you need to focus.

So I do.

There is a tracker jacker hum in my mind, thick swirls of grey fabric that confuse and conceal, a sort of throbbing pain digging into flesh and limbs that I can hardly otherwise feel. Sweat, on my temples and around my collarbone. The sharp stink of fear.

Third, the voice in my mind whispers, almost hysterical, third time you've gotten this close, remember, there was the first and then the second was darker and now you're nearly there but you have to wake up wake up wake up wake up

The effort is monumental. I struggle against the grey foggy curtains that only exist in my head, throw away the pain, sharpen the internal cacophony into a single demanding voice that says, WAKE UP, and then I do. The relief is immediate and powerful, and I want to laugh, but when I feel for my lips they are swollen and glued together with dried saliva.

The eyes, then. I'll go for the eyes.

After a few silent moments my right eye draws open a fraction, blinks blearily, starts to close. NO, I tell myself, and it opens again, a grey cracked ceiling drawing into view above me, and that startles my other eye into opening as well. I stare up at the ceiling and try to calm the noise in my head into something productive. Think, Celeukos, I tell myself, as my temples throb, think and you'll know what to do.

"You're awake," says the voice, slithering into my ears like the rasping forward progress of a snake. "Unexpected."

My heart stops, starts, stops again. Then I lift my throbbing head.

It is a small room, grey like the ceiling, no windows, the only light source a bulb dangling from above on a slender chain. There are two chairs in the room, facing each other, and I shudder and stare down at my body, stripped of its uniform, and recognize that I have been restrained in one of them. I can hardly feel my body but I take in the straps and the cuffs and understand that if I regained full mastery of it at this moment it wouldn't matter, steps have been taken to ensure that I remain where I am. I narrow my eyes, try to clench my fists, and fail. Experimentally I go limp against the straps, feel them digging into my chest and stomach but not giving way. That was too much to expect.

"Celeukos Callas," says the voice, and somehow my name sounds perverse. "Peacekeeper, District Five. 38 years old." There is a pause while I raise my head, look him in the eyes. "Missing in action," he continues, while I gape, "Presumed dead."

It's Rueben Savage.

Rueben Savage, defeater of poor odds, survivor of knife and club and fire, Victor of the 91st Hunger Games. Rueben Savage, the District Seven boy who spat at official Games interviewer Melentius Loomer and was punished in the arena for it by the denarii of a thousand Capitolians who paid to see him burn. Rueben Savage, who came from the arena missing part of his skull, his lips, his hair, his genitals, the right half of his body melted and scarred and grotesque. Rueben fucking Savage, and though my training screams at me to be calm, calm, I remember what he did in the arena, and I am afraid.

He stares at me from under the hood I remember him wearing during his Victory Tour, eyes sunken behind purple bruised flesh, grey and flat. In his hands he holds a flask dribbling clear droplets of water, which he tosses from hand to hand. The pain in my head doubles and I cringe against the straps holding me to the chair, tongue feeling like dried-up old leather in my mouth.

Rueben leans forward and the flask goes from pale white hand to mutilated scarred hand and then right back to the smooth one, over and over. "Celeukos," he says, "Cell." He's mocking me. "What will you do for this water, I wonder?" He gives the flask a little shake and I can hear its contents sloshing. Somehow I can still produce saliva, and a strand of it drips from my rubbery bleeding lips.

My throat constricts. "Go… to… hell," I rasp, and every word tears at my abused throat, but I keep going, shuddering against the straps, "Traitor, rebel, Underground." My words are filled with pain. "Evil, twisted—"

Rueben stands abruptly and his hand darts for my face. I expect a slap, a punch, but he grasps me firmly by the chin and tilts my head back and then he brings the flask to my lips. I gasp and the water is cold, so cold, and it runs down the side of my face as I drink with the mad desperation of the dying.

When he pulls away I gasp, sated and nauseous, and glare up at him through a curtain of my dark hair. "You," I manage, in a voice closer to my own, "Victor, District Seven— Savage," I finish, and he knows that I know, but surely he was aware I would recognize him when all of Panem does. "Rebel," I continue, snarling, baring my teeth. "Traitor."

He falls gracefully back into his chair, sprawling over it like a cat, and the corners of his lips turn up. "Yes," he says, "To all of them."

I pant, stare up at him, and consider that if he's willing to talk I at least might be able to get something out of him before he kills me. And that's what he's going to do. My palms sweat at the thought but long ago the instinct to lie to myself was bred out of me, and I know he'll kill me, if not now then someday soon. "Why?" I ask him, and he seems to understand what I mean because he raises the skin where his eyebrows would be if they hadn't burned away years ago.

He stares down at me along the sharp plane of his smooth nose, one of the only parts of his face that haven't been twisted by scar tissue. "I do what I do for Panem," he says.

"So do I."

He actually has the audacity to smile. "You do what you do for the Capitol," he says, and he waggles a finger. "There's a difference, Cell." He steeples his fingers and rests his chin against them. "But even something like you can be of value." His teeth, white and perfect, glint in the darkness. "I will use you, Cell," he says, staring at me, "To carry out my will." He cocks his head. "The Capitol runs this country to the ground with its sanctions," he says, and I know that he's said these words before, to his Underground rebel friends, and I hate the words. "People starve in the streets. Children die in the Games." He runs feather-light fingers across the ruined half of his face. "The Capitol deals in cruelty," he says, "and it deludes itself into believing this is how things must be." He shakes his head; his hood dances around him. "No," he says, "No. Things are going to change."

I strain against the bondage. "Go to hell," I manage, spitting out the words, "I won't give you a damn thing," and as I speak Rueben gets to his feet and crosses the room to where the bulb dangles from the ceiling. He tugs on the cord and the room goes dark completely.

His voice crawls from the blackness. "I'm not giving you the option," he says, and in the span of a moment there is a familiar pain against my neck.

"Fuck," I mutter, as I lose control of my tongue again, as the chaos in my mind begins to brew, as the pain flares in my temples. The grey foggy curtains swirl up to envelop me and I can't find it in myself to resist. Celeukos, screams the voice in my mind, fight, fight, but I can't fight anymore, it hurts too badly, and the voice fades with the rest of me, and all I can see in the dark are the hard flat eyes of Rueben Savage, and all I can feel is the muted stab of fear.

Rueben Savage? More like Rueben... Savage. haha because he's a savage guy lol i'm not subtle

And where are Matrix and Kidd? dunn dunn dunn

Head to my profile page to submit. All the cool kids are doing it. Well, some of them are, I think.