Prada Fendi

Age 18

District 1 Male

The news feeds were in a frenzy.

The fact that District 1 had recently seen a student from their fancy new boarding school finally win the Hunger Games was drowned out by other headlines spoke volumes to just how dire the situation was.

When Hilarious got the news at work, he just about broke down in tears. How could this have happened? None of it made any sense!

He was just glad Dr. Gaul had taken the day off (as odd as that was. She never did that) otherwise she might have seen his tears as weakness.

Hilarious's new friend Magnus saw this and approached him. At this point, the headlines had started scrolling through the screens and people were gasping in horror. When Magnus saw it, his face grew hard and ashen.

"Interim President and election front-runner Felix Ravinstill found dead in his home. Physician Lysistrata Vickers executed for assassination by medical malpractice."

"What the hell?" he breathed. "How?"

Hilarious choked back a sob and Magnus, bless him, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the break room. Once inside, he took the extra step of taking him into a nearby supply closet.

"They're saying heart failure," Hilarious sobbed, "and that it apparently ran in the family, but that doesn't make any sense! I had just had dinner with him last night. Lyssie had given him a clean bill of health! And now they're both dead!"

"You know what this means, right?" Magnus breathed. "Felix was the only other candidate besides Coriolanus."

Hilarious's eyes went wide. "Y-yeah... Coryo's unopposed. Do you ... think they're going to replace Felix?"

Magnus frowned and seemed to think about it for a moment.

"No," he finally said. "It looks like good ol' Coryo is going to be President." Hilarious's mind raced when he realized that Magnus was right. The election was a couple of weeks away. Even if there was enough time to put together a successful campaign beforehand, heart failure was a common cause of death, especially when stress was involved.

Then, he saw the stone in Magnus's eyes, and a hint of sadness that wasn't there before. "What is it?" Hilarious asked.

Magnus blinked and his eyes shimmered a bit. "This stays between us, but Dr. Gaul isn't taking the day off. I had to take her to the hospital this morning. She wasn't feeling well. I don't think this is a coincidence..."

"Isn't she, like, a thousand years old?" Hilarious asked. "Maybe they aren't related."

Magnus shook his head. "She's eighty-five. She's no spring chicken, but she wasn't entirely unhealthy either. Hilarious, I'm going to go to the hospital and see Dr. Gaul. If Snow did something to her, she'll know about it. She'll point me in the right direction. If I can get the reports–"

"Wait," Hilarious said, holding his hand up. "Just wait. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. Clearly, we underestimated Snow. If he did something to Felix and to Dr. Gaul... He's definitely done it to a lot of other people. Maybe we shouldn't cross him."

"We can't just give up!" Magnus cried. "We can't let Snow get away with murder."

Hilarious's eyebrows furrowed as it all came together. The so-called genetic heart condition, the rushed autopsies, executing the physician within the hour without a trial, Dr. Gaul's illness, Wovey dropping dead out of nowhere...

"I think he already has," Hilarious muttered. "Magnus, we need to lay low. Hell, all the victors do. Prada already threw his support to Snow during his interview, remember? Once he got done crying for his sister. And he practically coasted through the Games. They're talking more about that than the fact that Ruby finally got a student from District 1's little school out alive. Or the fact that he had then killed his sister in cold blood."

"Snow's manipulating the arena..." Magnus replied softly. "Just like a Gamemaker..."

"Magnus, I don't think there's anything more we can do." Hilarious hated it. He hated quitting, but he also knew when he was beaten. Snow had been outplaying him for years, ever since Wovey died the way she did. It all made sense now. It was too convenient the way everything played out for him for it to be anything else. Lucy Gray winning the Games, President Ravinstill dropping dead of heart failure and Felix following suit, Lysistrata being effectively silenced because Hilarious knew she wouldn't have kept her mouth shut if her friend had been murdered. Snow had his hands in it all from the start, and Dr. Gaul was probably involved too, except now that the presidency was all but his, she wasn't needed anymore. Going up against him would only result in their deaths as well. Died of the flu. "You have your family to think about here."

Magnus reached out and gripped Hilarious's shoulders. "I know. I'm doing this for them."

"Damn it, Magnus! I'm trying to save you here!"

"That's what I'm doing. I'll take care of everything, Larry. Just lay low and cover for me, okay?"

Then, he was gone before Hilarious could say anything else.

Two weeks later, on election night, he got the call from Magnus that Dr. Gaul had died in her sleep. He was furious but was trying so hard to hide it. Hilarious sadly realized that it was only a matter of time before Magnus caught Snow's attention and was killed off too.

Hilarious was about to lose another friend, and here he was doing nothing. He felt like a damn coward.

This week's prompt was "I'm trying to save you," which was what Hilarious was trying to do for his friend Magnus. Prada's story and the story of the Rise of the DAE in general was mostly covered by previous fics, so I decided to focus on what was definitely overshadowing his victory: the deaths of Felix and Lysistrata, the illness and death of Dr. Gaul, and Snow's election as President. The next chapter will have a little more focus on the victor, but will also wrap up Snow's rise to power arc, and then we can get to the next big arc in this story: The Book Club!

Okay, so I do want to get this little announcement out of the way. I'm doing Viccember and getting a bunch of updates out because I want to get this story wrapped up and because of FOMO, but also because, well, I'm going to be putting it on hiatus at the conclusion of the prompt month. If my math is right, the last prompt will be at the 43rd Hunger Games, seven years before the Second Quarter Quell, the perfect place to leave it off until March, when Sunrise on the Reaping comes out. The reason is that while this is an AU, I want to keep it as canon-compliant as possible up until it diverges at the 74th Games. I've already come to terms with the fact that I will have all kinds of holes blown into my verse by canon-balls, but I do want to try to incorporate some of what will go down in that book into my Verse where I can and I don't want to establish anything else this close to the Quell. Rest assured, once I read the book and get the Verse sorted, I will return with this story. In fact, my intention is to finish it before I open my next SYOT after A Single Moment.

Anyway, with that out of the way, see you tomorrow with a familiar name if you've read A Single Moment!