TW for mentions of loss of loved ones, in each of the POVs. Please reach out to me if you'd like a summary; I'd be more than happy to provide one.

"In my life, there are so many questions and answers

That somehow seem wrong.

In my life, there are times when I catch in the silence

The sigh of a faraway song."

Sera Velasco, 16, District Five (She/Her)

There are a hundred unsolved mysteries just waiting for someone to pick them apart and bring them to the light.

Perhaps that thought should be dizzying to Sera, even overwhelming. After all, with every mystery comes a perpetrator. Beyond that, every case is a tangle of missing pieces and seemingly endless threads.

And yet Sera Velasco is determined to unearth every hidden clue, follow every seemingly aimless lead. She longs for justice.

She remembers before everything happened and the world was simpler. Even then, little Sera's head was full of questions. She's always lived with the insatiable yearning for truth. She was the child clinging to her parents' legs, volleying them with a thousand puzzling questions. And she was not one to leave something unfinished—she'd pester them until they came up with a satisfying conclusion, and if they had none, Sera would venture out and discover it herself.

She became very good at solving puzzles. Her parents would laugh and call her their little detective. Always wanting to discover things.

She recoils from the memory and its sting, uncanny in its sharpness. Perhaps the pain and the irony of her past should have faded with the years, but it still feels as fresh as if it happened yesterday. The shock, the discovery no child should ever make...

Grief, and its stubborn refusal to vanish, is yet another of life's great mysteries. One even Sera Velasco cannot reason away.

But emotions and knowledge have always been inextricably linked in her mind. Perhaps that's where her partner comes in. He balances things a little, helps make sense of the world.

Her gaze drifts from her uneaten plate of food over to the boy in question. Enzo, with his strange fashion sense and his often inscrutable expression. They're an unlikely duo, perhaps. And yet...

As if sensing her watching, Enzo's dark eyes drift up from the calculations he'd been doing. His eyes are weighed down by dark circles—the night is still young, but Sera suspects he will stay up all night sketching and musing. Despite her constant hints that he should sleep, he still remains lost in his mysteries.

Perhaps that's something they have in common. They are both prone to hyper-fixating on mysteries until the rest of the world fades away. But somehow, they're no longer solitary creatures—they've landed in each other's orbits, for better or worse.

Sera quirks an eyebrow. Then she heaves a sigh.

"What is it?" Enzo's watching her like another puzzle to pick apart. And perhaps that's what they are to each other sometimes—despite their proximity, they can be miles apart. Enzo Rivers can be as cryptic as a cipher.

"What's what?" They both know very well that Sera is lost somewhere in the past tonight. That she's been thinking about... them. Her parents, and the mystery that's already been solved, clean and uncomplicated. She should be satisfied, finally, after all this time. And yet, these tortured thoughts still won't leave her alone.

"Something's troubling you," Enzo persists, and for a moment his eyes aren't on his work but instead on her.

They used to live under the care of a mysterious headmaster, learning the art of cracking cases. Those years had been Sera's big break, the opportunity to finally get the answers she so longed for. And, for a time, Enzo had been a pesky obstacle in her search for truth.

But Sera knows very well how things can change. Now they live in an apartment together, and they work like a well-oiled machine as private investigators, solving cases throughout Five. It's a dangerous place, full of desperate people looking for answers, and the duo of detectives is happy to provide closure.

If only such a thing is so easy for Sera herself to find.

"Sera... we solved that case. We caught your parents' killer. I don't understand—"

"I know," she whispers, and her voice is gentle. "It's alright."

When the young man accused of her parents' murder was executed, Sera should've felt euphoric. She'd finally gotten justice for her parents, once and for all.

But once the biggest case of her life was solved and the murderer brought to retribution, only a hole remained in Sera's chest. And emptiness quickly rushed to fill it. But when she looked over at Enzo, expecting a twin void in his eyes, there was satisfaction. The very emotion she should've been feeling.

She shakes off those thoughts, trying to smile at Enzo. But she can't quite bring herself to lie to him. "I just get a little sad sometimes, even though the case is solved. I still think about them."

And she still thinks about the killer. It's hard to feel safe as a detective in a District of criminals. Long ago, she might've worried that her parents' killer would come and take her, too.

Now he's gone, despite having pleaded innocence in his last moments. Sera should feel a little safer, with her best friend by her side. And yet there's still something hanging over her, as if there are still more unanswered questions. Perhaps it will always be like this.

She can't solve everything. But oh, how she wants to.

Enzo watches her thoughtfully, and makes to speak but cuts off as a knock breaks the silence.

Both of them seem to light up a little. The person at the door could be anyone—but Sera hopes it's another client, looking for their help solving a case. She's dying for the distraction—she wants so badly to do something. To help someone.

Enzo gives her a look, and Sera nods. In these situations, she's usually the one to take the lead. Of the pair, she's more social by a landslide. Enzo usually prefers to hang back until it's time to put his clever mind to use.

Sera stands and makes ready to solve another crime. Every time she sees that look in their eyes—the need to be listened to, the desperation for someone to help them—she remembers herself as a child, trapped in that orphanage, longing for some way to understand what had happened to her parents. Without evidence or guidance, but unwilling to give up. Why does it feel like she's given up on her parents now, even though the case is closed?

She listens with half an ear to their newest client, a young woman who tells her of a jewelry thievery. She's not sure why, but her mind simply won't focus tonight—it's too full of stuck images she can't let go of. Clenching her fists, she tries to be more attentive and listen to the woman's plight.

"I'm sure someone out there knows what happened," she's saying now. "I mean, I know the Capitol has surveillance everywhere—they'd have evidence, but I'm sure they don't care about someone like me."

Her mind pinpoints on that single detail, one she'd never thought about in this scope before. The Capitol has eyes and cameras everywhere. They know exactly what's happening in their Districts, at all times.

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention," Sera finally says. "We'll do our best to make things right."

Sera Velasco has always known there are a thousand mysteries in the world. Questions that nobody has ever bothered to answer. Stones unturned and crimes undiscovered.

It grates on her, to think that she could ever leave something unresolved—especially for those so dear to her as her parents.

She is determined to understand what happened on that fateful night six years ago, come what may. And she will not give up until the case is closed without a shadow of doubt. She'll seek out the answers for her parents' sake, and for the sake of all those unsolved cases... even if it kills her.

...

Donna Waterloo, 18, District Three (She/Her)

She... she still thinks about him, sometimes.

And she shouldn't. She knows that, and she tries to shake those thoughts free, drown them out in the monotony of work, but sometimes they're stubborn. And today is one of those days.

She remembers his summer-green eyes. The golden tan of his skin. His infectious laugh and the way he'd made her believe that love could be beautiful, could be within reach.

She tries—oh, how she tries—to push those thoughts away. But remnants of him cling to her. Perhaps she should simply wash away the past, pretend it didn't happen.

But she knows that's impossible. She still wears the dress he gave her sometimes, the one from Eight. She still twirls in the mirror, her feet remembering the steps they once danced together.

Today, it feels as though something is straining inside her, waiting to break free. Like a caged bird reaching for the faraway sky. She doesn't understand why she still dreams of him, why her heart still aches at the thought of his smile. She's happy. She's free. She's fine.

She repeats those thoughts like a mantra and loses herself in the never-ending cycle of working. She's on parole in the factory, a girl still in shackles. The hours are long and the company unsavory, but at least she's away from her father and his unkindness. Away from the boy who came so terribly close to unraveling her.

It's better this way, to be lost in her own work. At least now there is no one to control her, to hem her in and charm her with promises of love. She knows now that love means confinement, a life of control. Love means vulnerability, and to be vulnerable is to be burned.

Someone clears their throat beside her, and Donna looks up sharply. She stares at her work, and realizes she's been repeating the same motion over and over, making no progress. A man is watching her with concern.

"What're you lookin' at?" she snaps, her voice scraping harshly through her throat.

The man flinches. "Nothing, I just... you weren't working, and I thought—"

"If you even dare to keep speaking to me, I will tie your hands to one of those machines, and then you'll be the one who isn't working! Do you want that?" Donna Waterloo gives him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. These motions, the anger—it comes easy. It's familiar territory.

The man walks away without another word, and some part of Donna Waterloo feels relieved.

Once, perhaps she would have leaned into his words. Told him all her woes and let him soothe her. Now she shivers to think of anyone seeing her so vulnerable.

She goes back to her work with ferocity, her breaths coming just a little bit faster. She feels a twinge of guilt at treating the man the way she did. But she also knows that to be alone is to be free.

And oh, how she longs to be free.

But she's happy here. She really is—content to be working, to snap at anyone who even so much as breathes near her, because then her past feels farther away. She is a different girl now—she is not the girl who danced in the sunlight and told stories of her broken family to a boy she barely knew, and received stories in return...

She shakes her head and begins to hum. It's an old lullaby her mother used to sing, one of dreams and fairytales and angels. Perhaps she shouldn't take comfort from the song; perhaps that makes her weak. But singing it calms her. It reminds her that there was someone who loved her, once.

But her mother is gone now. Taken from her in a blink. Things really started to go wrong after she died. Just as that fire was consuming her mother, something inside Donna shriveled as well. Her innocence, burned away like so many ashes.

Perhaps she's fleeing to her past because her present is so very empty. But emptiness is safety. Emptiness is control and predictability. Here with only herself, in this solitude, she is free.

There was a time when she'd imagined she could have both: freedom and love. But now she knows they are opposite sides of a coin, parallel lines that will never cross.

And Donna Waterloo will take freedom over love any day.

Because love is dangerous. To love someone is to be forever in their control. There was once a time when she thought this boy she'd once loved could never hurt her. And perhaps that's true. He'd offered her love, pleaded for her to run away with him like some virtuous knight, but she saw the truth. He left her behind.

No, she left him before he ever got the chance. Yes, she made this choice. And perhaps, in another life, she'd be crying on her mother's shoulder over the heartbreak of it all. Or she'd make friends and they'd pull her from her misery.

But instead she's here, the memories her only companion. And she can't forget it all, because the past has taught her a thousand hard-won lessons. Lessons that tell her she is better off here, working her life away without anyone weighing her down.

But their ghosts still drag at her mind. And she's still on parole, working desperately for liberation.

But someday she'll be far away from all this. She'll be the master of her own life, finally away from all those that would manipulate her. She won't be a puppet on a string... she'll finally be alone, in some quaint little cottage built for just one, and she'll have no regrets...

(Except for the fact that it's terribly lonely to dance alone. And dresses are meant to be seen and worn, not forgotten. And the past can only take one so far.)

No, what she really wants is for lullabies to be true. Once, her mother believed in love—she nourished that tiny blossom of compassion inside Donna. But then the world took that from her. It crushed her and left Donna to fend for herself.

So perhaps it's foolish, to wish that someone cared about her. To wish for affection and love and belonging.

But despite Donna's grandest efforts, she can't leave those things behind. Her mind turns in a never-ending cycle, just like her work.

But no more. She will break from that cycle because she's learned from the world. She will no longer be abandoned, abused, betrayed, imprisoned—

"Workday's over!" barks an officer. And Donna turns away from her work and leaves for home, just as she does every day.

Her legs take her to the place where she's hung the dress. She runs her fingers over its smooth fabric. Feels the ghost of his fingers, the warmth of his smile as he presented her with the gift. Here in her closet, it now hangs unworn and solitary. There was once a time when she hoped to reclaim this dress as her own, detached from his memories. But like an old stain, reminders of him cannot be scrubbed from the fabric.

And she should be strong enough to grasp that dress by the sleeves and tear it in two, to burn it until it's shriveled and disintegrated. To watch as it becomes ruin.

But she has always been weak. And she hates the sight of flames.

So she turns from the dress and ignores the unsteadiness of her breath. She curls up in her bed and shivers in the cold and worries that her thoughts will drive her mad. But she is glad for one thing: that no one bears witness to her weakness. That no one sees this rawness inside of her.

She won't let them. No matter what.

The thought of this is enough to drive him from her mind, and she falls asleep to the distant strains of a lullaby she will never hear again.

...

Rivel Baylor, 16, District Ten (He/Him)

Rivel Baylor knows grief now, in its full glory. He knows it by its brambled edges, the way it seems etched into his every movement. He knows it by the anger that sometimes rises in him unbidden, how he snaps at people more than before. He sees it in the absence that his sister left behind.

His younger self might have felt a hundred things—guilt, regret, the longing for freedom and the need to cling to childhood for as long as he could.

But at sixteen, he understands that those feelings were miniscule, mere moments, compared to the multitude he faces now.

His grief is at its worst when he dreams, as his memories unfurl before him like some sick scroll that maps each tragedy.

Perhaps a part of him hopes that sleep will provide some reprieve, and yet he's come to dread the time when he closes his eyes and sees everything play out.

It's worse now, as he's approaching the Games again. He sees her in stark detail: the warm brown of her eyes, the strength of her hand as it gripped his, her laugh that filled him with warmth—like a cup of hot tea clasped between his hands. They way they worked together, hunting boars and moving in tandem.

But he sees the horrible things too. The family gathered in the living room while Rivel and his father engage in a shouting match. Kiera, the oldest and most composed, covers her little sister's ears and holds her close. Tears roll down their cheeks.

The Games come and take her away. She makes friends and loses them, and the desperation on her face swallows the joy like a chasm. She faces countless perils and somehow makes it through them all, before Two finds her.

He watches helplessly, trapped in the limbo of sleep, while the Two boy—the very same that their father once trained to be a Peacekeeper—slashes at her relentlessly. She fights on, stubborn as she is. Rivel cries out in warning, but she can't hear him.

Two grips his knife tightly, readying to strike, but his sister doesn't notice. Rivel moves toward her, frantically calling her name, but his legs refuse to lift from the ground. He's paralyzed, unable to reach her.

For what feels like the thousandth time, Rivel watches the flame in Jacqueline Baylor's eyes gutter out. And he gasps awake just as the Two boy turns toward him, his eyes filled with darkness.

He's awake now, and the world comes back into focus. He's breathing too hard, and his skin feels clammy. But, in a way, he's become accustomed to the nightmares and their routine torture. Perhaps that's awful, but he almost feels as if he's desensitized—at least a little.

"Rivel?" Kiera stands beside his bed, a concerned crease in her brow.

He exhales shakily and sits up. "Was I... did I wake you?"

"You were screaming Jack's name," she whispers. She looks upset.

He presses his lips together in frustration. Why can't he have more control over himself? It's one thing to grieve, but another to drag his sister down in that grief as well. He's always tried his best to hide his sadness from the outside observer—it's better to keep things private, so people don't realize that he's still hurting.

But how can he not be? His sister's gone.

"Same nightmare?" Kiera says gently.

Rivel nods uncertainly. "We don't have to talk about this anymore if you don't want to. I'm sorry I disturbed you—"

"Rivel." Carefully, Kiera lifts his chin so they're eye-to-eye. "I'm feeling it too. You're not all alone in this, remember?"

He hates dealing with this. The grief and the nightmares and the way it's somehow seeped into every area of his life.

"Why do these things have to happen?" he says fiercely. "Why did that boy have to kill her? And why does Father still act as if nothing happens, and yet have the audacity to be in our lives?" It's not the first time he's asked these questions, gone on his own personal tirade. These days, it feels like he's always close to tears. Or anger. Or both.

Kiera only sighs. "That, I don't know. But I think I know what Jack would do."

"Try to make the best of it," he murmurs automatically. "One step at a time."

It's nice to have his sister's words always at the ready. He would've hated to forget them, and there's a part of him that worries her sayings and mannerisms will become faded in his memory, yellowed like old pages.

But he won't let that happen. He never let his father stop him from living, even when it felt impossible. And now he refuses to let grief consume him. Jack would've wanted him to try, at least.

"It's morning, technically!" Kiera says brightly, putting a reassuring hand on Rivel's. "You wanna go to that pastry place?"

He knows she's trying to distract him. And he loves her all the more deeply for the way she's managed to pull him from his grief. He musters a smile for her.

"It's like seven-thirty. But why not?"

Kiera beams. "Can Ryken come?"

Ryken is Kiera's fiancée, and the best thing that has happened to Kiera over the past year. Rivel and Ryken have become fast friends, and he's been somewhat of a saving grace for the Baylor siblings, guiding them through their grief.

Rivel stands. "Sure! Let me just change."

Once Rivel is somewhat presentable, he walks with Kiera into the watery sunlight and they meet up with Ryken. Together they make their way through Ten, the place that was once a safe haven for Rivel but now only reminds him of Jack. They pass neighbors and friends preparing for the workday or readying for school, and Rivel can't help but hear the whispers that trail in their wake.

"That's the boy who lost his sister."

"Heard their dad didn't even shed a tear—"

"They've moved on, I guess. Kiera's getting married and Rivel... well, it's a shame the way he's turned out. Such a sharp tongue—"

Rivel can't take it anymore. He spins in the street and meets them head-on. "Don't talk about my family!" he says, heedless of any who might hear. "It's none of your business!"

He realizes he's only proving their point. Doing exactly what they expect from him. But why should it matter anymore?

"Rivel..." Kiera's tugging gently on his arm but he can barely feel her.

"You don't know anything," he says, but his voice has lost its conviction. "You—"

Kiera finally succeeds in pulling him away. He tries to calm himself down, to breathe. But why should he pretend? That everything's normal, that he's coping well with his sister's death? That he's not angry at the world and the Capitol for taking her from him?

There is too much hate living inside his heart, and he knows it. But that doesn't stop him from feeling it.

(It's easier than the sadness and its coldness. Better than the guilt, and its pain.)

Kiera glances back at him as they finally make it to the pastry shop. "Rivel..."

"I know," he says softly. "I'm sorry."

"Yelling isn't going to fix anything," she says simply.

And it breaks Rivel's heart, to see his sister so disappointed in him. And yet, despite everything, there's love in her gaze as well. He knows that no matter what he does, his sister will still love him.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that he hasn't lost everything. That he's not entirely alone.

But he still has his sister and Ryken. He has the summer sun and the taste of pastries and the sound of his sister's laugh, forever preserved in his mind. He's got his friends, who've stuck with him through everything.

He tries to cling to those few beacons of beauty in his life, and hope they'll be enough. He's tired of being a boy trapped in the vicious cycle of dreams. He wants to see Kiera happy and find some sort of solace in his own life.

If only those things didn't seem so far away.

...

In My Life- Les Mis

Yes, I used the happiest Les Mis song for such a sad group of kids. The song might not fit entirely, but those lyrics definitely do lol! Also, I may or may not have used Les Mis twice in the span of five chapters. You can tell it's a favorite of mine lol!

Anyway, hi there! Welcome back to Introland! (Or if you're with me for the first time, welceme!) I'm very happy to be here and I hope you enjoyed these—I'm writing them longer this time, as well as keeping them all to Pre-Reapings, so everybody gets a little slice of life. It's new territory for me! That being said, not all of these kids' secrets will be revealed in these intros, so you definitely don't have all the info yet! Thank you to Moose for Sera, Wiki for Donna, and Sakura for Rivel—I really love these darlings and hope I've written them well! What did you think of these three? I had a blast writing themeaand look forward to continuing on with intros! I'll be working on VE (Victor Exchange) for the next month, but after that we should hopefully be back with the ball rolling! Love you all!

Miri