Prologue, Part One.

Tristan Salvatore, 19, Citizen of New Orleans, Louisiana.

They say dead men have no secrets.

That's not completely true. My father used to say that people, dead or alive, are layers and layers of secrets. You may think that you know them, that you know who they are and what they want, but you don't. I never thought this was true, but right now, standing outside my father's bedroom, I see that he did have a point.

People always have secrets. Even my father, the man I thought I knew and loved, was never what he seemed to be. The real Marcus Salvatore was always hidden behind the good father and husband that he pretended to be.

And I'm supposed to be exactly like him. To take his place in the organization, as his eldest son and heir, and help the others plan the Games. With my father almost dead, it's what I'm supposed to do. It's my duty to the Salvatore family, to carry on what has been a family tradition for almost eight years.

Do I want to do it? No. Do I have to do it? Yes.

As soon as the door opens, all three of us stand up and watch as my mother walks out of the room, with messy hair and red eyes. She didn't deserve that. None of us did but life isn't about what you deserve, it's about what you get.

"He wants to see you, Tristan." She says, without looking at me. My mother never liked to show weakness in front of anyone else and for her, crying is a sign of weakness.

It's a sign that you aren't strong enough to deal with what life has thrown at you. Weak people never go far. They let emotion stand in their way of being great and sooner or later, they will fall. I always believed that everyone falls, strong or weak, because that's just the way life is. It's just a matter of who's strong enough to stand up.

I nod, walking into the room and closing the door behind me. As soon as I come in, I want to get out. My father might still be alive, but it seems more like a funeral than a goodbye. The room smells of death, of my father's death, and that's why I want to leave as soon as possible.

Okay, let's get this over with.

Talking a deep breath, I walk over to my father's bed, and sit next to him.

It's so strange. Sometimes, people go mad when someone they love dies but right now, I feel nothing. I should feel more for the man who raised me, for the man who taught me to be exactly like him, but that's when I realize that was all he was to me. Just a man who raised me, but never my father.

He never wasted a second of his precious time to give me a hug, to tuck me in at night, or to teach me how to play football. To him, it was always about our duty to the family, and nothing more. So, why should I feel anything else?

"Father," I say, keeping a delicate voice. "Mother said you wanted to see me." When he coughs and looks at me, I suddenly feel grateful that all the windows are closed. That way, he won't be able to see my face or know what I'm thinking.

"Tristan, yes. I'm glad you are here. Son, there's something I must tell you." Now what? More secrets?

I'm tempted to tell him that I couldn't care less about anything that he has to say to me, but I hold back my tongue. I might be many things, arrogant and wild and rash, but no one will ever say that Tristan Salvatore doesn't respect the dead.

"I'm listening, father."

"Back at my office, there's something I want you to have. The plans, for this year's Games. As you know, we were supposed to hold the Games here this year, but the organization picked Hoster Manderly for the job since I won't be able to do it." The plans? Every year, twelve people from all around the United States were picked for the Hunting Games. I had been present in all seven of them, but it had never been our family's duty to be the host. Until now.

"But father, shouldn't we give them to Hoster?" Hoster Manderly had been my father's best friend when they were children, and he had watched every single one of us grow up. If there was anyone that should have the honor of hosting the Games in their own house, it should have been Hoster.

"No, no, no. Tristan, listen to me. Hoster Manderly can never get his hands on those plans or he'll destroy our family completely. You must be the one to take them somewhere safe and wait until it's out time again."

"If you say so, father, that's what I shall do." Or maybe I'll just burn the damn thing and call it a day. "I should go now and do as you said." I stand up, turning around to leave, but my father's hand locks around my wrist.

He's cold. So cold.

The first thing I notice as soon as hand locks around my wrist is that he is so cold, almost like he's already dead. "I love you, son. Never forget that."

I should be able to do it. I should be able to turn around and tell him that I love him too, that I'll take care of our family and do everything that he said, but I can't. Instead, I turn around and leave, closing the bedroom door behind me. Too many years of secrets and hate and revenge stand between us as a barrier, one that I'll never be able to destroy. Not even if I wanted to.

My siblings are standing outside, with our mother standing next to them. No matter what my father thought, this is my real duty. To protect my family, no matter the cost. Do I care about the Games? No. Do I care about the organization? No. But if following on my father's footsteps is all it takes to protect them, so be it.

It's my job now. I must be brave, and show them that there's nothing we should be afraid of. Even I don't believe in that myself.

"Did you talk to him?" My mother asks and I nod. "He loves you so much Tristan, you need to know that. He's so proud of the man that you became."

Is he? "I know that, mom, don't worry. There's something I need to do, though, something that father asked me to do in his office." She nods, but brings me in for a quick hug. For a moment, I allow myself to relax in her arms.

Ever since I was a little boy, if there was anyone that could calm me down and talk me out of doing something bad, it was my mother. She is associated with peace in my mind, while my father was always associated with war and duty.

That must be why I always went to her when I was scared. Just like now.

As I walk over to my father's office, to get the plans, I try to recall everything I learned about the organization over the years.

Every year, they pick twelve people from all around the world to enter the Hunting Games. Poor, innocent people that no one but their family will miss and who have no idea about what they are getting into. They are taken to the chosen place that will host the Games that year and for one week, they have everything they could ever desire.

And then the real fun begins.

It's nothing good, but it's tradition. To be honest, I only ever payed attention to it because my father always insisted that I, as his eldest son and heir, should be prepared to take his place when the time came. I wasn't allowed to play football outside like any other teenage boy, or to fall in love with a girl and do what we weren't supposed to do.

I needed to grow up and be a proper son. I could never have fun or fall in love with whoever I wanted, because I was supposed to marry the daughter of another member of the organization and keep the family line going.

I can't hate them for that, though. My parents, who were only doing what they thought was right, and what they were taught to do by their family.

I hate them. The organization and all the people who pay to actually enter the Game. As if killing innocent people wasn't bad enough, every year six people enter the Game with the other twelve. The Hunters. People who are rich enough that they can actually pay to enter a fight to the death, all because they aren't happy with their narrow little life and like to take out their anger in innocent people.

It's them I hate, because if they didn't pay to enter the Game, there would be no Game. The organization lives with the money those people pay to enter the Game and their own personal fortune, of course.

Bloody bastards.

As soon as I reach my father's office and walk in, I close the door behind me and lock it. First of all, I need to find the papers and actually decide what to do with it. I could talk to my mother and decide where we should hide it, but then I realize how much danger that would put her in.

I can't do that. I need to do this alone and protect my family, no matter the cost.

I find them in the desk, exactly where he keeps everything that is considered important. It's a red envelope, with 8th Hunting Games written in it. I should open it, I know, and see if it's the right thing. But I can't do it. Not here. Opening that would feel like disturbing my father's peace and I can't do that. Not yet. Not until I'm sure that it's the right thing to do and the one that will protect my family.

After I place the envelope in my jacket and make sure it's safely hidden from prying eyes, I walk out, saying a silent goodbye to my father's office. If I had it my way, I would never walk into that place again. It reminds me too much of him.

As I'm trying to decide the right words to use at my father's funeral, something stops me. I hear a wicked laugh and someone presses the cold barrel of a gun against the back of my head.

"Hello, Tristan. It's been a while."

Look who's back! Okay, hello everyone. It's been a while. Am I back? Yes. This is a new series, something that I'm really excited about. I could never do another full SYOT with 24 tributes, I wouldn't even make it to training, but this is different. As I'll explain down there, it has half of the normal number of tributes and the age range is also different, so it's something I'm really excited to start.

Honestly, I've missed writing. School ruins most of my time, but I've missed writing. It's something I need to be doing right now and I got this idea, so here I am! A full SYOT would never work for me, but this is new. I'm motivated, I have time, so you can be sure I'm not going to leave until this one is finished. I love the idea behind this new story and I'm excited to see the type of tributes that everyone will submit!

Form and rules are on my profile! About updates, I can't promise anything. I'm not going to do it like I did in TOOM, and force myself to write. I'm going to write whenever I want to write, but don't worry, I'm not going to take like three or four months to update a new chapter. So, about the story. Here's a summary about the basic plotline:

The organization is composed by a group of very rich men and women, from all over the United States. Every year, they pick twelve people from all over the country. They can be an old men, a teenager or even an average house-wife. They want people that no one might miss or those they think would never make a difference in the world. Those people think they are joining a survivor program, where the last one standing will get everything they ever wanted in life. For one week, all of their dreams come true. After that, it's where the real fun begins. They are taken to an arena, chosen by the host of those year's Games, and learn of what they are really there to do. Some give up as soon as they hear it. Some keep going, motivated by the desire of returning to the ones they love. But all of them are changed, in some way or another. No one remains the same, even the one that goes home. What they don't know is that they are not alone. Every year, six people pay to actually enter the Game. They are called "The Hunters". Having to face each other and escape from the Hunters, who will live and who will die?