01 — Prologue

Parthenope Adresta (26) — 1:20AM
Gamemaker HQ /Two weeks until Reaping Day

Her eyes are stinging as she stares down at the paperwork on her desk, her eyes taking in the words but her tired and overworked brain stubbornly refusing to process them properly. Another sigh, one of many in the past few hours that she'd been holed up in her office, forces itself out of her mouth and her head falls onto the paper with a dull thud. There's a burst of pain, but she's way too tired to react to it and so she just squeezes her eyes shut and hopes that there won't be a bruise. She already spends far too much time in the makeup chair before public appearances already, and she doesn't think she can stomach any more just to cover it up. The job that had started out as something exciting is slowly turning into a chore and every hour in the headquarters is reinforcing the idea that maybe she shouldn't have applied last year after Rex Solomon's departure; maybe she should have just let the job go to one of the other promising fresh-faces she'd attended the group interviews with.

She lifts her head when it seems as if she's going to fall asleep, glancing at the wall several times before she finally processes the numbers on the clock face. Parthenope has never been one to go to bed later, preferring an early night and an early morning to anything else, and she realises belatedly that she has less than five hours before she has to be back here. Is it even worth going back home at this point? Surely nobody would notice if she wore the same clothes. With another sigh she glances back at the camp bed folded up and leaning against the wall, a welcoming present from Rex. Parthenope had scoffed when she first received it, assuming that the present was somewhat of a joke, but now there is nothing but gratitude inside of her.

A camp bed isn't exactly her first choice of a place to sleep, but it beats sleeping hunched over this damn desk. Never one to admit defeat, she looks back down at the paperwork. If only her mind would actually cooperate with her, she would more than likely get this done before she collapses for a few hours and squeezes in as much sleep as she possibly can. But the words just aren't registering, and she leans backwards in her chair with a quiet groan.

Next year can't come soon enough. She'll be free of this torment. Only being Gamemaker for one year, her name is unlikely to go down in the history books. She can't decide whether that bothers her or not. At first, she'd been elated at the prospect of being Head Gamemaker; after all becoming a household name across all of Panem is one hell of an incentive. But with news crews following her home from work and people waiting outside her apartment day after day just to get a glimpse of her isn't exactly how she imagined it going. Parthenope had envisioned pictures with people in the street, TV appearance after TV appearance, not necessarily a hero status. It makes her uncomfortable how people have begun to view her.

The knock on her door that makes her heart start hammering is so quiet that at first she doesn't know if she imagined it. She freezes at the sound, her breathing speeding up as her mind conjures up all sorts of thoughts. A camera crew here to interrogate her as to why she's staying so late? A disgruntled Gamemaker? An avox seeking revenge against the Capitol? It's happened before, after all. The security at one in the morning is extremely lacklustre, and she's vulnerable as all hell. And if they got past the security guard at the front desk, the internal security system is down for maintenance for the next few days, too, so the camera in the corner of the room wouldn't catch the culprit.

"P, it's me." A familiar voice calls, and yet another sigh, this one of relief, escapes her. She stands up a little too quickly, and her chair flies backwards into the wall. "Are you okay in there?"

"I'm fine," she calls as she makes her way to the door, unlocking it. Her boyfriend steps in, pulling her into a hug before pressing a kiss to her forehead. They pull away and she takes a moment to actually process what's happening. "What are you doing here, Cal? It's the middle of the night. You've got work tomorrow."

He holds up a bag. "I thought I should come check on you," he says. "You didn't tell me you were staying late, so I got worried. Rex advised me to bring these. Besides, I fell asleep at like five. I'm more than well rested right now." He opens the bag so that she can see what's inside; a blanket and pillows. "Thought you might need them since it didn't seem like you were coming home."

"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" She asks, and even to her the tiredness in her voice is palpable. Callan glances down at her with a fond smile. "You're the best."

"I know," he says. He walks around her, heading towards the back of her office. "You're still filling out those forms?" He asks, one eyebrow raised as he glances down at her desk. "No offence, but I'm so glad you beat me to this job."

Parthenope shrugs, deflating slightly against the door frame once the novelty of seeing her boyfriend has worn off. "I've been filling them out for hours," she says. "But it's got to be done if we want to have mutts this year. Good mutts. I don't just want to be Parthenope Adresta Head Gamemaker for a year, I've got to be Parthenope Adresta the one hit gamemaking wonder, you know?" She doesn't know how much that's true, but it seems like the right thing to say.

Callan hums in agreement as he sets up the camp bed for her. "Get some sleep," he says once he's done. "You can barely speak, let alone write," she pouts at him even though what he's saying is true. "I'll be back in a few hours with coffee and clothes, alright? I just wanted to make sure that you weren't, like, dead or something."

She laughs. "I mean, that would be preferred right now..." she sits down on the edge of the camp bed. Callan glances at her worriedly. "I'm joking. It'll be fine. I've got a meeting next week to decide whether or not to extend my contact, and I'll ask to be demoted to something easier. I don't know, terrain design or something. Whatever you're doing next year. I'll be a sheep rather than the sheepdog."

"Sleep," Callan says. He looks at the clock. "P, you're leading the morning briefing in four and a half hours. The longer we talk the less sleep you get and the more cranky you'll be. I'd rather not get chewed out for my collar being wrinkled or something when I pop by later. Night. Or—early morning, I guess."

Parthenope watches her boyfriend leave, flicking off the light switch as he leaves. The sudden darkness causes the tiredness to fully catch up with her, and she falls backwards onto the pillows with fleeting thoughts of completing the paperwork still on her desk.

— 8:00AM

Parthenope sinks back onto her desk chair with a pounding headache. The lack of sleep last night as well as all of the problems raised at this morning's briefing isn't doing her any favours as she lets her head drop into her hands. She's tempted to cancel the appearance she has on TV later tonight; there's plenty of time for her to deny rumours and tell people that she has to keep her mouth shut about arena designs in the run up to the Games. Every single interview is the same and whilst she can more than likely do it in her sleep, she doesn't want to test it out that badly.

The coffee that Callan had brought her this morning hadn't really done much for her. A temporary high of caffeine that she was now coming down from. Hard. The paperwork on her desk isn't any more appealing than it was last night and she's sure that the hands on the clock are moving at half of the speed that they usually do. She looks over her shoulder, back at the camp bed and she has to stop herself from throwing herself onto it and going right back to sleep. She's never been one to nap, but she guesses that her usual sleep habits will be out of the window for the next month or so until all of this work will finally pay off. Her duties will continue until next year, odd bits and bobs regarding the Victor and such, but the bulk of the work is almost done.

The end is so close she can almost taste the freedom and free time that she'll have. She craves the early mornings where she stays wrapped in her duvet for an hour or so after actually waking up, lazing around her and Callan's apartment with almost all the time in the world, eating meals with her boyfriend instead of in this damned office and just having the time to be herself. She's been burned out since she accepted the position and she just can't wait to recuperate.

Just two weeks until it really gets under way. In fact, around this time in two weeks the reapings for One will just be starting, with about thirty minutes for Two and an hour for Three. At 1:30PM two weeks from now, the last reaping will be starting. At 2:00PM in two weeks, all of ost of the tributes will be on the train to the Capitol, hurriedly begging for advice from their mentors and trying to make the most of the fleeting time that they have left. And boy can't Parthenope wait until only one of them is left.

She has no sympathy for the twenty-three of them that will be six feet under; that's what they get, but which ever one emerges from the arena alive will have her gratitude. As long as they play along nicely of course in the months leading up to, and during, their Victory tour. Once they'd addressed the districts and had their last Victor interview, she could finally resign and be happier than she's been in a long while. She'll pass on the role to whoever gets it next and take her demotion to the gamemaking team with no complaints.

Looking up, Parthenope realises that she's spent twenty minutes daydreaming about her release from this job. It doesn't bode well for the next few weeks, when things were going to really start getting crazy, but she tries not to think about that. It can go one of two ways; those weeks can be the highlight of her short-lived Head Gamemaking career, or they can be the worst. She's hoping for the former.

She looks down at her desk, and there's a moment of confusion when her eyes fall upon the stack of paperwork, the top sheet empty. That's... not right, she was almost done with this one before she fell asleep last night. Parthenope seizes a few of the papers from the bottom of the stack, marvelling at the blank sheets that she knows she filled out last night. Standing up, Parthenope seizes the handle of the top drawer in her desk and yanks it open. She grabs the papers in there, shuffling through them in case she's just freaking herself out for no reason. In case at some point she put out the filled sheets somewhere and has just forgotten. Pulling open the second drawer reveals a missing stack of designs, both for the mutts and the arena, and the third drawer down reveals that the person has taken the President's notes on what he wanted improved about the designs, too.

Parthenope's eyes start to well up with tears as her frantic search of her office reveals nothing. The papers are well and truly gone. All of the progress she made last night authorising the changes to the mutt designs was for nothing. Her mind racing, she glances up to the camera in the corner of her office only to see no blinking light. The system is down for maintenance, she remembers. Of course it is.

But what is she supposed to do now? It's someone in this building that has taken them; it has to be. But he can't exactly go marching up to security and demand to see footage that doesn't exist, and she can't search people's lockers without raising suspicion. This is a serious breach, and she doesn't know how the President is going to respond. For all she knows, it could end with a bullet through her head and a new Head Gamemaker reaping the rewards of her hard work. It's not uncommon for a Head Gamemaker to just disappear and be replaced in the run up to the Games after something has been leaked.

Trying to calm herself down, she falls back into her desk chair and pulls her phone from her pocket. After a quick scroll through the major news sites, it doesn't seem as if the documents have ended up in the public eye yet but that doesn't mean that they won't. Anything can happen.

There's a sinking feeling in her stomach as she realises the gravity of the situation. Her life depends on resolving this—literally—and dying for this job isn't an idea that Parthenope is exactly fond of.

What is she supposed to do? For once in her life she has no idea.

AN: Hi! I'm In Writing and here is the first chapter of my new SYOT 'One Foot in the Grave'.

I'm new on the writing SYOT scene, but not so much the reading. I started reading them back in 2013 but stopped for a while once I thought I outgrew my Hunger Games phase. I'm insanely sorry if anyone here interacted with me back then, albeit this account was under a different name, but I promise in those seven years I have very much changed. Anyway, with my interest in the Hunger Games piqued again with the announcement of the sequel I thought that it would be the time for me to actually do what my fourteen-year-old self desired and actually start a SYOT. It might take some time, but I'm determined to finish this. I already have the Capitol plotline planned out and I am extremely excited to get it off the ground; I really hope you liked the beginning of it here. I'm so ready to get this going!

The rules and form will be on my profile, but I want to make it clear that I will only accept PM submissions. Sorry guests.

Despite this, I really hope that this prologue has gripped you enough to submit, and I'd love to know your thoughts in the reviews.

Thanks for clicking on this and reading. I hope you all have a good night!

-In Writing.