Dust settles over District Seven like a coat. It clings to everything — the faded banners strung across the Justice Building, the freshly scrubbed faces of the children pressed into neat rows, the worn boots of the Peacekeepers standing at attention. Somewhere behind you, a little boy is crying. A few rows ahead, someone whispers a prayer. The square is packed, bodies shoulder to shoulder, the heat of the late morning already pressing down.

You stare at the enormous screens mounted across the square. Eighteen years of watching other people's names being pulled from glass bowls. Eighteen years of telling yourself the odds were in your favour. That you had made it through another year.

And now you're standing here, wearing your best dress, with a small identification card pinned to your chest.

Y/N. Eighteen years old. District Seven. One name among thousands.

The Capitol's representative takes the stage, her smile wide and impossibly bright. Her skin has a faint golden shimmer, and her hair is a shade of green that doesn't exist in nature. She looks like a bird that's flown in from another world.

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. The usual speech follows. The history of Panem, the rebellion, the punishment, the importance of the Games. You've heard it so many times you could probably recite it yourself. The words blur together, a familiar drone beneath the weight of the silence that has fallen over the crowd.

Then comes the moment everyone dreads. The representative's heels click against the stage as she approaches the glass bowl containing the girls' names. Her perfectly manicured hand disappears inside. The slips of paper whisper against her fingers. She pulls one free, unfolds it, and steps back to the microphone.

For a moment, the world goes strangely quiet. You don't move.

Somewhere beside you, someone gasps. Your stomach drops, and you feel the blood drain from your face.

No. Surely not.

Twenty-four. You had always known the number. You had just never imagined becoming it.

The crowd shifts, heads turning, searching. A path begins to open around you, as if the very act of being named has made you dangerous. The Peacekeepers are already moving forward. The little boy behind you has stopped crying.

The representative's eyes find you, her smile never faltering.