Mira DePolis had always been fascinated with people. What makes them tick, how they act, and most importantly, what makes them special. She had learned from a young age that life was only really worth living if you were special in some way, and since the day she turned six years old she had been determined to figure out how to be special herself. Some might call her a sociologist from birth, destined to study society and its rule over each person's life. Those people would be wrong. Mira DePolis was interested in one thing and one thing only: Making sure that she found a way to be the biggest star in the room.

Mira was also an intolerable git sometimes, according to her best friend Samuel Pace. But she also decided after a bit of deep thought that Samuel was wrong about something pertaining to that. If she were really that intolerable, then why would he spend all that time around her, after all? So Mira came once again to the conclusion that it was neither off-putting nor narcissistic to strive for singularity. Individuality. Specialness. It was just another goal, like any other.

"They all say the same thing," Mira told Samuel on one sunny day the summer after fifth grade. "To get the best stories, you have to be the chosen one."

"The chosen one? Like Harry Potter or Frodo?" Samuel asked, rolling his head across the grass to get a better look at his best friend.

"And all the others. You have to be the specific person that was chosen. Life is boring otherwise. No fantastical worlds, no nothing," Mira continued, not breaking eye contact with a rather persistent lone cloud in the middle of the Californian sky.

Samuel scoffed at her. "And you think that you need to go find a fantastical world to be the chosen one for?"

"I think it's destined," Mira told him, though she could hear him groaning even as she said it.

They had been through this many times before, and Mira had grown used to the pained sighs and annoyed grumbles. After all, she believed that there was a fair point behind her words. If she wasn't going to be something important, what was the point of it? Since clearly there had to be some point to everything, for finding order in chaos is a human strong suit, Mira decided this meant that somewhere, she was the chosen one.

"What about me? What it I'm the chosen one instead?" Samuel asked.

Mira laughed, "In your story, sure, but Samuel, there must be some story for me to be Katniss Everdeen."

"Tris Prior?" Samuel suggested.

"Bella Swan?"

Samuel's face scrunched up at that, and he said, "Hardly a good story."

"She's still a chosen one, still bigger than life," Mira argued, and Samuel shrugged.

Mira DePolis held a near-monomania through the first thirteen years of her life over finding a place to be the chosen one. Her phrasing evolved from 'chosen one' to 'hero' during junior high, and once she reached freshman year of high school... Well, standing out was becoming the furthest thing from what she wanted. She wanted a friend group, a report card that didn't make its way into a trash bin, maybe a boyfriend.

Samuel Pace was thankful, because Mira DePolis finally wanted to lead a content, completely uneventful life. Their days of breaking into abandoned buildings, he had been promised, were over. As were the skipping classes and Latin chanting, anything that gave Mira the hope that they would be whisked away to the start of an adventure. The first day of freshman year, Mira had made a pinkie-promise to Samuel that her days of trouble-seeking were over.

But of course it was just then that trouble started to find them.