ONE.    THE 68TH HUNGER GAMES.
Better Luck Next Time!

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"Ready or not, here I come!"

Her voice is loud enough to disrupt the singing of the birds that have made the big oak tree in the middle of the Greaves' farm into their home. She uncovers her eyes and it takes them a while to adjust to the way the sunlight bathes everything around her. She's fifteen and all sunburnt shoulders, dirt-stained tank tops and tired knees after an entire morning of hard labor, but she still manages to make time to entertain little Ace. The dark hair that escaped her loose ponytail is now clinging on her skin as the sweat drips down her neck but she quickly fixes it as she starts walking around the field.

The first time she found Ace, Kenna hadn't been looking for him. Like a cowering little mouse, he had managed to find refuge in the corner of their shed during the night and slept with his back turned towards the door, barely breathing as to not make himself visible. She almost missed him until she saw what looked like a sack of hay tremble. The first thing she noticed about him was his blonde hair. A tiny thing, development stunted from years of neglect and starvation, no older than five. He wouldn't give her his name until her and her father offered him a plate of porridge and a whole loaf of bread. He had been part of the family ever since.

Kenna likes to think she's a good sister, though sometimes she feels more like a mother. He's eight now, his meek and quiet nature has worn off enough to show his true self. A good kid, but way too dependent on her attention for her to function the way she needs to. From six people working on the farm, the number has now been reduced to three and a half with her father's sickness leaving him bedridden most days. That leaves Kenna running things most days, while also nursing her father and dealing with a restless kid that, if unattended, can cause at least a few hundred different accidents.

But it's fine. Kenna is fine. Somehow, in all of this, she's still sort of happy.

A smile forms on her lips as she checks on the shed, certain she'd find Ace in his most common hiding place; behind the farming equipment both her and her father had told him countless times to stay away from. She checks other usual spots, the hay bales, under the porch of the house. The smile turns into a frown when she realizes she can't find him, displeased she'll have to actually put effort into their little game today.

She stepped outside, scanning the yard. It wasn't like him to stay quiet for this long. He'd usually burst out giggling if she got too close, unable to contain his excitement. "Alright, buddy, you've really outdone yourself this time," Kenna begrudgingly admits, half expecting him to answer if he was hiding close enough, but she was met with nothing but silence and the light singing of the cicadas which, though usually comforting, now creates a pit in her stomach.

The bad feeling she carries proves to be right when she stops in her tracks, her breath catching as her eyes land on the slaughterhouse. The door, slightly cracked open, sways faintly in the breeze and the name of the little boy catches in her throat. The slaughterhouse has always been a place she avoided unless absolutely necessary and Ace knows he isn't allowed anywhere near it. So why is the door open? Why is she catching the nauseating scent of iron and damp wood the closer she walks to it? It slams into her like a fist, dragging her back to the first time she ever stepped inside, only a few years older than Ace. It's a smell she learned to tolerate over the years, but has never fully gotten used to. The smell of necessity.

Her father had found her not unlike she finds Ace—in the center of the room, small and unmoving, his ack to her. Shoulders tense, head tilted, trying to make sense of what he's looking at. "Ace!" she calls, her voice sharp and laced with panic as she crosses the room in a rush. She swears he's too young for this, but hadn't she been the same? She kneels down to his level, gently cupping his face to shield him from the room around them. "What are you doing here? You're not supposed to come here!"

"I was hiding," he admits softly. He doesn't meet her eyes. "It... smells bad."

She pulls his face back towards hers, hating the expression he's wearing. "This isn't a place for you, Ace. Do you hear me?"

This shouldn't be a place for anyone, or at least that's what she thought when she was first met with the sight of the inside of the slaughterhouse. There are still the same bloodstains across the wooden floor, dark and dried, smeared in uneven patterns. It feels like they have been there long before she was even born. Rusty tools hang on a rack against the far wall—knives, cleavers, saws, their edges dulled but no less intimidating. The worktable beneath them is scarred and stained, its surface marked by years of use. Every corner of the room speaks of death as routine as the sunrise.

Her father had been calm back then, his calloused hand resting on her shoulder for both comfort and balance. "You need to see this, Kenna," he had said in his low, gravelly voice. "I know you don't want to. God knows I never wanted you to see either. But you don't have a choice, none of us do. You're not a little girl anymore."

She was. But the world never had patience for little girls.

"One day, you're going to have to stand on your own two feet. The world doesn't care about what you want, whether you're scared or hurting. It'll knock you down and I hope I'll be there to pick you up. But if I'm not..."

"Don't talk like that," she had snapped, still trembling, refusing to meet the eyes of her father or the terrified lamb that laid bound in front of them. "I don't want to be strong if that's what it takes."

Her father's grip on her shoulder tightened, just for a moment. His expression didn't change, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—pity, maybe, or regret. "Sometimes, it's not about what you want. It's about what you have to do." He sighed as he pet the lamb, trying to calm it down. "This is what it takes to survive. You don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it. This is how we survive. You can't afford to look away anymore."

That was the first lesson her father had ever taught her about the cost of survival. That was when she stopped being a little girl, but looking right into Ace's crystal blue eyes, she finds herself unable to complete the rite of passage. He can afford to be a kid for as long as Kenna is around to bare the weight of it for the both of them.

Ace's voice is barely audible but he manages to snap her back to reality. "Is this where the animals...?" She shakes her head, unable to find the words to lie to him. "But the blood-"

"Don't think about it," she cuts him off, pulling him into a tight hug before he can ask any more questions. "Just don't think about it." He melts into it, clinging to her, though she can feel his small frame trembling slightly against hers still. Kenna pulls back slightly, brushing a hand through his messy hair. "You're not allowed in here, okay? Promise me you'll never come back."

"Okay, I promise," he whispers.

"Good." She stands, holding his small hand in hers as she leads him back toward the door. Her grip is firm, almost too tight, but she can't bring herself to loosen it, not until they're outside. "Don't tell dad about what you saw, okay? He'll be upset at us for playing hide and seek again."

Ace nods silently. "I don't think I like this game anymore," he says after a while, as they're walking back into the house. "I'm getting too old to be playing hide and seek."

"Yeah?" Kenna can't help but chuckle and the sound of it seems to make the boy feel a little lighter. "If you're too old to be playing this, what does that make me?"

The blonde sends her a little grin that sends a wave of relief through her. After everything that happened, she needed to know nothing about him would change. "A loser." Not even his giggle when she made a move to catch him.

"Could a loser do this?" she says, finally managing to pick him up with only one arm.

"Yeah," he laughs. "You're just a strong loser."

Kenna rolls her eyes, despite the amused smile on her face. "Damn right I am," she mumbles, letting him down. "C'mon, let's go check on dad."

She's not entirely sure if her father is awake or not, but she wasn't fast enough to stop Ace from opening the door and peeking inside the bedroom. There's a pause before her father speaks, his voice low and warm, a little rough around the edges. "Well, look who it is," he says, a faint chuckle trailing after the words. "Come here, kiddo. Let me see you."

Ace pushes the door open and darts inside, climbing up onto the bed like he's done it a hundred times before. It's difficult to remember how life was three years ago, back before they found him and adopted him into the family. Though sometimes Kenna looks back to those times fondly, the times before her father fell sick, it was almost impossible to now imagine a life without Ace. He had the kind of childhood innocence and warmth that made even the worst moments worth surviving. Kenna just hoped that'd be enough.

The room is dim, the curtains drawn against the glare of the midday sun. Dust dances in the slants of light that sneak through the gaps, and the faint hum of flies buzzes near the windowsill. Her father is propped up against a stack of old, flattened pillows, his shoulders slumped but his smile steady and warm as he ruffles Ace's blonde hair, a stark difference to the Greaves family's darker features.

"Well, look who's come to check on me," he says, his voice warm but thin, like it's been stretched too far. He tries to sit up straighter, his hands bracing against the mattress for leverage, but the movement is shaky, almost imperceptibly so. Still, she notices. "Thought I'd been forgotten about for a moment," he says lightly.

"We didn't forget," Ace says, his tone insistent. "Kenna just had to look for me 'cause I hid really good this time. She couldn't find me for ages."

Kenna leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest as she watches the interaction. Ace's wide, innocent grin draws out a chuckle from their father, soft and genuine. "Is that so?" their father asks, tilting his head to look at Ace. "Cut her some slack, kid. It's not her fault you're a champion hider."

Kenna steps into the room then, pulling the chair closer to the bed and sitting down with a faint creak of the old wood. "Don't encourage him," she says, her tone light but teasing, thankful that the slaughterhouse incident was behind them now and seemed to have been forgotten. After a few minutes of the eight-year-old restlessly rambling about the last book he read, something along the line of princess-eating dragons, she finally asks. "How're you feeling today, Pa?"

"Like a man who's been lying in bed too long," he replies, his tone light but tinged with frustration. "I should be out there with you, helping. The farm doesn't run itself."

She knows how much he hates being stuck in this bed, how much it eats away at him to see the farm falling entirely on her shoulders. He doesn't say it outright, but she sees it in the way he avoids looking at the window, in the way his hands fidget with the edge of the quilt. She could've easily mistaken his overbearing and constant questions and check-ups, borderline investigations as him having no trust in her, or the fact he is constantly looking to hire more farmhands despite their limited funds. But she knows the truth and it's that he feels guilty.

"We're managing," she reassures him again. "The animals are taken care of, and the fences are holding up. We're doing better this month than the previous one, if I'm being honest."

Her father forces a smile she recognizes as a sight she's seen a few too many times in the mirror. "Sitting here, watching you do everything... it doesn't feel right, sweetheart."

She doesn't respond right away, doesn't trust herself to. "I'm good at this," she tells him finally, only half-meaning it, identical dark eyes meet. "You just focus on getting better and until then... I can do it." She nods, as if that'll convince him. His gaze is heavy with something unspoken, something that makes her stomach twist. "Worry about yourself, old man," she adds with a little teasing smile, desperately trying to lighten up the mood.

He lets out a chuckle, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Ace, honey, can you give me a few minutes to talk to Kenna alone?" he says and Kenna feels her shoulders drop with disappointment. She knows what's coming, but she's not sure if she's strong enough to have this conversation again.

The boy looks between the two with curiosity but shrugs and nods anyway. "Okay... I'll go look for the hedgehog I saw last night," he says as he walks away, oblivious to the tension in the room.

Kenna leans back in the chair, crossing her arms as she waits for her father to speak. His sharp gaze doesn't leave her face, and for a moment, she feels like a kid again—like she's about to get gently scolded for sneaking one too many apples from the orchard or tracking mud into the house. But there's something different about the way he's looking at her now. It's softer. Heavier.

"You know what tomorrow is," he says finally, his voice low.

Her stomach twists, and she shifts uncomfortably in the chair. "Yeah, I know," she mumbles, glancing toward the window like she's trying to distract herself.

"The Reaping," he continues, as though she hadn't spoken. "You nervous?"

Kenna shrugs, the motion quick and almost defensive. "Not really. I mean... the odds are in my favor, right? That's what everyone says. There're hundreds of names in the bowl and you've never let me sign up for a tessera. What are the chances?" Her words come out too fast, too light, like she's trying to convince herself as much as him. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt, avoiding his gaze.

Her father sighs, the sound low and heavy, and leans back against the pillows. "Kenna," he says softly. "You know it's not just about numbers. The Games... they don't work like that."

She frowns, finally meeting his eyes. "I'm not scared, if that's what you're worried about," she says, a stubborn edge creeping into her voice. "And besides, if I did get Reaped—which I won't—maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. People who win the Games get, like, a ton of money, right? Enough to take care of their families? We could use that."

"No." His voice comes out sharp, reprimanding, his jaw tight.

"Why not?" she presses, sitting up straighter. "I mean, I know it's dangerous and everything, but people do win. And if they do, their families get enough money to last them forever. If I'm ever Reaped, I'd have a reason to fight for it." There's an unspoken argument about his medical expenses; even if they could get through the toughest of winters, they still didn't make enough to cover the doctors and medicine her father needed. "I could actually take care of us."

Her words hang in the air, heavy and clumsy, and her father's expression hardens. For a moment, she thinks he's going to yell at her, to tell her she doesn't understand what she's talking about. But instead, he sighs, his shoulders slumping like all the energy has drained out of him.

"You're still so young," he says quietly, almost to himself. "You shouldn't have to worry about taking care of me."

"Well, I do," she snaps, her throat tightening. She doesn't want to cry—not here, not now—but there's something about the way he says it, so certain and steady, that makes her chest ache. She instantly regrets speaking; she sees the pain her harsh reminder inflicted on her father. "I'm sorry. You know what I mean."

There's a moment of tense silence and she almost cries in relief when he's the one to break it. Her father squeezes her arm gently, drawing her attention back to him. "Hey," he says, he says softly. "Why don't you go check on Ace? Make sure he hasn't made a mess in the yard?"

Kenna snorts, her fist unclenching. "I swear, that kid's gonna give me gray hair before I'm twenty."

Despite the tension, he chuckles. "Sounds like you're getting a taste of your own medicine."

She rolls her eyes but stands, brushing her hands on her jeans. "I wasn't that bad," she mumbles.

"I know. You were perfect," he says. Kenna lingers for a moment, her gaze flicking over his face. He looks tired—more tired than usual—but he's somehow still smiling at her. It's enough to give her the strength to leave the room.

The morning of the Reaping dawns humid and overcast, the sky heavy with the kind of gray clouds that seem to weigh on the world below. Kenna wakes to the sound of Ace whispering something to himself under his covers on the bed next to hers and the faint shuffle of their father moving around the house.

By the time she gets up, the house feels quieter than it usually does. Ace is sitting at the table, his legs swinging back and forth under the chair, his hair sticking out in wild tufts. Their father is already dressed, his clothes pressed and neat despite the wear and tear of years. He leans heavily against the counter, stirring a cup of tea and his expression softens in that way it always does when he sees her, but there's a shadow behind his eyes today. One she doesn't want to think about.

Ace looks at her, then at their father, then back at her. "Do we really have to go?" he asks suddenly, his voice small.

Their father sets the cup down, sighing. "We do," he says. "You know the rules, Ace. Everyone has to attend the Reaping. But it won't take long."

Kenna doesn't say anything, focusing instead on tearing a piece of stale bread. She doesn't want to think about the Reaping, doesn't want to talk about it. It's just another day, she tells herself. Another day like any other.

But it's not.

Kenna pulls on the nicest dress she owns. It's simple—a faded green that reaches just past her knees. It used to belong to her mother. The fabric feels too tight around her chest, too stiff at the collar, but she doesn't complain. When they leave the house, the air outside feels even heavier than it did earlier, like it's pressing down on her chest. The town square is already crowded when they arrive. She walks with her family to the registration tables, her feet dragging slightly. The Peacekeeper marks her name off the list, then pricks her finger and presses the small bead of blood onto the paper. It's all routine, mechanical. Same bullshit every year.

Her father places a hand on her shoulder before she steps away. "Stick close to the others," he says softly. "And don't wander off after. I'll meet you back here."

She makes her way to the section designated for the girls eligible to be Reaped, weaving through the crowd until she finds her row. The other girls are already standing there, some of them she recognizes from school or the market, but she barely pays attention to them. She spots her neighbor's daughter, standing a few spots down. The girl catches her eye and offers a weak smile, but Kenna can't offer her any more than a nod of acknowledgment.

The escort for District 10, Tiberia, steps onto the stage, her bright orange dress clashing horribly with her teal hair. She's grinning, her white teeth practically glowing under the overcast sky. Her voice is high-pitched and overly cheerful as she greets the crowd, but it doesn't mask the tension hanging in the air. "Welcome, welcome!" she chirps, clapping her hands together. "Another glorious Reaping Day is upon us! Oh, what an honor it is to be here, to celebrate the bravery and strength of District 10!"

Kenna barely listens as Tiberia launches into the same speech they've all heard a dozen times before. Something about the Capitol's generosity, about honoring the sacrifices of the districts. Same bullshit every year. Every. Damn. Year.

When Tiberia finally reaches the part where she draws the names, the square goes eerily silent. Kenna feels her heart skip a beat as the escort reaches into the glass bowl, her manicured nails clicking against the sides. The name she pulls out seems to hang in the air, suspended for a moment before Tiberia reads it aloud.

Kenna doesn't hear it at first. The pounding in her ears is too loud, drowning out everything else. It's not until the crowd begins to part, the murmurs starting up again, that she realizes what's happening.

"For our female tribute of District 10... Kenna Greaves!"

She blinks and she's back to the slaughterhouse. Only this time, she's not sure if she'll ever get out.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE!     whoever remembers the first chapter pre-revamp will remember it started with catching fire. i decided to write the fic in chronological order after i asked your guys' opinion on my mb (and after i consulted other friends) because, as much as i liked the idea of starting from catching fire and having act2 be kenna's games, i was nervous that it'd take away from the character dynamics and their relationships. sooo now im writing this fic in chronological order! hooray?

it seems like i have a problem and i keep writing sad first chapters but to be fair... it's hunger games fanfic, what did you expect? expect everything to go wrong but in a fun, hopefully entertaining way?? 

i know i havent updated this fic in a WHILE and i'll prob have an aneurysm seeing the difference between the views on the summary and the actual chapters, but hopefully you guys have a soul and aren't ghostreaders <3 thank you for reading and having patience with me !!!

until next timeee i'm dropping the trailer my lovely friend gia (dancefevers) made for me here too just to make sure everyone sees it xoxo