There was no anthem that night.
No faces in the sky.
No cannons.
The Arena was silent—not by design, but by defiance.
Three tributes remained.
And none of them were playing the Game.
They sat together in the overgrown trench, lit only by the flicker of exposed wiring and the glow of failing surveillance nodes.
Cassia leaned against a support beam, her leg still stiff from the wound she'd never let heal properly.
Rue sat cross-legged near the terminal, her eyes half-lidded, humming softly to herself—a tune from home that sounded too fragile for this place.
And Goo?
He stood above them, silent, watching the sky.
Not for drops.
Not for predators.
But for signs.
And eventually… they came.
At exactly midnight, the Arena sky changed.
The usual twilight filter dissolved, leaving a raw, unpolished view—one that revealed the cracks in the dome above. Thin lines of circuitry. Glitches in projection fields. Not a sky at all, but a cage of light.
Then a message appeared. Big. Stark. White text across the false heavens:
NO VICTOR.
And beneath it, in smaller print:
Transmission Ended.
In the Capitol, screams erupted in the viewing halls. Families of fallen tributes demanded answers. The press scrambled for statements. Snow watched with unmoving eyes as the Gamemakers collapsed into arguments, blame, and open panic.
For the first time since the Games began, they had no footage to show.
No finale.
No glory shot.
Just silence.
And that text burned into the hearts of every citizen:
No victor.
In the Districts, however, the reaction was different.
In District 11, children climbed rooftops to whisper about the girl who sang in the Arena and never stopped smiling.
In District 2, warriors-in-training watched in silence as the system that shaped them cracked open.
In District 13—long thought dead—the message was received.
And returned.
Goo knelt beside the terminal one last time.
He pressed two fingers to the touchpad, now hot with overuse and unstable power, and sent a final signal.
Encrypted.
Simple.
We're still here.
They saw.
Now burn it down.
Cassia stirred. "So… what now?"
Rue looked to Goo.
He said nothing at first. Then:
"We walk."
"Where?"
He looked toward the wall of the Arena—where the illusion ended and the world began. Concrete. Steel. A seam the Capitol never intended anyone to reach.
"The end."
He stepped forward, and the other two followed.
The Arena didn't resist.
It had nothing left to give.
There was no broadcast when they crossed the boundary.
No Peacekeepers.
No hovercraft.
Only a static-filled sky, and the slow hum of a dying machine.
Behind them, the Games fell quiet forever.
Ahead of them?
The world.