The Arena was gone.
Not physically—it still sat rotting in the earth like a scar that refused to heal.
But its power was gone.
And across Panem, the absence echoed louder than any anthem.
Capitol broadcasts returned the next day.
But something had changed.
The hosts smiled tighter. The edits were slower. The silence between segments felt like the edge of a blade, waiting to fall.
They tried to explain the ending.
A tragic malfunction.
A last act of rebellion.
No victor this year, they said—too much damage. Too little control.
But the people weren't watching the Capitol anymore.
They were watching the gaps.
The missing footage.
The moments of static where three tributes had walked off the edge of the world and refused to look back.
In District 13, the message was clear.
The broadcast had done what years of silence never could—it proved to the people above that the Capitol was vulnerable.
That it could be touched.
General Aurora folded the final transcript, eyes narrowed on the last line Goo had sent through his hijacked feed:
"They saw."
"Now burn it down."
"We will," she whispered. "But not yet."
In the months that followed, rumors grew.
About the girl from District 11 who disappeared but never died.
About the District 2 tribute who turned her rage inward and walked away from everything she was trained to be.
And about the boy from nowhere—the silent one, the ghost, the glitch in the system—who didn't play the Game but rewrote it.
Some said he was still out there.
That he never stopped moving.
That he had a map of the Capitol's hidden tunnels burned into his memory and a list of names carved in blood behind his eyes.
They gave him a name.
Not "victor."
Not "tribute."
Breaker.
Goo Kim didn't need statues.
He didn't want a revolution named after him.
But he wanted one to come.
So he kept walking.
Through the ruined edges of Panem, from District to District, never leaving more than whispers behind.
He taught Rue how to vanish into crowds.
He taught Cassia how to fight without hatred.
He didn't speak much.
But when he did, people listened.
Because he didn't speak like someone who wanted power.
He spoke like someone who had seen the system die from the inside.
And far above it all, deep in the Capitol, Snow watched the map of Panem shift.
He ordered new Games to be planned.
New arenas to be built.
But he knew it, deep down:
The boy with no District, no fear, and no leash was still out there.
And next time?
He wouldn't be alone.