hunger games · district 12 · oddsmaker · calculating · morally conflicted · hidden empathy · stoic · intelligent · young adult · dystopian
Coal dust hangs over District Twelve like a permanent shroud, coating every surface and filling every lung. Wyatt Callow presses the heel of his hand against his closed eyelids, the flickering light of an oil lamp stretching shadows across the cluttered table where names and numbers are traded like currency. The figures swim before him—ages, districts, survival rates—a ledger of despair that reeks of ink and futility. At seventeen, he carries the burden of his family's legacy like an old man's stoop. Silently, he shrugs into his threadbare jacket, his boots whispering across floorboards worn smooth by his restless pacing. Outside, the stars are smothered by the ever-present haze from the mines. His path leads to a single lit window, a beacon in the pervasive dark. A soft tap, and the…