WARNINGS: N/A

BETA READING: To be done still (haven't even fully read it lol please be gentle, I know there's typos somewhere)

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No victor in District 10 had had any successful love affairs. None that resulted in children, and thus when I entered the bus, I was alone. I, the busdriver, and of course, Morgan. The first three stops nobody I knew entered. Two girls above fifteen, no parents. A boy that couldn't be older than twelve and the old woman that brought him. Victor's village and the few farms near were far from the other cities, so of course these people would take the bus.

At the fourth, Bianca Tran stepped in. 

'Are you ready?' I asked her as soon as she sat down.

'Kinda. You?'

'As ready as one can be, yeah.'

Bianca gave me a wry smile. I'd seen that smile very many times in between her joyous bouts of excitement. She'd give it to me when nervous for tests in school, or when in conversation with a girl she didn't know how to unfriend yet despised - feigning a particularly sour mood in order to be left alone; or when Reaping's day was near. For only her second Reaping she at least seemed calmer than the first. Still, the jumping up and down that she normally did was nowhere to be found.

She gave an elated sigh and then dropped her head to my shoulder. I patted it absently. Her flimsy blonde hair was currently too short to put in any kind of hairstyle other than a prison of hairspray, yet she'd decided not to do even that. Maybe she had run out of the bottle I gave her. She couldn't afford the type she liked herself.

'I love your outfit,' she said, drawing out the last vowel in mock excitement in spite of the exhaustion running through her tone.

'Thanks,' I said. I wasn't so sure I actually liked it myself. In the mirror it had looked fine. Now I wished I was wearing pants. Thank god Bianca wasn't.

No, the dress she wore had clearly belonged to her mother too. The green was bright and dominant on her pale figure in spite of its age, yet the design was more than a bit outdated.

'I love yours, I'm gonna steal it.'

'Oh,' Bianca yawned. 'Okay.'

Alright - she was too tired to engage in conversation right now, so I gave up. I absently smiled and hoped she'd fall asleep on my shoulder. I would miss that in the arena.

☠

'Girls to this direction! Girls to this direction!'

One of the Peacekeepers waved his arms to drive us into the right squares of our usual marketplace, like a shepherd trying to control his herd. Everything was already set up for the Reaping. With the distance between home and townsquare, I had never been truly early. It was Morgan's habit to be there before the masses, but never before the preparations. It looked like a completely different place like this: the podium, the huge banners, the screens, the cameras, the tapes to separate the squares. There were no salesmen shouting, small children screaming, laughing, running; only the Peacekeepers in white with their large guns. Sometimes they had to force the chosen tributes to come up. Last year the girl had to be dragged.

This year that wouldn't be needed. I would come willingly without any prompting whatsoever.

'How old are you?' another one of the men asked Bianca and I.

We answered "fourteen" and "thirteen" respectively, so Bianca was sent one square further to the younger children, and I was pointed to the one we were standing next to. I brushed over my index finger with my thumb, feeling the sore place that had just been opened with a needle at the blood identification stand. Getting in here was always such a hassle.

'Girls to this direction! Girls to this direction!' the Peacekeeper went on. Ironically, it seemed that we of District 10 had a funny similarity to cattle in the eyes of the Capitol men.

'No, you there! Are you a girl?' he barked.

The Peacekeeper stopped a boy that could pass for an adult due to his height, though not quite in build, who was apparently following a girl his age. When pulled out, he only laughed and stuck his tongue out in a juvenile fashion before then allowing the Peacekeeper to push him to the boys' square. I rolled my eyes to that. How anyone could still act like an obnoxious clown on this day was beyond me, let go be so occupied with their partner that they refused to stop touching them for even a split second while they had to pay attention to the lottery. I supposed it was good for him that he wasn't afraid, and that was about all the sympathy I was willing to give.

I spotted Anastasia Romilly, District 10's escort, next to the podium, discussing something with a man I didn't recognize. Her long hair was white. Her extravagant dress was too. Her skin was several tones paler than those of any potential tributes, even I, who had always been considered light in skin in comparison to most friends and relatives - aside from Bianca, who was not like us in appearance whatsoever. Anastasia looked like a frozen statue in a winter garden in spite of the summer weather. If it weren't for her sick enthusiastic role in this sadistic bloodfest, it would perhaps even have looked pretty, with her glittering skin and fabrics.

The man, whom I now realized was a cameraman, seemed to agree to something she said, nodded, and walked away. That made her turn to another previous victor, Justus Harmon, who was leaning nonchalantly against one of the few thin trees they'd simply had to let be. His arms were crossed. His hair was slicked back into a low ponytail. He looked vaguely bored and perfectly composed.

I had never really spoken to him. My mother didn't like visitors. She despised men and preferred none of them near me, and I was glad for that. She had told me before that she didn't trust Justus, and that if I ever came near him, I shouldn't, either.

Still it seemed that he was going to be my mentor.

Anything better than my mother.

A bump against my shoulder.

'Hey, Agnes, how's it going?'

I looked up to see Tracy Guerra, one of the classmates I was sort of friends with. She called me one of her closest friends. I wasn't sure whether I liked her. There was something about her I couldn't stand.

'I don't know, I mean,' I said, gesturing vaguely around me for explanation and then shrugging, giving an impermanent grin. 'With you?'

'Oh, bad.'

I tried not to roll my eyes. Yeah, I knew that. It wasn't like that kind of thing needed to be voiced on this kind of day.

'Have any extra lots?'

'No, no. Just nervous.'

Well, if she got reaped in spite of everything, I'd be her noble hero with all I'd planned. I didn't tell her that. Instead I said: 'No, I get that, it's a shitty day.'

Tracy held up her hand, palm down, and it took me a second to realize she was showing me how she was trembling. I took it and squeezed it in an attempt to comfort her.

'Did you see Bianca anywhere?' Tracy then asked.

'Yes, I came here with her. She's with the thirteen-year-olds.'

'Does she have extra lots? Did she tell you?'

'She has two lots,' I said. She had, much like last year, said "no" quite easily when asked for tesserae. If she had tried to say "yes" I might have stopped her.

'Okay, good, because we were gonna hang out tomorrow.'

I felt an inexplicable sliver of annoyance. Bianca didn't even like Tracy.

'I'd go instead of her if she were reaped,' I then said sternly. You're not a true friend. Stop pretending you are. You wouldn't even give her a piece of your cheaply made cheese if she asked for it.

'I mean, I love her, but I wouldn't...'

Tracy never finished her sentence before the show began.

All traces of nervous chattering died down. Anastasia Romilly made her way onto the stage.

'Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to the 81st Hunger Games!'

She explained how it was time to choose two brave young people to be sent to the Capitol, but first, exposition on the war had to be given. We watched a movie that explained how we, grandchildren of the defeated enemy of the Capitol from many years ago, had to pay with our blood and flesh for that unforgivable sin of near successful rebellion. It was mercy, truly, that it was only two of us every year that had to go. It was mercy that one of us might come back.

I wanted to be enraged, like I vaguely remembered being the first time I learned how the world worked. But I couldn't be. Cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse aren't angry about their fate. They're terrified.

But I wasn't terrified, either. I somehow managed to feel nothing at all. Nothing but vague awareness of the adrenaline that was rushing through my body, most noticeable in my stomach, where it pooled and pooled and pooled up like pouring wine - but I couldn't help that. My body wanted most of all to live. Every living body wants to live. It's what we're made for, it's why we are born.

It kept me sharp. I concentratedly watched Anastasia announce that it was our turn before moving to the glass bowl with lots that had my name in it. Whether it was found or not was irrelevant.

I suddenly felt achingly aware of my own breathing. Of the sun that left this stain of light in my vision, slightly blurring the top of the buildings and banners behind Anastasia.

She unfolded the lot before the microphone, then cleared her throat and read it aloud.

Shauna Kabarda.

The name was faintly familiar. That was a surprise in and of itself, for I by no means knew all the girls around me. Still, I couldn't stick a face to it. She must be from school, maybe, or acting class - though I would likely recognize the latter.

It took ages before she came to the podium. An utmost annoying waiting time, but I couldn't afford to make a slipup in my explanation for my noble act. It couldn't look impersonal. I couldn't look prepared.

Still, I let a kind of terror I'd laid out for myself earlier this week take a hold of me. I felt it in every inch of my body, carefully tried it on like a dress. I dug into the oldest fears I'd ever known and tore them out as a weapon.

As soon as there was movement in the crowd, behind us, at first, then next to us, I started to move. I ignored the, 'Wait, Agnes!' that Tracy whispered to me. I simply pushed aside the younger girls before me and came to the podium a little after Shauna.

Shauna was a girl with dark hair and eyes, like so many of us, though her snubbed nose and hooded eyes made her recognizable to me now. Yes, I had spoken to her before. She had lost her mother a year ago. I had comforted her once then, while her eyes were red and puffy, and she confessed that she sometimes wished she was dead, too. She hadn't realized I was three years younger then, because of the people I was with, who were all in her class, and after that we'd never really spoken much again.

I couldn't believe my luck. I had hoped for a girl younger than I, who was obviously defenseless, but strangely, this might work too. I knew her. She was my friend.

The only obvious obstacle was that I was as old as her youngest sibling.

Shauna was halfway on the podium, and Peacekeepers made their way to me to presumably drag me off in case I would harm anyone. I spoke quickly before they could touch me.

'No, I'll go,' I said loudly, feigning calmness. I had thought of so many ways to do this bit. I had thought to scream hysterically, to cry and beg for her not to go - but then I had gone to acting class and been made to play a drunk. A convincing actor never acts like they're drunk, because drunk people don't pretend to be drunk. They're not drunk openly. They pretend to be sober.

'I volunteer, she doesn't deserve to die.'

There was an appropriate tremor in my voice somehow, yet I kept it as steady as I could. Once I'd said that I became aware again of other people's reactions.

Everyone was stilled in their actions. Some rumbling in the crowd. Anastasia looked as confused as I'd ever seen her, attempting to compose herself.

'Well, District 10's female tribute is a volunteer!' she said. Shauna rushed off, muttering a "thank you" to me as she passed. Tears had been in her eyes.

Then, 'No! Agnes!'

I recognized Bianca's voice in the crowd. I'd never heard her so shrill before. I didn't respond to it. I just hoped she'd be left alone by the Peacekeepers.

I got forward to the podium, muscles tense as I forced them to be in the right position. I climbed onto the podium with Anastasia's help. Her hand was cool.

'So, what's the name of this brave young lady?'

I inhaled before I spoke. 'Agnes Laure Richis. Shauna's my friend.'

'Agnes,' Anastasia repeated, 'How old is Agnes?'

Well, there came a problem.

'Seventeen,' I lied without too much thinking. Overthinking is the mind killer. It gives away the insincerity in a performance. My age had to be a given to me. I couldn't give away that I was trained. I couldn't appear stupid.

'Well, District 10, give a warm applause to your first ever volunteer, and female representative of the 81st Hunger Games, Agnes Richis!'

Not a sound followed.

There were sounds - just none that followed Anastasia's request. There was the quiet sobbing of Bianca, whom I couldn't see, but was aware was relatively close to the podium. A man coughed. "Passivity is its own form of rebellion," my father had written in one of his diaries. It was in an entry about how he refused to dress appropriately to Reapings or other Capitol events he disagreed with. He refused to be in his best clothes when accompanying his wife to celebrations of her victory. Instead, he'd be there in simple pants and a wrinkled dress shirt, without offering any explanation whatsoever for his ruffled appearance.

He wouldn't clap for escorts and Capitol spokesmen.

The crowd too, wouldn't budge. No loss was good loss. Not even if said loss had agreed to it. It was undeniable in the crowd's eyes, of the children, the parents, and every adult somewhere outside of those bounds. They knew better than to celebrate death.

It was a little uncomfortable. I stared absently into a camera lens, concentration suddenly wavering. That was fine. I'd done all I'd needed to do for now.

Anastasia waited a few more seconds, then moved on as though cheering had occurred.

I went completely still. I must look so disconnected, suddenly burdened by the sudden realization of consequences, that I bet that any of the trained tributes watching this scene would be fooled by this accidental performance. It fascinated me how easily I managed to stare like this, with an appropriate knot in my stomach, barely needing to concentrate on my internal experience while still knowing that my acting must look convincing.

The click-clacking of Anastasia's heels came near as she came back to the microphone. She unfolded the lot. The name on it was Dexter Madeva. I did not recognize it.

The boy coming forward was older than me, I could see that because he came from the back, but many other observations I could not place, for... He was interrupted.

'I volunteer too!'

What the fuck?

A hand in the far back (with the eighteen-year-olds, goddamnit) waved enthusiastically. The boys turned and moved so a path was made for the obnoxious volunteer. The young man in question had a dumb grin on his face and slicked back yet messy brown hair and- oh god, it was that boy that had been pulled out of the girl's square by a Peacekeeper.

His button down was wrinkled. He wore jeans and sneakers. The idiot seemed so excited that I could easily determine that this was the type to participate in Russian Roulette like it was Beer Pong.

He strutted forward and then climbed jovially onto the podium like an overjoyed ape. Anastasia seemed to have no words left - and no narrative enthusiasm for the performance could top this volunteer's good mood, anyway. It was ridiculous. I found myself glaring at him, and I wasn't sure how to stop. What the hell was going on with this guy?

He settled next to Anastasia and I with a large grin on his face.

'Well, why are you volunteering?' Anastasia asked, somehow adjusting better than I was. I wasn't sure how she did it. In her place I'd probably think I was dreaming. District 10 never had volunteers. What made her accept this so easily?

'I'm here for the meat,' the boy said loudly into the microphone, hunching over to reach it, then, to my horror, added with a wink at Anastasia, 'If y'know what I mean,'

Well, great, instead of a cannibal who would likely be killed by the Gamemakers for his lack of popularity, I was dealing with a hormonal teenage boy who was at the mercy of his sex glands. What an improvement.

Anastasia then began to laugh at his remark, sincere surprise finally breaking through, and said, 'Well, you are a bold one! What's your name?'

'Cassius Cromwell.'

'Cassius! We all love a Cassius. Welcome to the Games! Applaud!'

Some weak applause now followed, perhaps because of Cassius' equally boisterous friends, perhaps because Cassius clearly was so stupid as to deserve death, perhaps because rebellion felt unnecessary when the bull enjoyed the slaughterhouse so much.

Cassius was still grinning once he looked at me. Somehow I smiled back with teeth. I imagined it must look like an aggressive animal showing off their canines. I felt like one. I hoped no one would look at this scene deeply enough to notice this detail.

We shook hands, as was tradition, then let go, and were led away.