This is my first ever fic, so sorry for errors!

I'm planning on continuing the whole book through Cato's POV. I'll be mixing book and movie elements together.

Clove/Cato pairing in the future!

Constructive criticism is very much welcome!

Disclaimer: I'm not Suzanne Collins and do not own The Hunger Games, unfortunately.


It's tough life training for the Games. Firstly, you have to give up most of your family life. Secondly, you have to give up most of your family.

When I was 6 years old Victors from my district started looking for my years tributes. They watched all the children at school, contemplating which ones will grow up to be the strongest and fastest. If you're on the play ground at recess climbing the monkey bars at full speed and pushing your classmates on the blacktop for not giving you their gum, watch out, because you could be next.

I didn't know this when I was 8, no one told me. I wish they would have because while all the other kids were huddled in a circle diverting their eyes from the past years Victors, I was digging holes in the ground and covering them with grass, a trap for one of the miserable kids that would step in its path. I thought I was strong, showing off, but doing these things ended up making me weak.

After a week of watching me at school, the two scouting victors, Thornia and Driff, approached me on my walk home. My little brother, Blaine, walked with me. He was 5 and rather skinny and needed thick glasses to see. He was picked on a lot by the other kids at our school, so my fists had a tendency to intervene with their mouths.

"Hey, Cato," I remember Thornia saying. She had long, black hair and a sharp, pointed nose. Her eyes were a deep blue. Since she had won the games only two years before she was still young, about 20.

"We've seen you on the playground, you're a pretty clever little guy," Driff said. Driff was also pretty young, probably early 20's, but in my memory I see him as being old and wise, like a father or a teacher. "You've watched The Hunger Games on the television before, huh?" I nodded. My family, like the rest of district 2, always made an event of the games. Bakers made treats with the tributes faces on them, people made bets and celebrated when the numbers got low. I remember huddling up against my father when I was very young, watching a girl from 2 slicing open an opponent's throat. We cheered.

"How would you like to be one of our tributes?" Driff asked. I knew how special that might make me, to be a tribute. Everyone loved and praised them like they were made of gold. My parents would be so proud of me, I thought.

"What would I have to do?"

"Well, you'd move to a new school, one that gets you ready for the arena. It'll make strong, so you can win," Thornia smiled. Move. I would have to move away from my family, from Blaine. He wouldn't have anyone to protect him. He'd grow up getting tossed around. No one would take him seriously and he'd get a meager job in the old mines. I couldn't have my brother pushed around the rest of his life.

"That's really nice of you lady, but I can't leave my brother all alone," is what I decided. Thornia and Driff's expressions' were flat. I could see something of fear in their eyes.

"Oh, well I'm really sorry, Cato." At the time I thought Thornia meant she was sorry I wouldn't be a victor with fortunes and fame, but a few weeks later I understood her apology.

I continued my normal life for a while, going to school and coming home, doing chores. Blaine and I played 'Kill the rebels' in our back yard. We watched this television show on Sunday mornings called 'Tom and Jerry' and on Thursday nights mom let us go down to the bakery and get cupcakes, some even had Thornia's face on the. I continually protected Blaine from the knuckleheads that teased him. I protected him from almost everything. Almost.

Nearly a month after my conversation with Driff and Thornia, Blaine and I were walking home from school when we stopped at this park close to our house to play on the swings and eat oranges our mom had packed us. I walked over to the garbage can to throw away our peels and when I turned around Blaine had vanished. Just like that, gone. I started screaming his name continuously and I ran around, searching under benches and in bushes. I told myself he was just playing a game, that I would find him, but it turned dark and I still hadn't found him. I returned home where my parents were waiting and told them what had happened, how I'd lost Blaine. They called the Peacekeepers and neighbors and we all searched for hours. We were about to call it quits for the night when someone screamed that they'd found him. But it wasn't him. Blaine was colorful and giggly, always smiling. But this, whatever it was, was not. It was pale with glassy eyes and felt limp. When I touched the hand it was ice cold. Red dripped around the head. Its neck had three, long lesions covering it. I heard some shout it was an animal, but the cuts were so long and deep I couldn't imagine what kind of animal could do something like that. My parents were took me away and I never saw Blaine again.

I remember my mother crying a lot the next few weeks. My dad was different, though. He barely did anything, just laid in bed and starred at the walls. When he stopped going to work my neighbors help feed us and lent us money to buy new clothes when winter came. Dad still wouldn't do anything.

One night, though, he got out of bed and came in my room. He put his old, tattered, wrist watch in my hand and kissed my forehead. I watched him walk out and turned off the lights, put the watch on my nightstand, and went to sleep with the ticking sticking in my ears.

In the middle of the night I woke to wailing come from the bathroom. My mother had woken up to use the toilet but had accidently walked into my father's dead body hanging from the ceiling fan.