Hello everyone, I'm Kat, and this is my first Hunger Games fanfic! It is, as you might already know, a SYOT, I am also in need of Escorts for all 12 Districts, and I may also require a few Mentors. The forms for the SYOT are on my profile, so if you wish to add a character you may find the Form, and what places need to be filled in the profile.

This story takes place in the same universe as AlexFalTon's story Death Is A Rule, this basically just means that some of the characters will overlap, it also means that the years in which any SYOT Victors might have won is somewhat limited.

Last, but far lest, I want to thank AlexFalTon not just for giving me the idea to write this story, but also for serving as a beta for it! :)

So, welcome to the 169th Hunger Games! (and may the odds be ever in your favor)

Chapter One

Reaping Day, District 7, POV: Jaden Ravenwood

Jaden Ravenwood watched from his treetop perch as the sun rose over District 7, filling the sky with pale pinks, oranges, yellows, and golds. 'It is strange,' the young man thought. 'That this day of grief and death should dawn so fair,'

It was Reaping Day, and across Panem, the brutal country all of them lived in, parents with children between the ages of 12 and 18 where prepare themselves for the loss of a child. The child would not die right away for course, that was not the way of the Hunger Games. Instead the child would be taken from their home, taken to the Capital at the heat of Panem, and in the Capital, before the eyes of all, they would be shown off, and then, when the Capital had had its bit of fun with them, they would be dropped into an arena to kill one another, to die.

Of course, the horror of it all did not end with that, the last child standing, although they would be called a Tribute by then, would become a Victor, one of the far-famed elite. 'A dressed up killer, more often then not,' Jaden thought bitterly.

Because there where only four types of people who came out of the Hunger Games: the brutal bloodthirsty ones who loved the Games: the human ones, who where left traumatized and half alive, yet managed to recover, to a point at least: the truly broken ones, the ones whose minds and hearts had been shattered by the Capital's cruelty. The last where the strange few who left the Games seemingly unscathed, but they were rare, and so strange, that most would avoid them, afraid of what type of person they might be to come through such a thing as the Games, and yet seem unaffected.

More often then not, the Victors belonged to one of the first two groups, those that belonged to the third were common enough, but few of them lived for more than a few years after their Games. Either they suffer an 'accident', caused by the Capital as like as not, or they found a way, despite all the cameras and people who swarmed around them, to kill themselves, in whatever way they could.

The scream of a Mockingjay snapped Jaden from his thoughts. Looking about, Jaden realized with a start that he had been sitting in his treetop perch for close to two hours. "Wonderful, just wonderful," he muttered as he began to scramble down the trunk. 'It's just like me to lose track of time,' he continued in his head, not wanting to be risk being overheard by anyone, human or beast.

The moment his feet hit the ground, Jaden was running. He stopped only once, and then only for a brief a second, to turn and look back up at the rising sun. It was clear of the horizon by then, and the last of the dawn colors were fading from the blue sky. 'Like the memories of all those loved ones the people of Panem have lost to the Capital and the Hunger Games,' Jaden thought as he turned his feet back towards his home and family.

LoD

Jaden was breathing hard by the time his home came into sight. It was a large, two-story house, with whitewashed walls, a wrap around porch, and true glass in all the windows. One barely needed to look at the place to know that the who owned it was well off and had no need to worry about food, money, or where they would be next year.

Jaden's father, George Ravenwood, was the foreman of a large stretch of land that ran east to west along the Districts border. His wife, Jaden's mother, Eleanor, was a pretty, if not beautiful women, and a teacher as well. The rest of Jaden's family was made up of his sister's, two older, one younger. Of the order two: Grace, who was the eldest overall, worked under their father: Cecily, who was next, was the apprentice of a local healer: and Annabelle, who was the only one younger then Jaden, was still in school, but seemed likely to follow in their mother's footsteps.

"Jay!" the call surprised Jaden so much that he nearly fell over. Looking around, he spotted his best, and only, friend, Briar Darktree, sitting on the edge of the porch railing. Briar was already in her Reaping Day clothes, which were made up of a dark green dress, a gray shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, holding the shawl in place was a bronze pin shaped like a star. Jaden winced when he saw it, it was a reminder, like the fading colors of dawn had been, that people died, to entertain the idiots in the Capital.

"How are you holding up?" Jaden asked as Briar hoped off the porch rail and walked over to him. He knew it was a stupid question, but he did not know what else he might say to her.

"I'm managing," Briar replied, ever stoic. "Your family has already gone to the square, I offered to wait for you, come on now, we are already running late!"

Jaden allowed Briar to drag him towards the square, not really wanting to think about the Reaping, or the days of pain and sorrow that would follow, Jaden instead forced himself to focus of a single memory, a good memory. It was in this way that he managed to survive the path to the square.

Unfortunately for Jaden, and for Briar, they where late, very late. The female Tribute was already standing on the platform beside the Escort of District 7, whose name, for whatever reason, Jaden could not remember. As he and Briar watched, the Escort reached into the glass ball that held the boy's names, and wiped one out, waking back to the microphone, the Escort opened the pace of paper and read out the name.

"Oak Brown!"

"No," Jaden could hear Briar whisper beside him. "Please, no,"

The same words were bouncing around Jaden's own head. 'Unfair,' he thought, temper beginning to rise. 'Unfair for a boy of 13, whose family is already struggling! Why could it not have been someone who's family does not need them, why could it not have been...' his thoughts trailed off, and in that split second, Jaden Ravenwood knew what he had to do.

"I volunteer!" he yelled, shoving part the people blocking his way. "I volunteer as Tribute!"