The girl who stayed
The unthinkable has happened. I am once again being thrown into the Hunger Games, into a world of hatred and violence. I'm terrified, and I know I won't ever see Prim, my mother or Gale again, because this time, I keep Peeta alive. He deserves to win far more than me. He's is more useful to the rebellion, he can stir up people, bring them to tears with a few words, whereas I'm more use as a martyr.
"Want to watch another hunger games?" Peeta asks me.
"Sure," I say casually, picking a tape out at random. He's been making us train like careers and watch the people we might be up against, so that we might have a chance against the other victors. I went along with it because it was his best hope for survival too.
We settle down to watch the tape Effie sent us of the Hunger Games from four years ago, when someone called Callum Tremmel from District 1 won. As I watch the reapings, I try to ignore the looks of horror on the tributes' and their families faces.
In the interview, Callum goes for a scary angle, and it's clear he's not someone you want to meet in the games.
I gasp in shock, as a very familiar face comes onto the screen, the tribute form district 8 – the avox girl! She was in the hunger games? But how did she survive? She didn't win! The look on Peeta's face tells me that he is thinking exactly the same.
"I didn't know," I whisper. Peeta's arm snakes around my shoulders comfortingly.
"Me neither," he admits, "let's see what happens." I finally learn that the Avox girl's name is Alenna Vale. Funny, I never thought of her as having a name before, she always seemed mysterious and anonymous.
I watch as the tributes stand at the cornucopia, in an arena which appears to be just grassland. The cornucopia is surrounded by grass at least 10 foot tall. How easy it would be to sneak up on someone in that! The minute the cannon sounds, the tributes all take off, either to get supplies or into the long grass, but Alenna takes one step off the plate, then stands where she is. She glares furiously up at the camera, and shouts "I won't take part in your Games. I won't turn into a monster, and kill for your entertainment. I won't change who I am for you. I won't give you that satisfaction. I hope someday someone braver and cleverer than me can take you down once and for all, and stop you from murdering innocent children! Don't stop fighting!"
My mouth drops open. This wasn't in the original showings of the games! Of course not, I realised, they'll have edited it out. I would have remembered something like that immediately. My eyes are glued to the brave girl who spoke out against the capitol.
She carries on talking, telling her family she loves them, "I'm sorry," she says with tears in her eyes now. A beam of light hits her, and she crumples to the ground. Although the fight is going on at the cornucopia, a canon sounds, to warn the other tributes what will happen if they speak out.
But she didn't die. She must have been taken as an Avox instead. But when I saw her running from the hovercraft in the woods she still had her voice. She shouted to me. Maybe when she was captured four years ago, she met the boy I saw with her that day in the woods. She escaped, and I saw them kill the boy and recapture her, then they must have turned her into an avox.
Suddenly I feel a great respect and sadness for the brave girl who stayed. She was brave. She would have sacrificed her life to say something to the capitol that none but the gamemakers and the president ever saw. If she could do it, so can I. For Peeta, for the Prim and my family, for the people of the districts, for all those children murdered in the hunger games, and for Rue. And I'm going to make sure Alenna Vale doesn't stay anonymous. For the brave girl who stayed.