I have always regarded names to be sacred, in a way.

A name was something that made you unique. Even if you happened to share a name or a similar one with someone else, the story, interpretation, and person behind it was always bound to be different. You identified with names; they were what would stick with you for the rest of your life. This was part of the reason why name-changes were also important, for choosing a better-suiting addressor for oneself would be a decision that usually stuck until one's death and beyond.

Never would I have ever thought that my own name would ever betray me, but there it was. Drawn from a slip of paper in a large glass bowl amidst countless others. Tumbling from the lips of the heavily painted and bewigged man onstage, so changed from his natural appearance to the point that he was more exotic creature than human. The sound of it hung in the air, echoed off the stage and bounced off the walls of the square, making its way into the audience's ears, then mine.

I stood there, frozen. I think I might've fallen had someone behind me not grabbed at my arm. That touch, the firm yet comforting grip of someone I didn't even know, was what spurred my senses back to wakefulness, or the closest thing to it that I could achieve in this particular moment. Numbly, I forced my feet to move, all too aware of the Peacekeepers nearby, dressed in their pressed white uniforms, their fingers on the barrels of their firearms as they watched me warily, and maybe eagerly, waiting for the moment when I would suddenly turn and attempt to flee. I didn't. I couldn't give them the satisfaction. That was the singular thought that prevented me from breaking down completely before I reached the stage.

The man standing there gave me an appraising look. "A fine young specimen," he said, and bile rose in my throat. This was what they, the people of the Capitol, saw us as. Merely animals, beasts forced to learn tricks for Panem's entertainment. As whipped curs who fawned at the feet of their masters, we were forever at the mercy of a lead and a muzzle. Nothing more but pawns in their twisted Games.

My partner was soon chosen, a mere slip of a child, with scraggly dark hair and wide blue eyes that were far too large, far too staring, to appear menacing. A bewildered gaze and trembling limbs indicated shock, surprise; this was something that had been utterly unexpected. A first reaping, then, was most likely. Hardly any time to settle down before the sacred name was called.

None volunteered to take either of our places. It had never even been anything close to a possibility, anyway, so why did that thought still occur to me?

I later sat alone in my 'farewell' room in the Justice Building, wringing my hands. My fingers would not stop shaking, I noticed detachedly. I usually prided myself on having steady hands, so why they failed me now, I could not imagine.

My father came in. Sat down next to me and awkwardly patted my shoulder. We'd never been close, my father and I, and no words of importance would pass between us in this final meeting, save for perhaps one thing.

"Stay safe," he finally said, before the Peacekeepers came to drag him away. For the first time in my life, I saw emotion on his face, and that was of regret. Regret for what, though, I couldn't fathom. It lead me to wonder that the only time he had ever felt anything for me was when it was certain I was headed off to the arena.

I was soon escorted from my room by the returned Peacekeepers. My formal attire was stiff and sweaty, but I hardly noticed. I was thrust into the train with the eyes of the entire district upon me. The silence of the crowd was deafening. My partner entered after me and fell to weeping after the doors closed, collapsed upon the plush velvet rug on the floor of our luxurious carriage.

"Let the weak wail," my father used to say, and though I begrudged him for that, right now I could not think of a single thing to say to my poor partner in consolation. "I'll protect you" wouldn't work; I couldn't guarantee that, and what I hated the most were broken promises, oaths I couldn't keep. "I'm sorry for your loss"? I snorted at that.

There was a window next to me, and it took up nearly an entire wall of the train. It was made out of what was probably the cleanest, clearest glass I had ever seen in my life. I headed over and watched my home disappear from view, until the only sign it had ever existed were the smooth railway tracks that still stretched out towards it.

How many tributes before me had ridden this train, I realized? How many of them had sat in this very carriage, devoid of emotion, and how many of them had cried bitterly like my partner had done? How many of them had stood in the place where I now stood, watching the last traces of the only place they had ever known disappear into mist?

My legs could suddenly no longer support me. I slid down the wall, then stumbled my way into a chair, where I collapsed and felt a chill come over me. Now, as the full reality of everything hit me full-on like a crashing wave, I could only stare bewilderedly at my faint reflection in the glass and think, I do not want to die.

"What's in a name?" was how the old expression went. I never understood that phrase, but I now had an answer to it, and that was, "Everything." My name had been something my late mother had chosen for me, when I had first come into this world; and now that name, the one she had cherished, would be the one that sent me to an early grave.

I didn't sit in that chair unfeeling in an attempt to distance myself from the world in preparation of what was to come. I didn't collapse upon the ground as my partner did to weep the tears I couldn't feel. I only closed my eyes and laughed bitterly, howled at the irony that made up our corrupted world, till I no longer had any breath left to laugh.

Just a weird, spur-of-the-moment thing I wrote one day, kind of based off a dream I had. The tribute featured in this doesn't represent anyone in particular.

Thanks for reading, and please review!

- Nearing Midnight