"Rue" shouts our escort. He is a fat man of 50 with sugar pink hair named Jamie lurch. It's the 74th annual Hunger Games and it's my first year in the reaping. My name is only on that one bit of paper and it is the one that gets pulled out. I walk onto the stage in front of the Justices Building and stand where I am instructed to stand.
Jamie plunges his hand into the ball with the boy's names in and produces a bit of paper which he unfolds delicately and reads "Thresh". I have seen his boy before. He is HUGE. He is made of pure muscle. The only thing we have in common is the colour of our skin, the same shade of light brown. He wears a dark blue top that shows his muscles, a pair of cropped trousers and some sandals.
We are ordered to shake hands. We just stare for a while at the audience and then he stretches out his bear like hand and I stretch out mine and we grasp each other hands tightly. He is very hostile and doesn't look at me when we do this. I think that's because he will have to kill me at some point and there's no need to get friendly.
After that we are ushered not into the Justice buildings like every other 22 tributes in Panem but straight to the train. Here in District 11 its harvest time and no one can be spared when there are deadlines to meet, not even the families of the tributes. The only person who is a citizen of District 11 that is allowed to stop helping with the harvest is our one and only victor left. His name is Chaff. He won in the 45th hunger games. He is in his 40's and he is one of the only remaining victors in the whole vicinity of Panem that hasn't turns to alcohol or drugs to dull there pain.