Author's Note: Welcome to a future where the odds weren't in Katniss and Peeta's favor in the 74th Games, instead giving Thresh the sole victory. Now, 24 years later, the Capitol's presence stretches as strong as ever over the Districts – but internal corruption and political maneuverings make chairing the Hunger Games a daunting and high-stakes position. But for the young men and women forced into the sick sport, the 98th Annual Games roar just as dangerous and ominous as ever – an unforgettable and terrifying reminder of the Capital's hunger for blood.

Hunger Games, Finnick, Johanna, Thresh, and all that jazz belong to Suzanne Collins. This is not really a SYOT, though if you really want to see a tribute in, you can PM me with an idea and I'll see what I can do. No guarantees. Enjoy! Part 1 of a series, hopefully.

District 10

The summer night in District 10 blew by with warm gusts and a bright milky moon, illustrating a soft backdrop to the cool collective lowing of cattle settling down for rest. Lanterns hung outside low-slung wooden houses lit up the outskirts of the district like fireflies in the night, glowing off Samantha Parker's blue eyes as the fifteen year-old girl sat in the swaying grass that made the universal carpet of the land. The girl tucked her knees closer to her chest as she leaned against the bottom of her family's old birch front step and silently let her gaze rest upon a cluster of horses lassoed near the nearest lot of penned cattle. Nights like these usually lit her heart with the serenity of it all, but not this night. Not for the last three years.

Tomorrow her heart would pound against her chest like a jackhammer come morning, hoping to all hopes that she wouldn't be taken from these lands that she called home – taken in the sick and bloodthirsty Reaping that came like a lethal and unavoidable predator once a year, stalking the districts of Panem for month upon month before striking with a killer's instinct that ensured twenty-three of twenty-four tributes selected would never see their families again.

District 10 had hit a particularly lucky streak in the games of the late seventies, returning tributes as victors in both the seventy-sixth and seventy-ninth anniversaries of the Dark Days. For a more outlying district such as this, that was no small feat given the dominance of the "Career Districts" in 1, 2, and 4 that routinely produced tributes like resource quotas. 10's spring had run dry since then, however, watching the more powerful districts accrue victories in the time after that while failing to return home any of its lost children. A sense of futility had returned to the Reaping in the past decade or so in District 10 – heading to the Capitol was not a happy occasion.

"Still up, Sam?"

A swat to her dark brown ponytail let the girl recognize her brother's arrival. Nineteen year-old Jake had survived his seven years of confronting the Reaping and served now as emotional support to his terrified sister, although he would have made a strapping tribute – powerfully-built and suited to life on one of the better-run and prosperous livestock farms in District 10 that made up the Parker family's welfare, Jake likely could have held his own in the games. While poorer families often struggled to make ends meet and had children signing up for tesserae every year, the Parker family financial strength let Jake off easy. The odds had indeed been in his favor every year – never gaining his name in the Reaping more than seven times, he had skirted by into adulthood without the death sentence of the Games levied on his head.

"Yeah, I guess," Sam gave a fraction of a smile to her brother, although the red puffiness lacing her blue eyes spoke of conflicting emotions running through her head. "Just thinkin'."

"'Bout tomorrow?" Jake asked, already knowing the answer. "I God, Sam, you're not gonna get picked. You don't even sign up for tesserae – think of all the poorer kids who do."

Her brother's reassurance did nothing to quell the knots jumping in Sam's stomach. She had never had Jake's steel fortitude or physical prowess. The best she could offer was an astute brain and a quick mind for problem-solving amidst dumb cattle – but what good what that do if the Reaping ball tomorrow pulled one of her four paper slips up? The rigors of raising animals and going to school paled in comparison with tossing about weaponry in whatever dangerous game the Capitol could make up – and no matter how nonchalant and relaxed the Peacekeepers here on the laid-back prairie of District 10 were, the Hunger Games always had a way of bringing out the worst fears one could imagine. Three years ago in a particularly drastic games, a bioengineered virus had laid half the tributes in the Games low as the hardier physical specimens moved out to smash their weakened foes – and that was just one of the examples that laughed at Sam through her thoughts.

"But what if I am?" Sam smacked the grass with one hand, her District 10 accent cutting through her words with her fear. "What if I don't get lucky? If the odds aren't in my favor." The girl spat out the last four words with a sarcastic disgust, the Capitol be damned.

"What if they are?" Jake replied, leaning back onto the step and letting his eyes wander about the star-studded sky as his sister hunched over her knees. "It's not like you can do anything to avoid it. So in the miniscule chance that you do get picked, you can figure out your plan then."

An awkward silence descended over the two for a moment before Jake punched Sam's knee, offering up a wry grin: "But I already told you it wasn't gonna happen."

Sam didn't sure the optimism. It always bugged her about her brother: his way of making the best of an entirely poor situation like this, to find a little light even if the whole thing stunk of manure.

"Dad doesn't seem to share your faith," Sam grunted with a frown.

"He's a stick in the mud, so why worry?" her brother replied. "But don't tell him that or he'll kick me off his money."

The sibling pair's father was no saint. Mr. John Parker was anything but the prodigal parent, taking sole custody of his children when his wife had died thirteen years prior of flu. He expected nothing but complete obedience from his children, a trait neither had developed well. Mr. Parker had often clashed with Jake as he grew and almost entirely ignored Sam outside of getting her brother to teach her basic cattle-raising techniques. It'd forced her to rely more and more on Jake, using him as a surrogate mentor in place of a parent who focused solely on maintaining his position as one of the wealthiest locals in District 10. While Sam could never claim to have suffered from real, crippling hunger or desperate need as she saw in the poorest kids of the district, neither could she say she'd had a real family upbringing. What such a childhood had done was bring the two siblings together, however – and Sam thanked every star that her brother had taken to teaching her the ropes with everything he had. To her, he was the person she had yet to be – if ever.

"You still know which one's North, right?" Jake leaned an elbow on Sam's right shoulder, his right arm outstretched and picking amongst the night sky for stars.

"Back of the drinking dipper, then three fingers up – three of those and that's North," Sam answered, lifting her blue eyes to the sky and tucking in her knees tighter as a gust of dusty wind blew past, shaking a set of wind chimes and eliciting renewed lowing from a group of cattle.

"Yup. That's it."

"You really don't think they're gonna pick me?"

Sam's eyes followed Jake's look down, searching for a reply. She'd heard denial after denial of her likelihood of reaching the games, yet a nagging knife of nerves kept a grip like a lasso on her stomach. Sleep was already out of the question; she'd ascertained that back when the sun was going down.

"Sam," Jake began, shying away from eye contact. "That boy in school who you had an eye on last year – what was his name again?"

"I didn't have my eye on him," Sam said with an air of exasperation mixed with defensiveness. "And his name is Clay."

"Okay, Clay. Anyway, his family was poor and I remember you saying he had a bunch of siblings."

"He does. One's older by a year and three younger. His dad works on one of the other ranches on the other side of the district."

"Alright, so five kids and a father and mother. His older brother probably then took tesserae since they're poor. That's seven times he puts his name in each year to get food for all seven and he does that for seven straight years, plus the mandatory one that goes up each year. How many times is he in by the time he's eighteen?"

"Fifty-six."

"See, you're good at math. Maybe you can math everybody to death if you somehow got picked. So he's in fifty-six times. If it was just the two of you, then your four times and his fifty-six times…I can't do your fancy numbers, but look at that. It's more than ten times what you have in. Just two of you! Now imagine every other girl from the district, and all the poor ones who have to feed their families off of tesserae every year. Throw them all into the pot, and in that entire thing, you've only got four slips with your name. By the time you're eighteen you'll have seven; that Clay? He had more than that his first year. You see how…tiny...your odds of getting picked are?"

"I know Jake, I know – but you see every year a twelve year-old kid gets picked, like that boy from Five last year who got picked and he ended up getting eaten by-"

"Sam! Stop," Jake grabbed his sister by shoulders before she had a chance to let another round of tears go, giving her a rough shake as she avoided his gaze. "Please, stop. You're beating yourself up over something that's not going to happen. I don't know what else I can say."

Jake took Sam in a reassuring hug as she sniffed loudly, giving her a pat on the back. "C'mon, everybody got to be up early. Let's try and at least get some sleep before the stink tomorrow."

Sam nodded furtively, collecting her wits and starting to follow her brother inside. Before she reached the wooden front door and the orange lantern that swung in the warm winds of the plains, she took a look back towards the cattle, the prairie moon, and the grasses and dust that stretched on and on for miles. That buzzing gnat in her stomach told her quietly in a mocking voice that she wouldn't be seeing this again.