It's only been half an hour since someone – Mother I think- said I should write everything down. For the last twenty minutes I've had my whole family crowding around me, yelling suggestions and ideas. Buzz off guys! I'll never get this done, I haven't got a clue where to start and I can't concentrate with all this noise.

Okay, that's better. I've told them to give me some space and Cordus backed me up. Now, at least I can think straight.

I don't know if I'll be able to do this. I might as well make that clear. I'm not good with things like feeling, which is what this whole exercise is about.

I'll come back to that later. Maybe. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm in the back yard now, sitting on a boulder. It's nice boulder. Smooth, round. Marble, maybe granite. Expensive. Capitol standard. I remember dad telling Cordus and I how much trouble it was to get, how much money it cost, back when well before. It's just a rock; I remember thinking, so much effort for a stupid piece of stone.

I understand better now, I think.

Well, I better stop biting my tongue and start biting the bullet.

There is only one way to do this and that's to tell my story in order, chronological order.

Okay. It all began when… there funny, those words.

Everyone uses them, without thinking, almost reflexively.

With everyone it begins when you are born. Or before, when your parents got married, or when they were born.

So: it all began when I was chosen as the Representative. Let me explain, along time ago there was a place called North America. Droughts, storms, fires, encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, and a war for what little sustenance remained turned it into Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by thirteen districts. Then there was the Dark Days, the rebellion of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and a yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the Hunger Games.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple.

In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must each provide one male and female between the ages of 12 and 18, tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes are sent into a vast outdoor arena that could be anything from a volcanic island to a tropical jungle. Over a period of about 3 weeks, give or take, the 24 tributes fight to the death. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home and their district will be showered with prizes, mostly food.

In most of the districts, the Hunger Games are what they were intended to be. A punishment. That's properly because their tributes almost never stand a chance. It's thrilling, especially when it comes down to the final five or so tributes. The fights are epic, and it's best when, of course, someone from District Two wins. In Districts One, Two and Four, the games are well, fun. We train for them most of our lives, and being Selected to represent the district is a huge honour.

All the sixteen to eighteen year olds at the training centre vie for the chance to be chosen as the volunteer and District Two's representative for the 56th annual Hunger Games. Unluckily for them, it was me who was picked as to have the best chance of winning. The male tribute was Axel Farlow who was only 17, only a year younger than me but far more… immature.

Axel was weird. He lived across from me, in the Officials circle which was separated from where I lived – in the Victors Village – by Mason Park, named after Two's first Capitol ambassador. Axel was wild, outrageous and he didn't care in the least of what other people thought of him. Axel always seemed to be in trouble. He was always late for everything; school, training. He was skilled with a spear, but his preferred weapon was an axe or a sword. He was also a tactical genius. Axel had been short as a little kid but he had filled out and grown until he had ended up as one of the biggest kids in school. He was dating my best friend Lapis and had been for quite some time. It kind of broke my heart a bit. Not because I liked him or anything, Axel and I were just friends but more because to win I'd have to kill him and killing him would hurt her.

Lapis had always been my best friend. She was light and graceful with what my mother calls 'fine features'. She looked as if she hadn't done a day of work in her life, which was true. She never trained, and spent more time reading than throwing knives at dummies. My mother loved Lapis and I know she wished for a daughter like more like her than like me. Lapis was all blonde, slim and the shining example of a quarry manager's daughter. Her skin was darker than mine though, funnily because most of the time she sat outside her house reading books shipped in from the Capitol. I have dark hair, lean, hard muscle rather than soft curves and pale skin that's always covered in bumps or bruises or scars.

Well, that's it, my two friends, my only friends both of whom I will have to hurt in my quest for victory.