Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games. Anything you recognize is owned by Suzanne Collins and any third party license holders.

Hey everyone! After about six years of reading fics for THG and dreaming of writing my own, I'm finally doing it. Please enjoy.


I breathe in, out. The pattern is repetitive, matching the motions of my hands as I work – crouch, gather. Pluck. One, two, three cherries from one stalk. Four from the other. The dull plop of them into my basket, already teeming with red fruit. Stand up. Move on. Someone else will get the rest.

The sun is hard and heavy on my back. Seventeen years and I already have the sunspots that my father has, at forty five summers. We don't get reprieve from the sun. It culls the gaps between the shade trees. Worms its way through like water through soil. If we don't have sun, there is rain, and the rain is almost worse.

Dusk is quick, The sky melts grey blue, and red fire, and before it can turn black I heft my basket onto my hip and stalk back through the row of trees to the processing plant. Before dawn breaks tomorrow, the women will all sit in rows in the processing plant and begin the endless work of pulling the coffee bean from the cherry. There must be machines to do this work, somewhere, but here all we have are our bare hands.

I would be joining those women tomorrow - my usual shift, sector 5, seated between #25 and #27 - if it wasn't for the reaping. All of us – age twelve to eighteen – are spared a day of work so we can take the long drive up north to District 11's capital. Not an official capital, but where the Justice Building is. We are far enough down south that only the children go, and us older ones are tasked with comforting the younger ones, keeping them quiet, getting all of us fed. Sometimes parents come, too, but only the parents of the twelve year olds, and after that we learn to say our goodbyes at home. There's not much to say goodbye to, anyways.

In my seventeen years, not one child from my small plantation town has been Reaped. Not when there are thousands of others in the district. It has made us a little bit invincible, I think. The Capitol cannot touch us – at least through the Hunger Games. They are plenty cruel otherwise. Still lax though, compared to what I have heard of the rest of the district. Factory fires and public executions in some of the larger towns. Especially where the majority of us are dark skinned, and the Capitol not, and they have not forgotten they can look down on us.

Nobody packs anything for the trip to the Justice Building. We need no district tokens. Maybe we would need something to remind us of home, but memories are plenty enough for that. Nobody packs food, either. There is a crate of fruit on the bed of the truck, and we'll reach the Justice building by early morning tomorrow. Usually, none of us want to eat before the reaping. There's enough fruit on the way back. And the van is home in time for dinner, where the children come back to the bonfire and laughter of a feast to celebrate another year of invincibility.

The van leaves soon. It's parked in the middle of town – I can see its hulking shape, dressed in tarpaulin, as I make my way down the path that leads back to town.

Here, our town is barely a set of sloping shanties melting over each other, made of mud and bricks and corrugated metal, with wood and coal fires out back for our kitchens, and all of us huddled together on the earth floor at night. Compared to the houses the Peacekeeper outpost is stark and bright, made of concrete and glass and metal that glistens in the afternoon sun. It makes everything seem smaller somehow, even the giant rainforest trees that grow to ten times my height. We can see it even from the plantation. We may have a simple life, and we might be even happy about it at times, but nobody can remember that for long with the outpost right there to make us forget.

Peacekeepers stalk back and forth by the truck. There is only one truck this year. It's bigger, though. There is more space in the bed, but we still have to be packed in without an inch of space. We like it like that. Better to be surrounded by friends than alone in comfort. Better to surround yourself with people who care before you're sent off to death.

I trudge back home, in the narrow space between two walls of shanties. The thresholds of our houses face each other, covered by threadbare curtains. Tattered tire tread makes a doormat, lets us wipe our boots free of mud. There is a hurricane lamp hanging by the door, the light soft and flickering in the humidity. I take it down from its peg and push the curtain to our house aside. Step in.

"Al?" My brother might be sleeping, but I call out just to make sure. I can see the lump of his body bunched under a blanket in the corner. Alsike is seven, years away from his first Reaping. He won't need to worry about anything until he's at least Aster's age.

Aster himself is probably out with his friends. He's always late to the truck, him and his friends making a leap for the truck bed just as it roars to life. Last year he nearly missed, nearly got left behind, but a Peacekeeper managed to grab him by the collar and haul him up, shove him onto the pile of children. Aster missed his punishment by an inch. The truck doesn't stop for anyone.

"Al," I call again, and this time my little brother stirs. He's up in a second when he sees me, scurrying over to wrap around my leg, trailing the blanket behind him. He looks at me with his wide brown eyes, too big for his face, straggler curls winding down his cheeks. I'll cut his hair myself when I get back from the Reaping. For now, it blooms around his head like a black halo.

He bites his thumb. "Avan. Are you leaving?" I crouch to meet his eyes, smooth my thumbs across his cheek.

"Yeah," I say. "Where's Papa?" Papa is a teacher at the schoolhouse, but in the evenings he goes to work, too. Alsike shrugs. I don't ask where Aster is; Al wouldn't know anyway.

The horn of the truck blares. I have ten minutes, maybe less. I give Al a kiss on the forehead and stand up, but he grabs at my leg again.

"Avan, buy me something from the city?" He bites his lip as he feels in his pocket for something that he presses into my hand, and I look down to see a small, flat stone, about the size of a coin and thin enough to pass for one. It's wrapped halfway in tinfoil. "See? I have money."

I grin. "This will get you a whole bag of sweets!" I pry him off my leg to hold his hand and his eyes go comically wide. "You'll get something, won't you, Avan?"

"Of course. I'll be back tomorrow night with a bag just for you," I say, and I will. What are the odds of being reaped? Near zero, if you think about it. Not many in the town take tesserae. The forest around the plantation provides plenty to forage, there are birds to hunt, and there's enough money to buy grain. We have it easy here.

Al lets go of my leg and gives me a toothy grin. I grin back. Then I slip into the little side room that we put our stuff in, pull the curtain across the doorway, and pull off my muddy work clothes. There's a tiny bucket of water and a washcloth and I hurry, scrubbing myself clean as best I can. I'm going to get dirty in the truck, I know it. I pat myself dry and pull out my Reaping dress – the only dress I own. It's a nice mustard yellow with white flowers, a high collar, slightly loose around my hips and tight around my shoulders. It used to be my mother's, before she died.

The dress has a pocket and I slip Al's stone inside before I hurry out, hanging the lamp up as I go. Al is sleeping already.

Outside, the rest of the kids are getting ready to leave. There aren't many of us, more than fifty but less than seventy. I don't know how many are new this year. Even within this group, my odds of being Reaped are minimal. Still, it's nearly as hard to imagine some other kid, just like me, from another tiny orchard town just like mine, being sent to their death. Seeing their face on the scheduled broadcast every day for a month until they're lost forever or – by some stroke of fate – come back.

But the odds of coming back are nearly as small as the odds of being reaped. District 11 hasn't had a Victor since Thresh in the 74th. That was the year I was born. Seventeen years with no Victor – it kind of puts things in perspective.

As I approach the town center, I look around for my friends – Rosa and Cicer. Rosa is nineteen; she's past her last Reaping. I imagine she's as relieved as she can be. All of Rosa's siblings are older, so she doesn't have anyone to worry about, either.

Cicer's a different story. Five sisters, all Reaping age or younger, and a father who's a little too generous with his drink. Her odds are the same as mine, but the stakes are so much higher.

I spot Cicer helping her sisters into the truck bed. Little Calla is wide-eyed and biting her nails as she clambers up next to Cassia, who's already settled in, clutching a blanket and pushed close to the wall of the truck. Cicer lifts herself up, then reaches her hand out for me.

She slings her arm over my shoulder. I know she's worrying about her sisters, but there's no sign of that worry on her face.

"You ate?" I ask, for some conversation.

She nods. "Yeah, ate out on the fields. Break was near the end of our shift."

"Good." I take her hand in mine. It's shaking, just a bit. The truck honks again – five minutes.

"I'm going to go get Aster," I say, and roll off the truck bed. "Won't be long." Rosa passes by as I leave; she gives me a little wave. She won't be coming.

I break into a jog, heading past the shanties and down by the Peacekeeper outpost, where the river is. "Aster!" I yell. I can hear muffled laughter and voices behind the trees. Pushing past the brush, I slow as I reach the clearing behind the outpost. Aster and his friends – all older than him, half of them are out of the Reaping – are clustered around something. One of the boys is crouching, pushing at the something with a stick.

I come up behind Aster and yank him away by the shoulder, catching a glimpse of whatever they're looking at. It's some kind of rodent mutt. Bigger than a bandicoot, about the size of a dog, with two curved front teeth and black mangy fur and red eyes. Someone has speared it through the brain with a shard of metal.

At my arrival, their muttering dies down. "Truck's leaving," I say shortly, and start back the way I came, Aster following sullenly. Papa's always said they were a bad crowd. Aster is only fifteen, but already I've heard that he joins his friends when they go for drinks. There's not much we can do short of keeping him from leaving the house, but he has to work.

"Look, you've gotten your Reaping clothes dirty," I frown at him. They're Papa's, the pants rolled up and shirt far too big. The pink fabric has mud stains on it.

He scowls at me. "No one cares, anyhow." I give him a glare, letting him hop on to the truck before I get on, settling next to Cicer, who has saved us a little room.

The truck rumbles to life, and then we are off.

I take a look back. There's a tiny chance – minuscule – that I might never see this place again. Never be back in the hot wet jungle that surrounds us, never work under the plantation shade trees that have sheltered us for so long. Never see Al and Papa again.

I look away, because I have faith that I'll be back.

The truck thunders down the road, which is narrow and unpaved, so mud scrapes at the tires and sticks to the walls of the bed. We are thrown around with every bounce, but so used to it that we can sit loosely and chat, or play hand games, or eat. I decide to sleep. Lean my head on Cicer's shoulder. Calla curls up in my lap. Soon enough I'm drifting off.


I wake when the truck stops. Sunlight is bright and harsh on my face, not filtering through the trees like I'm used to. Someone has pulled the tarp off the truck. Everyone else is waking up, bleary and unsettled, but soon enough we're awake, because there are three Peacekeepers coming our way, shouting for us to move on.

We disembark in a flood, winding through the streets to the main square. The buildings are nice here, brick farmhouses and wooden cabins, neat shopfronts with bright awnings. The street is cobbled; our shoes scrape against as we pass.

The main square is packed, despite us arriving early. Adults ring the edges. Children are shoved together in sections, neatly in rows like in the orchard.

Cicer puts her hand on her sisters' shoulders to guide them towards the registration. "Calla's first year," she says. "I'm more worried than I should be."

"Look around," I gesture to the crowd around us. "One in a million. You have nothing to worry about."

Cicer smiles at me, a little softer, but I can still see tension in her neck.

Everyone settles into their sections. I'm surrounded by people I don't know, hundreds of faces, dark-skinned like mine but with no other familiar features, eyes passing over me and Cicer like we pass over them. I bunch my hands in the fabric of my dress.

There's a small fanfare, and then our escort strides onto stage. Saffron is viciously flamboyant. Bright red hair like a rooster plume above pale skin, golden lips, a bright orange skintight pantsuit and heels that must be taller than my head.

"Welcome," she smiles, sickly-sweet, and I tune out. I'm staring at the glass Reaping ball on her left. Filled to the brim with tiny slips of paper. My name is there six times. Cicer's another six. Aster's thrice, Calla's once, Cassie's twice. Maybe another two hundred entries total from my town. That's not so small a number as I thought. The chance that someone I know is going into the Games this year becomes a nagging thought.

The speakers burst into the informational video. I'd managed to tune out the Mayor Heathstone's speech – nothing new in that, anyhow. I clench my teeth until the video is over and the booming music dies out.

The silence is far too loud now. I can hear the clacks of Saffron's heels as she stalks to the bowl I've been boring holes in with my gaze. "Our lovely ladies first!"

Suddenly I want to throw up.

"Calla Stace!"

It's Calla. Of all the people in this District, it's Calla. Next to me Cicer is blinking, like she's waiting for another Calla Stace to trudge up the stairs. Then she sees Calla start to walk and it hits her. I see her mouth start to take the shape of the words that will send her instead.

My arm moves of its own accord and I clamp my hand over her mouth. The words tumble out of me instead.

"I volunteer!" I shout. I have to stretch to make myself heard across the full square. "I volunteer as tribute!"

On stage, Saffron is squinting at me. Her face breaks into a grin and she beckons, and in front of me the crowd parts like a sea, the path ahead an eternity in length. I start the walk. It must take less than a minute, but to me it feels like hours. Every eye trained on me. Every breath waiting – who is this girl? Why did she do it?

I ascend the steps to the stage. In the morning light, my dress looks so plain and old next to the escort's bright flamboyance.

She holds the mic out to me. "Your name, darling?"

"Avan," I manage to get out. "Avan Brunnel." And then it's over; I can't go back.

Saffron takes my hand and raises it above my head. "Avan Brunnel! Your Tribute for the Ninety-First Hunger Games!"

The crowd doesn't cheer. Some people applaud – the Peacekeepers, the Mayor, a few of the older adults. Other than that I'm met with silence.

The rest of the Reaping passes in a blur. Saffron stalks over to the boy's bowl, draws the name.

"Ree Grover."

I don't know a Ree Grover, thank the gods, but he comes out of the stands and a pang of something hits me. He looks so young. Maybe Aster's age. I don't know him, but I do now. I will know him when we go into the Games. I will know him when he dies.

He comes up on stage, sullen, but behind that I see the tightness in his cheeks. Likely holding back a flood of tears. At least he isn't throwing up. The girl tribute from Six did that last year, was dubbed the laughingstock of the Games. Not a path anyone wants to go down.

No cheers for Ree, either. Somewhere I can hear loud sobbing – his mother, maybe. I almost want to cry too, but I feel like a corpse already.

They grab us by the shoulder, usher us into the Justice Building. On the way I pass the three Victors of our district: Thresh, looking down at the floor, Chaff, passed out on a chair, Lark, looking as bored as she can to hide the fact that the vein in her jaw is pulsing.

They say you don't really come back from the Games. That was what Chaff said in his Victory interview. I think he lost more than just his hand. I've heard he lost his family, too – back then, rebellion was in the air like smoke from bombs. Chaff turned to full-out drink ever since Thresh won and he didn't have to mentor anymore.

I'd pity him, but pity gets you nowhere.

I just hope I don't lose anything to the Games, either.