CHAPTER ONE

I slowly examine the face reflected in the small vermeil mirror hanging on my bedroom wall. It is striking- so different from what I had seen before. My eyes, though lightly lined, pierce through the glass like emerald orbs sharply contrasting with pale skin and cascading waves of chocolate hair. My lips, a soft, faint pink, tremble slightly in the reflection when I reach to touch them, and my lashes bat more than usual to quell imminent tears.

I see my mother's eyes. I see her lips. I see her hair. I trace the golden frame of the mirror she had left behind wondering how she would have seen me- what she would have said to me. Fighting back sobs, I shut my eyes and clutch the fabric of her violet dress that I am going to wear for today's reaping. I remember that she had worn it the day she had taken me fishing when my father hadn't brought home food.

Hair billowing wildly with the wind, my mother, pulling our skiff with taut arms, tread barefoot through the sand, her eyes fixed on the tempestuous waves of the bay. I was seven at the time, and I stood a few feet away, watching her with frightened eyes. I had never seen her like this. She had always been the calm, collected woman who had somehow managed to carry out anything that came her way. Exactly how she had done it had always remained a mystery to me.

"Annie!" she called as she bent down to rest her elbows on the skiff, "Hurry up!" I quickly jumped out of my thoughts and broadened the scope of my vision to notice that she had already reached the water's edges while I stood at the other end of the beach. Noting the graying sky and the desultory drops of rain, I quickly ran to her for cover.

We had been fishing for some time and had caught nothing. Sensing a storm brewing, my mother, lest I would get sick, instructed me to go sit under the canopy covering, shaped by overlapping sails, while she once again lowered the fishing net into the water.

"Annie," she said, as she came to join me after a few minutes, "we'll catch something, okay? There'll always be fish in our bay, and we'll find them." She put her arm around my shoulders and pressed me to her as she gently kissed my forehead.

"It doesn't look like it, Mama. I think we're lost." I replied hesitantly. She shook her head fiercely.

"We're not lost. I'd never get us lost, Annie. You'd never get yourself lost. You're too precious for that. We're all too precious for that. Only, the Capital doesn't get it," she went on looking off into the bay, "You know, a long time ago, before Panem, before the Capital, people were allowed to fight for themselves. Their Capital helped them fight for themselves. It's a right everyone has, Annie."

"But the Dark Days," I murmured, now clearly shaken by my mother's words.

"They say the rebellion failed, and they show us every year that what we fight for is what we'll end up losing in the end. But that's not true, Annie. That's not real."

"But what's real, Mama?"

"You have to find out, Annie. That's why you have to fight."

"We're lost aren't we, Mama?" I whispered. She shook her head and pressed me closer.

Then, she had left me. I had been called out of school and had watched the peacekeepers give my father a sack of grain and a few apathetic condolences. The body was found lifeless in the bay with a weight tied to the ankle. Suicides were rare, but not unheard of.

"She slept around with the Peacekeepers," Mavis, a market woman, had added to the gossip. "I heard she was expecting another child and killed herself to get rid of it. She never really wanted Annie in the first place."

I remembered the funeral. I had cried all night and ended up writing a poem to read to her. I had folded the paper and stepped down from the podium into my father's arms completely broken. While my father spoke, I walked up to her casket and traced my fingers along its edges, my tears falling on her face.

"What about fighting, Mama?" I had murmured to her, "Wasn't that real?"

Finally opening my eyes, I wipe away my tears and compose my countenance. I would be strong. What else was there for me to do? How else would I survive? I would hold onto whatever I had, whatever seemed real, and keep moving forward. My mother had lost touch with reality. She had let go of her tether and had ended up losing herself. I would not do that.

Slipping into my sandals, I grab my purse and head out to the kitchen. My father was sitting at the table sorting fish hooks and wiping traces of early morning gin from his graying stubble. To me, he always seemed a vacant man- someone who just did what he was expected to do and was satisfied with it. He seemed so unaware, so lifeless. I watched age creep up on him in his repetitive chores and felt a sharp pang in my chest. When his elbow would crack or his breathing would go ragged, he would just pause and then continue on with his monotonous work. Did he realize that he was nearing fifty and that soon he would be sixty and then seventy? Did he see any sort of future for himself- for his daughter?

I sit across from him and nibble on a slice of bread, letting an awkward silence pass between us. As the clock nears ten, I start to fidget, and my father notices.

"You have nothing to worry about, Annie, someone will volunteer", he tells me. He's right. Our district is a career district, and I always see plenty of girls at the training centers. They seemed, to everyone, to be the pride of the district, the ones who would bring home glory. But I don't see them that way. When I watch a thirteen-year-old boy throw a javelin or a mother show her child how to handle a sword, I see killers. I see how people who lose themselves to what is and lose sight of what could be. And as they grow older, their reality shrinks to work and rest- stagnation and death. It feels like man can only be crowned victor at the expense of his brothers.

I hear a faint knock on door and grin at Phoebe when I see her standing at the doorstep. Her tall frame and large eyes make her look really pretty in her pale blue dress.

"Gosh Annie," she gushed, "You look stunning! You'd probably beat Finnick Odair as the next Capital heartthrob." I nudge her playfully as she snickers in reply. Phoebe and I had become inseparable after my mother's death. When I had sat alone on the beach, staring out across the bay, she would come over beside me and tell me the stories her father told her, while I, in return, would make-up some of my own to tell her. It was easy to be happy around her.

"If only the odds were ever in my favor, Phoebe," I intone, giving her a grim look and now wishing to get this morning over with as quickly as possible. Nodding to my father, I close the door and proceed to walk with her to the reaping.

At the forum, Phoebe and I stand together with the other sixteen-year-olds and fall into a silence. I watch the faces around me. Some look scared and clammy while others look composed and confident. When Pearl Paarz takes the stage, the crowd falls silent. She plays a heavily propagated video of the Dark Days and starts the Capital's anthem with a smile plastered on her face. A few minutes later, she begins introducing the past victors. First comes a middle-aged victor named Icarus, whose stocky stature and unpleasant expression make him look chronically constipated. A few more victors walk on stage, are applauded, and go stand in the corner. An older woman, Mags, makes her way out of the curtains taking little time to acknowledge the crowd before finding her place beside the other victors. She has a hard face despite her age, and I can't help but feel bad at how as an old woman, she still can't escape the games. At last, to appease everyone's anticipation and overdo the dramatics, Pearl goes off on a spiel about Finnick Odair, loading it with an interesting choice of adjectives until she finally pauses for a breath and Finnick walks out. Just as stunning as he had looked on television, he waves, flashes a killer smile, and crosses the stage as the crowd bursts into applause.

I sigh and try to give Phoebe a reassuring look, but it's obvious that the dramatics only go so far in easing our apprehension. My arms tremble as my palms begin sweating, yet I try my hardest to look strong. Pearl pulls the large, clear bowl with our names written on slips of paper from behind the podium and agonizingly swishes her fingers back and forth inside it. Your name is only in their five times, I tell myself, Even then, someone will volunteer.

But then, in a clear voice, she says, "Annie Cresta". And no one volunteers.