Reaping day.

Willow sighed loudly to herself, hating the way her voice shook as she did so. Two years, two more reapings, and she'd no longer be eligible, no longer have to place her name in the enormous glass bowl that was, more often than not, synonymous with death.

Not for the first time that week, she cursed the fact that she had been born nine days after reaping day. Still, she reasoned, better to be reaped now she was almost eighteen as opposed to when she was only just twelve...

She pulled the blanket up tight around her chin, and snuggled back down into the thin, lumpy mastress - the reaping didn't begin until eleven thirty, and today was the one day of the year when the factory wasn't open for business. She might as well sleep a while longer.

Twenty minutes and fifteen different positions later, Willow threw off the blanket with another sigh, this one more exasperated than nervous, and slid out of bed, almost standing on the ancient tabby cat that didn't belong to her, but which had appeared every morning like clockwork for the past year. She'd started to think she was the only one feeding it.

It mewed whinily, and wound itself through her legs, wrapping its tail around her calf.

"Alright, alright," she muttered at it. She slopped some milk into a chipped china bowl, and placed it by the door. The cat glanced up at her haughtily, and stuck its nose into the dish.

"Ungrateful creature," Willow said aloud, but she still gave it half of the final slice of pork she had been saving for herself.

The tabby gave her one last snooty look, threaded itself between her legs again, and promptly disappeared out of the window it had arrived through.

The two didn't really like each other, but the cat was hungry and Willow refused to let it starve, so they tolerated one another. It was the best they were ever going to achieve.

Ten minutes later, stood beneath the miserable trickle of lukewarm water that dripped from her showerhead, Willow started singing in an attempt to allay her current fears.

She'd been scared before, that wasn't anything unusual, but reaping day brought out the best and the worst traits in everybody. Up until the moment it really mattered, people would be kinder than normal, be far more generous, but as soon as a name was pulled from that glass bowl, it became immediately apparent that loyalty only went so far, and it could easily make a person distrustful of their loved ones.

"Not that I need to worry about anything like that..." Willow thought sadly.

She danced around her bedroom as she dried off, desperate to remain optimistic - after this reaping, she only had one year to go, and it would be over.

She gazed at her only decent item of clothing, the one dress of her mother's that she had managed to salvage before that awful man from the community home had sold everything within her parent's house to pay for her upkeep.

She had worn it for the last two reapings, and she would wear it for her final one too. Pale green, with short sleeves, it fell to just below her knees, and a matching wide silk ribbon encircled her waist, tying into a neat bow in the centre of her back. The slightly gathered bodice fitted her beautifully, and all in all Willow was happy with the effect.

She left her waist-length hair loose, attempting to tame the dark waves, but giving up almost immediately when one bounced out of her fingers as she pulled the hairbrush through it.

She walked into town with Pam, her neighbour - they worked in the same factory - and as they entered the market place, the older woman gave her a swift hug.

"Best of luck, girl."

Willow forced a smile. "Thanks, Pam," she said shakily, and joined the line to file in. A quick prick of a needle drew a drop of blood from her finger, and signed her in, and she shuffled along behind a group of particularly slow group of her peers - like cattle being driven in to the slaughterhouse, she thought grimly.

Willow felt her chest begin to tighten as more and more people began to herd into the main square, and that sense of claustrophobia began to grip her. She wasn't used to being crammed into anywhere so tightly, and she hated it, but she knew people were watching her, so she sucked it down, and dealt with it as best she could.

7. Lumber. Allegedly, the sixth wealthiest district in Panem. Their population was around twenty-six thousand, and unless they were at death's door, every single person was here at the reaping. Attendance was, of course, mandatory.

Willow glanced around her at the other seventeen year old girls. Most of them she knew by sight, if not to talk to, and lots of them she'd been at school with. She now worked with one or two of them at the factory, and it was with those girls that she exchanged brief nods. She knew what they were thinking - legally they were old enough to have jobs, own homes, raise families, and yet they were still eligible for the reaping. Somehow it didn't seem fair. Not that any of it was fair, she corrected herself.

She focused her attention on the temporary stage in front of the Justice Building. Three of the four chairs were already occupied - Delta Jones and Vinnie Andrews, District 7's only living victors appeared to be resigned; Chilton Meadows, the escort from the Capitol, with his jade-green hair and royal purple suit, looked very excited and totally out of place; and Willow knew the empty chair was for Mayor Strickland, when he decided to put in an appearance.

At precisely 11:29 Mayor Strickland pushed through the massive oak doors of the Justice Building, inclined his head curtly to Delta and Vinnie, deliberately ignored Chilton, and stepped straight up to the podium in the centre of the stage.

As with every other year since Willow could remember, and probably many more before that, the mayor read out the story of the history of Panem, how their country had risen from the ashes of a place once called North America. The natural disasters, the battles over sustainable land masses, fires, storms, droughts, the list was endless, but it had eventually culminated in Panem, a dazzling Capitol surrounded by thirteen districts.

Then had come the Dark Days, an uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth completely obliterated. The Treaty of Treason came into effect the following year, and the annual reminder that the Capitol never wanted a repeat of the Dark Days was born: the Hunger Games.

The rules were simple. As retribution for their part in the rebellion, each of the twelve remaining districts must deliver one boy and one girl, each between the ages of twelve and eighteen, into the Capitol's custody. And from there the twenty-four teenagers, affectionately referred to as 'tributes', were imprisoned in an enormous outdoor arena, and made to fight to the death.

The last tribute standing was known as the victor. And as a reward for winning, he or she, received a life of ease back in their district, a lifetime's supply of money from the Capitol, and the district itself received gifts, usually food, whilst the others battled starvation for another year.

"It is both a time for repentance and thanks," the mayor concluded, and proceeded to disdainfully introduce Chilton Meadows.

Always enthusiastic, Chilton strolled up to the podium, thanked Mayor Strickland profusely for his wonderful retelling of the nation's story, and announced cheerfully, "Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favour!"

Reaping time.

"So, without further ado, ladies first!"

Chilton shuffled his hand around in the enormous glass sphere, and drew out a piece of paper. He paused, possibly for effect, possibly to make sure everyone was listening, but it was completely unnecessary. The town centre was so silent that even the hardest of hearing amongst them could clearly hear the stream babbling away merrily to itself - and the water was over a mile away from where they all stood packed into the square.

The escort smoothed out the slip of paper in his slim white hands.

"And the female tribute for District 7: Willow Monroe!"

When she was fifteen years old, Willow had been greeted by her mother and father's foreman as she'd stepped out of the school gates. In itself, that wasn't unusual, he was often there to collect his own children and drive them up into the forest, but that day he had been wearing a tired and distressed expression, and before he'd even said anything, Willow had known what he was there to tell her.

"Both of them?" she had whispered, and he had hung his head low and nodded the confirmation she had been dreading.

The real impact of the news hadn't hit her until much later, when she had walked into the cold, empty house and found an apple pie sitting on the kitchen table, protected from hungry vermin by a wooden bowl. Her mother's gift to her father for their wedding anniversary.

At that point, Willow had stumbled backwards, clutching at the wall for support, feeling her chest squeezing tighter and tighter around her heart, threatening to crush it. She had been gasping for air, unable to inhale, struggling to exhale, barely able to even move.

That was how she felt the moment she realised her name had been called. Not somebody else's, hers.

Willow Monroe.

Those standing around Willow heard her sharp intake of breath and watched the colour drain from her already pale face. They knew, just as she did, that no one would volunteer for her. She had no siblings, her parents, even though they weren't allowed to volunteer, were dead, killed in a logging accident three years before, and her eighteenth birthday was the following week, making her long past the age where an older child might step up and volunteer.

The crowd around her parted, and Willow moved numbly into the aisle, flanked immediately by two peacekeepers in white armour. They marched her down to the stage, and Willow couldn't help noticing that none of the girls met her eye. She could understand that, she'd done it enough times herself. Nobody wanted to outwardly flaunt their relief that they hadn't been chosen that year.

Chilton Meadows beckoned her up onto the stage. His eyes held some sympathy when she found the courage to look into them, but he was professional to the hilt, leaving her beside the enormous glass sphere containing the names of all the other girls in the district, some several times over, as he skipped over to the boys bowl and rummaged around for a moment before drawing out a slip of paper.

"And the male tribute... Ash Rogers!"

In the back of her mind, Willow heard the anguished scream of what, she presumed, was the boy's mother, but by the time a tentative Ash stepped up onto the stage, the square was unnaturally quiet once again.

Willow glanced briefly across at her fellow tribute. He was a good-looking youth, stocky, with dirty blond hair, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. Wide-eyed and suddenly ashen in colour, he looked utterly terrified.

Chilton Meadows asked for volunteers, but nobody came forward to take either Willow's place, which was no surprise; nor Ash's, which was, and so Mayor Strickland stepped back up to the podium and began to read the dreary Treaty of Treason in a monotone. How many young men and women had he seen leave his district for the last time, Willow wondered vaguely?

As the mayor finished his final speech of the day, Chilton indicated that Willow and Ash should shake hands. She noticed his were trembling, he couldn't believe how cold hers were, and then Chilton did his spiel, trying in vain, as always, to persuade the inhabitants of District 7 to applaud their selected tributes, and, as always, not a single person clapped. They simply stood in silence, even the ones who wouldn't usually care. Reaping day, everybody knew, was not a normal day. Reaping day was a day where unity was key. Everyone agreed: nobody in the district condoned the Hunger Games.

The anthem of Panem played them off the stage, and the pair were promptly surrounded by an escort of peacekeepers, and marched up the front steps of the building behind them.

They were given an hour to say goodbye to their loved ones. Willow could hear the constant click click of the door to the adjacent room where Ash had been taken. At just fourteen years old, and being the oldest child from a large family - that explained nobody volunteering for him, Willow thought - he had plenty of people sobbing over his imminent departure. Willow, however, sat alone until the final ten minutes, when the door was flung open to reveal two of her former school friends.

Loretta grabbed her in a tight hug, Evan stood to the side of them, staring down at his feet.

"We didn't know whether to come or not," Loretta sobbed. "It's been so long..."

"I'm glad you did," Willow replied, untangling herself from her friend's clutches, and trying to avoid shedding the tears that threatened to spill over. She really didn't want the whole of Panem seeing her tear-stained face, and judging her on that.

She and Loretta hadn't fallen out as such, but when Willow's parents had died and she'd had to leave school early, the two girls had grown apart, leaving District 7's latest female tribute completely alone in the world. She hadn't blamed Loretta; she knew Loretta's parents hadn't wanted her associating with a girl from the community home.

A year she had spent there, in that despicable place that called itself a sanctuary. Just long enough to earn enough money to get herself on her feet, and back into the ramshackle house that she had lived in with her parents.

It was hard, doing it all alone, but Willow had survived. She'd gone hungry more days than she cared to mention, and was almost always cold during the winter months, but she had persevered, worked her way up the ranks to furniture builder, which was the job she would now be leaving.

The peacekeepers were back all too soon, pulling Loretta and Evan from the room, and leaving Willow wondering if she would ever see them, or District 7, again.

It was a short journey to the train station by car. Neither Willow not Ash had ever ridden in such a vehicle before. The gigantic, screeching lumber trucks, yes, a car, not on your life! They walked everywhere, the same as most of 7's population.

More cameras, different reporters greeted them when they stepped onto the platform, all desperate for a shot of District 7's latest tributes. Ash had obviously been crying, so Willow gave his hand a quick squeeze before they were herded out of the car, and he smiled up at her gratefully, staying close to her throughout the photographs, ready to latch on to anyone who would take his fear seriously.

Chilton guided them towards the train, which pulled away as soon as the doors sucked closed, and it was like stepping into another world.

She'd never been on a train before (of course she hadn't - travel between districts was prohibited), but Willow knew by sight this was no ordinary cargo train. This was one of the sleek, high-speed Capitol trains.

"Two hundred and fifty miles per hour, and you can hardly even tell we're moving!" Chilton exclaimed with an affected grin.

The tribute train was the most beautiful thing Willow had ever seen, filled with items made from materials she had never even heard of. She recognised the wood as mahogany - she had worked on a bespoke dining room set for the presidential mansion not so long ago, and she and Ash couldn't help but marvel over everything in sight.

They had a bedroom each, both of which had a bathroom and a dressing area attached. Everything Willow could have ever physically needed was available to her in the confines of those rooms, and if by any chance it wasn't, all she needed to do was press a little button and a Capitol attendant would come running to do her bidding.

"Dinner's in an hour, don't be late," Chilton advised her as he wandered away.

Willow stood in front of the floor to ceiling mirror in her dressing area, gazing at her reflection, more than a little stunned by what she saw. When her parents had been alive, they'd had a small mirror in the bathroom, and it had been a habit to use it everyday before school, or work, depending on whether it was a weekday or a weekend, but when they died, almost everything had been sold off, and she'd lacked a looking glass ever since. Then, she had been a teenager, a little gangly and awkward-looking, but now... Now she was a woman.

She knew, logically, of course, that she had grown up over the past few years, but seeing herself now gave her a renewed pride in her appearance. Her body curved softly in all the right places, she was slender but no longer skinny.

She was actually quite lovely.

Willow admired herself for a few moments longer, and then backed away, peeling off her mother's pale green dress, and laying it out carefully on the bed, it was the only thing of her mother's she had, and if by some miracle she made it out of the arena alive, she wanted to be able to take it home again.

She showered thoroughly, enjoying every single moment of the hot water gushing out of the showerhead. She washed her hair twice, lathered herself in a lemon-scented foam, and then stood there, arms slightly outstretched, to allow all the suds to wash away.

Finally satisfied that she was exceptionally clean, Willow stepped out of the cubicle and wrapped herself in the biggest, fluffiest towel she had ever laid eyes on, and began a search of the drawers and closet for an outfit. Chilton had told her to wear anything she wanted, so she selected a pair of light, white trousers, which fitted snugly to her hips and upper thighs, but flared out a little towards the ground, and a supple shirt the exact colour of wild raspberries.

On closer inspection, the two items looked good together, and Willow slipped a pair of matching pink pumps onto her feet. She brushed her hair out again, and, after one final glance in the mirror, she arrived in the dining car with five minutes to spare.

Ash was already sat waiting for her, the chair beside him occupied by Vinnie Andrews, who was halfway through a bottle of wine. Delta Jones appeared less than a minute after Willow did, and Chilton arrived last. He introduced them all formally, and sat them all down in a clearly prearranged sitting plan. Willow ended up next to Delta, who ignored Chilton and murmured conspiratorially to Willow that they'd get rid of him as soon as possible. Willow decided at that point that she liked Delta a lot.

After a large supper of rich tomato soup, beef, sliced so incredibly thin that it was almost transparent, atop a green salad, and a chocolate cake so exceedingly delicious that Willow believed she would never want to try another dessert ever again, they all congregated in the main compartment for the recap of the reapings. Despite them being staged over the course of the day, and being told they were compulsory viewing, it wasn't physically possible to watch all of them unless one was a Capitol resident, as they were the only population in Panem who didn't have to attend any reapings themselves.

Caesar Flickerman, the Master of Ceremonies, and Claudius Templesmith, the official Announcer of the Hunger Games, presented the show, as they (or at least Caesar) had done for as long as Willow could remember. She vaguely recalled someone other than Claudius sat beside Caesar, but she couldn't put a name to the rather hazy face at that moment in time.

Caesar Flickerman, though, was basically the face of the Games, the only regular link between the watching districts and the Capitol. He presented all the shows, hosted all the tributes' interviews, prompted the audiences to part with their money in sponsorships. Others had come and gone over the years; Caesar had remained.

If ever an end came to this oppression, Willow knew many would call for his blood, but the tribute could see kindness in the deep brown eyes under his dyed eyebrows. When he hosted those interviews, he always tried so hard to put the tributes at ease, to bring out the best in them, and, she imagined, several of her predecessors had gained a sponsor or two after their interview with him, in spite of having had no hope of even one before.

This year his hair and eyebrows were the colour of jay birds, and it looked rather fetching next to the twinkling, midnight-blue suit he always wore to present the Games. Chilton oohed in approval at the latest tone, Delta snorted and looked away, Ash continued to look nervous - Caesar Flickerman had always kind of scared him - and Willow watched with interest. The man certainly knew how to play an audience, she realised - he had the Capitol audiences totally eating out of the palm of his hand!

Ash sat watching the recaps as though he were transfixed, eyeing up their fellow tributes with a combination of fear and a blossoming determination. Willow simply looked at their eyes as they walked along the aisles towards their respective stages, trying to gauge how they really felt at the moment of the biggest challenge of their lives.

Districts 1, 2 and 4 all had volunteer tributes. They, she knew, were the career districts. The districts that trained for The Hunger Games, in spite of the fact that it was against the rules. Everybody knew it, and nobody cared. Needless to say, it was more often than not one of those three districts that claimed the victor as their own.

Willow let Caesar's voice wash over her as they showed the District 7 reapings - she already knew, only too well, what they had been like!

Caesar mentioned his sorrow over her lack of family, saying how sad he was for her that barely anybody had been there to say goodbye, and the audience murmured sympathetically. Willow couldn't help but wonder if the Master of Ceremonies had already aided her in her mission to gain sponsorship, but as he opened his mouth to continue about her, Claudius Templesmith cut him off, moving seamlessly on to the District 8 tributes. Caesar appeared momentarily affronted, but his professionalism swiftly took over, and he continued on with the recaps as though it had never happened.

Caesar Flickerman remembered, though, as he closed his eyes in the early hours of the following morning. He remembered how he'd felt as he'd seen her step onto the stage in District 7, her thick hair rippling down to her waist, the natural darkness of it only enhanced by the pale green of her dress.

He tried to push the thoughts away as he dropped off to sleep. He couldn't put his feelings into words, but something had ignited deep inside of him, and although he couldn't even begin to explain it, there was something about Willow Monroe that he didn't want to ignore...