AN: So this is going to be terrible, warning in advance. I don't know whether I'll keep going with it or not. so yeah :S

Sometimes I wonder how the world turned out like this. The famines, the lack of control over our lives, the death and disease and homelessness. The secrets and lies that get told around every corner. How one day you can wake up with a loved one close, and the next day be a million miles away from them, with no certainty of return.

There's a stark contrast as I cross the fence. Almost immediately, the air is cleaner, crisp grass and frost coated leaves whispering past us. Following us, almost. It's not an unusual feeling here; everything anyone does, everything anyone says is monitored, recorded, hidden in records held by the Peacekeepers.

'Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.'

I hear his voice as I pass the tree where we keep our weapons, clear and high. The birds stop and listen, as they do every time, and I marvel, keeping quiet.

'Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight inthe hanging tree.'

'Ahem,' I clear my throat. 'This is all well and good, but if we want to eat, we'll have to do more that sing for our dinner.' Kurt looks up, his blue-green eyes a mix of dark mirth and anxiety.

'We might not be eating our own dinner tonight, Blaine,' he whispers. 'And you know it.' I bite my lip.

'I'd been hoping we could forget about that,' I say, pulling him into a hug. 'It's just like the last five years. We'll be fine.' I feel Kurt withdraw, suddenly stonelike.

'How can you say that?' he asks, his eyes suddenly angry. 'This is the reaping. It's complete luck. You think that every other child that's ever been chosen knew it was coming? That they didn't think "We'll be fine" and then the next minute they're being snatched from the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and friends and lovers with no chance to think?' He picks up his traps, kicking a stump. 'This life-this reaping-these games…we don't know what's around the next corner. How can you say "We'll be fine" when god knows we won't be? No one comes out of life unscathed. Not this life. Not District 12 life.'

'Kurt,' I say, unsure of where to tread. 'I didn't mean to be flippant. I just don't want us to worry about it. If, by the small chance one of us does get called,' I gulped, 'then I want out last morning together to be perfect. No talk of the Capitol.'

Kurt grimaces. 'Fifteen years ago, my mother probably thought the same thing.'

Here's the thing with Kurt-for everybody in District 12, being chosen for the Hunger Games is a nightmare. Parents, friends, children-nobody wants to be picked. No one goes into the Reaping feeling safe.

But Kurt's already lost someone. He was born when his mother was only 15, the product of starvation, poorness and desperation. She sold herself to a wealthy Peacekeeper for six month's rations. Two years later, her name slipped from the lips of the former 'Effie Trinket', and that was the last time she saw her son in person, and vice versa.

'Promise me, Blaine,' Kurt pulls me out of my reverie. 'You've got to promise me.' He's standing above his trap, jaw set, and I can see tears running silently down his face. I stand up, walk over, and pull him into an embrace as the tree above showers tiny droplets of dew upon us.

'Anything, Kurt,' I whisper. 'Anything.'

'Promise me, no matter what, that we'll look after each other,' he looks into my eyes. 'Each other's family, heart and what little else we have. No matter whether I get picked or you get picked or one of our siblings gets picked, or whether we don't get picked at all, we have to try to get out of this mess.' I kiss him softly on the nose.

'I promise, Kurt,' I vow. 'No matter what.'

The mockingjays start flying around us.

'No matter what.' They call.

'No matter what.'