This story is not just some random disconnected story about an ancient tribute but rather it is meant to explain some things that the books do not, such as the reason why District 3 is not a Career district, among other things.

Chapter 1:
Fate

On that day, we walked along the harbor like on any other day. We strolled in our usual line up—shortest to tallest from right to left. Some might think it was odd but it was only natural for us. Walking along the docks had become a tradition way back when I was eight. Through hurricanes and sun, life and death, peace and war; it all did not matter. We came every single morning.

The shortest on my right was Castor. His build was small and bony. A curtain of long, strikingly red hair fell in front of his gray eyes. Below that, his nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles. Every time he smiled, dimples came out to say "hello." You could always count on his cheeks to be rosy in the winter. He was the jokester in our little group.

The tallest of us three walked along on my left. Jho was what he went by, short for Jhosef. He came from a notoriously big family in which he was the oldest. He had a tanned face with hints of a mustache and a beard. His hair was short and a deep brownish black color. His eyes matched his hair in color but were hard and unforgiving. Jho tended to stay off to the side and observe everyone else. He was what some might refer to as "quiet" or even "antisocial." To Castor and I, he was just himself: Jhosef.

These two were my best friends in the world. When I felt down and depressed, Castor could always cheer me right back up. When I needed advice on anything from my jewelry making to girls, Jho was always right there. Many called us the three musketeers of District 4. We got into a little bit of trouble every so often, but we stuck together through everything. Just as the waves would always lap up on the shore, we believed our friendship could never be severed.

"Why don't we stop here to eat?" Castor suggested as we came to a turn in the long boardwalk outlining our district. It rose above the beach that traced the south, inescapable border. The spot where the redhead picked was a perfect place to watch the horizon light up as the sun rose higher. Down on the beach no one stood in the freshly turned sand or dipped their toes in the sea. The view was picturesque; it was an undisturbed masterpiece. Even the calls of the seagulls seemed to harmonize with the crashing of the waves.

Jho and I nodded in agreement. We went to work as the silent team we had become over the years. Castor pulled a fishing pole out of his sack while I walked down beside him to collect wood for a fire. I stopped midway on the beach while he headed further to a vacant dock. Jho had stayed behind to set up our eating area. When we did eat on our strolls like this, we would alternate jobs so the work was equally divided.

I glanced around the open space for any dry and burnable wood. A piece laid beside a few seashells clustered together a little further off to my left. It was of average size. I found a few more pieces and thought about how the day would go.

It was the reaping day; it was a thing many feared would destroy their hope and their lives. In the place where I lived, violence was considered a common thing. With all the street fights and battles to the death aired on television, it was hard to wonder why. Very few children were fed properly and even less made it to adulthood. Of course, it was better in my district than most others.

My district, District 4, was the fishing district. We were one of the warmest ones being located just off the ocean. The tributes that we sent into the Games were always vicious and bulky, contrary to the skinny and afraid ones of somewhere like District 12. They called us "Careers," meaning that we trained and volunteered to enter these death marches. The other districts hated us because we were one of the Capitol's favorites. The same went for Districts 1, 2, and 3. They produced healthy monsters to kill everyone else.

There were twelve districts in all, and each was required to bring forth a male and female tribute between the ages of twelve and eighteen to fight to the death in an arena every year. Some loved the Hunger Games, but others despised them and wrote them off as too cruel. For me, I really did not know what to make of them. I was raised to put my heart and soul into them. From the age of seven, I had trained as a Career at the local Training Center. Nevertheless, I hated watching them on television at the required showings. I could understand killing if you were attacked, but what about going out and giving the others slow and painful deaths? That seemed wrong.

I just hoped that none of my friends would be reaped today. If they volunteered then that was their choice, but if they were reaped and no one volunteered to take their place? What a horrible tragedy.

I finished collecting wood and strode back to the place where we would make our breakfast. Well rather, I would make our breakfast. I was always the cook in our little group. The sixteen year old came back with a catch of three small fish as I set up a fire in the smooth sand. Jho had gotten to sit back and soak up the sun on our green spotted blanket. The lucky duck he was.

I put the fish in a small pan above the fire and let them sizzle. Jho had been nice enough to gut them for me. I sifted the fire and then took a seat beside him.

"So Gunner," he addressed me, "how's the jewelry sales? You haven't updated me in a while."

He was right. I sold jewelry as a side thing because working with small, detailed objects came naturally to me. It was just a way to support my dad and me a little bit more. It also kind of relaxed me a little bit though. Even though I was not a girl, the fine work took my mind off the struggles of life for a few hours.

I nodded to him and replied simply, "They've been good. I have a few large orders from the Capitol coming in soon."

"The Capitol," his face lit up with a sarcastic smile, "How many different neon dyes do they have to ship you this time?"

The reason why he said this was that the Capitol was certainly not normal, not by a long shot. They liked flashing lights and unnatural colors that made your eyelids snap shut. Once I had to make a bracelet for some high ranking military officer's wife. That was a disaster. It had burningly bright orange beads surrounding polished diamonds with neon lights as charms. The charms lit up, too, in a rainbow of colors. I could barely make another diamond bracelet for a month.

"I don't want to know," Castor chimed in, looking ready to hurl already. His eyes were not sparkling with their usual excitement and his face was unusually pale instead of red. He actually did look sick.

"Are you feeling okay?" my eyes floated over to his small form, noting that he was also quivering.

"Not very," he said. Apparently, because he would not even crack a joke about how he felt compared to something random like light bulbs. The guy must really be sick.

"Do you want to head for home?" Jho titled his head to get a better view.

In response, the shortest of us musketeers promptly bedazzled the sand beside the blanket in sparkling, brown and orange chunky puke. I had to pinch my nose when the smell reached me to ensure that I did not bedazzle anything as well. The dark haired teenager to my right let out a grunting sound and covered his eyes as another wave rippled through Castor.

In the end, his face was also bedazzled in the brown and orange goop but nothing got on the blanket or his clothes. I packed up the blanket and served up two fish instead of three while Jho gave our sick friend some water and salty crackers. We ate in silence on the sand in a spot away from the throw up puddle. The fish was not my best meal but not bad either. Maybe it could have used a pinch more of pepper. Of course, I was one of the lucky few that even knew the taste of pepper.

Soon enough, we gathered our belongings and headed for home. Nothing notable happened besides avoiding the main square where people were beginning to gather. I reached home and greeted my dad, giving him Castor's uneaten fish.

"All for me?" he laughed, "You shouldn't have. Happy reaping day, son. Now you should probably think about getting ready; we leave in half an hour."

"Happy reaping day to you too, Dad. I'll go get ready then," I said and whizzed up the stairs to my room. Our house was medium sized with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a family room. Although, technically my room was the attic. I grabbed a pair of fresh dark wash jeans and a tan colored leather jacket to go over a white tee shirt.

My feet carried me to the bathroom where I turned on the shower and stepped in, letting the pitter-patter of the water soothe my tensed muscles. The bathroom was not that grand, and the toilet often stopped working—probably due to rust—but it got us by better than most citizens. At least we had a shower. As I studied the fading white tiled wall, my thoughts drifted to my father and his meal. I wondered if he liked it. He probably did like it; he refused to eat anything but my cooking. I smiled at the thought.

He and I got along well; he always tried to encourage me and I tried to obey him as best as I could. Sure, there were rough patches here and there without the presence of my mother, but we lived with what we got. My mother—I did not like to think about her. I never knew her except from the photographs, of which there were few. She always seemed to have a smile on her face, though, and looked like she liked to party a lot. A carefree woman she was obviously. That probably explained why I never met her.

My dad had raised me my entire life alone. He gave me very limited information on my mother and always seemed to get a sad glint in his eyes when I asked. I knew that her name was Corey, and she dated my father for a couple of years. They shared the same birthday. Through basic math I figured out that she was fifteen when I was born, my age being sixteen and my father's age being thirty-one. Whenever I asked why she was not around, the answer I got was that she simply did not want a child to burden her and then watch them go off to the Hunger Games. I guess it made sense.

Her appearance was very different from mine. She had red hair just like Castor's. Her eyes were a piercing green. She was short, pale, and very slim. Her ears were pierced at least four times each, and a tattoo of a dove floated just below her collarbone. Her cheekbones were considerably high.

I got out of the shower and took in my looks in the mirror, seeing how different I was from her. My hair was a dirty blond, tussled in complete disarray no matter what I did with it. I towered over many people with a height of five feet eleven inches. My weight of 160 pounds could thank my considerably muscled composure for its bulk. The skin upon my body came in a naturally tanned color, like many other citizens of my district. Although my eyes were not typical of my district being something other than light blue or green. They were a darker shade of blue. It was the blue that you would see when a long shadow fell upon the vast seas. It was a dark blue, although not a navy. Not many words could capture the exact shade.

With my tan leather jacket thrown over my shoulder, I left the house with Dad. We did not say much of anything to one another; the treaty of silence was comfortable. The morning had settled into a biting and gray one but bearable. The wind forced a harsh dance upon my dark golden mane. As if it needed any more ruffled effect to it! My body worked hard to stay upright conflicting with nature's force. Was this some ominous sign? No, of course not. Ominous signs did not exist.

At the reaping, I was filtered into the section of sixteens by a Peacekeeper with Castor. He dressed up for this, as did everyone else. We stood shoulder to shorter shoulder as the mayor read off counterproductive speeches. Who bothered to listen to his ranting? Neither my redheaded friend nor I did. I knew Jho would be daydreaming also somewhere in the section of seventeens.

On the contrary, one person that I bothered to notice was Mags. She was a mentor sitting up on the stage, meaning she would see that the tributes have a better chance of winning. The woman with light reddish brown hair always seemed to watch me whenever we happened to be in the presence of each other. Her green eyes clearly caught my dark blue irises as I studied her. I thought about all of the horrid things she had probably witnessed over the years. The middle-aged mentor had won the 11th Hunger Games, giving her a bountiful time to establish a gallery of nightmares over the years.

I, personally, would loathe being a mentor. Not only would it give me the experience of watching children killing each other, but it would also ensure that I had a personal connection with the dead. Sure, my district was District 4, and I was a Career. Nevertheless, the life of a victor was actually pure torture. Some citizens would despise you for killing their children while others thought you were a toy of the Capitol. On top of all the hatred, you would have to fatten the animals up to be slaughtered! I knew that wealth does not mean your life would be any better. My life was not any better. The other districts might have been in poverty and vexed by us, but it was not as if our lives were luxurious. We had to worry about social problems such as volunteering and natural disasters!

Volunteering to be a tribute was not as effulgent as an ignorant District 5 or District 9 citizen might think. Yes, most did go through Career training. However, not every single inhabitant was suicidal or hubristic in the Career districts. Some of us were normal. Well, as normal as normal gets, that is. No one person is firmly the norm.

I shifted my weight as the mayor's pestering voice read off the list of victors. Mags was one of the first in the sequence. In our entire district, we had about eight or nine victors. That number stayed mostly even throughout the other Career districts. The eight non-Career districts held the leftover victories. They were lucky if they had one victor per district.

At last, our escort, a man with blue hair and the infamous Capitol accent came to the voice projector. "Why hello District 4," his somehow more annoying voice than the mayor's boomed over the loudspeaker, "Are you ready for this year's tributes?"

Cheers erupted all around, like a wall of sound coming from a marching band. The way the trumpets shrilled over top of everyone else was like the excited younger female teenagers. The boys around my age covered the low brass section in this harmonic chord. Young children and old ladies alike faithfully represented the sounds of the woodwinds. The men mimicked the tuba's deep voice. The clapping of hundreds of hands kept the beat like the percussion would. In a way, the reaping was like any other celebration with the singing and playing of music for my district. However, the band played with a sadistic tone on that day every year. My friends and I did not join in on this charade.

Pleased by the crowd's rambunctious response, Mr. Blue Hair dug deep into the giant goldfish bowl of names. "First," he said ridiculously, "the ladies."

The trumpets and woodwinds cried out. "Evene Willowskip," his voice butchered the name and served it on a silver platter.

A rather plump girl from the fourteen-year-old section started to plow her way forward. A leaner girl from the same section stopped her assertively. A snarky look flashed across her face, barely showing under her red-brown hair that demanded to shield her eyes. Her build was rather muscular for a girl, nearly hulling others over as she strode along. No one stopped the obvious Career, so she reached the stage with little resistance. Grabbing the microphone in one hand, her voice shook the crowd. "My name is Pearline Miller, and I volunteer as tribute!"

The marching band once again tooted their horns as if a wildfire broke loose. I clapped out of gratitude, although my mind burned inside. So, we got ourselves a powerhouse female this year with improper grammar. I was no English whiz myself, but you did not volunteer as tribute. You volunteered as a tribute. I could not tell you how many people got this incorrect! You would think that some author wrote it in a book to be that way or something. That was just another little thing that bothered me about Careers. They were all bronze but no brain.

The cheers decreased enough to make out the male tribute's name for this year. I also listened in, hoping neither Jho nor Castor were chosen. Luckily, they were spared. How did I know this? My name was the one spoken over the speaker for all of Panem to hear.

My first reaction was to turn and run. How could this happen? Why me, the collected and quiet one? I was not cut out to go into the Games. I was not rash or good around strangers. I had no real talents besides cooking!

However, my mind soon gained control of my body again. I placed my game face look upon my facial features and let my ligaments carry me yonder to the stage. This was District 4 so why should I be worried? Surely, someone else would want to volunteer to take my place! Didn't some other boy out there want to act in a reckless manner and volunteer to be suicidal? I mean, whom was I kidding? We had one of the biggest populations there was!

Realization swept over my brain and face as I reached to platform and observed the crowd. I saw relieved yet hopeless faces, ones that had faced far too much terror in the past year. A flashback swept me away.

Her scream rippled through the wind like that of a rooster's crow. It was startling and cut through all other noise like a slashing blade. It trickled into my ears from thirty feet away. I knew I had to save her, but could I?

He would be so angry with me if I failed! Waves pounded all around me—inside my head and against my body. All was lost to me; I could not think a single thought straight. It was as if someone had fed me a poisoned food and left me to die. I had no sense of direction, none at all. A girl's scream swished in the air once more. Was I supposed to do something? Drown her? Dance with her? Chase her?

None of those conclusions sounded right in my head. Although, nothing sounded right in my head at that point. More... What were they called? Waves? More waves soaked through my clothes and dowsed my mind.

My breath left me in an instant. A pleasant feeling replaced it, one of floating and of flying. Bubbles tickled my cheeks and cascaded my thoughts to numbness. Blank and empty, all I could feel was happiness. Falling replaced the floating sensation after while, although it was a slow falling process. More like sinking? I could not tell. My mind swirled to the beat with my physical body when arms reached around me. At the same moment, darkness overtook me completely.

A tsunami caused the death of nearly half our district during that year. I had failed to save Jho's girlfriend, Eli—something I still felt a great regret about. Of course, there would not be a boy volunteer to replace me. The population needed time to recuperate over the lost lives. No longer could lives be thrown away, at least not until the wounds healed. I was only alive because my father dove in after me. So, even after being brought back to life, this was my destiny?

Yes, it was. To die as a captive to the Capitol was my fate. Tears threatened to pour over as I shook hands with Pearline and sealed the deal. I never cry.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games, thanks.