We're counting down the last thirty seconds. It rings throughout the arena in rhythmic ticks, perfectly marked, perfectly metered out. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. And then I think, maybe this is just the beating of my own heart, and it's thudding in my ears loud enough for me to hear it. Is it loud enough for the tributes on either side of me to hear it, too?
My head swims. My mouth is dry. The platform beneath my feet is hard, but around me is soft, marshy ground, and with it is the rising and earthy smell of peat and stagnant water. Already mosquitoes are buzzing around my face and hands, the only parts of me left exposed, biting at the skin. Next to me, a girl fidgets, swatting the bugs away, and the edge of her shoe moves toward the bog. With a fearful gasp that carries clearly across the distance, she pulls it back quickly. We all know the consequences if we step over the edge.
I squint up at the sky, and I can feel my heart rattling in my chest. Seventeen. Sixteen. I don't know where any of the cameras are, but I'm sure she's watching. I know she is. She promised me she would watch me from the moment I left her waiting for me in District 8, stacked in the third tenement house on our block, and that she would watch me until I came home.
We both know I'm not coming home.
Hardly anyone from District 8 ever wins the Hunger Games. Why should they? We're poor, we're filthy, we're nobodies. And she had always made me feel like somebody; that was one of the things I loved about her. That was what had hurt the worst about being taken from her, and shoved in front of the Capitol, and dressed in stupid costumes, and fed food that turned to ash in my mouth no matter how rich it was. I was a part of a farce, and I had a neat, tidy role; I wasn't myself. I turned back into a nobody.
I can be a somebody today.
Ten. Nine.
I don't want to be a part of this – the Forty-Fourth Games, or the Forty-Fifth? I can't even remember anymore – and my heart stutters, as though it knows what I'm about to do. It knows that it only has moments left to beat, and it races through those moments with everything it has, giving its all in the very last seconds of its life.
Five. Four. I will time this perfectly, so I won't cause a stir, and so that no one back home will know precisely what happened. No one in the Capitol will be able to pick out my steps, and my family will not be punished for what I am about to do. I will know, and it will be my own small, private rebellion. I am not for this life. I never was for this life. And I will die the way I see fit.
Two.
I step off the edge of the platform. My foot hits the ground on one. I do not hear the gong.
I am already dead.
A/N: This is the very first story I ever wrote for the Hunger Games fandom, and was inspired by watching the movie late at night with my dad; it's taken me a while to get this up here, but even though it's relatively short, I actually am proud of it. I like the idea of someone rebelling before Katniss. But anyway! Reviews are always appreciated, and thank you for reading!