Disclaimer - The Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins. I make no money from this. I am merely passing through Panem to tell a small story.

I felt like I had been waiting for years for this opportunity. And I suppose I had been.

I was going to volunteer. I knew it. This year was my year. The year I would win for my district. I had to. I was ready to make my friends and family proud. Ready to show them what I was made of. The girl of rock and steel, that was me. Nobody could stand in my way.

"You should wait another year or two before volunteering," said my mother. She was proud of me, I knew that, but I also knew that she was afraid that the unthinkable would happen because I was only fifteen. She felt I wasn't ready yet.

"I don't want this opportunity to pass me by, Mom. You let yours slip away, didn't you?"

Her mouth hardened in a tight line. I knew the story, about how she had wanted to volunteer for the Hunger Games when she'd been a girl. She had worked hard, my mother, but in the end, it hadn't mattered. Someone else had gotten her spot. And that someone else had gotten killed on the third day of the Games.

Pathetic.

"Look, I'm going to win. I know I'm going to win, and it's going to be great."

"Clove, honey," said my father in a quiet voice.

I tuned him out right away. He had never trained for the Hunger Games. His family had been poor, and he had never been in a position to volunteer to go to the Capitol to fight for his district. He would have been one of the weak ones to have been reaped, because he'd had to take out tesserae for his brothers.

It was people like that I would volunteer for, and I was happy to do it.

"I can throw knives better than anybody at school," I said matter-of-factly.

"What about the other kids? Is anybody else going to volunteer?"

"I heard Cato was a shoe-in for these Games."

"He's strong, isn't he?"

I nodded, "Of course he is. He's one of the best." And he was cute, too. I wanted to go to the Hunger Games with him.

"You're going to have to kill him in order to win. I don't think you understand what that's going to be like for you."

"I won't have to kill him. You know what it's like with the Careers. We stick together until we're some of the last ones left then we go our separate ways." I knew that it didn't quite go that way – normally, the Careers turned on each other, which was one of the things I looked forward to. I wanted to see the looks on their faces when I pulled my knives on them.

"Cato's eighteen years old. You can bet that the other volunteers will also be seventeen or eighteen. You're going to be the youngest Career there, and they'll probably turn on you first."

"You've never seen me fight," I told my parents. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." I stood up and went outside to where a practice straw dummy was located. I grabbed a handful of throwing knives, the same ones I had gotten for my thirteenth birthday, and began to throw them, seemingly at random.

One of the knives embedded itself into the dummy's face. Another three hit the dummy's belly, while the fifth knife stuck to its chest. The final one took its head cleanly off because of the force of my throw.

"Hitting a stationary target is one thing, sweetheart," said my father, putting a hand on my shoulder. "But most of your targets won't just be waiting for you to hit them, you know."

Of course I knew. I knew that they would probably be running away screaming in terror, at least some of them would. Others would try to fight me, I was sure, but I was ready for that too. I had trained for months hitting moving targets, and I could do it.

"Why don't you guys believe in me?" I cried. "Everyone else does."

"You're too young, Clove! We don't want you to die, that's all."

"I'm not going to die! Why can't you be like all the other parents who are proud when their kids volunteer?"

"You're fifteen years old. You should wait at least until you're sixteen!"

"You waited, and waited, and waited, and it didn't do you any good. You didn't volunteer, did you?"

A slap stung my face as my mother's hand made contact with my cheek, "Don't you dare talk back to me, young lady. I'll pull you straight out of the academy, and then you won't be eligible to volunteer!"

I glared at her, "And I'll go to the Peacekeepers. It's illegal for you to do that."

Turning on my heel, I went to the dummy, retrieving my knives before leaving my parents' small house. I couldn't believe they were acting that way. How could they? I was capable, very capable.

An hour later, I was back at school, out of breath, but feeling better. I didn't usually board there, because we couldn't afford it, but I had a feeling that I'd be allowed to stay there that night. After all, it was Reaping Day the next day.

Most of the kids were there, preparing for the following day. Everyone in my year, the kids who were fifteen, saw me and began to applaud.

"Hey! Didn't you know? You were accepted as one of the volunteers for tomorrow!"

"I was?" I cried at the girl who had spoken. "Really?"

"Yes, really! You'll have to act fast, though, because Ellie was also chosen for the girls."

Ellie. I knew her well. A tall girl with a face like a bullfrog and unruly straw-colored hair. She would be tough to beat in the Hunger Games.

But I was better than her.

"What about for the boys?"

"Well, Cato was picked, but so were four more. He'll have a lot of work ahead of him too."

Volunteering for us was an honor. It happened every year, that potential tributes fought for the right to volunteer for the poor person who had been reaped to go to the Hunger Games. Normally, it came down to who was the fastest one to volunteer, but it wasn't always the case. Sometimes, if many volunteers came forward, the mayor or the escort would have to choose.

I was planning on raising my voice high above anybody else's in the morning, so that I would be the only one who mattered.

Just me.

Clove, from District Two.

The End