Sheldon woke up and looked around his room. How he missed Pasadena, he thought, where he had had so many good times. Now, he was in the mining district of District 12, in which his life had forever changed. As he sat up in his bed and looked at the Star Trek prop replicas lining his shelves, he remembered another thing as well: today was the day of the reaping.

Sheldon never understood the point of the reaping. He didn't see why he had to go anyway. He was out of the age range to be reaped to go to the Hunger Games- about ten years out of the age range. Everyone treated it as if it was such a bleak opportunity, especially this third quarter quell, but he didn't really see why it was such a dark event. Death was simply a part of life. All revolutionaries died. The bigger concern was the site of the reaping, with so much people and so much noise. He wouldn't even have the comfort of his spot.

When he got there, Sheldon expected that he was going to be forced to stand behind the line as an observer. This quarter quell, the tributes were to be reaped from the existing pool of victors. That left the little lovey doveys who were such their biological urges that they were vowing to do something so ludicrous as protect each other, as well as the forty year old drunkard that fell off the stage last year. In any case, his motor wasn't running. He wouldn't have to go into the crowded, uncomfortable area so far as some others… or so he thought.

That's why he was so surprised when a peacekeeper walked up and began to escort him down the staircase to the area with the existing victors. "HELP! HELP!" he started to scream. "WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?" The cotton candy woman who was the district's escort looked at him. and smiled widely.

"Now," she said with a forced smile, "ladies first." As expected, the name that came out of the bowl was the name of district 12's only living female victor, Katniss Everdeen. She annoyed Sheldon with her need for empowerment, her desire for revolution. Revolution broke routine. Sheldon liked routine. Sheldon liked knowing what was coming next. And he was very secure in the fact that the name that would be coming next would be that of either Peeta Mellark or Haymitch Abernathy, one of District 12's two male victors. That, not the idea of impending doom, was why he was so upset when the cotton candy smiled with her purple lips and said the name for the boys,

"Sheldon Cooper!"

Oh, the unfamiliar, unroutined, unanticipated horror.