Morning broke in the usual way – by making the dust on the paper I was reading shimmer in front of my eyes. I bat at the light, writhing to move my eyes into the speeding drops of shadow created by my hand, but Audrey gets there first. Or should I say: Audrey just finished blinding me with something.

I can guarantee it wasn't her gap-toothed smile, or the too-bright haze of red behind her. But it was effective – all sleep had been eradicated. And a lack of drowsiness meant a miniature famish, where I'd stalk to the cobweb riddled kitchen and rummage through for any fuel. My last raid had yielded appropriate food and goodies, but I still took an ungodly time to find the milk. Or anything else really – even with me and Joel filling it up constantly, we're five people living here.

Five from Five, in a non-five-numbered house with another five people to our right. Or they were five last time I checked… maybe that was last year, or the year before. I only know that one other kid had been Reaped from around this street, but I can't place the family and maybe it was theirs.

Doomed days never begin like that. With all the ominous paraphernalia, I mean. Or the clichéd abhorrently sunny morning, birds chirping and all. But it did begin with a fairly bulky boy weaseling under the wire gates and into the sparse forest beyond, or at least going in that general direction. It began with the other neighbor's cat leaping to our wall and nearly tripping into one of the 'secret' entrances. It began with Audrey warbling about some dream of hers and Joel half-asleep over a concoction we generously declare tea; Mother ransacks the shelves for something, Father is fiddling with the television controls in a lukewarm attempt to flick it out of the Capitol's main channel.

But no such luck when it's Reaping day – the omnipresent static is given a break to synthesized anthems and coverage of events we don't care to watch. Joel gets bored and hurls a nut, I think, at a control nearby, powering it off.

He has a sufficiently nice aim, we all like to think. Think, but not say or even prize. It might bring the slips with our names closer to the top, and Joel is already many times in already. I'm in that same situation, but to a lesser degree. Not by my own volition, but Mother's. Audrey had taken priority – and, seeing as we'll all be in once we hit twelve anyways, why not add my name to the ballot one more time? The chances won't be that high, and the odds are ever in our favor.

But we keep on getting older, and last year it had been Tareesa and Caleb – two kids with names written over and over. I remember forgetting how many times my name had been in that day. More than one, at least – more than lucky five even. And we all had done our little charms to ward off our names – Mother wore her hair down in two braids, Father didn't shave.

I remember having to chase Audrey into her room and shoving her from my arms. Girl was nonsensically hysterical, and she made me swear to wear one of her pins now. I refused – if I was already going to look ridiculous in a glorified lab-coat of a dress, I wasn't going to add a child's decoration. But I lost out in the end – this year, Audrey got to fix my hair. And as any time she did so, I got a dirty ribbon tied to the top of my tail. Pink this year – she said it matched my red hair. I remember Joel calling me 'Crimson', the shade of red for the day. I wondered where did he get all the names, and why did it matter to him. I liked crimson – criminal began the same. I didn't like wearing it, as I was now, but saying it felt nice.

I remember sauntering out, feeling safe in the world. I managed even to 'liberate' some goods from fellow passersby, placing them inside the satchel I never thought to remove. On second thoughts, doing so might have been a better idea. Considering what happened later.

No, I didn't formally die that day. That came later. But on that unremarkable day, when I was wearing a not-quite-crimson lab-coat-knockoff of a dress, I got a death sentence delivered. But that came later on. Now, I was a girl with her hair tied back for once and a cheap leathery satchel. Now, I was a girl stalling in the square, surrounded by girls my age that'd gossip and chatter and just make nervous noise and nervous ambience. Now, I was a girl who was dutifully watching the overinflated screens set up in the square with a sinking, fluttery feeling in my gut and wishing the worse (best) of luck to the random girl right next to me; yes, I admit willing death to a bored-pretending blue-eyed girl with a tawny pair of braids and a grey-pink ruffled blouse. I admit that I remember praying to all gods – whether they existed or not and whether they knew me by name or as 'fox' or shades of amaranth.

Despite all that, I really don't remember hearing my name. I only hear a rumble surge through the crowd and the camera panning over the stunned girls trying to find a glaringly egregious girl, red in the mismatched rainbow. Braid-girl, doom-wish girl leans back from me even, amazed at her so-very-close brush with death. I hear vaguely as Mouse-girl whisper-chains it's Fox along the gaggle of females in the line, and as a stern-looking Peacekeeper extends a hand to lead or pull me out. I drop my satchel, signaling as inconspicuously as I can in this moment, and grin (of all things) when a classmate I know as Wasp from the gang picks it up.

I remember wanting it back as soon as I got onstage to stand besides the saccharinely cheerful young-old man in a silver wig that rose in spikes. I remember thinking myself lucky enough when the boy they call is fairly unremarkable: about as slim as I am, a shade taller or so. A solid-looking pair of green-black eyes which dart around un-faking nervousness. Shaking slightly when he takes the stage even, but he conceals it well enough. A smattering of unruly freckles down both cheeks – a permanent blush of terracotta that comes out from nowhere and makes him look younger than his non-descript age.

I don't know him from any gang, and he probably never knew me anyways. Which is good enough, as I never got to place his mane and I doubt he got mine. I doubt anyone got it but my family, and they are probably swiftly deleting most of their links to me as fast as they can. A make-believe rousing charge of applause – and I hate my district for this, because even though it's forced, they cheered for me as I got my head forfeit.


The last goodbyes are as swift as the bout of clapping. My family, not tearful but looking as if an error had been made, as if I really hadn't had my name placed that many times and they could place a complaint for this. But they know I'm a goner, and can only wish me luck and lack of pain. Joel tried to joke, I remember, promising rosewood and redwood, with poppies and proper roses if he can. Audrey just hugs me and sobs, her already disheveled hair blooming undone and I can fairly liken it to the blood I'm sure I'll shed.

I remember joking right back, saying I'm blood-red now, but I really can't manage it like I did before, with a grin plastered because my satchel was relatively safe. I was shallow back then, and less so now.

The gang – or certain members of it – said their farewells, die wells as well. Wasp and Mouse-girl, Sparks and Lynx. To the world, my friends; to me, colleague and special rookie and twin bosses. I make Wasp swear to finish training Mouse-girl, receive my last 'well done team' from Lynx. I find out what Sparks does with the trinkets we gather – I get a small array of dangly glimmering things which she pins to my hair and which I'll make sure to dump later when out of the cameras' all-encompassing spies. I can't remember how Tareesa's looked like, but she must've received something similar, and maybe did trash them after all, or lost them in the Bloodbath. This, more than anything, leaves an impact: beyond getting a couple new recruits into team on my recommendation and dying wish…

I was a team member once. Even if it was more than half the time a half-hearted job, if I stole from them unashamed and I had only gotten in for an alleged friend's sake. I still remember vowing to win or die alone though – true to my style.

And hell, I was going to have to kill my allies later. And let them see or hear of my skill. I've spent too many years under sworn secrecy for that.