Special Thanks to my awesome Beta Reader Team Rebel!

Also to my bfff for looking it over and awesome support

I don't own anything, the awesome plot is by Suzanne Collins

Thanks also to Mythical Words!

"Rue Lovalle, please come up onto the stage," Lia says again.

I feel my legs moving forward and my face steel up as I hear the sounds of my family whimpering, but they say nothing. Not even the strength of a family can fight the guns of the peacekeepers.

Lia waits for me to walk up the stage and shake hands with Thresh. My hand doesn't even fit around his pinkie finger, and I feel the massive strength even when he is being careful not to crush my tiny hand.

I do not want to meet him in the arena as an enemy.

Lia introduces me to Viaro. He had won the Hunger Games thirty years ago. He looked very shaky from the morphine that he took almost every day. Each winner always did something different whether it was alcohol, morphine, or some other coping drug, to help them forget what happened during the Games.

Viaro's eyes were watery, and he was pale and shaky all over. I could see that he would be no help to me during the games.

It wasn't like I would have a chance anyway. The Careers usually won, unless something happened to their food or someone else was very strong or cunning. After all, the last person who won was Viaro, and now he's forty-eight.

The peacekeepers take us to the room where are families can say goodbye. Immediately, my family comes pouring in, and the littlest, Rana, climbs into my lap. She knows that I have to leave, even if she doesn't exactly understand why or what's going to happen to me. My mother looks at me, her eyes tearing up, and slowly reaches around her neck to take out a necklace made from woven grass with a roughly carved wooden star at the end. My breath catches as I recognize the necklace my father made for my mother when they were little, about my age in fact, to show her how much he liked her. My mother hasn't taken it off since she got it, and has been her pride and joy for more then fifteen years. To give it to me, when I go into the arena, is her way of saying that she loves me more than anything.

I put Rana on the floor and run over, silent tears running down my face, and my family and I embrace, probably for the last time. The family crowds around, and I inhale the scent of the family, knowing that this memory will stay with me when I am at the arena.

Sitting back down, my family crowds around, and Rana, tears streaming down her face, says one word.

"Sing."

My family loves to sing. They sing about everything; about life, hardship, happiness… everything.

So much will be lost when I leave, that I want their memories of me to be filled with happiness.

"Do you hear?

The leaves in the wind

The lovely sound

Of birds chattering

See the light

Dappling through the trees

Let you heart swell

As you feel

The love

Oh the love

Of family"

My voice breaks off then, and my whole family is crying. I tell each of them that I love them, and how much they mean to me. I say that they can make it through without me. My tesserae will keep them going.

The peacekeepers come in, and we are pulled apart. Rana tries to hold onto me, but the peacekeepers push her to the ground. My mother scoops her up, and as the door closes I see Rana desperately trying to scramble out of our mother's arms. I watch until the door closes, shut my eyes at the pain of my aching heart, and the train takes me away.