Once in the Training Centre, my prep team whisks me off the chariot and carries me up to our floor. I can't believe each district gets an entire floor of this building. I wouldn't bet against getting the whole of District Seven in here comfortably, and there are only about a hundred people involved in the district teams all up. Our floor is all green-and-brown themed, but the carpets are so soft, the beds so inviting, everything so comfortable that I forgive the cheap attempt at appealing to our industry. The prep team, not without several loud comments about how heavy I am and how they were sure I could walk, drop me in the middle of the bed and leave.

My costume's almost shredded by now, the chariot ride and being carried up here must have been too much for it. I reach down as far as I can and tear the bark off, throw it into a corner of the room. It almost lands short, the room's so big. I don't care that it leaves me naked, I can't bear to look like this pathetic fake tree any longer.

The door opens and a white-dressed Avox slips in. It's not the blond girl from the train, but he reminds me of her. There's a similar look in their eyes: that even though they're our servants, they pity us. That they know we're going to die. He comes over to me, lifts me like I was a baby. Despite the prep team's complaints, I really don't weigh much at all, but it's still moderately impressive that this man can hold my weight like it's actually nothing. He carries me into the bathroom, which has got to be close to the size of our house, and gives me a bath. I think I'm past caring about anything, now; I'm too overwhelmed by the whole Capitol experience to have any space to notice a strange man giving me a bath. I'm asleep before he finishes.

Somehow, when I wake up in the morning it's for no apparent reason at all. Once again, I've slept without nightmares. I feel rested and well, which is good as it's the first day of training today. All I know about training is that it lasts for about a week before the interviews, and the Games start the day after those. Father was always more focused on telling us about the actual Games. I'd hated the stories when he was telling them, but now I wish I'd asked for more. The Avox man carries me to the elevator, and doesn't put me down all through the ride to an underground floor. Even once he's there, he takes me all the way through into the training room itself, before finally setting me down with infinite care on a mat. Why does he care so much about me? Why doesn't he just load me on a sled, like Father used to for any journey of this distance?

He leaves and I look around at my fellow tributes. We're all ghosts, here, doomed to die in weeks, with one exception. I recognize a few from the chariot ride last night. The girl with no face, who's somehow still more human than all the surgically-altered Capitol dwellers, is from Twelve. A boy with no arms, Eight. As I suspected, the ones who appear healthy are all from One, Two and Four, with the exception of a girl from Ten. I catch a few names, as well, but I have no idea who they belong to – Shine, Garnet, Star, Channin. I'm glad I don't know whose name is whose. It would be so much worse to actually know all the dying children. If they're just anonymous faces bleeding to death on the ground, lit up in the sky the night they die, maybe they won't drive me insane.

Or maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll get to die first.

The head trainer outlines the setup – there are training stations around the hall. We're free to move about as we like. There are also doctors on hand to assist with managing our disabilities, we just have to call them over. The healthy tributes all rush for weapons stations and heft the lethal-looking equipment like it's child's play. In a shock, I realize it probably is child's play to them – that their parents probably handed them these weapons as soon as they could walk. I look around for something I can do without looking as pathetic as I did in my costume last night. I spot Kain at a station, but I really don't want to get to know him, since one of us is certain to die. Then I see exactly what I want.

I've no idea what its proper name is, but there's wood and tools. I can carve.

Even when I was a kid, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to carve and work on the luxury furniture that we made in Seven. I wanted to create beauty with my hands. I'd imagine children running their fingers over my carving, wondering aloud how anyone could make such delicate work. It's the one thing common in my life before and after the accident. I carve spare blocks of wood into figurines – all of our childhood toys, I made myself – all of our clothes, I made myself. I can repair almost anything that's handed to me.

Seeing a station filled with the one thing I love about my life is like feeling a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky – or like feeling an axe from a clear blue sky. Only this time, the shock isn't unconsciousness and panic, but joy and desperation. Even if I only have a week of life left, I can spend it doing what I love most.

The thought breaks through me and I shout out for one of the doctors. A white-clad woman breaks off from the group. I shudder at the thought of trusting her to carry me, but brace myself and think of Mom, coming out among all those strangers to see me go.

"That one." I point to the carving station and raise my arms, smiling helplessly. The doctor looks annoyed, but lifts me anyway, far more carelessly than the male Avox did this morning. So if the Avoxes are the criminals, and the doctors are the Capitol's finest, why are the Avoxes the ones who are still human? With a thump, the doctor drops me on my side at the station and I survey the materials.

Chunks of wood, just the perfect size to hold in my hands. A variety of sharp tools, though it's clear they're not intended for carving. I think this station is actually meant for firemaking, but I don't care. I snatch a lump of wood and something sharp with a handle, and focus on my hands, ignoring the instructor who's trying to tell me what I should be doing. Maybe I can pretend I'm deaf.

I think I miss lunch, because when I'm finally finished, I'm starving. I glance up and see the instructor staring openmouthed at what I've produced. Another tribute is sitting beside me – I didn't even notice her arrive – with a smoldering pile of twigs in front of her, but it's clear that all her attention is on me. I look back down and wish I'd carved something else.

It's an anonymous tribute, lying dead with a spear through them. I guess I've had death on my mind a lot, recently. The instructor looks at me, looks at my hands. "What else can you make?"

"I'm not really sure. I've never worked with most of this stuff before…"

He gets a funny look on his face, hands me a pile of thin, whippy branches. "Make me something. Anything."

Slowly, I comb through the pile, getting a feel for what I've got. Thin, but flexible and strong. They're not unlike willow branches, but clearly from an entirely different tree. I start weaving them together, grabbing thinner twigs and threading them through the gaps. It only takes a couple of minutes before I have a sizable and flexible mat.

"Sunshade," the instructor mutters, taking it from me. "Windbreak. Blanket, even. Could probably hold water with a little more effort." He bends it, tugs at the corners, even pulls a branch from it and waits to see if it will fail. It doesn't, and I grin.

He hands me something else, a small, sharp rock and a stick, and almost before I know what I'm doing I've pulled several branches from the mat and tied the rock to the end of the stick. I use it to scrape the bark off of another branch. With this tool, I can make even better things.

The days blur into a whirl of working, so much so that thoughts of the Games don't cross my mind at all. The second day, the instructor has so many more things; rocks and scraps of fabric, branches and more tools, proper tools, and I'm sure they're just for me. Like a proud parent, he lines up the things I've made at the borders of his station. Statues, baskets, blankets, and tools start making a border around the mat.

When the other tributes dash off for lunch, I'm left on the floor with the healthy-looking girl from Ten and two other girls who are also paralysed. Those two are brave enough to call for doctors to carry them to the tables with the other tributes, but I'm terrified of being any more of a burden. The impatience radiating off them when they carry me to the crafting station is scalding.

So it's just the two of us in the empty room. The first day I saw her, she was twisting something around in her hands and giggling. It was about ten minutes before I realized she wasn't actually holding anything, she was just fascinated by her own fingers. She's going to last no time at all in the arena. No wonder she was District Ten's most disabled girl. You could probably kill her without even bothering to sneak up or anything, wave your weapon in front of her face, and she wouldn't notice you.

Mind you, you could probably kill me without sneaking up. I'd sure notice, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

After lunch it's better, because I can keep working and I don't have to think about anything else. The instructor and I share stories of things we've made – I don't have many, but I drink in his, even if they're mostly about things that burn.

"I'm so sorry, Aviary," the instructor whispers on the final day, brushing my hair out of my face. "I wish there was something I could do. I haven't seen a gift like yours… since my daughter died." He smiles, brushes a tear from his eye, and turns to another tribute sitting beside me. This man had a daughter? How can he sit here and watch other people's daughters preparing to kill each other? Then I realize the answer's right there in his behavior towards me. We're all going to die, anyway, and nobody can stop that. He's trying to make things as good for us as possible before then. This week has been wonderful and I still glow inside from his praise. He's trying to help me. I turn sideways to watch him help a tribute work on a fire. He's helping that kid, too, helping him survive, helping him stay warm in the arena. I've seen fire used as a weapon, too, by Gamemakers and tributes.

There's no goodbye at the end of the day. An Avox just picks me up and carries me away while the instructor's packing his equipment up. I call out to him but I'm still scared and he doesn't hear me. Depressed, I fall asleep instantly, sinking into the bed like water into dirt.

Training's not on the next day. When I wake up, Angel's sitting next to my bed.

"Hey, Aviary, hi… Listen, normally there would be a special training session today, for you to show the Gamemakers specially what you can do… but that's not on this year. Instead of scores, you'll be given a rating based on your disability. Which means that today is for getting ready for the interview tomorrow… But since Kain's the only one with a chance, Nile and I are going to be focused on him… Actually, only with him…" She shakes her head, sending green hair flying, and goes. I blink, force back tears. I don't need any reminders of how hopeless I am. I know I don't have a chance. I would if my team were actually doing their jobs. When Father talks about the Games he won, as long as he's not raving about how fantastic it was, he gives tons of credit to his team. He swears he wouldn't have won without the sponsors' gifts, the amazing costumes from his stylist, and the extensive survival lessons from his mentor. I've got none of that. Forget it, I'm in a much worse place than that girl from Ten. I'd guess she doesn't actually know what's going on, whereas I will be aware of every minute in the arena, however few they are.

Somehow I can't even hate Kain for stealing our mentor and our escort. It's not his fault that I'm so useless and pathetic. Rather, I hate myself. I hate that I couldn't think to run away from the falling axe instead of straight along its path. I hate that I never had the ability to kill myself when I wanted to. I hate everything. Hate, hate, hate, hate…

The entire day slides past without anybody coming to check on me. Kain must be busy with Nile and Angel, but I'm so forgotten that I don't even get breakfast or lunch. It doesn't really matter, I'm used to missing meals, but I'm sorry I won't get to enjoy Capitol food again. The patch of sun on the carpet slowly crawls across the room, but it's disappeared with the sunset by the time anybody comes in.

It's Nile, possibly the person I least want to see right now. She must know that I've spent the entire day alone, that I haven't eaten anything, but she says nothing about that. Just, bluntly, "Disability ranks, twelve's good, one's bad. You got three. Kain's up at ten. I said you were hopeless," and she's gone again.

Three! Just two ranks up from the absolute worst! I want to know what the Careers got, and what that girl from Ten got. Was her number higher than mine? Or is paralysis considered deadlier than inattention?

Three. Just more proof that I'm hopeless. Nile's words actually have made me cry, and I'm not exactly surprised. The best week of my life is over – all that carving and weaving and working made the days fly by, but everything from now will be horrible. It's like a signal from the gods that I've had the allocated amount of fun in my life – I've used it all up and I can't get any more – and everything from this point forward will be worse. There is nothing more that I can do.

At least there's only two more days to go. There's the interview tomorrow, and the Games start the day after. I'm virtually certain I'm going to be taken out in the bloodbath. I can't even run away. But, realistically, I know there are always variations in the arena that can aid the most unlikely tribute to survive. I'm pretty sure none of them have ever involved taking someone to safety, though.

Sleep comes slowly, as it always does when I've been in bed all day, and for the first night since coming to the Capitol, my nightmares wake me up.

I'm at home, lying on the floor. I can see the front door right in front of me. Suddenly Mom's outside, banging on the door, trying to get in. There's a window in the top, I can see her hand pounding on it. Orange light spills in – her hand's on fire – and I know that her entire body is aflame, right outside, burning. I can hear her screaming for help, but I'm the only person here and I can't reach her, can't open the door, can only watch as she slowly crumples, the orange light disappears and I know she's died just inches away from me…

I shudder and tears drip from my eyes. That one's old and familiar, the one that woke me up just now. What's most awful about it is the realism. I've had dreams about diseases that make you swell up, face go black, and give you projectile vomiting like a hose, hitting people sixty feet away, but I know that it's impossible, and on reflection it's actually pretty funny. The fire dream, though, could really happen – if Mom went outside, and somehow caught fire, and nobody else was home – but it's possible. And I'm useless and helpless, can't even open the door for her, and I watch…

These are not the pictures I want my head to be drawing for me, right now, because if I think about it too much the dream will be with me all day. And since the interviews are tonight, and Nile and Angel have abandoned me, I'll need to give myself all the help I can get, starting with not thinking about burning hands I can't heal, screams of help I can't answer…

I try to smack myself in the face. I miss completely and my arm smacks the wall instead. You'd think that all my skill with my hands would help, but it's directing my arms that's the problem.

I have to focus on the interview. Nobody else is going to get me through this, so I'll have to do it myself. But my heart falters and I see the vision I'll be presented with tonight, thousands of people, all watching me, thousands more in their homes across Panem, listening to my every word… How can I break through shyness of that magnitude? If I'm too terrified to talk to people whose job it is to listen to me, the prep team and the Avoxes and the doctors, if just the thought of thousands of people makes me want to jump out of a tree…

I start crying in earnest. Honestly, what else can I do? I can't help myself, nobody else is going to help me, and dreaming of Mom burning to death hasn't helped any. Crying isn't going to really help either, but it can't make anything worse, and who knows, some of the girls back home swear that a good cry can make things look better afterwards.

Besides, if today is anything like yesterday, I've got nothing else to do.

I miss breakfast again – and I never got dinner, either, so that's four meals in a row I've missed – but before lunchtime my prep team comes to get me to make me over for the interview. They work on me for hours, praising what they believe to be stoicness and determination, while really it's just inability to feel a single thing they're doing to me. I close my eyes so I can't see them working, either, and they're so busy that nothing's done about lunch. I ask but they ignore me, floating around me like a miasma, trying to turn me into somebody crowd-winning. If only they knew how hopeless it was.

Hecate enters carrying the outfit I guess I'm going to be wearing. They dress me, complaining about my uncooperativeness and insisting that surely I can get my arm into this sleeve. I've got nothing to say, so I don't, I keep quiet and let them get on with it. Involus lifts me from the table and Leeya maneuvers a mirror in front of me so I can see myself.

I've never really seen myself before. There are no mirrors in Seven, and although I saw myself wearing the chariot ride costume, I know I don't look like that normally. I swallow and take a careful inventory of myself.

The clothes are unimpressive. Long green top, maroon pants. Practical and dull. A headband that's trying to look like it's made of leaves, but really it's cheap bits of cloth sewn together. My face, too, is uninteresting; dark eyes, pale skin, hollow and virtually shrunken. My features are what I would describe as sharp but delicate, and that's being generous. My long hair is dark but actually lighter than I thought it was, yet it still makes me look even paler. It's the only feature that actually identifies me as female; if it were short I think I could pass for a boy. And they think that this is going to win the admiration and money of all the Capitol?

I start crying. Abandoned by my mentor and escort, and now the only people who are trying to help me have made me look ugly, awkward and stupid, twice over. I've seen some truly wonderful interview costumes – people who look like they're wearing water, or fire, or covered in jewels, or simply plain beautiful. I've seen nymphs from Districts Two, Four, Seven and Twelve – stone, water, trees and fire – comical robots from Three, nostalgic farmers from Eleven, and glittering, glowing wonders from One. And it's surely not that hard to simply make somebody look attractive. I'm not asking for a whole costume, I don't need to be a nymph, but surely pretty isn't too much to ask from the finest beauticians in the Capitol? A few years ago the girl who won didn't have any special costumes or clothes or anything – but she was so beautiful and charming and witty that I, and most of Panem, fell in love on the spot. Maybe I can't do charming and witty, but that's my own fault.

No, it isn't. It's the fault of my mentor and escort, who are supposed to be coaching me through this. I wonder what they'll do if I survive the bloodbath and Kain doesn't. Curse their luck? Immediately switch all attention to me? Throw up their hands and genuinely believe their job is over?

Too soon and yet not soon enough, the prep team takes me down to the stage set up for the interviews, just outside the training centre. I'm totally unprepared for this, my hands are sweating and the world is spinning around me. My stomach aches and even though I'm familiar with hunger, the agony is unbearable. I'm taken from the prep team by two Avoxes who carry me onto the stage and settle me into a propped-up stretcher between two chairs. All along the line, I see only two other stretchers. Everybody else must have at least the control to sit up on their own. The seats begin to fill and to avoid looking at the kid who's going to kill me tomorrow, I glance out over the City Circle. It's packed. Absolutely crammed to bursting. Between the open pavilion for the tributes' teams and the space taken up by the dozens of cameras, you'd think there wouldn't be a lot of space for people. And you'd be wrong. I can't see a single inch of ground because there are so many people. The entire circle and all the streets leading into it are filled. I can't see where the crowds end. And as if that wasn't enough people, everybody across Panem is required to watch, too. Father's probably groaning at the abysmal job my stylists have done, Clarrine's probably thankful she isn't wearing this outfit, and if Mom's come out of her room then she'll be clutching her head, tucked in a corner, trying to block everything out.

The interviews are conducted by Elizabeth Honor, who took over the job about fifteen years ago. She's still quite young by Capitol standards – but to me, at thirty-five, she feels old – but she's popular, hilarious and, best of all, really helps out the tributes. It's so obvious, some of them take one look at the crowd and you'd swear they were about to puke, but Elizabeth calms them right down and, I'd swear, helps some of them win. Father says that's a common factor among all the interviewers, because the Capitol wants to believe we tributes really are something special. She's going to have one big fight on her hands to help me out, though.

But it looks like I'm not the only one in this situation. There are a couple of the tributes who are acting a lot like Mom, and I mean a lot. The boy from Four is clutching his head and rocking back and forth, curled up in a tiny little ball, just like Mom used to when she still tried to go outside. The girl from One is similar but not as bad, but I'm pretty sure she won't be able to speak in front of thousands of people. The girl from Ten, who I noticed during training, isn't even here. I've got no idea how their teams even managed to work with these ones who can't bear physical proximity. Medications? Drugs? Could the Capitol really justify knocking someone out just to put makeup on them?

The answer's obvious.

The girl from One, Shine Uniharis, is called up first. Fists clenched, she walks into the spotlight – and takes one look at the crowd and bolts. She's off the stage before anybody gets to her, and then she shrinks into herself and they can't get a response out of her. Very much like Mom. Elizabeth turns to the crowd and laughs a little. "Well, looks like Shine won't be able to have her interview after all. That's because her disability is something called autism, which basically means she doesn't like to be around people. If she doesn't like them so much that she kills them… well, that'll definitely be a big advantage in the arena!"

I can't believe it. She's taken something awful, something pitiable, something that's destroyed my mother and any chance of a relationship I could ever have had with her – and turned it into something that will help Shine in the arena. It strikes to my core like nothing's ever done before. What this girl has – autism, I never knew the name for it but it's got to be what Mom has – is not something that should be used in this way. It's disgusting.

All respect I had for Elizabeth has gone out the window. How dare she take Shine's disability, that may have prevented her from having friends or close relationships with her family, and make it into a reason to bet on her in the Games? How dare this entire country not send its hearts out to her and the people who love her, but instead consider her disability as merely a factor in her potential as a victor?

I'm so shaken and sickened that I miss the next three interviews. The girl from Three – Yliza Karr – is the next one I can take any notice of. She plays herself as insane, able to kill any tribute that crosses her path and not even care about it. She promises them a bloody fight, as long as she's alive. It's a stunning tactic that's sure to get her an entire plantation of sponsors. I'm pretty sure she's not as deranged as she's making herself out to be, but she's probably only exaggerating what's already there.

I can't decide if it's worse for Elizabeth to use a tribute's disability in this way, or for the tribute themselves to do it. There is just something terribly wrong about a child – she looked to be only thirteen or fourteen – saying 'Hey, I'm crazy! Keep me alive so I can slaughter everybody!' but the Capitol's attitude is just exploitative.

But I guess they exploit us all anyway, when you think about it.

Forced labor, food shortages, power cuts, electric fences, no way to appeal against the Peacekeepers' criminal rulings, and of course the Hunger Games.

I tune myself out and stop listening to the interviews, I know they're only going to make me madder. And keeping stock of the tributes' disabilities is only a waste of time. I'm so out of it that I barely hear my name called, and my stretcher rocks as an Avox wheels me up to the stage.

"Well, Aviary," Elizabeth says, dragging my name out to the full four syllables instead of the three that Father usually mangles. Thinking about Father doesn't send a pang of longing through my chest, though, or make me wish I were back home. I just want to know – more than anything – how he dealt with all this. "As the daughter of a victor – our own Tirsen Karradi, people!" She turns to the audience and some of them start cheering at Father's name. These people still remember him? Maybe they'll help me out, too? "As the daughter of a victor, you must have grown up with some pretty amazing stories."

"Yeah," I whisper. Suddenly I hate myself for this. Clarrine's voice from the day of the reaping slams into me. Coward! Well, I won't do it anymore. I look out at the crowd and suck their strength, their energy, into me. If I'm going out, I'm going with a crash, I'll make the earth shake like when a tree's fallen. I'm not going to be an autumn leaf, slithering apologetically through the air. My head snaps back to face Elizabeth and I inhale sharply. "Loads of stories."

"Do you feel like you know what the Games are really like? Reckon you'll have a better shot than some of the others?"

Honesty grabs me and steers me forward. "Father's stories… they were pretty terrifying. Floods and death… as a little kid they really scared me. But I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. I can't walk, so what chance do I have?"

"Oh, I'm sure you've got something up your sleeve – but don't tell us! There's nothing we love so much as a surprise!"

That leaves me blank. What am I supposed to say to that? 'Me neither?' I really don't know how to talk to people, how to be interesting. Why won't she say something else…!

"So tell us about home, Aviary. You must have had a pretty tough life."

That's easy. My mind shoots back to school and an essay I wrote about 'home'. The words had really been something special, the teacher had read it out to everybody else. "The thing about District Seven," I begin, seeing my childish scrawl floating in front of Elizabeth's face, "is that everywhere you look, you're surrounded by life. You can always see trees, and the houses look like trees, and all the buildings look like trees, and it feels like being in the forest all the time." I glance around the City Circle and suck in what the Capitol looks like. "I mean, here, you've always got all these buildings around you. I know you've got gardens and stuff, but don't you sometimes feel like you'd rather just be in the garden, with all this glowing life around you, all the time? That's what Seven's like. It's like you're not in a District at all, it's like being in the wild every single moment. It's really something special, you always feel so free."

I swallow and force myself to keep going. There's an obvious benefit I can draw from this, I can play it to my advantage. Everyone else has been doing it, and I have to give myself some kind of a chance… Don't I? "So I'm thinking, maybe I'll be okay in the arena. Everybody else is used to buildings and shelter, but to me, a wilderness will be just like home."

"Well, it's great to hear you're keeping positive. You must have something special kept in reserve, after all, being Tirsen Karradi's daughter! I'm sure we'll be watching out for you!" The buzzer goes exactly as she finishes speaking and all the energy flows out of me and I slump back against my stretcher, feeling dried up like charcoal.

I feel sick from talking about myself. I shouldn't have said that last thing about having a chance. I should have gone with something like this, 'Well I guess you could use me as a shield, if you were willing to carry me with you… or just slaughter me on the spot and get one tribute closer to victory…'

After the Avoxes wheel me back into the line I drop my head back and genuinely go to sleep halfway through Kain's interview – he's showing off his burn scars and boasting about how much pain he'll be able to take – and the nightmares are fair trade for getting out of the interviews. I wake up back in my bed in the Training Centre.

The Games officially begin tomorrow.

And my life officially ends tomorrow.

After hearing those interviews, with all those words still searing through my head, tomorrow can't come soon enough.