I'm sure you're all ready for the Reaping by now... We start this chapter on Reaping morning. May the odds be ever in your favor!

Chapter Nine – Lloyd

I awake with a subtle sense of foreboding pressing down on me, not the rush of panic I anticipated. The feeling is more of a dark premonition. I push myself up on my elbows, squinting in the darkness for the morning light that usually streams through our open windows, but find nothing. It must be before dawn. At any rate, I am up, and there's no chance of my going back to sleep, so I quietly rise and creep into the sitting-room area and collapse onto a couch, running a hand through my unruly hair.

So today's the Reaping. I anticipated more of an overwhelming fear to consume me, and that I would be wetting my pants by now, but instead I have a sort of flame of afraid-ness inside of me, steadily burning, a weight to be released at the call of the name of the All-Element male tribute – me or otherwise. The fear will be gone when I am chosen, nonetheless, the fear of being chosen itself, but surely it will be replaced by a new fear – the fear of the upcoming Games.

Leaning back on the overstuffed pillows, I sigh. If I'm chosen there's nothing really I can do about it. My mood of acceptance surprises me, but I remain calm as the hours tick nearer. The windows begin to glow as the light of the rising sun warms them. The rising sun that sentences eighteen kids to death. The sun that spares so many more for another year, though.

On principle, Garmadon and Misako are soon stretching and getting up, curiously quiet. It's my first Reaping, the first time they will gather in the Auditorium with genuine fear in their hearts, awaiting Pixal's call of the tribute while they clutch each other's hands. Will their hands release with relief when a different boy is called? Or will they tighten even more when they hear the cry of "Lloyd Garmadon!" I seem oddly prepared for my being Reaped, which is odd. But then again, the odds should be in my favor.

Skye still sleeps, her long hair drooping over her head as she rests. Let her sleep, I think. Let her know not of what happens today. Of what is to come. Mom and Dad are making breakfast, having not noticed me yet, and I see Dad pull out my tunic, now clean, and my shoes. My first real Reaping outfit – and perhaps my last.

But I won't be chosen. I take a deep breath and let it out confidently, stand, and walk over to Misako. "Good morning, Mother." She starts a bit at the sound of my voice, avoiding my gaze. "Good morning, Lloyd. How many eggs do you want?" The smell of cooking breakfast wafts towards me, but I barely notice it. "One, I guess." She nods, still not looking at me. "Do the students have to go early?" I ask, having not paid real attention during the Games videos. "Fifteen minutes. We'll be where you can see us." Misako finally looks up and smiles at me, tucking a loose strand of her long braid behind her ear. "I'm so proud of you, Lloyd." She whispers. Caught by surprise, I look at her curiously. "What?" "No matter what happens toady, your father and I still love you. And we are so proud." The standard I-love-you message before a Reaping, I assume. But it feels more like a warning. Like a goodbye.

We eat breakfast as a family as the sun creeps higher in its course in the sky. The eggs are tasteless, even though I accidentally upended the salt shaker and dumped salt all over them. Skye, now awake and dressed, tries to encourage our conversation, smiling and prompting us to speak. She doesn't know why we are silent today. She doesn't know what happens today. I envy her in that way. There's a burden in knowing and a freedom in ignorance. Skye knows not, and I envy her.

I take in perhaps my last look at the room, my home for all of thirteen years. The bedroom, where my sheets lay rumpled and my mattress-bed unmade. The kitchen, where the stove still steams. The couch I sit on now, with its never ending tessellations, an eternal pattern stretching on and on. Maybe the Games are a tessellation, too, with a victor and a Reaping and deaths galore. Again, the Games creep into my consciousness and I shove them away.

Garmadon notices my melancholy and looks up from his task of toying with his eggs. "Your mother and I will leave Skye with Brad's family. So it'll be just us." Why, though? The variables are stacking up and the scale is beginning to seem to tilt against me, the premonition growing darker, edging on black. Does Dad know something? I narrow my eyes, thinking. He would surely tell me… Unless…

"Time to go!" My mother seems overjoyed to break the somber meal and see me off. "Skye, we'll take you to Brad's in a minute. Lloyd, do you have your jacket? Good, we want you to look nice. Now, run along, we can't have you late!" Because if I'm late they'll send someone in to find me and imprison me for life. No, I think I'll go. "Bye, Mom! See you soon!" The sadness that fills her eyes is more evident than ever and the feeling of controlled fire-fear begins to burn wildly inside me, climbing towards my heart, threatening to take control. "Goodbye, son." Dad waves awkwardly and I copy his motion, then turn into the hallway, eyes trained on the golden carpet, more tessellations, more Reapings, more Games. Struck with a sudden idea I pivot and peek back into my room, then wish with all my heart I hadn't.

My mother is sobbing into my father's chest and he is calming her. "Shh, Misako, it's all right." "My son! Why him?" "It's okay! You know it is!" Which only makes her cry harder. Skye grasps my mother's pants leg. "Mommy, what is it? What's wrong?" My dad shushes her and grips Misako harder. "It's okay. Everything will be okay. Trust me."

Our last words exchanged were not a see-you-later conversation. They were a goodbye.

I meet Brad in the Atrium and we walk behind the fountain, where no kids splash today, and follow the other All-Element potential tributes, shoulders straight, into the doors to the Auditorium. I've been in the Auditorium before, but only when I was very small, and my memory doesn't serve a good enough depiction of the vastness of the space. The Auditorium is a gargantuan circle with a round stage in the middle. Stadium seating radiates out from the stage, climbing higher and higher and not ending but fading into blackness. There are nine "slices" in the seating, like the pies my mother makes on holidays like Independence Day, each representing a different element, black like the stage and floor and walls but with the element symbols stitched into the chairs and firm boundaries between each element's slice. The All-Element area lies directly right of the All-Element entranceway, so Brad and I check in with the proctor there, who turns out to be the sixteens' Math teacher. He takes a sample of our blood with a small device that I assume is what some of the working adults use when they gain access to their elemental ward in the Complex. It's amazing to think the Auditorium is contained in the Complex and doesn't take up the entire Complex altogether. Brad and I are cleared to go and we find our seats in the thirteen-years row, settle down, and sit quietly.

"So… This is the Reaping." Brad says quietly as we watch the other elements file into the Auditorium through their entryways. "I thought I would be panicking." "Me too." I reply, the blackness of my premonition lightening somewhat. "I'm nervous in a contained sort of way." Brad laughs and so do I, the feeling of the laughter like an antidote to the fiery fear that was close to running rampant only moments before. But I see the eighteen crystal balls on the stage, filled with names, names of the innocent, names of those undeserving of this wrath, and I stop laughing immediately. Those names could be mine. They could all be mine, for all it matters. A feeling of uncanny doom overtakes me. Am I destined for this? A death by the Games in my first year. Of course not! But that's what all the dead thirteen-year tributes would say, too.

Brad turns suddenly to me. "Lloyd, if I'm picked, tell my family I love them all, Take care of them, will ya? I mean, they would probably need some of my working wages when I turned nineteen. Promise you'll watch out for them." I nod solemnly. "I will. And you, mine?" Brad grins. "What else? I'll make sure Skye passes school and all that." I scoff ostentatiously. "She's smarter than you anyways!" Brad shakes his head as if mourning some tragic accident. "If you ask me, those Garmadon kids are none too bright…" "Shut up."

When we stop talking the reality of the Reaping sets in again. The fifteen minutes have nearly passed and all of the All-Element student seats are full. I look for Stephen and Cassandra, but their faces are lost in the rows of kids. Parents and siblings join the All-Element crowd, some with looks of intense fear on their faces, some even crying. I'm shocked at how quiet it all is, the only sound in the Auditorium the shuffling of boots on the floor and the whispers of the more sheltered thirteens who aren't terrified like the lot of us. All eyes are trained on the glass balls on the stage, the carefully folded name slips that read imminent death rather than the name of a tribute. I'm instantly rooted to the spot, paralyzed by the sight of the papers as it all really sinks in, through the layers of innocent banter with Brad and the walls I'd erected to keep it all out, through the fear-fire itself.

This is the Reaping.

And the odds don't really feel in my favor right now.

I promise you, next chapter is the Reaping! Cliffhangers... dun dun dun.

For those of you who were wondering, we meet the other ninja in the next chapter. They won't have chapters dedicated to them, but we'll meet them... See what you think then.

To the readers who have read from day one - thank you! The waiting won't go on for much longer...