Hello again everybody! I know my updates are slowing down a bit, but don't fear. I've already worked out a good portion of the end, I don't plan to leave you hanging! I'm just struggling to work out the Games portion of my tale. I salute Suzanne Collins! It's not actually that easy to keep track of so many different kids and whether they are alive or dead... :P It's frankly pretty morbid work.

Anyway, Johanna's back! Although you'll have to stick around for a while to find out what her issue is, anyway. Well, one of her many issues... :)

T minus- Four hours.

Isn't this a shame?

It's what every mentor thinks when they wake up on the morning the Games start. Isn't it a shame that the Capitol makes me do this? That these kids have to die?

Those are the thoughts that fly through my head as soon as my eyes open. The same spiel of self-pity I go through every year. But this year, it's worse, so much worse than just the typical resigned regret. It burns down to my bones and in the pit of my stomach.

Why don't you just stop feeling sorry for yourself? I tell myself impatiently, swinging my legs out of bed. After all, you volunteered for this.

Yes, the Capitol's bullying everybody. The Capitol's making me do these horrible things. But I am part of the Capitol, a cog in the well-oiled machine. I walked into this willingly, and I am one more person who helped make the Games a success. To this day, when people see me, they cheer for a great victor. They cheer for the Games to produce more celebrities like me.

Otto slams down breakfast in the apartment dining room, pausing only periodically to rub his hands together eagerly, stretch his calves to warm himself up, call for more eggs. He's on his fourth plate now. I stood over Annie early this morning until she managed to choke down a dinner roll and a couple of pieces of dried fruit, but from the gut-wrenching sounds coming from the bathroom now, I know that my efforts were useless.

"Are you ready for this, Otto?" I ask, pulling out the chair beside him. I'm too restless to sit, though.

"Oh yeah!" He chugs another glass of orange juice and grins at me, upper lip covered in pulp.

"Do you remember the healthy fear thing we talked about the other day?"

Otto shakes his head. "I have a healthy caution," he corrects me. "I'm not afraid."

"Yeah, well, you should be," I murmur, slamming the chair back under the table. He gives me a strange look as I leave the room.

I wait a few minutes after the retching sounds stop, until my own stomach is settled, before rapping lightly on the bathroom door. "Annie, it's me. You okay?"

The door opens slowly and her face appears, white, drained of blood. She leans against the door frame, taking long, shuddery breaths. "Finnick," she whispers, and those watering green eyes meet mine. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can, Annie," I say gently. "Just take a deep-"

"I can't go out there!" She motions to the kitchen where Otto is still gorging himself and runs her hands through her already straggly hair. "Not like this! I'm a wreck. I swear, Finnick… I'm gonna lose it."

I grasp both of her hands, work them out of her dark tangles. "No. You're gonna be all right. I'm here for you, all right?"

She swallows hard, studying me, studying her fingers knit through mine. "Promise you won't forget me in the arena…" she pleads. "For Mags?"

She takes a unsteady step toward me, and I impulsively draw her into a tight hug. "Of course not," I murmur. She collapses against me, burying her face in my chest, shaking silently. "I promise, Annie," I whisper into her hair. She smells like vomit and sweat and tears and all of the things that the other girls mask with perfume.

And I don't want to let go.

Yes, I am doing all this for Mags' sake, because she wanted to help Annie. Of course, she wanted to help her for my sake, to keep me from getting attached.

See how well that worked out?

I can't ride the hovercraft to the arena with the tributes. They still have an hour or so to get ready, but I am supposed to be at my station setting up fifteen minutes ago. So I finally take Annie's shoulders and pull her back. A little color has finally returned to her cheeks, although she's still breathing heavily. Isn't there anything I can do to make this easier?

For a moment, I seriously consider kissing her. But a kiss from Finnick Odair doesn't mean anything, anyway. She is too spectacular for something that common.

So I just give her another squeeze and tilt her head so she has to look at me. "Chin up, chickadee," I say softly.

And then Pallindra is calling our names, calling us apart. I swear the last thing I am going to hear before I die will be Pallindra's clipped Capitol accent calling, "Come, come, now, you're going to be late!" And then she'll usher me into the dark beyond.

I hate being rushed away from this, because this will certainly be the last time I see Annie in person. I haven't had time to think of any great parting words. But it's too late, the bathroom door is shut, and I'm going to the Games.

The Mentor's Mansion consists of a flowery outdoor courtyard for meeting with sponsors and a gigantic circular building for everything else. The one main room inside is circular with a high, vaulted ceiling that doubles as a huge television screen. It will show the footage of the Games that is being broadcast live across Panem. The area along the curving wall has been partitioned into twelve large cubicles, each with its own array of computer monitors and a dashboard covered in blinking lights and buttons that would bewilder a newcomer. But I'm an old pro at this. I drop into my high-tech swivel chair and spin in a circle, just for grins, before taking inventory of my space.

It's a lot like a prison cell, really. Same size, if you ignore the opening between the partitions. There's even a little cot along one of the sides, and it looks about as comfortable as a prison bed. But of course, we're not really under lock and key. Mentors are free to come and go as they please, and since most districts have a pair of them, they trade off, one constantly keeping an eye on the tributes and the other socializing with sponsors, giving a live interview, or getting a well deserved night's sleep. But for those unfortunate lone mentors, like Haymitch and, I just realized, myself, well… I don't really know how we're supposed to handle this.

I power on all my monitors and the two television screens mounted side-by-side on the wall. Right now, the TVs show only static, but from the first moment of the Games, they will each provide live footage of one of my tributes around the clock. Annie's screen is on the left. Otto's on the right. That's the way the whole station is set up, the two screens and the two safe boxes full of the paper checks that sponsors have submitted. Annie's empty one on the left, Otto's crammed full on the right. Monitors show information that's useful for helping both of them. One will display weather readings from the arena, one will pinpoint my tributes' exact GPS locations, one will show each tribute's medical stats. The dashboard in front of me is touch screen. I tap with one finger and open up a digital catalogue full of the gifts I can choose from to send into the arena. I swipe through it quickly. Different sections contain pages and pages of medical supplies, camping gear, packs of dried food. A set of finger puppets. I rack my brain and try to come up with a life-or-death situation that would necessitate a handy supply of finger puppets, but I come up blank. I'm not as creative as the Gamemakers, I suppose.

One of the screens suddenly beeps as new information fills the display. Annie and Otto have each had a tracker injected into their forearm, which allows me to monitor heart rate, body temperature, even blood sugar. Once the games start, the chips will also provide a GPS signal.

There's little to do now except wait. I roll my computer chair out of my cubicle and spin some donuts in the large, open middle of the cold tile floor. Somewhere in the blur of the room whizzing by, I spot a girl entering with a dirty blond ponytail trailing behind her. I stop my chair and wheel myself over to District 7's station, where Johanna has just taken her seat and begun to inspect her own screens.

"Hey," I call, rolling up beside her. "Haven't seen you in a while." She doesn't acknowledge me, but I watch her face until I'm content that she's uninjured from her run-in with the authorities.

Mentors don't do a whole lot of visiting during the Games, because the data on our screens is private and it's considered terrible sportsmanship to snoop. But the digital countdown projected on the ceiling still shows about an hour before the gong, so I tap a couple of buttons on her screen and start flipping through her catalogue absently. "First year," I comment. "Figuring everything out?"

This time I get a low grunt as she pretends to be completely absorbed in dusting off her dashboard lights, arranging rubber bands and paper clips in their containers. "Well, if you need a hand with any of the equipment, let me know." I hesitate before adding, "I like your girl. She's got spunk."

Johanna snorts, but still won't look at me. "More than yours."

I nod patiently, biting my tongue. "Good luck." Here I can't resist adding the grating Capitol accent. "And may the odds be evah in your-"

She whirls on me, eyes blazing. "Shut up, Odair."

I start to roll backwards through the partitions. "Gotcha. I'm cool, babe. Let's do lunch sometime." I wink, pointing and clicking my tongue at her. "I'll call you. No, no, no, I'll call you."

She's armed only with a rubber band, but I think it leaves a welt. Rubbing my eye, I cross back over to District 4's compartment, but not before I hear loud laughter drifting from a few cubicles down. Brutus, one of the District 2 mentors, is smirking at me with his arms folded across his massive chest. Let him laugh now, I think bitterly. He won't be amused when Otto has his kid in a headlock. But if I'm honest, this really isn't a pleasant mental image either.

I double check, triple check my equipment. Still twenty minutes. And then I sit, reclined in my chair, twiddling my thumbs, trying not to let the anxiety crack through to my face, because there are cameras in here, too. And Finnick Odair is always above it all.

Ten minutes. Otto and Annie are below the arena, waiting underground with their stylists, whispering their final prayers, hopefully reviewing the instructions I gave them. They're simple enough. Take off running away from the Cornucopia. Absolutely do NOT join in the bloodbath battle for the meager supplies. We have plenty of sponsors, I will send them whatever they need. Find shelter. Find food. Don't drink moss-coated water…

Five minutes. I find my fingers sneaking into my stash of rubber bands, absently working them into slipknots, pulling them out again. I hum under my breath, something soft and eerie, the tune I heard Annie murmuring in Mags' hospital room. A sea chanty. Something about… a young girl… a young maiden in the grasp of the storm… with the high winds a' blowin', from the south they be… rowin'…from the Isle of… of…

Annie's never going to wear those pearls.

The image of her in that pink bridesmaid gown comes out of nowhere and squeezes at my throat. And suddenly I'm the one clutching the threshold weakly, saying, I can't do it. I can't go through with this.

But it's too late. The huge screen overhead flickers on with the Capitol seal, and one by one all of the mentor's displays do the same. I take a deep breath, recover my winning smile, flash it toward the nearest camera. And then Claudius Templesmith hollers over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventieth Hunger Games begin!"

The ring of tributes appears on every screen, frozen on their platforms for sixty seconds. They face the field surrounding the Cornucopia which is strewn with goodies like food and tents and long-shafted spears that only get more tempting the closer you proceed. In a few moments, the center of this circle will be covered in bodies.

Forty-five seconds. Run. I mouth the word to Otto and Annie, who stand with three tributes in between them. They take in their surroundings as the precious calm moments tick by. Rocky ground crumbling away to the south. A dense cluster of trees to the west, directly behind them. And… smoke on the northern horizon?

Thirty seconds. Clouds hang low in the sky. My thermometer registers a balmy seventy-five degrees, though the tree branches ripple in the strong wind. What is this place? What kind of fire is that smoke coming from? Have the Gamemakers already planted an obstacle?

Twenty seconds. Otto glances toward the tree line, then looks over at Annie with eyebrows raised. She gives him a weak thumbs-up, and he returns the gesture. They have an alliance. If he breaks it, I will kill him myself.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

The last thing I remember before the gong is Annie standing up straight on that platform, one strand of hair anxiously curled through her fingers. And then there's the crash reverberating through the air. She stumbles off her platform, scrambling for the forest beyond. She looks back over her shoulder for Otto, but he's not there.

He's taken off toward the center of the Cornucopia with a grand, guttural war cry. Oblivious to Annie's retreat. Oblivious to the sounds of my rage in the Mentor's Mansion.

And oblivious to the blade whizzing straight toward his head.

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