Helloo all! This is my debut-first-time-EVVAAA from start to finish story! And it is on none other than that terrible two-some we all just hate to love and love to hate. Now, I want to know whether or not I should throw this out. So even if you think this first teaser chapter is absolutely AWFUL please still review! I really want honesty so if you think that I am just the worst and that I should be banned from the writing community for all eternity… then you better tell me. Thanks guys!

[P.S. just a little background info to keep in mind while reading: I figured sense District 2 is so hung up on the Hunger Games who is allowed to volunteer for the reaping must be decided by a council of some sort. This will be mentioned briefly but won't be explored in detail till later in the story. Also as usual all characters belong to Suzanne Collins]

You'll be free child, once you have died.
From the shackles of language and measureable time.

And then we can trade places, play musical graves.
Till then walk away, walk away.

- Landlocked Blues, Bright Eyes.

1.

Clove didn't often think of God.

But as she sat with legs curled beneath her small body and dark eyes focused on the screen before her playing the reruns of last year's Hunger Games, the being came to her mind. This was only because of the delusional, dehydrated girl who laid face-up dying on the dry ground with her filthy hands rummaging through the air, begging for this God to save her. For reasons unfathomable to Clove the cameras continued to focus their lenses on the anti-climactic scene until the already dim-light in the girl's eyes diminished and she was dead.

Guess her God doesn't watch the Hunger Games. The corners of her thin lips pulled up into a smirk.

Belief in something so trivial is weakness. It certainly showed in what she had just watched. Clove didn't understand it; blindly sending prayers to the ear of an entity that has never proven itself real and then living life by rules that it may have not even made. For a moment she couldn't think of the exact word for she was looking for -

Faith, a small voice reminded her.

Yes, that must have been what made the pathetic girl die. Her faith.

Throughout her life no one had ever preached such things to her. No one sat her down and tried to make her reconcile some higher-being. No one ever suggested that she fill her life with good deeds and purity. Certainty her parents- with their stone, expressionless faces, didn't believe in such nonsense. As a matter of fact she couldn't think of anyone she knew from back home who did. Probably because District Two already had a higher power to believe in and that was the Capitol.

But what do you believe in?

The question took her by surprise because though it was her mind it appeared in, it certainly wasn't she who asked. Slightly confused and a little annoyed that something so pointless had invaded her thoughts she quickly dismissed the question.

She didn't need anything to believe in. She wasn't weak.

Her focus then shifted to her own upcoming Hunger Games as the faces of her competition were pulled from memories of the opening ceremonies and the various district reapings. Let them all have their deities, she thought bitterly. See if that saves them from my very real knives.

No, she certainly didn't need anything to believe in. Not small, lethal, vicious Clove- the girl who had enough hatred inside her to burn the entire world to the ground, despite only living in it for a short fifteen years. The girl who didn't even understand her own nature; who had grown up so empty that she had to fill up the spaces with anger to keep from becoming a hollow shell. The girl who couldn't remember a time when she had depended on anyone but herself – and why would she? She had no God. Her family existed only to give her a last name. She didn't have friends; throughout her life she had allies.

She was made for these games.

It took fifteen years to prepare her for them. Three days ago her hand shot up with confidence when they called for a female volunteer at the reaping and now she was finally there, in the Capitol, and at the moment sitting in the puffy green couch of her temporary suite with only a matter of days to go until the games began. Her district bred her to kill so she could win. But winning wasn't much of a concern to her. Not because she didn't think she could- she was more than able despite her small frame; her perfected talent of handling knives had put her way ahead of her class and enabled her to be allowed to volunteer for the games this year despite being so young for a District Two tribute.

However if she were to win, afterwards there would be nothing. She would return home, and then what? Be moved into some beautiful house? Receive the praise of her district? Hold the attention of the media for an entire year? Fame and fortune meant nothing to Clove.

But killing did.

To finally feel the satisfaction of ending the life of a human enthralled her. She had killed many animals before so she was able to imagine the sensation- how a knife feels when it slashes across flesh or cuts into a belly. But the idea of adding the sensation to, say, an image of the girl from Six whose normally gawking face is suddenly filled with fear at the realization that she is about to die. Or maybe even the boy from Eight, dragging his bloody limbs across the ground as he uses the last bit of energy he can muster to crawl away from her... These thoughts were enough to make her breath hitch from uncontrollable excitement and the large eyes widen on her youthful face- too fresh and young to possibly match the dark fantasies going on within.

In a little over a week she would be standing on the podium in whatever the arena may be, waiting for the gong to sound and for the games to begin. She won't be playing to win.

Rather she'll be playing because her whole life has been about killing–it won't matter if she comes out dead or alive, because when the games are over the purpose of her life will end with them.