Cobalt "Coby" Keyes- District Three male

One last Reaping.

One more year, and I'm home free.

After today, it's all smooth sailing. I'm not the valedictorian or anything, but I got good grades. And I don't want to be a tech wizard anyway. The really smart kids will take those jobs, and I'll sit behind a desk and push papers. I'd seen my parents' jobs. They went to work in the morning, sorted people out and did admin stuff, came home at night, and sat around. They got paid good money and we had a good life. I was gonna do all that, except the relaxing part.

My parents liked cooking, and reading, and some date nights at the arcade. I was a little more adventurous, for better or for worse. I just liked to do instead of thinking all the time, like so many people in Three. I could think, but sometimes I liked to do first and think about it later. Sometimes that got me into trouble… but it also got me some awesome stories.

I had my limits, though. I wasn't going to do anything stupid this close to being free of Reapings. I was going to stand quietly, keep my head down, and get home.

Bubbles picked the girl name first. She squinted at the paper. She turned it upside down, like that would make the name easier to read.

"Y- Yttria? Yttria Noxus?" she called. A girl walked heavily to the stage, eyes unfocused.

"And now the boys!" Bubbles continued. She reached into the bowl. "Kepler Modem!"

Oh, no. Not Kepler

Kids that age should be drinking chocolate milk and calling girls "cooties". I'd seen Kepler do both those things in the last month. Little pipsqueak was the smallest one in my class. The kid skipped four grades and could do calculus in his head, and he stilled called his mother "mommy".

Kepler was bawling when he walked on the stage. He was screaming for his mother again- there's that word again- "Mommy! Mommy!" Holding out his arms to her like she could come and pick him up.

I have to do something. Wait, there's something I can do!

"I volunteer as Tribute!"

The thought came a second after the words.

I just killed myself. And there's no getting it back.

"No, wait!" I yelled, when the Peacekeepers came after I took too long to move. Kepler vanished from my head and I cast out like a drowning man. "Wait, I changed my mind!"

I was onstage, next to Bubbles. She put her microphone by me to see if I had any words.

"I don't volunteer!" I screamed. "I changed my mind!"

Bubbles made a cute little Capitol confused-face. She turned to look behind the stage.

"Can he-" the microphone blared her whisper across the stage and she hastily covered it. She mouthed something at an unseen stagehand. My heart thudded so hard it hurt as I waited. My breakfast slid into my mouth and I swallowed it without thinking.

Let me take it back. I didn't mean it. Don't make me go.

"So sorry," she said, like I'd missed a ring in a carnival game. She wagged a finger at me. "No backsies!"

I stood shaking as I looked at the side of her face as she smilingly turned to the audience. My stomach clenched, and I thought I would throw up all over again. I stared like an already-dead thing, mouth open and reliving it over and over.

One instant.

One second, and I threw everything away. On the last second that my life dangled from a piece of paper, the last second before I finished the last gauntlet and came out safe forever, I made one mistake. One mistake, and it was all over. There was no fixing this. Life was that easy to lose. No backsies.


AT LAST! After the single most painful Reaping process in my history, I am finally done! Pretty sure I've written entire SYOTs in less time than these Reapings. Thanks to some speedy last-minute fillers-in, we can finally move forward. We're past the bottleneck now and I can let my speedy writing flag fly.

Colby doesn't have an appearance yet since he has an abbreviated form written quickly so I could finish the Reapings.