There are ten things you need to know before the plates are lifted.
Number One: The girl from District Five was not actually named River. She was the daughter of The River according to some, a motherless demon to others. She was fourteen years old. "River" was the first time she had been called by a real name. It didn't matter that it was wrong. Not to her.
Number Two: Talon Olympus couldn't feel fear. Yet he still stayed up the entire night, staring at the ceiling.
Number Three: Marquise Clifton was the first one to leave his room in the morning. It was 4 AM, and nightmares had woken him. Normally he would've meditated, but instead he just sat on the floor, staring out one of the large glass windows as the hours ticked away.
Number Four: Sparrow Kalani still hadn't finished her book. There was a copy on the bookshelf in her room, and in the morning she took it in her hands, and flipped through the pages. She decided she didn't want to know how it ended.
Number Five: It was no act. Arnold "Arkus" Smitt woke up in the morning and told his mentor that he knew was immortal, with every fiber of his being. And that he intended to prove it.
Number Six: On the hour-long hovercraft ride to the arena, Troy Magnison was seated in between Sparrow Kalani and Jamie Curie. He spent the morning telling them tales of Loki and Thor. All three of them seemed as if they managed to forget where they were headed, for just a little while.
Number Seven: Exactly one year ago, Logan Hurt's sister had been murdered. And he knew who had killed her.
Number Eight: Dalton Faux never cared about anyone else. Dalton Novum had, once. When he got reaped she had tried to volunteer for him, nevermind that she was seven years old. He heard her trying while he was up on stage, and decided then and there that he was going to win. No matter what.
Number Nine: Nobody visited Lana Birkhead after she volunteered. She sat alone in the Justice Center and waited for the Games to begin. Before she was sent to the reaping, the man in the black suit handed her a note, and she read it to herself in that building, and she did the same thing as she waited for her pedestal to lift. "Failure is not an option," it read. When it was time to enter the tube and rise into the arena, she left the note crumpled on the waiting room floor.
Number Ten: On the way to the mentor room, Hailey Hills passed a picture of Galavant Redding hanging on the wall. She paused for a moment to look up at it. When she walked into the room, she took a bottle of vodka out of her jacket and dropped it in the trash.