Amber Scott, aged 13

Amber really wishes she had her camera right now.

She's sitting at a window on a train. Everything is whizzing by. Fast enough so they get to where they're going, but slow enough so she can make out most of the details. The trees, the grass, the wildflowers. If she was allowed to bring her camera, she would've taken as many pictures as possible, then posted them up on her bedroom wall.

The camera was an expensive gift. Amber received it on her tenth birthday. Since then, she's treasured the camera, keeping it close to her heart. After all, it's what allowed her love of photography to flourish. As soon as she was able to figure it out, she was snapping pictures of everything. A cog. A broken streetlight. A picture of her three brothers.

She pulls a photo out of her pocket. It's an old one, the first she ever took. While not focused, five smiling faces can be easily made out. Her father and three older bothers. Her mother. The woman Amber loved like no other, the woman she aspired to be.
The woman who was taken from her when she was 11, due to a cold, cruel illness. Amber will never forget the dullness in her eyes, the drooping of her mouth when she took her final breath.

But in this picture, there is no dead mother. No broken father. No stressed brothers, desperately trying to replace the income they lost. Amber wishes for there to be more times like this, yet she knows it will never happen.
So she just sits there, staring. She doesn't hear Wiress come up behind her until a hand is placed on her shoulder.

Amber jumps and Wiress steps back. "It's okay! I didn't mean to hurt you..."
The look in the woman's eyes is genuine. She wants to help.

"I'm sorry," Amber says quietly. "I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"About...my family. My dad. My brothers."

"I see," Wiress responds. "Do you miss them already?"
"Yeah. I just wish I didn't have to leave."
Wiress sits down beside Amber. Together, they stare out the window. "I know. I can imagine how hard it is on you. I had done the same thing..."

There she goes, trailing off again. Amber decides not to ruin the moment by pointing out the obvious. How could Wiress win the Games if she was never Reaped? Instead, she just shrugs.
"What do you want to do?" Wiress asks.
This gets another shrug from Amber. "I don't know. I would be taking pictures, but...I left my camera at my house."

"You like photography?"
This gets Amber to perk up. "Yeah, I love it. It's so much fun sometimes and if you're careful enough, you get some really good results. These trees would look so cool as a photo on my bedroom wall...if I ever come back."
"What do you like to take pictures of?"

"I don't know. Stuff I find. My brothers. I tried taking one of myself. It came out horrible."
"A selfie?"
"A what?"
"A picture of yourself. They call them selfies in the Capitol."

"Oh. I did not know that." They haven't left the trees yet, which are still zooming by Amber's window. She so desperately wants to take her camera and snap a shot. Before there's nothing left. Before she's whisked into the Capitol. Before she's all prettied up and dumped in the arena. Before she finds herself at the hands of a cold, calculating, killing Career who snaps her neck and leaves her for dead.

She doesn't notices how tightly she's holding her family photo until she catches sight of a rip in the paper. Quickly, Amber smooths things out, not wanting to ruin one of the last happy memories she has of her family.
"What would you like to do now?" Wiress asks, breaking the silence. "We could go watch television, or get something to eat, or talk strategy..."

"Do you think I can borrow a camera? I wanna take a selfie with you."
Wires smiles. "Of course."

Wiress Colton, aged 54

The hospital. She's back in the hospital.

Wiress hates coming here. She came here once when she broke her leg as a 9 year-old. Another time when she caught some virus. Her earliest memory of coming is when she accidentally got food poisoning.
The one time after she emerged from the arena was the worst. It wasn't even the District 3 hospital. She felt perfectly fine, yet they wouldn't let her leave. She was ready to go home and put the Capitol behind her, but they needed her to stay. For her own sanity.

Wiress has no sanity. It's been dwindling down ever since her name was called in front of the entire District. She's not broken yet, but she hasn't been whole in a long time.

Now, Wiress finds herself in another hospital bed. There's nothing attached to her, there's no doctors buzzing around worriedly. It's just her in the bed. Alone.

A few moments pass by before the door opens and her adopted son, Miles, hurries into the room. The two of them quickly hug before they're interrupted by a doctor telling Wiress she's good to go. Miles helps his mother out of bed and to the door.
"What happened?" Wiress groans.

"They just announced the Quell twist a few hours ago. Then Beetee called me. I didn't get the full details, but he said he found you unconscious on the floor and that he was taking you to the hospital. I came here as fast as I could."
Miles stops and gives Wiress another hug.

"Oh Mom, you don't know how worried I am for you. You're the only living female Victor out District has...ugh, I can't bear to see you go back into the arena!"
Everything suddenly dawns onto Wiress. Watching Snow read the card out loud on the TV in her home. Realization and shock at her fate. Fainting...only to wake up in the hospital room.

"Oh no," she whispers, before hanging her head into her hands. "Oh no..."
"Look Mom, we'll figure something out. Okay? Okay!?"

Wiress wishes she could be as optimistic as her son. But she isn't. Her thoughts have already filled up with potential horrors, disasters, ways those young and fit Careers could slaughter a frail loony lady like her. The thousands of possible scenarios in which she can die, leaving everything she survived for behind.

And then it happens. Wiress Colton finally breaks.

Miles stays with his mother at her home in Victor's Village, but eventually has to leave. His has his own family to worry about. And Wiress is left alone.
She heads into the kitchen, but not to make herself a snack. Instead, Wiress picks up the sharpest knife she can find, the kind a Career would be seen throwing around. She holds it up to her wrist and lets the edge slowly pierce through her skin. The pain kicks in and she stops.

What is she doing?

Wiress has never been suicidal before. Or depressed. The doctors from the Capitol have declared that she may not be stable mentally, but there's nothing else wrong her. Now, she's attempting to take her own life here. To avoid a gruesome, merciless end in the arena. They can't choose her if she's not around to hear her name get called...right?

Yet, she worked so hard to get to this point in her life. Married, starting a family, never having to worry about the Games again. She won't let anything take her away. She can't! Wiress would never forgive herself if Miles found her dead...lying on the floor...with blood dripping down her wrists.

So she puts the knife. And instead, mentally prepares herself for her oncoming fate.

And Wiress puts herself back together.