The Capitol awakes with an air of excitement. The tall metal towers and massive townhouses seem to shiver in anticipation. Today is the day, the day that the residents of Panem will get to see the tributes, the pick this year, and now, the teams. The Capitol elite will get to look at whom to sponsor for the first time. The others will already begin placing bets.
The telltale buzz of another Hunger Games really beginning. It rings in the Capitol as a happy note. The careers wait for a chance to spring on stage, the lower districts wait in terror for their next victims.
All across the twelve districts children wake with terrible feelings in the pits of their stomachs. Not all would prove necessary but 24 children would be picked, or volunteer for a chance, one shot for a crown.
But this year it was more, two chances. The tributes would size up their fellow, turned partner. They'd wonder if they could both make it together, if they might have a fleeting chance.
For some it would be a rite of passage, this reaping, for others, a cruel twist of fate. F some the odds would be in their favor, for some their only chance was a strong other, and for some that would not happen.
The Capitol grows quiet as the reapings are set to begin and as, in each district, one man or woman would rise and say. "May the odds be ever in your favor" and 24 boys and girls, would hope to God that they were.