Author's Note: My laptop died! Completely crashed and I lost everything. Thankfully, I still had some of my documents stored around somewhere, this fanfic being one of them. This chapter's rather short, and I had trouble writing this dude! But here, have your next tribute!

Like the walls of his room, the sky outside was gray, clouds wisping over it with equally dull colors. He watched it blankly, his hands limp on the thin piece of cloth he called a blanket. There were no birds chirping outside. Sometimes there would be, their wings scattering dust off the poles and wires, but not today.

The regular alarm for him to wake up didn't start. Blandly, he wondered what had happened. Did the alarm break? Nonsense, Professor Wallace would have noticed it before daybreak.

His thoughts dwindled as he stared out the window again. The streets, usually animated with bags of skins and bone dragging themselves through the streets to the next smog-filled factory at this time, were empty. He vaguely wondered if this was due to a special occasion.

A loud beep ripped through the air from a device near the door. He looked toward it unflinchingly, then got up and left the room. Breakfast.

"Mouse," Professor Wallace started as Mouse began eating.

Mouse took the simple pill and placed it onto his tongue. He downed it with a sip of water and looked at Professor Wallace.

"Today's the day of the Reaping. It will be your third one, to be exact," Professor Wallace said. "With your diet of nutrient pills, there has been no need for you to sign up for tesserae. Thus, your chances of being chosen are miniscule. Why, I did the calculations myself-it's so insignificant a number that it is smaller than dust!"

The professor smiled at himself for his own genius and effort, but the smile faded when he looked back at Mouse. "That doesn't change the fact, though, that the chance still exists. Just because something is so microscopic that it cannot be possibly seen by the human eye does not mean that it does not exist. This is sadly an amazing fact."

Mouse didn't reply and instead stared at Professor Wallace. He eyed the boy.

"If you do get chosen, we both know that there will be no chance for you to survive. So, let's hope that you won't."

He began to leave the room.

"It's hard to find test subjects as indifferent as you."

Mouse understood now. The Reapings were around mid afternoon, so there was no point for morning experimentation, lest he react to it during the Reaping itself.

This free time was precious, he knew to some extent, so he walked to a spare lab room. Professor Wallace was working away in his main laboratory, no doubt, possibly on some sort of device that he planned to use on Mouse later.

He ignored the muffled clanks and whirrs emitting from the wall and instead focused on the cages that lined on the counters. Mice. Different types of mice, their tails like worms among the damp wood chips.

He peeped a fingertip through the bars of one. A mouse stopped grooming its short fur to look up at his finger, then approached it to sniff it.

"Hello, Bard," Mouse whispered, opening the cage softly and holding his palm beneath the exit. Bard swiftly scampered to his hand, and he closed the cage and sat on the hard floor.

"Bard, up." Like a puppet without strings, the mouse obediently lifted itself onto its hind feet, balancing itself well on his flat palm. He watched it with unblinking eyes.

"Run around, Bard."

The mouse jumped off his palm and scampered to the wall. Once reaching it, it turned and skirted around the room, keeping its body so close to the wall that its fur brushed it. Upon finishing its lap, Bard went back to Mouse and jumped onto his palm.

Mouse stroked Bard's head with the thumb of his other hand.

"The Reaping's today, Bard," he said softly, his gray eyes looking at the mouse's white ones. His teeth clenched, just for a moment, then relaxed. "There's very low chance that I'm going to get chosen, according to Professor Wallace."

He glanced around the room, then whispered, "Do you think I can trust him?"

"It's a shame that every single individual in this large, dreary district is required to attend!" Professor Wallace complained, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. His other hand sat on Mouse's bony shoulder, guiding him through the streets. Now they were flooded with people, but the direction of the flow didn't branch off into separate factories as it usually did. They all had the same destination: the city square.

"Yes, Professor Wallace," Mouse answered automatically.

Wallace looked down at his test subject. "Nervous, are you?"

"No, Professor Wallace."

"Oh? I'm surprised," he commented, his thin, inky eyebrows raised. "I am used to seeing you display signs of fear, Mouse, but you are now displaying bravery! I hope this is not pleasure-not like you've had that in years, though!"

He guffawed at his own comment. Mouse didn't reply, just stared straight ahead. Another kid was in front of him, not a boy from a laboratory, but unmistakably a boy who spent every day in a factory, his hands callused and blistered from sparks.

Am I a lucky one? he wondered vaguely, his fingers reaching up to touch a circular scar on his forehead. Was he a lucky one?

They arrived at the city square. Like the last time, Mouse found himself amazed at the sheer amount of people. In the labs, there was only him and Professor Wallace. Sometimes there would be others professors that Professor Wallace would lock himself up with for hours, them talking and laughing and discussing. Sometimes Mouse would be with them, on display as they all worked on him, testing him with their electric pokers.

One time one of them brought another test subject. Ash, he believed they called her, because her hair was the same color as the sidewalk outside from chemical poisoning.

If he recalled correctly, she also died that day in the lab. They burnt her body there.

Professor Wallace stayed with him until it was time to get his blood checked, and left him at the table. Mouse didn't as so much as blink when the needle drilled into his finger and looked at his blood with little interest.

He shuffled into the thirteen-year-old crowd, the kids looking at him with some curiosity. Who was this boy, they asked themselves. Have you ever seen him before? No...

But fear overtook them, and their gazes swiftly returned to the stage, where the bowls full of names there waited. As always, Mouse wondered what was written for him. Did they really write 'Mouse' on six strips and place them in the bowl?

As twice before, Mouse watched the ceremony with a bit of fascination, if one could call his blank staring such. The history of Panem had not even so much as interested him until he attended his first Reaping. Then he had learned it-of the fighting, of the Hunger Games, of the sheer amount of humans.

That was, perhaps, the first time he had truly experienced true terror, his fears directed at the glass bowl that he now stared at on the stage. His name was in there. As Professor Wallace said, there was the possibility that the Capitol worker would pluck his name out and he would be in the arena.

The girl that walked onto stage was young, he noticed. Really young, but not quite as young as him. Still, he felt something akin to empathy. She was going to die. The girl had this fact written on her scrawny body. Even he knew this.

The Capitol worker went to the male glass bowl and drew out a piece of paper.

"Igor Apature," she read clearly. He looked around the male area, wondering who exactly this 'Igor' was. The others were looking around too, clearly wondering the same as him.

Looking behind him, Mouse caught Professor Wallace's gaze. The professor's gaze was surprised, stricken almost, and he was staring directly at Mouse. With jerky motions, he nodded toward the stage, and mouthed, "Go."

He felt a Peacekeeper take his arm. Mouse looked up at him in surprise, and when he tried to walk, found his knees weak.

It was almost dreamlike, how he walked up the stage and stood on it. He barely shook the girl's hand, as he himself was shaking, his whole body. Since when was his name Igor? His name was Mouse. This had to be a mistake. It was!

He suddenly grabbed onto his own arms, guarding himself. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face. He was going to die. He was going to die!

He tried to catch Professor Wallace's gaze, but the professor was looking down. His own eyes were wide, scared, quivering as they darted around everywhere. The mayor's words were lost on his ears. There was only one fact now. He was going to die. His life is going to end.

The peacekeepers hoarded him into the Justice Hall. He sank quickly into the couch, not even bothering to look at his surroundings, and curled in on himself. No tears came out, but the terror was almost tangible in the air. He was going to die.

"I'm going to die," he whispered to himself.

It was as the professor said. There was absolutely no point in hoping that he'd miraculously survive. It was negative. Not going to happen. Sooner Professor Wallace would quick being a scientist than him surviving.

After a space of time that he didn't calculate, the door opened and Professor Wallace stepped in. Mouse stared at him with wide eyes.

Suddenly he broke out into a shaky smile. "I-I guess t-that I'm n-n-not your mouse anymore, P-professor?" he asked shakily, his squeaky voice resembling those of the animal he was named after.

Professor Wallace shook his head. "No, Mouse. You aren't."

Professor Wallace stared at Mouse, Mouse stared at the ground. Suddenly a hand landed on Mouse's head, and he looked up.

Professor Wallace grinned his maniacal, crooked grin. "Get the cheese, Mouse!"

He was gone before Mouse could ask what he meant.