I'm back, with the District 3 reapings! I know this is out of order, but there was a reason for it which I believe I explained last chapter. Thanks to demigodgirl1000 for Sever and Rainbow unicorns on squish for Sheabelle.

OMTL, I am so sorry this was so late! I had all the way to goodbyes done two weeks ago, and I had just been too busy to finish it! That, and the fact that my laptop, Marzie, finally gave out on me and died once and for all, (which MAY have been sped along by the fact that I dropped it on hardwood…) and so I lost my outline for this story and also a place to type.

But over with the excuses. May I present, District 3.

District 3: Sever Cinder

I quickly look over to my experiment, which has begun to fizz over slightly, then scribble some notes on a piece of paper. Carefully, I add three drops of liquid nitrogen.

The experiment bubbles and froths over, and I jump back in alarm. I grab as many of the papers off the floor as I can, but the chemicals reach one of the sheets, thankfully blank, and the paper dissolves.

I hop up onto a bed to get away from the flow of acid. Quickly, I wrote down the outcome on some of the salvaged paper.

The second blend of chemicals has a desirable outcome. It has produced an corrosive acid, as I suspected. It seems to have no effect on wood, but the acid can disintegrate paper. If I add more liquid nitrogen, I believe it could possibly have a similar effect on wood, and in large quantities, possibly on metal.

Satisfied for now, I store my notes away. I can transfer them to the walls later, after the reapings. Glancing around at my room, I frown. I guess I'll have to transfer them to the ceiling. My walls are already full of notes and theorems.

My attention is drawn to the next problem: the pool of acid on my floor. I grab a towel and try to soak it up that way, but the towel dissolves as well. I frown. Cleaning this up is going to be a bigger problem than I thought. Maybe I can evaporate it…?

But just as I am bringing out the heat lamp, Dasher, my younger brother, comes into the room. He's about to step in the puddle when he notices and stops short.

"Another experiment?" he questions good-naturedly.

"Yeah, it overflowed a little."

Dasher glances at the spreading puddle. "A little, huh? Well, anyway, Mom says that you have to get ready for the reapings. It's almost noon."

I nod.

"Mom also says that if you aren't ready in ten minutes, she'll leave without you."

I shrug. "I doubt she will, but okay."

With one last glance at the spill, Dasher leaves the room.

Sighing, I put the heat lamp aside. Carefully walking around the slightly-smoking puddle, I make my way to my wardrobe. I don't worry over what to wear: I only have one fancy outfit, which is a plain tuxedo. After putting that on, I put on white gloves.

If I get reaped, I don't want everyone freaking out about the fact that I'm half machine.

Well, technically, I just have two robotic appendages: my arm and my leg on my right side. When I was fifteen, there was an explosion at the factory my father worked at. I was fixing some machines when alarms started to go off. My dad told me to go outside, to wait until it was over, just in case…

And then it exploded. And when I woke up, my arm and my leg were gone, amputated because of severe burns that turned my limbs into charcoal.

My sister, Karma, made the appendages from bits of metal she snitched from her factory. After she finished making it, though, she was caught. She's in prison, now, for "treason against the Capitol."

Like stealing is such a heinous crime compared to all the things that happened in the riots. If all those people were imprisoned for "treason against the Capitol," the cells would be full to bursting. But of course, the Capitol is so kind and generous to give all those people pardons, while lowly thieves like Karma get tossed in jail.

It sickens me, the Capitol. It's a kingdom of idiots, with cruel persons not so much officials as puppeteers, controlling how the Capitol thinks.

And they rule us. Idiots and puppeteers control us.

Lovely.

I finish with the tuxedo and carefully arrange the heat lamp over the spill. Some steam starts to rise from it, so I can only assume that it's working. Hopefully, it won't turn into some noxious gas.

Walking out of my room, I see that I was right; Mom has not fulfilled her threat.

"Hurry up! We have to go!" she cries, ushering us out the door.

Dasher and I follow her dutifully, like a little brood of chicks following the mother duck. Her fast walking pace gets us to the town square in soon, and it's in sight in no time.

I'm not focused on the stage, though, I'm more interested on a lifting mechanism that's being used on a construction site a few yards away.

"Mom, I'll be right there, okay?" I say, and run over to the site.

The lifting mechanism appears to actually be almost like a smaller version of the lifters used on hovercraft. I pull a pen and piece of paper out of my pocket and scribble down the basic blueprints of the lifter. It's quite ingenious, actually. After the reapings I'll have to take a closer look at it.

I can hear the reapings starting in the square, and I run in, checking in with the Peacekeeper as quickly as possible.

The Treaty of Treason has just finished by the time I get there, and the escort is in the spotlight now.

"Hello, District 3. I expect that whoever I draw from this ball should win, not like those weaklings last time. Seriously? They were victors, and only one survived. Pathetic. And the year before that, neither made it! One was a bloodbath!"

He glares at the crowd, which although I suppose is supposed to be intimidating, is only funny, as his skin is a bright, hot pink. I can't help but to laugh a bit. I do wonder, though, how do they dye their skin? Maybe they inject it, as a surface dye would wear off…but how would it spread? Unless it was like a full-body tattoo, but that would be painful, and then it wouldn't be as widespread as a fashion statement….but then again, it is the Capitol. Who knows? I make a note to ask him.

The escort finishes his rant about he expects for there to be a victor from Three this year. He scowls.

"And if you really need to know, my name is Happy Face."

I burst out laughing, as does most of the crowd.

"It's not funny!" he yells. "I had no say in the matter whatsoever!"

This only makes the crowd laugh even more.

He glowers and stops over to the closest reaping ball, the boy's.

I stiffen a little, as do the other boys.

The laughing stops.

He sticks his hand in and pulls out a slip.

"SEVER CINDER!" he declares in a loud voice.

What?

I freeze.

This isn't possible…I didn't take out tesserae. My mind races, trying to figure out the possibility of my name being called.

Approximately 9,000 citizens…..about half is kids, 4,500….if all the ages have an equal amount of people, 0.63 of them are eligible…that's 2,385 children eligible….if half of them are boys, then there's 1192 of them who have their names in the bowl. Not including the advancing-by-age factor, or boys who do take out tesserae….

Even then, I have a .005% of being chosen.

So I have less then .005% chance.

But I got chosen…

Someone is pushing me forwards. I stumble up to the stage, repeating that figure over and over.

.005%...

.005%...

.005%

Happy Face glares at me. "Hmm. Doesn't live up to the promise of his name. At least he'll sound intimidating…"

I ignore him.

.005%

Less than .005%.

I still can't wrap my mind around that.

Happy groans and walks over to the girl's reaping ball. "Maybe this one will be more victor quality," he snarks.

He pulls a name out of the glass.

"SHEABELLE DAVIDSON!"

A pale, blonde girl walks up shakily. Was this how I looked when I came up? I hope not. Her face looks like she's trying to be stony faced, but she's trembling and her eyes are puffy. Definitely not stony.

She's actually a tad on the pudgy side, which is unusual. Even though District Three is much better off than many of the other Districts, it's still pretty rare to see someone who's on the overweight side.

It's probably just her metabolism or something, but I'll have to ask. I understand quite well that it's a rude question, but I'm curious, and when I'm curious, nothing is going to stop me from asking.

"Any volunteers for either of them?" Happy asks.

No one comes up, as expected.

Logic really sucks, sometimes, because it has this way of shoving hope to the back of your mind.

Maybe it's not like for all people, but it is for me.

"Well, then District Three, your two, definitely not victor material, sorry to say, tributes!"

We shake hands. I note that hers is shaky.

Is mine? I quickly check, it isn't. Good.

As we're led into the visiting rooms, I wonder why I'm not crying or upset. I am going into the Hunger Games, after all.

I decide that it just hasn't sunk in yet. It feels unreal, sort of like a dream.

I look around my surroundings. Is it a dream? It would make sense…no, it isn't. It doesn't have that dream-like quality. Plus, it's only when you're awake that you wonder if you're dreaming. When you are dreaming, many things are completely unreal, but because you're dreaming, it feels completely natural. That's the difference between dreams and real life, I decide. In dreams, unreal things seem real. In real life, unreal things seem unreal.

I smile, pleased with myself and my discovery. It's rather philosophical, I think, something I don't ponder often, so it's nice to discover something in that area.

My smile drops when Dasher comes in, though, looking aghast and sorrowful but sadly and shockingly-utterly defeated. Mom's with him, and she's openly crying. I don't think I've ever seen her cry before this, except when Dad died.

It's sinking in now…

I'm going to my death. She's crying because I may as well already be dead.

I'm never going to see Dasher or Mom again.

Karma will never see me again, and I will never see her, because prisoners aren't allowed to come to reapings, and they're not allowed to visit people even if they did know who got reaped.

I'm probably going to kill people.

And everyone's going to find out that I'm half metal, which is the least of my concerns, but is still worrisome.

We don't say much, my family and I. We mostly just hug and cry and try to savor what is most likely the last time we'll see each other.

I don't cry, though. I want to, the knot in my throat is begging me to. But in my mind, I know that this game is one that has to be played out logically. And logically, if I cry, the Capitolians, my potential sponsors, will think I'm weak, and I'll lose them.

And more than anything, I want to come back alive.

Mom and Dasher sniff some more and give me a last long, lingering hug. Dasher takes a deep breath and thrusts something into my hand. I look at it. It's a metal battery, the type I use for my limbs, and tied to a string to look like a pendant.

"I thought that you might need this," Dasher chokes out. "Just in case it runs out, you know?" he attempts a smile and fails. I do the same.

"Thanks, Dasher."

"Yeah, no problem," he says weakly, before bursting into tears again.

The Peacekeepers signal for them to leave, but they stay by my side. I don't push them away. I want them to stay as long as possible, just to be in their presence and know that I'm safe.

The Peacekeepers come over and grab Dasher and Mom and start forcing them out the doors.

"I love you!" Mom cries as the Peacekeepers push her away. "Remember that, Sever! Always remember-"

Her voice is cut off as they make her leave the room, but I can faintly hear the end of the sentence.

That I love you.

I take a deep breath as a shudder of a sob wracks my body: my mind screaming for me to cry.

I steady myself and wait for my next visitors.

My friends come next. The whole thing seems to flash by so quickly: Keener, Skene, and Sparx: three people who used to be Karma's friends, and are now mine, offering me encouragement through their obvious layers of worry; Trine, my study partner, crying as she walks in, sobbing about how she'll miss me when I'm dead and how she'll miss our conversations in the library. It's a bit depressing how she assumes that I'll die, but I can't blame her. I'm leaning towards assuming the same. Pivot is next: the only person besides my direct family who knows about my metal appendages. He tells me all about how I'll be sure to win, and offers strategies weakly. I've already thought of all of them, but that doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts, right?

Once they leave, I simply sit.

Sit and think.

It always comes down to this in the end.

Here it is!

Finished!

Amazing!

So, reviews?

Please?

They would be greatly appreciated.

So R&R!

~Myrtle