This is it folks, the final Reaping! thank you for sticking with me so far :) Without further adieu... District 12!

Octavian Voltaire POV

My prey is just sitting there, completely oblivious to my existence in the trees above him. I signal silently to Auva to move in on the creature from the north, while I wait to ambush it from a southward position. The rabbit's ears perk up as Auva approaches, louder than perhaps she should be. It starts running, in the opposite direction to me.

"C'mon you should've seen this coming" I say to myself. Talking to myself somehow calms me down when I'm nervous or anxious. Right now I have a rabbit to chase down. It bounds left and right, while I chase it silently but just as swiftly through the treetops. It pauses for a second to see whether it's still being pursued, that's when I strike. I launch myself out from the leaves and practically land on the poor critter, breaking its spine immediately. Normally I would've used my sword, but I didn't have time to draw it. The sword is an heirloom, passed through my family. Of course I can't have it inside the fence, but out here anything goes, so long as you don't get caught. Hunting like this reminds me of the stories I've read about Katniss Everdeen. I know she used to hunt in these very woods from the books I've collected about her. She led a rebellion against the Capitol, which is exactly my dream, except I will succeed where she failed.

Auva comes crashing through the underbrush. "Damn you 9-Volt!" she exclaims."I almost had the little guy."

I laugh at her obvious lie and grab the rabbit by its hind legs. "You wish. Now let's go before a patrol comes by and spots us. Last time we were cutting it close and the Peacekeepers will be especially alert today since its Reaping day." Auva is the only one who calls me 9-Volt, mainly because I was born exactly 9 months before her. Normally I prefer to be called Travis because I hate the name Octavian, but Auva would never call me that.

"Yeah I guess" Auva agrees, and we trudge off together to the practically nonexistent fence. It's designed to keep us citizens out, but district 12 is so poor that even the government can't maintain its own infrastructure. Only certain sections of the fence are 'live' and these are the least guarded areas. That's how we get out. Even the live fences have dead-zones that can be exploited; all you need to do is know the right spots. I spent a whole day figuring out one particular section of fence near my house so now I know every live and dead zone there could be.

Auva snatches our catch from me as we approach the fence. "May I?" she asks excitedly.

I gesture at the fence as if to say 'go ahead.' With great accuracy Auva throws the rabbit into the fence, striking a live zone in the process. For a moment nothing happens, then thousands of volts of electricity surge through the cables and fry the already dead creature to a crisp. I pick it up from where it landed close to me, now it's fairly cooked and ready to eat. Sure, it's by no means conventional, but it saves heaps on the home electricity bill by fence-cooking rather than oven-cooking.

Even though my dad's a butcher it's not easy to find good meat. District 12 are always given the scraps, which is unfair because most of us are miners that work all day round in the mines and have to come home to a single leg of ham. That's why my dad doesn't really mind me hunting outside the fence, because it means I can help put food on the table so more can go into the shop. It helps everyone really.

The skins of the animals I can give to my mother. Usually she makes cloth from the wool of sheep, but if give her the pelt of a rabbit or a fox, she can make a pair of gloves, or something that we can either use ourselves or sell to others. Only one of my brothers still lives here in District 12; he's a miner. My other brother left us a few years back to work in district 9 as a farmer. He sends us letters from time to time, and a little food to ease the burden. Apparently it isn't so bad over there. My older sister was killed 10years ago in the Hunger Games; I was 6 at the time. Luckily my parents still had the three sons to look after so they didn't fall apart completely. But in the young mind of a boy I blamed the hunger games for my sister's death and not the tribute that slayed her. To this day I still hate the hunger games for what they did to me and my family. My oldest brother tried to volunteer for her when she was reaped. The Peacekeepers laughed as they whipped him; saying that he wanted to be a girl. He's ok now, we're all ok, but the mental anguish we suffered at the hands of the Capitol and its stupid games was excruciating.

Now it's my turn to have my head on the chopping block. At 16 I'm the only one in my family still eligible for the hunger games. Unfortunately I turn 17 in a month's. Only a few weeks earlier and I'd have two Reapings to look forward to, not three. Auva and I drop the rabbit off at my father's butcher shop before making our way to the reaping. I wanted to say hi to dad but Brent –his assistant- had said he was busy on an errand.

The two of us arrive with plenty of time to spare. The Reapings in District 12 are a very sad affair. We don't even have a mentor, as there hasn't been a single winner of the hunger games from here since the 74th hunger games, where Katniss and Peeta were crowned the victors. They're long gone and now there's no-one left to lead the tributes through their time of strife. Everyone knows that being Reaped in District 12 is equivalent to a death sentence. The whole crowd is silent as the escort reaches her pale hand into the bowl of names, drawing a card out with great care.

"And the male representative from District 12 this year is Octavian Voltaire!"

Rather than feeling sadness, a fury erupts within me. I storm up to the podium in a fit of rage. The Capitol takes my sister, and now they're trying to take me? "Oh no. That's not happening. Not today, not EVER! I'll see everyone in that arena dead by my own hand if it means coming out alive."

Laura Watson POV

I truly can't imagine anything better than watching the sunrise. It's the mixture of reds, blues and oranges that light up the sky to create magic. I shake myself out of my reverie and get back to work. Because I'm quite tall and strong for a 15 year old girl, my dad lets me help him out while he's mining. He won't ever let me go into the tunnels, but any coal that he manages to lug out, I cart back to the refinery. It's not a very fun job, but it helps my dad and it means he doesn't have to pay a stranger twice as much to do half the work.

My dad comes out of the tunnel, a lantern in one hand, and his pickaxe in the other. "Laura I think that's enough for today, you'll want to be getting your stuff ready for the Reapings." He wipes the sweat off of his forehead and waits for my response, but I'm completely frozen. I can't take my eyes away from the lantern light. The more I stare at it the more trapped I feel and my chest starts to ache. Quickly realizing the problem my dad quickly snuffs out the flame and throws the lantern away. I sink to the floor and he comes down to cradle me in his arms.

I have a deadly fear of fire. It's not like one of those irrational fears either. This fear is founded solely in reality. Four years ago, when I was 11, my older sister and I had been left alone at home. It was something that happened often in those days, my mum would leave home before sunrise to go to the early markets to buy fresh food and supplies, while my dad would leave early to mine before any others got there and picked the good spots. My sister was 13 at the time. She had woken up to make herself an early morning snack, but had forgotten to turn the stove off. A few minutes after she went to bed, smoke began to fill the air. Our house had lit on fire! She was the one who woke me, back then and still to this day I can sleep through anything. She saved my life. She ushered me out of the burning house, dodging falling rafters and avoiding damaged floorboards. We were meters from the doorway when the floor gave out beneath us. With one last burst of strength my sister grabbed me by my nightgown and threw me across the threshold. The moment I hit soft dirt the roof caved in and my heroic sister was buried under tons of burning rubble.

It took 3 days to clear the mess, and all they found of my sister's body was a jumble of broken bones. I couldn't sleep for weeks. I'd wake up in a cold sweat thinking only of fire, and the fire that killed my sister. That's why I can't go near any naked flame. It reminds me of that time and I completely freeze up.

My dad walks me home and packs my things while I recover. This sort of thing has happened before so my family knows how to deal with it. My parents always make it a point to come with me and support me during the Reapings and now more than ever I'm grateful for it. I know I'd never be able to get there on my own feeling the way I do, which would only get me in worse trouble with the peacekeepers.

Thankfully I recover enough to move around on my own without assistance, and I thank my dad for helping me. He just pulls me tight and whispers to me that "everything is going to be ok". The three of us walk together to the Reapings and we wait patiently while the rest of the people show up. I spot my friend Pheobe Deadman and excuse myself from my parent's presence to go see her. Pheobe is really my only friend in the district, because she accepts me for all my little quirks.

"Hey" she says as she sees me approaching. "You're just in time for the bore-fest".

I decide not to reply, because I know I'll say something rude. I find it odd that Pheobe cares so little about the Reapings, it's almost like she wouldn't mind if she got reaped. I think it's terrible, sending kids off to die like this. I feel even worse when Octavian Voltaire is called up to be the Male tribute. I don't really know him all that well, but I've seen him around the district, very sneaky-like. It's like he's always planning something in that head of his.

I decide very quickly that it's none of my business what Octavian is thinking and I focus on the escort reading out the name of the female tribute.

"Congratulations to Laura Watson! You've been selected as District 12's female tribute!"

I'm completely shocked, and the look in Pheobe's eyes says that she's feeling sad for me. Just like she's my only friend, I'm hers too. Without me here it will be lonely for her. I give my best friend a suck hug and make my way up to the podium. I can see my parents crying from where they are standing. To think, they lost one daughter only to lose another one now. That thought sets my tears off and I can't help the waterworks that flow. I hope that I can do this, not for me, but for my parents. They don't deserve to be alone.

Tomorrow i'll get started on the good parts, when the tributes finally meet each other! for now i just hope you're enjoying the story so far :)