The bed was really comfy, but Diana still woke up early out of habit. She wondered if she should shower again and decided to do it, because she could. As she put her toothbrush back on its little shelf, she wondered what would happen to it once she was gone. Probably thrown out. The staff would definitely steal the toothpaste, though. One of Diana's friends worked in a hotel and he was always showing off the half-empty bottles of expensive hair conditioner and partially used bars of soap.

Much to her surprise, back in her room, an outfit was already lying on the bed, chosen for her. Black tracksuit bottoms and a red long-sleeved shirt with '6' on the back, as well as black running shoes and white underwear and black socks. Diana put it on, and it fortunately fit right, even if the sleeves were a bit too close-fitting.

In the main room, the Mentors still hadn't deigned to show up. At least Elly was there, lying on the couch with his book and a cup of tea. "Good morning," he said.

"Good morning. When's training?"

"Not for a while - it starts at ten." There were hours until then. "You can eat, by the way."

Diana took some food and sat down. Two Avoxes stood at the ends of the laden table, making her shiver. On one of her first dates, they had gone to see a movie about two Avoxes, one who remained a traitor and one who became loyal, and at the end, the unrepentant traitor tried to blow up a subway tunnel. She knew nothing else about Avoxes. The two here looked like they were from a desperately poor background, they were stooped and rickety. Traitorous Peacekeepers? But surely unreliable people wouldn't be allowed into such a prestigious posting as this.

"So what do we do today?"

"Once it gets closer to ten, go to the first basement floor - that's the green button in the elevator. That's where you'll train."

"Any advice?" Diana wished her Mentors were there instead of off somewhere getting high.

Elly spread out his hands. "Try to do the things that might be useful."

Great. Not seeing anything else to do, Diana picked out breakfast. First, she got a bowl of oatmeal with spices, honey, dried fruits, and blackcurrant jam that was the sweetest thing she had ever tried in her life. She then took a solid slice of black loaf bread with a fried egg, the bread nothing like what Diana usually thought of as black loaf bread, flavourful and delicious and with a pleasant texture instead of a lump of 'eat potatoes if you don't like this'.

Grandpa was still hopping mad at the memory of the ex-city mayor saying 'if you can't afford bread, just eat potatoes', and that had been thirty years ago. Diana wasn't sure why - Tyro Small hadn't been wrong, potatoes were cheaper than bread.

Diana looked around the table and settled on a piece of salty, crumbly cheese. Next, she took a banana, and after that - a piece of light flatbread with chickpea dip. She was beginning to feel full, so she finished that off with a piece of chocolate. Chocolate was her favourite food, but she only got to eat it a few times a year.

Diana watched television (it was all Games content, of course) and stared out the window until Rafael showed up. He must have taken the opposite route as her and slept in when he got the chance. The centre of the Capitol looked quite bright, but off in the distance, she could see greyness. Was Leonella scrutinizing the Tributes as always, making preliminary guesses at who had a chance, or was it too hard this year?

The coverage was fairly typical and yielded nothing of particular importance. The boy from One may have been born on a cocoa plantation, but everyone knew full well he hadn't worked there since a young age. Diana herself wasn't talked about much. The program hosts remarked on her looking relatively fit, speculated if her elementary-school diploma would help (no, unless gym class counted), whether her apprenticeship would help (also no) and tried to estimate how much money her family could raise (a decent amount).

"Do we know if she has a significant other?" one host asked another. Diana cringed. She didn't want this talked about on national television.

"Not at the moment, as far as we could tell."

"Well, let's hope she's on good terms with her exes. Any donor can be crucial."

The one thing she did have in spades were exes, but Diana doubted they had much money to contribute.

"Go now." Elly's voice tore Diana from her thoughts. Rafael had already finished eating and was lying on the couch. "No harm in being early."

Diana and Rafael went down in silence. They were alone in the elevator, going down floor by floor until it reached B1. The doors opened to a small corridor that led right to the large, well, training centre. The Fours were already there, as was the instructor, a man a little bit shorter than her but with really broad shoulders. He wore an NCIA uniform and a patch of Unit 3214. A real fighter, a counter-terrorist operative, not like the corrupt Peacekeepers back home who'd have you shot for treason because you called the mayor an idiot while standing in a queue.

Bit by bit, more Tributes trickled in. Diana made sure to stand like she did when seeing thugs lurking around. Yeah, she wasn't particularly big, but if you looked like you would fight back, that put off a lot of people. Even the toughest toughs preferred to go after those who looked like they wouldn't fight back.

Diana's initial observations were confirmed. She could have taken any of the non-Career girls right now with her bare hands, and the younger boys as well. Even those her age looked completely freaked out. This was not the time to freak out. Besides, they looked like they had already been destroyed by the hard work they did. Diana was so grateful to her family for making her go to school. She was well-fed and didn't have any chronic injuries, wasn't coughing from silicosis or byssinosis or plain old TB, stood straight, and didn't resemble a skeleton like so many of the adolescent boys back home. Everyone knew that workers were stronger than middle-class people, but it took longer for working-class youths to grow and, especially in rural regions, starting heavy work too early made you weak. Two of the Tributes were wearing glasses all of a sudden. Malnutrition was bad for the eyes, too. The boy from Nine seemed to already have skin cancer. Well, it's not like it mattered now. Diana wondered how many of them had AIDS, or hepatitis, or a hundred other viral diseases.

"Alright!" the NCIA operative said once the last two, the Sevens, showed up. "I'm Aulus, head trainer here and in the NCIA academy. First, I just want to thank you for your sacrifice." For fuck's sake, was everyone going to say that? "You will be here for two and a half days and then have a chance to demonstrate your skills in front of a panel of Gamemakers. You can use whichever station you want for as long as you want. No fighting each other, that's what the Arena's for. Lunch will be served at 13:00 right here. Good luck!"

And that was that. Diana immediately went to the first aid station and spent the morning learning how to treat various injuries, from burns to sprains to getting your hand bitten off. The instructor demonstrated different medical supplies and explained how expensive they were relative to each other. Some were so expensive, he showed different ways to use cheaper materials for a similar effect. Diana really hoped she would never need to tourniquet one of her arms. The real, Peacekeeper-grade one could be put on one-handed, it was specifically made for that, but it would cost a fortune.

As Diana practiced, she also studied her enemies. The Careers spent their time messing around with the heavy weapons, with the girl from One probably the most terrifying - at her metre eighty-five and with her broad shoulders, she could effortlessly draw the large bow and hit bullseye from every distance. Diana would have to avoid her like the plague. The boy from Four was a master with spears, but that didn't seem quite as scary as the arrows zipping by too fast to see. The Tributes from One barely spoke English and needed the boy from Four to interpret for them.

A few of the others were too disoriented to do more than wander around. Some went for the survival stations, clearly hoping they would be able to outlast somehow. No chance of that. The lowest number of kills by a Victor was two, and besides, three days wasn't enough to learn how to forage, Mom and Dad still asked Grandpa to confirm that the mushrooms were edible and they were in their late thirties. A few of the younger kids were sticking together. They spent maybe half an hour at the first aid station before leaving. Diana spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to her.

A gong sounded, calling them to lunch. Diana was hungry by now, so she gladly went to a little side room with food on carts around the walls and tables in the middle. Weirdly enough, there was no meat available, which you wouldn't expect at such a fancy place, especially in a situation where there was no host who might have a weak stomach or whatever else. Had someone skimmed the budget? Well, no big deal, Diana was used to eating very little meat. She got herself a bowl of lentil stew, baked and fresh vegetables, an orange, a boiled egg, and a peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwich. She ate alone, keeping a distance from the others and trying to project an aura of solidity and calm. After lunch, she went back to the first aid station.

The next two days, she spent trying out different foods and learning how to fight with various knives. The instructor warned her that a knife-on-knife fight was likely to kill both participants, but there was always sneaking up on people. She wouldn't be capable of fighting an armed adversary, but it was better than nothing. Three days really wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. With half an hour remaining in the morning, the instructor said that she was as good as someone could be with so little training and suggested she look around the other stations.

Diana wanted to keep going, but she was also very tired and didn't think it would make sense to keep on sparring. She drank some water at a fountain and walked around, taking note of what everyone was doing, whether they were obviously panicking or focused or, in the case of the Careers, messing around. Diana tried the climbing wall, which was fun but had nothing in common with potential climbable obstacles. A few years back, the boy from Eleven tried to get away from the pack by scaling a cliff, but the higher he had gotten, the fewer holds there had been, and eventually he got to a place where he couldn't go up and couldn't go down, either. Even edited down, his terror and eventual fall had been hard to watch.

Diana tried to snap out of her thoughts by trying out knife-throwing, which was right next to the axe-throwing, which the Careers had occupied. Diana didn't expect much from her throws and got exactly that. Her knife, if she got one, would be staying in her hand.

"That was awful," the girl from Four said with a smirk.

Diana was a bit taken aback - on the television, the Careers were cool and businesslike and, at most, a little bit arrogant, but never mocking. Still, she knew what to do. Last year, when she had been lifting weights in a friend's garage, someone had made fun of her for lifting small weights, and she had retorted that his face wouldn't have looked so pretty anymore when she smashed her two-kilo weight into it.

He had beaten her up later, so maybe antagonism wasn't the way to go. And in any case, the other Careers were carefully ignoring them.

"No big deal," Diana said. "Just playing around. I'll show you what's what in the Arena." She then went to the fire-making station to watch Tributes struggle to light fires. Diana knew how to make fire with matches, so in the event the Arena was safe to light fires in, she'd just wait to get one. A single match wasn't expensive.

At lunch, the boy from Eleven sat down next to her as Diana devoured a bowl of delicious chickpea-and-cauliflower stew with rice. "I saw you fighting," he said. "I know how to survive in the wilderness, I'm from a farm and we go hunting and foraging all the time. Do you want to team up?"

He probably wanted to stab her in the back because she was a strong candidate. "I can kill you quickly," she offered. "How do you propose we meet up after the Bloodbath, anyway?"

The boy slunk away and left Diana to her stew. It was spiced to perfection, just enough to leave a warm aftertaste but not so much that it was pungent and overpowered the taste of the stew, and the realization that she would never get to tell her family about the recipe made her choke back tears.

For her individual evaluation, she showed off what she could do to an audience of Gamemakers more interested in their phones and left. By now, she was used to Elly and the Mentors ignoring her. Diana sat on the couch, ate chocolate, and watched the scores appear on the screen. Here, it was boys before girls, so Rafael's score would be first.

Diana couldn't guess at why each Tribute got the score they did, the Careers had all looked intimidating to her and the others might have been saving some secret skill for the Gamemakers. Still, she noted the scores to herself, just in case.

1M - 8

1F - 8

Odd, that archery of hers had been terrifying. Maybe she couldn't do anything else? Or maybe the Gamemakers didn't like Spanish-speaking people.

2M - 10

2F - 8

3M - 5

3F - 6

4M - 11

Wow, you didn't see that every year. She'd have to stay far away from him.

4F - 9

5M - 4

5F - 3

Rafael got a five and Diana got a seven. Phew. That made her a solid contender - as long as she didn't screw up or get unlucky. Or if there was another dark horse candidate who did even better than her.

7M - 4

7F - 6

8M - 5

8F - 9

The hell? That was better than the Ones! What could a skinny seventeen-year-old hacking up her lungs half the time have to offer? Diana hoped she'd die early.

At least Diana had another ace up her sleeve. She really, really needed to do well in the interview.

9M - 4

9F - 6

10M - 2

10F - 4

11M - 3

11F - 5

12M - 5

12F - 4

"Well, you're screwed," Popescu said sourly. Her voice made Diana feel angry, and the fact that the announcers were discussing the girl from Eight did not improve her mood.

"Thank you very much," Rafael snapped. "Anything more useful?"

"Nothing can save you two. Nothing. Just make peace with it."

"But you survived," Rafael said, almost pleading.

"Wish I hadn't. Now get out. Tomorrow's the interview."

Diana had little expectations for the next day, and they were met. She and Rafael were completely left to their own devices. Diana planned out her interview as best as she could and then the two of them watched television in silence.

Ever since Leonella had gotten old enough to watch the Games, they had all sat together on the couch in the evenings with her providing ever more sophisticated commentary with every passing year. What would her sister say about her score?

It was time to get ready. Once again, they were dressed in extremely expensive outfits with elaborate makeup and had their nails painted. Warner put her in a dress that Diana would have once killed to be able to wear - and that Grandpa would have killed her for putting on. But wearing something with insane cleavage wasn't fun when it was calculated to appeal to random rich people, not the person she had her eye on.

"You have a good figure," Warner said as Diana tried to get comfortable. The dress was tight in the torso. "Better than most Tributes I've seen."

That was because of Diana getting enough to eat for her entire life. Hard to grow a decent pair of tits when you went hungry half the time. "Thanks."

"Now, how much experience do you have with high heels?"

"None." Diana had her own bank account where she deposited a quarter of her wages, but had she spent her money on heels, her parents would have been really mad.

"Flats, then. You're already at a good height for a non-volunteer."

That just reminded Diana that the volunteers - the Careers - were better prepared than her in every way, and she couldn't shake the mental image of the congregation at home reciting the Mourners' Kaddish. The words of the prayer echoed in her head as she put on the okay-fitting flats.

Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba…

Magnified and sanctified is the great name of G-d…

By the time they were being taken for the interviews themselves, Diana was still worried, but not about the Games - about being able to say what she wanted to say. With her good but not noteworthy score, this was her only chance to get noticed. The interviews before hers were fairly unremarkable and predictable (the Tributes from One appeared to be stupid because of the language barrier, but their scores compensated for it), but she was still afraid.

"And now our female Tribute from Six, Diana Cohen!"

Diana walked across the stage and sat down opposite Flickerman, whose hair and eyelids were a light-orange this year. Diana had a friend who got his eyeshadow colour every year and wore it for the rest of the year. Was he still doing it this year, or was it too weird? It was unfair how everyone's Games-watching routines had been upended by her selection. Hard to make bets and have fun when Diana was the one going to die.

Oh God, she was going to die.

"Good evening," Flickerman said.

"Good evening," Diana replied, mindful of her posture. She was trying to mimic the thugs you really didn't want to mess with - confidence, arrogance, but not excessively aggressive and overcompensating - but it was hard in such an expensive outfit. Bandit in an upscale club, then, laying out their side of the argument with the promise that once they were behind the garages in something more comfortable, the adversary would not like what happened. She also sat in a way that made her tits look more impressive, to appeal from that angle.

"So, a seven - one of our better scores, but not particularly high." The question was implied.

"It's as high as it needs to be." Diana gestured with her arms out of instinct developed through observation. She looked at herself on the screen. Yes, every bit the thug spoiling for a fight at the club. "Let's be real - below me is Bloodbath bait, above me is some one-trick TB-ridden pony and volunteers who, let's be real, aren't in this to win."

"Oho!" Flickerman said as the audience cheered approvingly. It was rare that someone was so aggressive. "And you are?"

"I am mindful of the odds and aware I will more likely than not perform the ultimate sacrifice for the nation, but yes, my goal here is to win, and there is nothing I will balk at to achieve that and go home." She emphasized that with dramatic arm movements to more applause.

"Is there something in particular you want to go back for?"

Diana glanced at the clock. Perfect timing. "Well, my family and friends, of course," Diana said. "Or just the little things, like singing as I cooked."

"Oh, you like to sing?" Flickerman could be trusted to latch on to such details.

"I do. Should I sing now?" Her heart was racing now with anticipation.

"Yes, but keep it short please!"

Diana knew it would be rougher than she would have liked, but that was not the issue. She stood up and launched into Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel. It felt strange to be singing in Hebrew so openly. Someone in the audience leapt to their feet, screamed, grabbed their head, and fell back down into their seat, and Diana felt a chill - not of fear, but of a strange emotion she belatedly recognized as happiness. Was this the first time this person had ever heard the language spoken outside the synagogue? How amazing, that she was from Six and they were from the Capitol and they had this in common. This was what community meant. Despite everything, they shared a deep connection that could not be destroyed. This person's support would be with her and nobody else. Their money would be going to her supplies.

Diana focused on singing. She had never felt so confident in front of a group of people before. She looked at them and felt no awkwardness or hesitation. She just sang, pouring all of the emotions she could into the song, her gestures more expansive than they had ever been.

Suddenly, she realized that the song was from a European point of view - it mentioned looking eastwards towards Zion even though Middle Eastern Jews would have been looking west and Ethiopians - north. Why was she thinking about random things? She needed to focus.

"'Od lo avdah tikvatenu,

"Hatikvah bat shnot 'alpayim,

"Lihyot 'am chofshi be'artzenu,

"'Eretz-Tziyon virushalayim.

"Lihyot 'am chofshi be'artzenu,

"'Eretz-Tziyon virushalayim!"

Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope of two thousand years,

To be a free nation in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Once she was done, everyone applauded. "That wasn't English," Flickerman stated the obvious.

"No, it's an old language called Hebrew," Diana said, and right on cue, time was up and he couldn't prod further. Smiling happily, she sat back down. This had served two purposes - anyone at least halfway in the community or at least aware of their Judaism knew what Hebrew was, so this would have gotten their attention, and the performance of this very Zionist song about returning to the ancient homeland, when someone like Rabbi Simon told people abroad, was sure to get all of Israel standing on their ears and possibly even doing something about Panem.

How lucky she really was to belong to a community that, despite being so dispersed all over the country, was still a coherent whole. Diana listened to Rafael (unimpressive body covered up with a conservative suit) tell Flickerman about being a farmer. Alright, so now anyone who also farmed soy would feel a kinship with the boy, but Diana was still certain that she would have far more Jews donating money for her than tradespeople. It was just a question of what made you feel like this person was someone you care about.

The morning of the Games, the Mentors were at least there, but they were high and said nothing. Diana was beginning to feel terrified once again. She could literally be dead in an hour and that would be it. To calm herself down, Diana focused on her plans. Get a knife. Get supplies. Kill someone, but only if there's an easy target. The thought made her feel ill, she didn't want to kill anyone, but just because Jews were like one giant family that all mooched off the rich uncle didn't mean she would be supported by the one rich Jew in Panem - she also needed to appeal to rich Capitolites of every single stripe, and she needed to look like a strong candidate for that.

Diana took deep breaths. She had to be like her family members who had fought in the Dark Days, like Great-Aunt Leah and Great-Uncle Daniel and Mom's Grandpa Hillel and everyone else. They had fought for the nation. Now it was her turn. Great-Grandpa Hillel had made it home, and so could she.

She needed to get away from the Cornucopia very fast. If there were woods or an extremely mountainous terrain, that would be easy, but if it was like Young's Arena and was a giant expanse of flat rock there would be trouble. In that case, she'd have to get as far away as possible from anything. Fortunately, most Arenas were wooded to some extent, because otherwise the Games ended quickly. There was also a chance of something completely artificial, but that could be literally anything, so there was no point trying to prepare for it.

One short hovercraft flight later, she was in an underground room where a launchpad was located on one side, taunting her with its immediacy. Diana vaguely remembered something someone at synagogue said once at a history class and shivered.

Nobody was able to later tell what it was like to enter the gas chambers, because those who did, died.

Diana looked around the grey walls of the antechamber to the grave. An odd, dull feeling spread through her as she realized she would never be able to tell anyone about this. She would be dead in hours, or days. And that would be that. An apprentice boilermaker who changed partners like socks would be gone, and the only thing most people would think was that Six's female Tribute had died. She really hadn't done anything with her life. But did anyone, when they were eighteen? Great-Aunt Leah had been conscripted at thirteen. Had she died thinking how unfair it was that she never got to do anything?

No. She wasn't giving up yet. One person would be walking out of here, and she'd be damned if she didn't do everything in her power to make sure that was her.

Diana did her best to eat and drink and changed into the provided clothes, making sure the siddur was in a trousers pocket, as promised. Warner said that the clothes were suitable for very hot temperatures, but probably not the point of the Arena being a hot desert. That was a relief. Aside from the trousers, which were very thin and had a lot of pockets, there was a long-sleeved shirt, a thin jacket, solid boots, and a stiff-brimmed cap. Warner explained that the material would keep her temperature even.

"Might be cold nights," she said, studying the fabric of her jacket. It was seriously impressive how she could tell all this just by touching the cloth. "Not too cold, though, so the temperature shifts shouldn't be too extreme."

"Good to know," Diana said, feeling like she was going to throw up, and very envious of the stylist for being able to stay back here when she literally had to go out and die horribly. At least the clothes were nice and loose. She ran a comb through her hair one last time, glad it was short. She wouldn't have to worry about it getting in her face. Out of curiosity - it's not like she would ever get another chance to wonder - she asked the question that had popped into her mind. "Do Tributes with long hair get elastics?"

"Those whose hair is long enough to tie back get one if they don't have one already. If it isn't long enough for that, it's cut short."

"Makes sense." Diana put the brush down and found that she didn't know what to do with her hands. She settled for munching on a piece of bread.

"Good luck," Warner said perfunctorily.

"Thank you."

A voice said to prepare for launch. Diana stepped into the tube, insides clenching painfully. The door shut with a quiet whoosh and it went up into darkness.

A/N: I've had delicious store-bought rye bread, but the stuff I make is sticky and an ugly brownish-grey. No idea what I'm missing.

Byssinosis is caused by repeated inhalation of cotton or jute dust. I have read accounts of very young people dying from it as a result of working in yarn and textile manufacturing without PPE from childhood.

By 'garages', Diana means a row of garages a small distance from a tenement block. Behind them, one can see people discussing geopolitics with a bottle in hand and hashing out differences.

Hatikvah was written in 1878 by Naftali Herz Imber, who lived in what is now Ukraine. The Eurocentric assumption in the line 'And onward, towards the ends of the east, an eye still gazes toward Zion' only hit me when someone in a Jewish youth group pointed it out.