I can't die. No really, I am unable to die. No one in my family knows how or why, but when I was 5, I got caught in a stampede of cows when I followed my dad to work, yet I survived. Mom freaked out as she saw cow hooves squashing me into the ground over and over again, and with my body being so small, she was sure I was done for. My father and the other workers on the ranch tried their best to lead the cows away, but they said over 100 cows trampled me that day.

I'm glad that didn't kill me. Dying by cows would be too embarrassing. When the cows were depleted, my mom ran to me crying, expecting to see the bloody corpse of her beloved daughter, but instead, she saw her 5 year old blinking up at her.

She told me that my bruises vanished before her eyes, they faded away slowly, like a candle burning out. My father ran over and my mom turned to look at him with her mouth gaping. "She's.. Okay.."

My father didn't believe her, he saw me get trampled by the cattle herd for the capitol, but when I sat up perfectly fine, he fell over.

This was the first time I should have died. Although my parents were glad I was alive, they choked it up to be some miracle, they didn't think I was immortal or something, that would be crazy talk. But when my arm was cut off and reattached it's self, that's when they knew.

I was 7 years old, I was running around with my two older brothers, Claude who was 9 and Lucas who was 12. Lucas was old enough to be reaped for the annual death games coming up soon, so we skipped school to play all day. We ran through our town of dilapidated buildings and starving district 10 folks. We ran around our town center that was being cleared for the reaping coming up, and eventually made it to the slaughter houses.

I held my nose walking by them, the smell of animal feces and rotten meat wafted through the air. "This place stinks, can we go somewhere else?"

"No!" Lucas turned around and shot me puppy eyes with his dark eyes, "this could be my only chance to finally check out the slaughter houses!"

"Hey you're not going to die!" Claude said as he punched Lucas in the arm.

Lucas was silent for a while. "You don't know that... last year Sammy Owen was 13 and he was picked. And you know our family is poor, mom put my name in 3 times for the tesserae! I'm bound to be picked eventually."

Claude and I didn't say anything, Lucas has been having nightmares about being picked for weeks, there's nothing more we can say to him. We followed him as he snuck into one of the slaughterhouses, luckily it was empty so there were no people or animals around.

"Whoa! Look at all this stuff!" Lucas and Claude wasted no time running around the barn with death machines in it. While my brothers acknowledged the blades, I noticed the blood and got an uneasy feeling.

"Guys we should go, I don't like it here.."

"Stop be a wuss Vauldia, these things can't hurt us, they're not even on!" Lucas flicked a big circular saw hanging up. "Besides, I'm probably going to die anyway.."

"Stop saying that!" Claude jumped on a bloody table with tools and buttons "I don't want to hear you say that anymore! You're not being picked for the games and you're NOT dying!" Claude stomped his foot like a toddler.

"Okay okay calm down!" Lucas looked around panicked, as if someone would come in hearing Claude have a tantrum.

Tears started forming in his eyes "I don't want you to go!" Claude stomped his feet some more until we heard some gears turning. He looked down at his foot on a button "uh oh.."

All around us the machines sprung to life, conveyor belts started moving and saws spun around.

"Crap we should go!" Lucas pulled Claude off the table but in doing so, a wire was pulled and a blade came crashing down. "MOVE!" Lucas jumped and pushed all of us out of the. The giant spinning wheel crashed to the ground, sawing the ground and spewing dirt everywhere. The commotion must have alarmed the workers on their break.

"Who's in there?" A loud booming voice gave all of the adrenaline rush we needed to get out of there. We ran and ran until our breathing hurt and we couldn't feel out legs.

Lucas and Claude collapsed on the ground. "Wow that was scary!" Claude said with a smile.

Lucas punched him "that was your fault for acting like a baby!" Lucas imitated a crying face.

Claude's face went red "that's only because you..!"

"Umm guys.." I interrupted them. After all the adrenaline wore off and we were done running, that's when I was finally able to notice. My brothers looked at me with horror on their faces. I was missing an arm.

The boys screamed through the streets while carrying me, "HELP! PLEASE!"

But no one answered, everyone was at work or school.. or too weak from hunger to stand.

Lucas looked down at me with tears in his eyes and Claude was equally hysterical. Surprisingly I was the one unaffected, even though my arm was gone, I wasn't feeling any pain, and it wasn't gushing blood or anything, but my brothers were too hysterical to notice.

Without receiving any help we eventually made it back to our small house on the corner. Fortunately our mom had just returned from shopping, she was peacefully putting bread and canned beans away when we burst through the doors.

"What are you three doin..." before our mom could finish her sentence she saw the panic on my brother's faces and she immediately focused in. "What happened?"

The boys didn't try to explain, they just plopped me down on the kitchen table. My mom gasped as she saw a ripped up bloody arm. Tears started forming "oh my baby.. Lucas, go down to the ranch and fetch your father, Claude, grab the first aid kit from under the.."

"Mom." I piped up. Everyone was so frantic no one seemed to notice what was happening with my arm. "Look."

They all stopped to stare at my arm. Lines of blood, seemingly coming from nowhere, were being drawn into my bloody stump, and more blood flowed in, bone and flesh started to grow around it, and soon, the missing arm was back, it was as if it never left.

No one said a thing, it all happened so fast that no one knew what to do. Even I was shocked into silence. I went from having my arm cut off, thinking I was going to die, to now thinking I was some zombie mutt hybrid. After what seemed like hours I looked towards my mom

"Mom... What's wrong with me?"