My home is like every other home in District Two, wood-panelled, thatched roof and a square patch of grass to call a garden. It looks like the cottages that rich people owned in my Granddad's history books, they had been the staple of living in the "countryside", a place that doesn't exist to the district or capitol residents. The land outside of Panem is uninhabitable. That's what we are told; that's why we have the fences.

I often wonder how true that really is. Last year, during the week the tributes prepare for the Hunger Games, I had wrapped myself in an old cloak and followed my Father to work. It was barely dawn and the summer air was already hot, mist raised from the ground as the rain from the previous evening evaporated. This, along with my unusually tall stature, helped conceal me among the groggy workers leaving the village. I assumed my Father worked in the stone mines like most over people, but that wasn't where I was headed.

I trudged along the path to town and was surprised to see my Father walk past the mine entrance. He continued on the same path as me: across the square, around the Justice Building, and... onto a train. A few of the men and peacekeepers called out to him and greeted him as he boarded the train and, from the shadows, I watched it departed into a tunnel that led into the heart of the old mountain that had been mined until it could no longer be mined.

My Father's occupation has been an anomaly since, but I have never cared to ask. Instead, I focus more on what happens in the places you can only see from the mountainside.

While the entire district is situated somewhere on the mountain, none of the paths are as steep as the ones up to the older entrances into the higher levels of the old mine. Of course, none of those paths exist anymore. Years of lower-level mining and avalanches have deemed the mountainside unsafe.

And yet there I was on that misty morning. Sweat was all but dripping from my body, but the view from a lone tree that had somehow withstood an avalanche was worth it. There were splinters in my fingers and the old burn scars on my palms were inexplicably white against the rest of my hand. The red skin the same colour as the rising sun and the spots of blood on my grazed knee. My Mother believed the story I had constructed to excuse the rip in my trousers, knowing she'd go berserk if she knew I'd climbed the loose avalanche path- if only I could have told her about the green and yellow and purple fields that lay just beyond the dense forest surrounding the district, or described the lights of the Capitol that was much closer than Granddad often described.

I had stayed in that tree until the sun was lighting up the entirety of Panem and steam was rising from the factories in district eight on the horizon. I spent most of that morning skidding and sliding on loose dirt back down the mountain, taking my time so the cloak didn't snag and rip because that wasn't as easily explained away. Once I returned home, my mother was cooking breakfast and Granddad was watching the highlights of that year's Reaping.

This year's Reaping is tomorrow. It's all anyone can talk about and there are whispers all around the villages about how much they bet on which Academy kid would volunteer this year. Obviously, all the bets were on Artemis and Lewis. At this rate, my odds of being picked are next to nothing, and even if I should be the inconvenienced girl, there is always an agreed Academy student.

I saunter through the kitchen, where my Mother is busy chopping up carrots for tonight's dinner. She barely manages a greeting before I've circled the island and crossed into the hallway. The television is on and Granddad is watching the highlights of the last few Hunger Games where everyone's favourite host, Caesar Flickerman, is discussing the mechanics with the Games Master, Atticus Coupe. Their drawling Capitol accents chase me upstairs and into my bedroom.

It's a small room. Barely big enough for a set of draws, a desk and a single bed which substitutes as a desk chair. The room used to be the ensuite to the master bedroom but, when Granddad retired from his peacekeeper duties, my Father managed to get permission to renovate it. For a week or so, I shared my old bedroom with my Mother while my Father shared a double bed with Granddad. Those nights are forever burned into my mind, and I gained a new respect for my Father since my Mother, a usually calm and gentle woman, snores so aggressively I could only find sleep in the bathtub of the ensuite anyway.

I don't need a lot of space anyway. All I need is my clothes, my textbooks and my lighter.

Leaving the lighter on my desk and hiding my clothes among the dirty laundry to disguise the smell of smoke and pine, I quickly change into a long-sleeved shirt and an old pair of dungarees my Father nearly burned when his stomach grew too large for them.

Atticus Coupe was still rambling on the television when I took my seat beside Granddad. For a moment, neither of us acknowledged the other and simply watched the grainy footage of the plump, grey-haired black man on the screen. It was actually a snippet of an interview from the previous Quarter Quell in which the Gamemaker was quizzed on the force field that had decided the victor. I don't recall that year's games, and they are rarely used in the highlights.

"Wonder who's more insulted?" Granddad grumbles as he adjusts in his seat. I look up, watching him adjust his shirt buttons that were threatening to burst against his stomach. He raises an unruly eyebrow at me, as though I should know what he's talking about. A moment passes, and he clears his throat and points to the screen as a snippet of the victor meeting Atticus pops up. "The second Quarter Quell! The Capitol refuse to acknowledge it because the boy revealed a fault in the system, but, the boy is the only remaining victor twelve have." He cackles as though he just heard the most hilarious joke of his life.

"Isn't he the guy that threw up on the escort for Twelve last year?" Granddad scoffs at that and waves his hands through the air. His fat nose scrunches up when the screen flashes back to Caesar Flickerman. The TV host has been around longer than Granddad, he looks young enough to be reaped, and is much skinnier.

If there's one thing Granddad cannot stand, it is people who are skinnier than he. I've always been subject to his disdain at the extra fat he gained since becoming a senior peacekeeper.

"Where you been today?" He suddenly bursts out, leaning back and looking down at me. I squint my eyes up at him as he pokes my arms. "You ain't been doing them exercises have you?"

"I was with Martial, all the Academy kids have today and tomorrow off." He guffaws and begins to mumble under his breath about how great the Academy is, a 'breeding ground for the big and strong'.

"I kept telling your Mam to send you to the academy before it's too late, pfft, we'll see." He pokes my arm again, shifting my body, clearly targeting the space where muscle would be if I trained for the games.

"I'm going to see what's for dinner," I tell him and avoid a final poke. Rubbing my arm, I cross into the kitchen and lean against the counter. My mother glances over at me and raises an eyebrow.

"Been anywhere exciting today, Tez?" I shake my head.

"Nah, nothing exciting around here." She pinches her lips.

"Of course. You can go into Town at any point, Max and I don't set aside money to rot... And Martial? How is he?" I shrug.

"Alright, I guess, he's more focused on his Academy friends." She nods and turns back to stirring the stew on the stove.

"That's understandable, I suppose. After all, he could be saying goodbye to them for good- especially Artemis and Lewis. I heard that they're planning to volunteer. How they plan to win, I don't know." She shakes her head. "The two of them look so happy together, yet they want to volunteer! Together!"

"Suppose it's romantic." We both look up at the new voice. My father stands in the doorway, kicking off his shoes. He embraces Mother and kisses her cheek.

"Of course you would think fighting to the death is a romantic pass time." Grinning, he ruffles my hair and crosses his arms against the counter, mirroring me.

"Going for a run? A bit of training? It's the thrill of the hunt, Ally, you used to be the same." Mother dropped the spoon against the counter and looked at Father with wide hazel eyes. Her mouth opened and closed for a moment, then she huffed and shook her head.

It's true that, despite her opposition to the Academy, Mrs Ally Garrison was an avid student at the Academy. She and my Father often trained together and seem to schedule a session of reminiscing around the same time as dinner time every day.

Sounding slightly exasperated, she clattered around in the cupboards and instructed Father to fetch Granddad. I set out the cutlery around the island and took my seat as she finished scooping the stew into four bowls. As she placed my bowl in front of me, Granddad pushed it back to her.

"Put some more, Ally! She's as thin as a stick, if I poke her too hard she'll snap!" He poked my arm again, Mother and I began to scowl now. "She needs some meat on her bones!"

"If Tez wants more when she's done, she can help herself. For now," she pushes my bowl back to me and shoves another into Granddad's hands with a sweet smile, "eat up." We eat in moderate silence for the most part. The television is still on, and we can hear a girl screaming terribly, the scrape of our spoons on the polished stone bowls provides an anthem to her. Soon, when the girl is no doubt dead, Caesar Flickerman begins narrating again and Mother puts her spoon down. She turns her head to me and it seems as though all of her skin has been pull tight and her eyes begin to water. "Do you think Artemis will really volunteer tomorrow?" I shrug and continue eating.

"Ally?" She looks over at Father.

"I can't imagine how Martial must be feeling. Her friends, her family. If she loses the games they'll be distraught, I'll be distraught for them. Don't you remember, Max? Every year since we were eligible? Two friends every year, it was horrible." She suddenly turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. "Don't you dare even think about volunteering Tez. If I lost you, I- I don't know what I'd do." She tried to hug me, but I pushed her arms away.

"You say that like I care about the games." Mother sits back, giving me an unusual stare before shaking her head and going back to her dinner.

I decide to go to bed early tonight, after all, I have to wake up to watch Artemis volunteer tomorrow. Before I do, I turn my lighter over in my hand and remove the fluid cartridge before sitting back with a faded botany textbook. I open it to my book-marked page, the final page of the African Tundra section, and turn onto a page littered with plants called cacti and succulents. With the cold of the lighter pressing into the cold steel of the lighter, I read through the pages, finding them the perfect lullaby for the night.