I can't sleep. I'm so tired from the past few days, but I'm not able to lay in my bed long enough to fall asleep. Every five minutes, I have to get up and walk around my bed for a while otherwise I'm going to explode. To calm myself, I try to count the seconds, but that doesn't help. It does quite the opposite actually. It just reminds me that with every seconds that does by, the arena is becoming closer. I sit at the end of my bed, looking through the large window. I can see a big part of the Capitol from here, but I'm sure the view from the district 12's appartement must be way better than mine, it must be breathtaking. Here, there never seems to be power outrages and lights stay on during the light. Back at home, doing such a thing is unthinkable. It would waste way too much electricity. Waste is another thing that nobody seems to worry about. In the districts, people are dying of hunger, of hypothermia or even of sickness that could've been easily avoided and here, you can obtain food by pressing a button, you can control the heating system without thinking about it twice and they have revolutionary medical techniques. They don't realize all the luck they have, simply because they've never known what it's like to live in a district, to have to provide for a family from a young age.

I take the remote on my nightstand. There is four buttons on it, the upper one must be to turn something on and off, the two arrows to switch between channels and the last one to mute the TV. I look around, but I don't see anything that looks like one so I just start pressing on the buttons while pointing in a random direction every time. To my surprise, my view of the Capitol is replaced by what seems to be a field. It's dark so I can hardly see it. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of the wind. When I open them again, I change the channel. The field is replaced by a large meadow. I change it again and again until I realize that each image represents a district. The field was from eleven, the meadow from twelve, the one I'm looking at must be two. I press the arrow two more times and the endless sea takes the place of the desert like landscape. In no time, I'm standing right in front of the window, my hand gently resting on the glass. I close my eyes, trying to listen to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks and the beach. I can't help myself but wonder if this is live footage. Probably not. It would be too easy to communicate with the tributes and find a way to cheat. It looks little different than the beach I always go to, but it's certainly from district four, from home.

I try to imagine me, a few years younger, walking on the the sand with my brother and my parents. My brother. I miss him a lot and constantly. I remember the day he died like it was yesterday, even if in reality, it was five years ago. I've never been able to get rid of the feeling of guilt I had since the day he died. Why did I get to live and he had to died? It should've been me, I was the one who was supposed to go fishing that day.

It was a Monday afternoon, the sky was blue and clear of clouds. The water was calm and there was a hot breeze. It seemed like a perfect day. Like every afternoon, we were supposed to go get some fish while our parents were working, otherwise we'd have nothing to eat. That day, since it was a July first, it was my turn to go. We had created a system where I went fishing every odd day and he went every even day. On every 31st, we'd go together. Of course, I decided that I would rather play with my friends, after all, I went with him the day before. After arguing with me for twenty minutes, he exited the house, a trident in his hand and a frown on his face. That was the last time I would ever see him alive.

An hour after he left, a violent thunderstorm and strong wind hit us. He was still on the beach. I don't know why he stayed, he knew it's very dangerous. He probably hadn't caught anything yet and wanted to make sure we wouldn't go to bed with an empty stomach. The strong waves and powerful underwater current drove him away from the beach and when he realized he was too far, it was too late. We don't know what happened after that. Did he try to swim back and reach the beach? Did he panicked? Did he just gave up and let the ocean claim his life? I will never know.

They retrieved his body the day after. The adults tried to hid it from me, but as soon as I heard the rescue team had found him, I just ran in his direction. I don't know why, maybe because deep inside of me I was hoping he was still alive and he was just going to be mad at me for a week and then, that everything would go back to normal. Of course, nothing was ever normal after that. It was the first time I ever saw a dead body and unfortunately not the last, but it is by far the worst case I ever saw. His body was all swollen and there was some algae wrapped around some parts of is body. A bird had started to eat away small parts of his left leg. The worst part was his face. He was unrecognizable, an everlasting sheer fear expression stuck on his face. This image never left me, it still haunts me every night.

The funerals were the next day. We have this special tradition in four. We start by wrapping the body in an elegant white gown and then we "seal" the lips shut with salt water. This last part happens three time in your life; the first one right after your birth, the second time at your wedding and then at your funerals. It is supposed to mean the continuation of life. After everyone's speech on how happy the person made them and how much they're gonna miss them, we let the sea claim what is rightfully hers. I will always remember the body of my brother float away, the tide bringing him further and further from me, from his life, for the second time.

I blink away the tears and let the sound of the waves help me find sleep, a restless sleep filled with nightmares.