I think we had all gotten into the habit of it, the fear that came on these days. Over and over again we wait breathless and she curls her wrinkly, old fingers around one name that was trapped in this fate. I think after the past six years, I became okay with the fear. It was something of normal to me as I pulled my hair up with the nice pins mom got for me and tied the silk dress around my battered skin. I think, as I walk along the dirt road holding the hem of my dress above the mud, some part of me knew that the odds were in my favor. Whether it be luck from the gods or my starvation over that past years of my childhood, some part of me was for certain my fate was more than death by this. That is, until my certainty was proved wrong.

Their hands dug deep into my skin as they gripped firmly around my arms. I stuttered, but what was it that I could say that would change this moment, would save me from this prison. They walked swiftly, the sound of determination under their feet. My feet stumbled and I fell into them, but all for them to continue on, dragging me in their wake. My dress, once white and satin, stood brown and spotted against my pale skin.

They drug me along the road I knew so well, but through the dust it all seemed different now. I started to choke among the dirt and water dropped from my eyes. They threw me on the ground along the front edge of my house and stood back. As I lay there, dirty and harassed, on the ground of the place I called home, it all seemed so silly now. That feeling of safety, the feeling of knowledge. Despite everything, all that I’ve survived, I lay here facing death eye to eye.

I stumbled to my feet, running a hand over my satin skirt, and looked inside. Empty, as empty as it had been when I left this morning. As empty as it had been since mom died. One of them nudged at me, their grimy hand leaving a mark on my red and swollen arms. I slipped through the door and turned to see what was all of my life, gathered in one little room.

I ran my hand along the foot of my bed and my eyes wandered to the little amount of things that sat among the tabletops. Empty jars, her necklace, and pages among pages of writing. What would become of it all when I was gone? Would it burn, or simply turn to ash among the dirt floor, as if it, I, had never even existed.

I could hear one of them outside stir and I knew they were getting anxious. I quickly moved through the room, opening any drawer or cupboard, looking for anything of aid to me in the pathway of death. My fingers rolled over old clothes and tattered books, all useless until my hand stopped. My breath stopped.

Sitting in the back corner of my nightstand, filtered with dust and cobwebs, lay my mothers journal. I had never dared to open it, but could never give it away. She never told me much of her past, and I knew better than to ask, but there was always the things I suspected of her. From the scars, the tears, the strength she held always.

My breath felt uneven as my mind searched all the times I had almost asked her if, maybe, it was true. I pulled the book from its temporary life and ran my finger along the dust covered front. I took one more deep breath, and flipped to the first page. It read:

July 27

I was selected today for the Hunger Games.