If the odds were in my favour, I wouldn't be here right now. If the odds were in my favour I would be rich and my family still alive. If the odds were in my favour the districts would have won all those years ago. The escort, petal pond, a new one, especially for the quell, Goes on about the odds and how they really aren't in our favour but perhaps we'll still manage a win….yeah, right. We know the odds aren't in our favour, of course they aren't, and the odds are never in the districts' favour. Never.

Once she has finished about the gloomy and depressing history of Panem, she says the words that we all wish could be stopped;

"Let's go ahead and find out who this year's plucky young man and woman will be! "She says, or, rather, shrieks "As always, ladies first!"

She totters in her high heels towards the podium on the left. Normally, a glass bowl containing each possible tributes name on slips of paper. This year, scrolls that look about a thousand years old, but can only be about a month old sit proudly where the bowls should be. She wraps her fingers protectively around the paper. And totters back to her place, centre stage, the whole of Panem is watching.

"And the female who shall represent district twelve in the twenty-fifth hunger games is…." Petal pond pauses for dramatic tension as she slips the pale pink ribbon from the scroll and pulls it open "Blossom Jones!"

I knew it! This is what I've been trying to explain. In the districts' if the odds aren't in your favour they never will be. And if you happen to be particularly unlucky, you never get good luck. Nothing good will ever happen.

A group of six peacekeepers surround me, although it's literally twenty steps to the stage. Do they not see how utterly ridiculous this is? Even if I did try to make a run for it, I couldn't, not with all these peacekeepers around the perimeter of us. When I'm on the stage I hear Petal going on about the 'spirit of the hunger games', spirit? The spirit of murdering children? I'm not sure I'd call it spirit. Up close, petal looks even more ridiculous than I thought she did. Why is her skin blue? Why are her arms covered in decorative swirls? Can she really think she looks pretty? She looks freakish, like she's covered in some sort of wall paper.

"Now we choose our courageous young man! "She calls out to the crowd. Ouch! Her voice is actually painful to hear, up close. I hope they don't all sound like this, in the capitol. She does the whole tottering over to the podium, sweeping up the scroll and returning to centre stage.

"Morgan Jenson!" He steps up to the stage and smiles into the camera, casually throwing a wink into the crowd. We are made to shake hands before turning into the justice building, I make sure the handshake is firm, just to let him know that, although I may seem small and weak, I am strong, a survivor. Competition, not to be overlooked.

I am shoved into a small room….this is the place I say goodbye to those I love. The people who chose my name must think there is nobody that I still love. That's where they are wrong.