Epilogue: Six Years Later

I feel like a china tea set again. Ready to break at any minute.

I'm not wearing my mother's dress. Instead, I opt for a dark red shirt and brown pants. No more lace for me. My knife is hidden in an inside pocket of my black jacket.

Wyss is dead. He was killed a year after my Games, in a mining accident. Coincidence? I think not. I know it's my fault that he's dead. I refused to play their little love game, and they killed him for it. But now there's no one left for them to torture. I haven't let myself get close to anyone again.

I watch the Games every year. Alone, at the controls that will send a silver parachute down to my apprentice. I've never pressed a single button on that console. Ironically, all of my tributes have died. That's not chance either.

They call me changed. I am. I was supposed to revel in my glory. Fall in love, have children. I have defied them. They will destroy me for it, but I welcome the threat. I survived once. I'll do it again. If I choose to.

Now Kirrah, uncannily unchanged from my Games, pulls out the name of my new tribute. I blink. Clove something. She's a small girl, but the light in her eyes and her smile are cold as a mountain. She turns those eyes on me as she comes up the steps.

The boy is called. There's a lot of clapping and cheering. And then we're ushered into the mayor's house. She looks up at me, expecting advice. I say only a few words. "If you hit them in their heart, they're gone for good."

The balcony doors close. No more sunlight.

No more hope.

She dies. For the first time in history, two tributes win. The Capitol laps up their love story. I can see right through it. He loves her, she is reluctant.

I watch the tour. I'm there when they read the speech at Two. I sit next to the girl at the banquet. She shovels down food like it's her last day on the earth.

The next Games are called. The Quarter Quell. The tributes will be picked from the victors. I feel cheated, but in a way, I see that this is my escape. I can die with glory. I can save someone from a horrible fate.

The uniform of death is back again. An old woman is picked first. Myna. And then come the volunteers. Enobaria practically gets in a fight with her former mentor, a large dark haired woman. I watch the whole time.

Finally, Enobaria wins. A smile on her face, she makes her way through the crowd. I see the tributes of Two in her. The way she walks, her head held high. Her smile, her teeth glittering in the sun. The way she's so confident, as if nothing can bring her down. Seventy-four tributes have walked off to the Games this way. And only thirteen have ever come back.

I can't let her die. She was my mentor. I can't watch her be slaughtered by some other experienced fighter. I can die this way. It's my ticket out. Maybe I'll die quickly. I hope so.

I raise my voice into the wind blowing fiercely in my face.

"I volunteer!"

(Yes, I know, Enobaria did go to the Games in the real book, but I am taking a creative license and changing it a bit. This also provides some intro into the second part of Ayla's story, being a District Thirteen rebel, provided that you want me to write it. Si o no?)