Reading all of your amazing fanfictions has me pumped up to do one of my own, and I'm finally getting around to it now. I'm sure all of you read the summary, but to clarify what this fic is about: for this Quarter Quell, tributes will be isolated from all of the other tributes until the moment the Hunger Games begins, and they will have absolutely no mentors, stylists, etc., to help them in the pre-Games ceremonies. Instead, the assistance that would usually be performed by mentors will be carried out by the voice of a dead tribute from Games past that is implanted in each tribute's head. You'll just have to see where it goes from there. If you read any of this story, even if you don't like it, a review would be appreciated just so that I know that you're following along. :)

xxxx

I don't know why tributes are ever surprised when their name is called. A weight is thick in my chest as the slip with my name on it flutters between the fingers of our escort, but the initial shock is already wearing thin. Now it seems inevitable. Inescapable.

That's what I think as I mount the steps to the stage – that I should have seen this coming.

xxxx

District 7 isn't really like District 11, but we could almost be a page out of the Agricultural District's population.

"We goin' to check the crops now?" Rom groans from beside me, tugging on the back of my shirt collar to bring me to a halt.

There are no real crops in District 7, but that's what we call our trees. As plants, I guess they're not so different from crops, but the D11 comparisons don't stop there. We "plow" and "harvest" the trunks – cut 'em down and load them onto the trucks. The "buds" are the newborn saplings.

"Yeah, we're gonna check them now," I affirm, grumbling as I pry his hand off of my shirt. "We're on maintenance. I know that you're into this new muscle thing for the ladies, but we're not plowing today."

Rom hand drops, and he frowns. He hates it when I tease him about his obsession with girls, but I've never seen him keep his eyes to himself and it's true that recently he has been trying to bulk up specifically for the opposite gender.

"But maintenance is boring," he grouses back, chewing on the side of his cheek irritably. "There's nothin' fun about looking at the buds. Now, if we were chasing after womanly buds…" his eyebrows wiggle and I punch him in the arm.

"You're not allowed to yell at me for teasing you if you can't even keep your tongue in check." I roll my eyes, but as always with Rom, it's good-natured.

Rom's eyes glow, unaffected. "You'll see, Arden."

I can't resist. "How would you know anything? I wouldn't say you're that experienced." I can't say it with a straight face, bursting into laughter halfway through the sentence.

"Come on," he finally hisses, wrinkling up his nose and looking even mousier. "I want to get home, so let's go." Ever in my personal space, he shoves me back, though he was behind me in the first place.

I lope after him slowly, intentionally stepping on every stray twig I can find so that we won't end up stepping on some snake. I've had snake bites before and they were the cause of a deep-set phobia of reptiles.

A few minutes into the walk, Rom spins to face me with a lopsided frown. It's obvious that he's trying not to laugh. "Would you stop kickin' all that stuff? You're scaring off all the scenery." It's true – there's not a living animal within a mile radius of us – and I guess I am overreacting a bit because Rom has set me in a foul mood. His face splits into a grin, and I shake my head in mock exasperation. Rom can never hold a grudge. "Besides," he adds, patting my back eagerly to urge me forward, "we're here. And I have at least three chicks at the square waiting for my presence when we're done."

"Alright, let's hurry, then," I say, bad mood forgotten. I can see other workers faintly through the trees, taking care of their own crops. We're simply supposed to make sure no bugs are on the saplings and that there are no disease spots on the leaves. Normally, Rom and I are working on plowing, even though he's not the brawniest guy around. I guess there's just a shortage of bud checkers tonight, because this is what we were assigned to.

When we're done, we can go home. We get an earlier cut off time tonight – later tonight, the Quell's theme is to be announced and that's required watching.

There are no girls waiting for Rom when we get to the square. I snicker and head home, thinking that it was a bad idea to encourage his fantasies about girls waiting for him. He's going to be a mess tomorrow. Still smiling because of Rom's rejection, I dump my tool bag on the table waiting for me just inside the front door.

My mother, thinner than ever, is leaning over the back of the couch in our living room. She's gripping the back of the grimy thing, which it took all of our combined efforts to afford. None of us wanted to keep sitting on those loose little wooden chairs when all three of us had paying jobs.

She turns to look at me, loose blonde hair hanging limply around her face. She has tied the rest of it into a low ponytail, trying to look put-together. The circles under her eyes give her away, though – today was a hard day. But what isn't a hard day for my parents? They both have tough jobs – my father out in the forest like me, and my mother at the paper mills. But it works. My family is like a well-oiled machine, each member striving for the combined good of everyone. We're better off than most families around here.

The TV flickers in front of the couch, and my mother returns her eyes to it after nodding me a greeting. "They're just about to announce it," she announces in her rasping whisper of a voice. That voice is how she snagged my father, she tells me. My father, who is conspicuously not here. He's off work for sure, but he's not here in front of the TV like the rest of us.

"Am I really that late?" I ask, puzzled. I had thought that I'd get home with plenty of time before the Quell announcement. Time must have gotten away from me.

She nods, not bothering to look back at me. "It's your second to last year," she muses, "so pay special attention, ok?" Her voice touches on pleading, and when she does finally look back at me her blue eyes are wide.

"Bathroom, bathroom, I'm coming," my father explains, skidding into the living room. So that's where he was. He takes a spot beside my mother, standing because all of us are much to tense to actually sit. The Quell could still affect us directly at my age. Each year, I try not to put much thought to the Hunger Games. They're horrible, but worrying about it isn't going to keep me safe. I can keep away the fear until I'm standing in the Reaping pen, and that suits me just fine.

Our president hasn't entered on screen yet, with reporters still crowding the TV frame, but it isn't long before he fills the stage. This man is built like a brick, with darkly tanned skin, thickly curled black hair, and blank eyes. He's an intimidating guy, so different from his snaky predecessors, and I never know what to think of him. When he speaks, it's without inflection. His eyes are empty. I've never seen him let an emotion slip. To be honest, it unnerves me.

There's a moment of hushed silence and then a long string of political words that I don't bother following. Then the president is bringing out the box of incredibly yellowed cards that contain each quarterly twist. Fear lances through me then, unexpectedly. I have no more chance of being picked this year than any other year, so I haven't let the Quell scare me just by thinking about it. But I've never seen a Quarter Quell before, and the reality is more crushing than I realized it would be. I suddenly can't breathe. Why can't I be nineteen? All my breath wheezes out of me, leaving me stranded.

Our president is recounting the tales of past Quells, all the way from the first one. Our Quell will be the sixth horror story, and 25 years from now a new president will give a brief summary of this one. What if I'm one of the victims? What if, 25 years from now, when other kids are fighting in that arena they have no idea that I was once a Quell kid like them?

But that's silly, I remind myself a moment later. I'm not necessarily going to get chosen. However cheesy it is, the odds are in my favor. With that thought in mind, I push my hair back out of my eyes and refocus on the television.

Our president wastes no time after the official proceedings are completed. His eyes flick to the card he has pulled, ignoring the cameras. "This year," he reads, eyes still down, "in order to remind the Districts that any unity found during the Dark Days was empty and that alliances always fail, tributes this year will not have the opportunity to form any before the Games. Instead, tributes will be kept completely isolated from the other tributes and mentors before the Arena and will only have one assistant to prepare for the Games – a randomly selected tribute from a previous Hunger Games." He abruptly stops speaking, letting the news sink in.

Wait, what? My eyebrows crease in confusion. What is he going on about? Normally, Quell twists are simple enough. Vote for your tributes. 48 tributes. Etcetera. But what our president just threw at me was a mouthful of garbage.

"Honey?" My mother asks tremulously, turning to my father. "What…?"

He's shaking his head. "I guess that if you're reaped you won't see the other tributes before you enter the Games, and you won't have any support from mentors and the like." He shrugged.

"What about the part about previous tributes?" My mother grasps at my father's shirt nervously, fiddling with the buttons with one hand.

I've been wondering the same thing. He must have been referring to victors, because they're the only ones that get out alive. But our mentors are victors, and we're not supposed to have any contact with them. I'm thoroughly confused.

"I'm going to bed," I say abruptly, rubbing my forehead and stalking away. I'm not tired, even though it has been a long day. I'm just overwhelmed. I don't even know what to think, and no epiphanies are coming to me. In fact, my mind is completely blank. Instead of racing, like I had expected it to, it is offering me no solutions.

Damnit. A roaring headache has appeared, taking advantage of the waves of frustration rolling across me. I rub my forehead angrily, willing the pain away. Maybe I should just go to sleep. I don't need to figure this out right now – there's a very small chance that it will affect me directly. All I really need to know, I guess, is that it's probably going to be terrible.

I give up and crawl under the covers, still massaging my forehead and the thick hair getting in the way. I know I probably shouldn't be giving up this easy; that I should try harder to at least process the twist. But I won't. I'll figure it out later. Hopefully when I'm watching it unfold on my television screen.

I turn onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut determinedly. I'm going to sleep right now. I'm not going to think about this. I'm not going to let myself entertain what's really gnawing at my head – the thing about the previous tributes. Tributes, not victors.

Those tributes are dead.

This isn't possible.

But I will sleep anyway.

xxxx

No one understood the Quell announcement, really. We're District 7, after all; not the smartest leaves off the trees. As a result, the adults especially let themselves forget about the announcement. It's not like they were going into any arena. Among the teens there was rampant speculation for a while, complete with conspiracy theories, but no one thought too hard about what the "past tributes" were. We live on a day to day basis, so it was easy to let it fade into the back of our minds.

But as I mount the stage to shake hands with my new district partner I know that I should have thought harder that night.

Because now I'm a part of it, and I can't fight something I don't understand.