"No One Knows What It's Like To Be The Bad Man, To Be The Sad Man Behind Blue Eyes. No One Knows What It's Like To Be Hated, To Be Fated To Telling Only Lies. But My Dreams They Aren't As Empty As My Conscience Seems To Be, My Love Is Vengeance That's Never Free." - Limp Bizkit; Behind Blue Eyes.

District Two; the home of Masonry. The Capitol's favourite despite District's One greatest efforts of providing luxuries for them, and the home of winners. They glorified the Hunger Games, celebrated it, and treated it as if it were the final stretch to ultimate enlightenment. What was worse was that the people of District Two ate it up, believed it with all their might, were so narrow minded in thinking that the only way to win and become great was to slaughter other children in an arena and come home with a crown.

Throwing riches and other forms of luxuries at the Victors as if they didn't already have them, District Two may not be as rich as One or The Capitol, but they definitely were well off. It was my home, which I regrettably admit, since my young age of ten, and had not been given the chance to ever be anywhere else.

It disgusted me. Seeing young children throw their lives away, do nothing but train just so they could volunteer for a death sentence to make the District proud, oh how far our race has fallen. How materialistic and primitive we have become, and no one seems to want to notice it, we all stand around and act as if winning a crown, and having the latest Capitol clothing is the most important thing in life. I wished so badly to have been born in the times before Panem, when this old country was once known as the United States of America.

It wasn't in the slightest bit perfect, wars raged between countries over things as petty as oil, famine spread throughout other countries and allowed children to die before they had even lived. Yet they had something Panem would never have; compassion, humanity, love, and most important of all of those was unity.

Originally I had come from District Three, not very far, but the difference in culture was still very big. My father had been one of the most respected men in his field; which was Medicine. Although he was a bit of a dare devil, he often thought outside of the box, and the endless possibilities of what types of chemicals and technologies he could fuse together to make the ultimate drug that would cure every possible disease.

His talents didn't go unnoticed by the people of The Capitol, and eventually began funding his research into much more complex things, I still remember being a child and hiding near his office, eavesdropping on the conversations he would have with the Government officials. They had requested something impossible of him, something so beyond what we could achieve that it drove my father mad, it became his life's work, obsessing over it. Testing out on volunteer's over and over, no longer knowing the line between genius and insanity.

He'd gotten himself killed of course, and as much as The Capitol could try explaining it was a fatal accident, I knew better. I may have been a child, but even I wasn't stupid, my father spoke to me like an adult, treating me as an equal, and through that I grew out of the mind state of a ten year old girl. I was forced to grow up after becoming an orphan, my mother had died during child birth, something rather common in the districts as they didn't have the medical care or facilities like The Capitol did.

It didn't mean I didn't love her, my father often spoke fondly of her, sharing stories with me, and how I was a spitting image of her. My auburn hair supposedly shone just as brightly in the sunlight as it did with her, when I laughed my button nose wrinkled up just like hers did, and when I felt a strong surge of emotions you couldn't see them any clearer than when they shone through my green eyes.

"Just like your mother Faith."

I'd missed him beyond belief, missed the way his frowns lines would become more evident on his pale face when he concentrated on his work, missed the way his slowly greying hair would be ruffled by the amount of times he wove his hands through it, and missed the way his blue eyes softened in affection when I would ask him to sing me to sleep.

The Capitol seemed to be terrified when they had found my father had left his child behind, seemingly unaware that he had a child at all, and shoved me into the first orphanage in any District apart from Three. It only furthered my suspicions on what they may have possibly been up to, The Capitol never did anything out of the pure kindness of their hearts, it had to benefit them in some way.

So now eight years later I stand in the Town's centre of District Two, waiting in a small pen filled with girls my age, I half listen to the useless monologue that President Snow once again waffles on about as he presents the 75'th Hunger Games, revealing this years big surprise Quarter Quell. I almost wanted to scoff, the old man made me sick to my stomach, I silently wished that he would just drop dead already, pass on his 'legacy' to another idiot.

Gold Forest; District Two's escort stood in the centre of the stage, right in front of the entire town. An absolute buffoon, her long Capitolised blonde hair was no doubt the work of extensions, flowing to below her waist and perfectly straight. Along with a ridiculously large set of false eyelashes, hints of silver wisping out as if they were butterfly wings, and the small white diamonds that had been encrusted into her skin formed a small curve besides both eyes.

Her dressing attire was in another world of its own; her heels didn't actually have any, but were merely a blinding colour of silver and had a ridiculous platform, thus no needing heels. The one shouldered dress she wore was covered in rhinestones, with a silver sequence pattern at the hem, matching her make up and shoes perfectly.

"May the odds be ever in your favour."

I snapped out of my inner monologue to look back up to the large screen, realizing that it was the end of President Snow's speech and that Gold was now clapping enthusiastically, encouraging the rest of the District to do so. I rolled my eyes and folded my arms, seeming to be the only person in the area who had not made an effort with looking good today, my baggy black tank top and dark green cargo pants tucked into my boots. I had an excuse of course, just being let off from work, working in the weapons warehouse where everything was made polished and cleaned; definitely not the best paid job, but it served its purpose as it put food on the table.

I had left the orphanage as soon as I had turned sixteen, and the carer there was kind enough to help find me work and a place to stay before I did. She seemed pretty relived actually, one less child to look after, one less mouth to feed; it must have made her job a whole lot easier.

"For this years Quarter Quell we have a special surprise, something none of you District Two future victors would ever guess ..." Gold made a dramatic pause, her perky and lollipop attitude making me want to cringe, "you shall have not one, but two arena's this year, joined together and made into two different environments … that should be much more exciting shouldn't it?"

The excited whispers and loud yells of approval spread like wildfire in the crowd, probably the Christmas come early for everyone here … if that holiday still existed that is.

"Now, time to get on with the tribute picking ..."

She waddled over to the right side of the stage, where the bowl full of male's names were jumbled together inside, barely able to even walk in those heels, and made a show of wiggling her perfectly manicured fingers before shoving her hand deeply into the bowl, rolling her hand around a couple of times for good measure before finally pulling her hand back out with a small piece of paper in her hands.

Unwrapping it painfully slowly, she let out a large grin as if she knew whoever's name was written on the paper, yelling it out loudly for the entire town to hear.

"The male tribute for the Seventy Fifth annual Hunger Games of District Two is ... Mico Abbeywell."

It takes quite a while for a name so familiar to register in your head; it takes even longer for the shock of them being picked for such a brutal game to settle deeper into your brain. My breath hitched in my throat, and the muscles in my back tensed up a considerably large amount, turning my head to look over at the boys sections, I managed to make out the small blob of afro curls making it's way out of the crowd, escorted my two Peacekeepers. His dark skinned face neutral, but I knew better, because I saw the absolute fear in his brown eyes, one that he was trying so hard to hide.

He was young, too young for anything like this, he hadn't even reached his teen years yet, he was no where near trained enough to come close to even qualifying for a game like this. Before he even started making his way towards the stage Gold began to speak again, dismissing the fact that he was picked, confident on there being a male volunteer, one that would come home a winner.

"Time for volunteering ..." She spoke cheerily, clapping her hands in excitement as she looked to the boys section, but no hands were raised.

No one. Not even the eldest of the Careers put their hands up, and I was desperate to know why, this was what they had trained for through their entire life, it was what they were built to know, programmed to love.

"Anyone?" Silence one again engulfed the crowd, and Gold look truly dumbfounded as she stared at the boys, ".. really? None of you are going to volunteer?"

For once I was on the same wavelength as her, my heart clenching in complete anguish for Mico. The boy who lived with me, who I had bonded with so well in the orphanage that when it was time for me to leave he begged to come, pleaded until I gave up and agreed. I had raised him on my own since then, feeding him, kissing him goodbye to school every morning, he was my family.

And no one, absolutely no one was volunteering. Was this some sort of sick twisted idea that they had? That seeing a child from District Two die was more fun that always seeing a winner every year? Because if it was then the human civilisation was far more disgusting than I thought it was, if they truly found this entertaining.

I cleared my mind as Gold quickly dismissed it, moving onto the girls bowl on the left hand side, I began to think rationally of what could possibly be done. What would ensure Mico's absolute safety, and I came up with many solutions, but only one of them seemed viable to succeed. Only one that took me less than a second to know was worth it, to know that it could actually work, and although it may have seemed crazy to others, it was in fact the smartest decision I had ever made.

I never heard the name of whatever random fifteen year old girl was picked, nor did I really care, I shoved my way through the crowd, raising my hand as I did so, walking to the centre of the pathway that separate the male and female possible tributes. I said what I needed to say once, and only once, my voice loud and firm, cold and authoritive, making sure that there was no room for discussion on it.

"I Volunteer."

I've had this idea for literally MONTHS, ever since reading the books ... I guess that all the Cato fanfiction that's come up since the books has pushed me into doing it. I'll admit I've jumped on the bandwagon! However I did love Cato before the film, after all who doesn't love a bad boy? Although Alexander Ludwig did help in loving him a WHOLE lot more.

Anyway this fic is sort of alternate universe-ish, which you've probably guessed ... but I'll try to make it really good I promise! And review review review PLEASE!