Prompt: Gold

Word count: 254 words

He wipes his sweaty hands on his smooth pants. He's eighteen now, and he can't help but think that this rite is too much like The Reapings that the generation before him had still attended when they were his age. Finn thinks about what would be happening if not for the rebellion, and he imagines that he would be feeling a mixture of relief and guilt. This would be his last year. Not that he would have anything to worry about, because he'd know who was going into the games, one of the elite. He imagines reading boredom on his friends' faces as the name on the slip of paper was read aloud. And perhaps he would be forced to volunteer, as a child of two victors. Of course they wouldn't care. The odds would be in their favor, and they would have been against them since his birth.

"Finn Cresta!"

He is jolted from his thoughts and rises from his seat. Now, all he needs to do is walk across the stage without tripping.

Later, he can barely recall briefly shaking someone's hand and something being said about him about "graduating with honors and going to university," and a heavy medal being placed around his neck. The sun shoots his eyes as its light bounces off the metal.

But he does not think he will forget the sight of his mother staring straight into his eyes, her hand covering her mouth and her shoulders heaving with happy sobs.

That's all, folks!