I thought I was used to the cold. After all those shifts in the unheated textile factory, after all those nights where I've had to huddle against my brother and sister for warmth, I thought I'd learned to endure that numbing, biting chill. I was wrong. That night in the arena it was colder than I had ever imagined. That was the moment I knew I was going to die.

In truth, the moment my name was called out at the reaping and no one stepped up and offered to take my place, a little part of me realized that I would not live to see another birthday, another new year, or another Hunger Games. But I kept on hoping, acting my part, as if there was some chance that I could possibly win. Now I know there wasn't.

A silent tear streams down my cheek, and I don't make a move to stop it. I've accepted my fate now, so why delude myself? I shudder, although if it is at the prospect of death, or because of the iciness creeping into my bones I do not know. The tear freezes on my cheek, and I shudder again. If I know I'm going to die anyway, why sit here in the freezing cold and suffer? If I am not going to live to see the start of a new week or the dawn of a new day, I might as well make the most of the time I have left. The Capitol has handed me this death sentence along with a book of rules, but I do not have to play along.

I stand up slowly, the stiffness in my bones made painful by the icy cold. My muscles still ache from my mad dash away from the Cornucopia. I briefly wish that I had grabbed something before I'd run, like a sleeping bag or some food, but then my mind flickers to my fellow District 8 tribute. He didn't make it out of that initial bloodbath at all. But the more I think of it, the more I envy him. His death may or may not have been quick, but it is done now and he is gone. He doesn't have to live with this sick anticipation, never knowing what breath may be his last. I do.

Snap! I crack some dry branches off the nearest tree, hoping they won't be too green and I'll be able to get a decent fire going. Snap! Snap! My mind reviews the tips I learned at the fire-starting station during training as the small bundle of twigs I'm holding grows larger. Snap! Snap!

After a time I decide I have enough twigs to get a fire going. Rubbing two sticks together as I learned during training proves a daunting task with my numb, frozen hands, but finally a small spark erupts from the branch. Soon enough, from where a pile of sticks once was a small fire has blossomed. I hold my hands over the flames, their warmth melting the ice in my blood and filling me with something I never thought I'd feel in this arena. Happiness. Contentment. I know that I am going to die, sooner, rather than later. Someone will see my fire and come to do away with me, likely before the day breaks. But I'm fine with that, more or less. I do not want to die, not the slightest bit, but I know that living isn't an option for me now, and I'd much rather die on my own terms than on the Capitol's. So as the fire thaws my frozen limbs, I sit and wait for my death to come.

As I sit beside the fire, enjoying for the last time the fresh air around me and the hard earth beneath me and the steady beating of my heart, I decide to spend this time remembering.

In my mind's eye I see Cai, my twin sister, her eyes alight with joy as she sees a lone buttercup in the grass as we walk together to our shift at the factory after school. She was as pure and as innocent as a child could be despite growing up in the poverty and despair that we faced daily in District 8. She still is, I correct myself. Even tomorrow, when I'm gone, she will still be there. She is young and innocent and gentle and kind, but she is not naive. She knows that I am never coming back. I wonder if the cameras are on me right now, the foolish girl sitting beside a roaring fire, just asking for someone to come by and slit her throat. If people are watching me right now, they probably think I'm stupid, that I'm naive. I wonder if Cai thinks that, or if she knows how brave I'm being. I wonder if she can see the defiance in my eyes, see that I'm not going to let someone control my life for others' amusement. I wonder if she knows that I'm afraid.

My mind shifts to my older brother, Zephyr, with his messy, dark brown hair and his eyes full of seriousness and determination that makes him look much older than his eighteen years. If he had been a girl, he would have taken my place in the games, I know. I'm glad he isn't. Cunning, intelligent Zephyr. He is going somewhere, no matter that he lives in District 8. He is going to do something with his life, I just know it, and I wouldn't want him to throw that away. But I was never going anywhere. I don't even think there was anywhere to go.

I think of my mother and father next, how they spent their lives working at their jobs and at the factory, working to the bone so we could just barely make it by. They loved me so much, my parents did. I hope they don't cry too much when I'm gone.

I shudder, even though I'm warm and toasty from the fire. Maybe I was going somewhere, I think desperately. If I let myself die I'll never know. I can win! I can go home, see Zephyr and Cai and Mother and Father again. I shake my head once, trying to push those thoughts out of my mind. I know that I can't. I don't want to play this game. I don't want to kill other children, going half crazy with starvation and disease in the process. In the end, even being the Capitol's docile little playing piece, I still wouldn't win. I'd end up with a knife in my back or an arrow in my chest from some tribute or another, and I'd be dead anyway. I want to die on my own terms, I tell myself once again. If I fight, I would no longer be Thessa Lasaline, a seventeen year old girl from District 8 who likes to daydream and tell stories, whose mother used to have to sing her to sleep during thunderstorms, and who loves her family more than life itself. I'd just be a piece in the Capitol's Games.

I continue to remember, the good times and the bad. And I'm still remembering as I drift off to sleep, watching the flames of the fire flicker from behind my closed eyelids.

When I awaken, it is to the sound of footsteps. They're coming for me. I shiver, but don't run. This is what I've been waiting for, isn't it? As the footsteps draw closer, I panic. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die! I want to go home. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

I had shouted, and now I'm begging. I try to tell them about Cai, about Zephyr, about my mother and father, about how I want to live and how there is so much to live for. They ignore my pleas, and I scream as I feel a burst of pain like nothing I've ever felt in my life. The agony burns through my body, and I fall silent. I slump to the ground, staining the grass crimson red.

I'm sleeping, or am I? Everything is so foggy, yet all too clear. The pain is especially agonizing, yet it feels almost as if I am above it all. The cameras were obviously on me just then, as the tribute's weapon pierced through my chest. I wonder if Cai was watching. Zephyr probably made her look away. I did the right thing, I tell myself. I was afraid, but I did it. I might be dead and gone, but I'll always be Thessa Lasaline.

My brain is wandering and getting foggy, and when a knife slices through my heart I don't notice the extra pain. Everything fades to black, and my eyes don't open again.

A gray-eyed girl watches the scene from a sleeping bag strapped into a nearby tree. She thinks poorly of the stupid girl who started the fire, the girl who she considers to be the biggest idiot in the Games. Little does she know just how brave the girl that lies dead on the forest floor was, or just how alike the two of them were.