Bravery and cowardice were two concepts that people always acted as if they completely understand, they don't hesitate to point their fingers and accuse you of the latter or comment on the senior in awe, however when you ask them to define the terms they never seem to have the answer. Back in District 3 my colleagues would tell me I was brave for daring to use as heavily as I did in the face of the Capital, the same workers also told me I was a coward for hiding behind the drugs.

I was never quite sure myself, however as I stood in the small room with my stylist before the games I found myself increasingly concerned with the question. My mind, however, was just as blank as the white walls that surrounded me.

My stylist was a short orange woman with short pink hair and an even shorter temper. The only thing long about her were her nails that extended outward from her hands like pink claws that she examined nonchalantly, sitting rather rigidly on the dark blue couch.

"Zeres," I spoke up suddenly. "Am I a coward?" It was a reckless, emotional question but I didn't care. I was quite possibly going to be dead in a hour so I was going to ask whoever I wanted whatever the hell I wanted to.

Zeres looked up at me, her old eyes void of any interest. "Look honey, I've been doing this job for many years. "I've been a stylist for many different districts. I've styled careers and I've styled weaklings. Some brag about how they will win and die in the bloodbath, others mope around, sure they will be the first to die and survive for days." Zeres shook her head, her vivacious jewelry taping each other with soft clinks and casting reflections on the wall. "I don't have the slightest clue as to whether you are a coward or not, only one person does."

I almost snorted but I stopped myself. "I suppose you are about to say that one person is me? That somewhere deep down inside my rotten little chest I know the answer?" I felt the sarcasm saturate my words with every syllable I spoke.

I started to look away dismissively when Zeres laughed, "No fool, why would you ask a question you knew the answer to? No one knows whether they are a coward or not until they have to look death in the face and choose to crumble or fight." She paused and smirked at me, the skin that was pulled tightly over her face crinkling a bit. "The only person who knows that is our good father time."

I felt the distress cross my face as I realized that she was correct in her overly artistic kind of way. "Well that isn't helpful."

She let out a long labored sigh before she pulled something from her pocket. "Neither is this." A large silver needle sat in the palm of her hand, it was almost identical to the one that I had been injected with for the training session.

Unconsciously I touched my stomach, trying to ignore the creeping feeling of fear that was trying to invade my chest as I remembered being stabbed.

"I have to inject you with this before you go into the area." She informed me, looking at me waiting for my to object. I wasn't an idiot, I didn't have to be told that I didn't have a choice twice, the woman had already explained this at my training session. It was either going to be her injecting it into me or the peacekeepers. "You only have about three minutes until the games start.... We should take care of this."

I hesitated a long second before I extended my arm toward the needle. "Let me do it. Please."

Zeres nodded indifferently, "I just have to make sure the needle actually goes into your skin, no funny business." She stated flatly, placing the needle into my open palm. The metal felt gelid to my touch but I closed my hand around it.

I tilted my neck to one side and hovered it over the vein that the peacekeeper had injected it into yesterday. I procrastinated only one second before I plunged it into my neck. The needle stung slightly as it pierced through my skin, after a second I pulled it free and let it drop to the ground with a loud clang.

Almost instantly sweat began to pour from my forehead and my body began to tremble. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to beat right out of my chest. Zeres put a hand on my shoulder, "Calm down-"

"Don't touch me!" I cut her off jumping backward a few steps, paranoia began to tug at my brain. How did I know I wasn't already in the games, how did I know that Zeres wasn't a mutt sent here to kill me? I had to get something to defend myself with.

Zeres almost looked disappointed, as if she had no idea what the serum was going to do before I had injected myself with it. "I suppose I lied before, Cyrus Blue knew that you were going to be a coward in the games. He didn't give you a choice."

I backed up until I hit the curved inlet of the tube that was set to lift me into the arena.I almost jumped out instantly but Zeres stood in my way. "Lockwood, try to calm down, this is just the serum in your head, it is messing with you."

"How do I know that?" I choked, pressing myself against the curved wall, waiting for Zeres to pull out a knife and begin stabbing me. She never did.

Zeres stepped back and pressed a button. "You don't."

Glass slid around the opening of the tube, sealing me off from my stylist. She was right, I had to calm down, I was going to have to make some life or death decisions and I had to at least be able to think clearly.I pinched my eyes shut and I took several deep breathes as I felt the plate shift underneath my feet and begin to lift me into the arena. Somehow, not allowing myself to see anything made this whole situation seem smaller.

My ears popped as the air around me changed. It smelled the the old cemetery in District 3 after a rainstorm. The plate locked into place with a small snap and slowly, very slowly I opened my eyes. The scenery was dark, the artificial sky was painted with ominous looking grey clouds that allowed very little light to fill the stone courtyard that the fourteen remaining tributes stood in. Each wall had a tunnel leading off from it, undoubtedly leading to the rest of arena. A huge pile of weapons and supplies rose from the cracked cement floor in the center of the tributes, daring us to come and risk our lives for its bounty.

"Hello tributes, welcome to this year's annual Hunger Games!" A deep, crackly voice seemed to emanate from nowhere at all. "You all know how this works, you are going to get sixty seconds to prepare yourself and then you are going to kill each other. The last tribute standing wins. I'd say I wish the odds are in your favor, but you and I both know that they aren't." The broke off into snide laughter until it faded away, replaced with an automated voice counting down.

My heart was racing so quickly I was sure I was going to pass out. Adrenaline raced through my veins like the water in a rushing river. I needed a plan, I needed something to operate off of.

My eyes fell on Gavin, the last remaining career. He stood solidly, braced himself to run as he fixed his eyes on the weapons pile. I found myself doubting that he was going to stay at the cornucopia as it was traditional for the careers to do. Gavin just didn't have the means to hold it down on his own, he was was strong but he didn't have a strong pack behind him, he was smart but he wasn't smart enough to booby trap the area around the supplies so he could man it himself, which was really a shame because whoever controlled the supplies controlled the arena.

In that moment I knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.

"5..."

My eyes scanned each of the tributes, trying to figure out who would be the first to kill and who would be the first to die.

"4..."

I tried to focus on my own breathing to drown out the pounding of my heart.

"3..."

I braced myself and glanced up at the sky, Zeres words returning to me, 'Cyrus Blue knew that you were going to be a coward in the games. He didn't give you a choice.'

"2..."

"I have a choice, I will not be ruled by fear."

"...1."

All of the tribute's charged from their platforms, they sprinted in mad blurs toward the pile. I stepped from my plate hesitantly, scanning the pack of tribute's waiting for the first body to hit the ground. I knew I wouldn't have to wait long.

I watched one of the big, muscle bound brunette from District 5 stop midway to the cornucopia to trip Berlin. The young girl toppled to the ground as the boy kicked her mercilessly until she was bloody and unmoving and continued to the cornucopia. I sprinted over to her, dodging a few stray arrows and praying I wasn't noticed. The thick of the fighting was closer to the weapons pile though, if I was right I was safe for the time being.

I threw myself on the ground beside Berlin and rolled her still warm head backward. I scanned her swollen face for blood, I was lucky, her nose was still gushing blood. I caught it on my hand and smeared it over my face and my shirt, there was no way I would survive the thick hand to hand combat of the bloodbath. I was too sickly, so in order to make it through the bloodbath I was going to have to impersonate the one thing that wasn't going to be stabbed; a corpse that people assumed had already been stabbed.

"What the hell...?" My eyes flitted to Berlin. Her bruised eyes were opening slightly. Her face expression was filled with horror and disgust as she saw her blood on my face.

"Shh!" I hissed, going limp. I let my eyes fall closed and I tried to slow my breathing.

I could hear Berlin's body shift beside me through the other screams of the bloodbath. She grunted angrily, and I felt her hand grasp my neck. I forced myself not to move despite every muscle in my body that screamed at me to run. "Freak." She forced the words from her mouth painfully.

I heard the sound of a sword slicing through bone and cartilage. I felt a warm liquid splatter my face as Berlin's grasp went slack. I didn't move, but inside my head I was screaming. I was sure that a sword was going to plunge itself into my chest at any moment. The bloodbath was all around me now, the clang of metal was trumped by the agonized screams of dying tributes.The most frightening part was that I couldn't see a thing.

I felt a great weight on my chest as someone tripped over me and collapsed on the other side of me screaming. I heard the twang of an arrow's string right above my head before the screaming went silent.

The thing about the bloodbath is that it never lasts very long, though it's memory haunts the rest of the games like a shadow. As the chaos swirled around me that's what I kept telling myself; that the bloodbath will end and I can proceed with my plan. One by one I heard the screaming stop as silence overtook the clearing. It wasn't a happy silence, like the world after a rainstorm, rather it was a haunting one. It was as if this time in eternity had been set aside for a dialog, however no one had anything to say because the people set to speak it had died, so now it was simply purposeless and empty.

I didn't move for a long time.

As the minutes ticked by, fleeting and never to return, I became increasingly aware of the fact that I wasn't alone. Someone had attempted to claim the supplies. As I listened I came to the conclusion it was only one person as their was no dialog and the sounds of footsteps and mumbling never overlapped.

I heard them begin to rummage through the supplies, I knew that due to where I was lying he or she would have their back to me, so I opened my eyes only to be met with the grisly sight of Berlin's limp torso sprawled beside me void of a head. Layla, the pretty girl from District 7, lay over her with a arrow sticking from her chest. I tried not to gag.

I lifted my head slightly to see over them. I instantly recognized the dark curls that belonged to Gavin as he was hunched over the supplies, intently sorting them. His presence didn't surprise me though it didn't comfort me either. I swallowed hard, my eyes falling on a stray sword that was dying beside the District 5 male's bloody corpse, was going to have to take him out while he was distracted.

I didn't feel right about this, infact I felt as though my heart was going to explode. I had to act fast though, so I sat up, rising to my feet. The broken cobblestone cracked underneath my weight like the crack of bone, seeming a thousand times louder than I knew it actually was.

Gavin didn't turn around.

Holding my breath, I made my way over to the sword with painful caution. I never once allowed my eyes to drift from Gavin's back lest he turn around. I bent down and curled my fingers around the hilt if the sword and lifted it from the ground with the smallest of scraps. After a brief debate I stuck it behind my back as I began to creep toward the career who seemed to sort through his supplies almost with abnormal interest.

It was only when I came within four feet of him that a piece of the cobblestone cracked beneath my weight loudly. Gavin stood up and swung around so quickly that I almost didn't have time to process the first that was barreling toward my face. I toppled backward, my arm that held the sword still behind my back dug into the ground painfully.

Gavin lunged at me to pin me down, his hands closing around my throat. I tried to shift so that I could pull the sword from beneath me but Gavin was too heavy. "W-wait, Gavin, please! I c-can help you. You're alone, if you think you can hold this base down by yourself you are crazy. I can help you make this clearing into a fortress.There are bombs beneath the plates to ensure no one tries to jump from their plate too soon, you know that right? I know how to disarm them and re-set them up. It's been done in the past a few times, you know it is possible." I choked through the career's strong grip.

Gavin paused, his weight shifting slightly as he thought about my proposal, just enough so that I could pull my sword from underneath me. The last career standing didn't see the sword coming until it was in his stomach. It was frighteningly easy to push the blade through his abdomen. A shocked look splayed itself across his face as Gavin toppled to the side, blood gurgling from his mouth as his body spasmed slightly.

My heart racing with more velocity than a wild horse, I grabbed the hilt and stabbed him again, this time in the heart to end his suffering. I frowned as I watched his eyes glaze over lifelessly and his muscles go slack.

I felt the sword drop from my hands as I realized that I had survived. I looked toward Gavin hauntingly empty eyes though and found myself wondering at what cost. I stood up, completely disgusted with myself, knowing that I was bound to kill someone again before I died.

I wiped the blood from my face, I didn't have time for this. If I wanted to live another day I had to play off of my strengths and my strengths were not combat orientation. I was a techie, in fact I was one of the best in District 3 and I had the credentials to prove it. I had control of the arena's stronghold of supplies, eventually each and every one of the tributes would have to come back here and when they did my traps would destroy them.