Chapter One: Early Morning Sights
The soft morning light shines through the bakery window as I pull scalding bread from the ovens. I always take the morning shift, helping bake bread and ice the cakes. We will have a lot of business today - it is the morning of the reaping. When rich families are ensured of their children's survival, they come here to buy pastries and delicacies. Mean while, the poor go home to their broken down shacks and are forced to continue on with the worthless life of coal miners. It makes my anger run just as hot as the fire I am handling.
This will be one of my last reapings. I am seventeen years old, but I have two brothers that also must participate in the ceremony. One has just barely escaped the requirements at age nineteen. The other is fifteen, but he brings me no comfort, for I know that if I am drawn he will not volunteer. My mother says they are the ones with all the promise. To them, I am worth nothing. But I have long since accepted that reality.
The sun filters through the cracks in the door, signaling dawns end. I pull the last pan from the oven and cautiously walk over to the large window at the front of the shop. Pulling the pale blue curtains back, I peek outside into the hazy streets of district twelve. Very few people are out at this hour on a reaping morning. The lone miners that march past nod at me when they catch me watching, but it is not them that I am looking for.
Right at the edge of my view, I see a beautiful face appear. Then comes her long black hair and the rest of her thin, wiry body; her skin a golden hue. She has her face in the trademark scowl. Katniss. No matter how deep that hateful look is, it always puts a grin on my face. She is the only piece of hope in my world. The sad thing is, she doesn't know. She doesn't know how I long for her; how I respect her with so much love that my bones ache when I see her. She is unaware at how I have tried to care for her secretly all of these years. She doesn't even know how I watch her, every morning, from the shadows of the bakery window right around this time as she returns from hunting.
Too soon behind her comes Gale. He is from the seam part of twelve, and his features show it. The girls at school always speak of him, though they know he is as good as spoken for. We all expect Katniss and Gale to marry. It pains me to think this, and I want to deny it all. Gale carries a large bucket of strawberries and strings of fish. They are heading towards the mayors house, towards where Madge lives. Poor Madge is desperately in love with Gale, though she has only shared this with me because she knows I can relate. I can, but she will never feel the same way I do. My feelings for Katniss are deeper than anything I have known.
I lovingly watch from the window as she and Gale walk side by side. As quickly as she appeared, she is gone from my view. I'll see her soon enough at the reaping, but that of which is possibly the most unpleasant time to see Katniss. It means that she is in danger, and I am powerless against it. Fear and anger flare inside me against the capitol. All I can do now is hope for the best for both of us. It is time to start icing the cakes before mother walks in and beats me. I set to work.
And before long, the dreaded reaping is upon me.
