Chapter one: First steps
I stand there, a cold feeling inside of me as I see a figure with a mace in its hand standing across the way from me. By its stance I can tell it wants to kill me. I have only one dagger in my hand which is covered in dry blood, and along with my tattered clothes and multiple cuts I can tell I am in the Hunger Games; the feeling of pure fear doesn't lie. The figure runs at me very quickly, hair whipping behind it as it runs. The figure seems to be very feminine, then I realize it's a girl who's attacking me. The figure swings the mace quickly at my side with brutal force. I only just have the time to leap back to avoid major damage. I look down gingerly hoping not to see a wound; I am right though. I see wounds. Three very light cuts now stand out on my stomach, each one having a small trail of blood trickling down it until it softly hits the floor, staining it red. I growl lightly as I glare at the female figure and yell as I stab my dagger quickly down at her arm, but she leaps back, the dagger barely cutting into her shoulder. I leap back quickly as the mace comes at me again. This time I manage to avoid it completely as all the figure can do is pull its arm back. I take a breath quickly and realise I am in a clearing between a forest and a lake. The floor is stone, with small cracks where grass pops up here and there. It's so dark it's hard to see exactly what's going on or what the area is like. The only reason I know about the floor is because I hear the figure's shoes tap against it as they charge at me, and I felt the grass against my feet as I stepped backwards, it brushing my ankle before I nearly fell into a crack in the floor. As the figure takes a step back I don't know whether to take a chance and attack, but something makes me stand still, like my body won't let me go forwards, like I have feelings for what is standing in front of me, like I know I care for it; like I can't live without it. The figure moves its arm back, mace in hand, then runs forwards and throws it at my head. I hear it come towards me and see it, a spike aimed between my eyes. I try to move but I all I can do is scream until the mace hits and my world turns blackā¦
I wake up with a jolt, my entire body doused with cold sweat, but I'm burning up. I look across from my bed and see my little sister curled up in her bed across the room from me. We both live in a worker's accommodation building, mainly used for kids or adults who work the most in the orchards. People who live here are usually called in to do overnight stuff when they have a 'low in crops', or as I better know it they have found out who hasn't been collecting enough. I sigh as I pick myself up out of bed and walk into my sister's room, lightly shaking her awake. She's only eight so she is nowhere near reaping age, but she still has to attend because I'm her only family left after our parents died.
"Wake up sis," I say, lightly shaking her again as she groans and turns over. "It's your favourite day of the year." I joke as she laughs then sits up, her hair sticking out at all ends, like mine when I wake up. Me and my sister have many things in common: we have dark brown hair, extremely pale skin, we have both grown to an abnormal height for our age and we both have the same abnormal speed that no one else seems to have. The one thing we don't have in common is our eyes; I have steely cold blue eyes that just seem to say 'I've survived hell, now I will make your life worse than hell itself', whereas she has deep kind of green eyes that just seem to make everyone around her seem to open up and smile. She never seems to have a frown on her face. There again is another difference. While she is just a smiley happy person, I am a rebel. I always find a way to attract attention no matter what, but I always find myself taking a beating for someone else.
"It's not Christmas yet, is it Dami?" my sister jokes as she gets out of bed.
"No, it's reaping day." I say bitterly then laugh as I walk down the stairs. This is the usual way I have fun, confusing everyone but myself.
Once I get downstairs I pull out what we have left of the bread. We take the last of the jam we had and spread it onto the bread as I turn our TV on to see what 'all of Panem should be looking forward to'. This year is the 106th Annual Hunger Games and everyone is excited to see what will happen. After all, only girls from eleven have won for a long time and being a boy and picked is basically jinxed, no one really makes it to day three anymore. The career districts have lost their edge a bit but not too much, the last quell was taken by a boy from ten, Horus West I believe his name was. All that the TV shows is Carlos Flickerman talking to the current head gamemaker Axel Rush. He was the one who made the arena for the hundredth games, it was the most gruesome games yet and since then he hasn't missed a beat. Every games I have to send my sister out of the room before the games begin because of the gore that happens within the first two minutes. The Capitol even considered raising the tribute numbers because he went through so many on day one that almost no one made it past day six. Before he came along, the games usually lasted ten days until a victor was crowned. The most recent one being a boy from three who shocked the country by killing the final tribute by trapping him in a cylinder of fire which burnt him into a burning pile of ash. It went on for four hours, the wild crazy screams along with the horrible gut wrenching laughter of a sick minded killer.
I ignore the TV as my sister comes down the stairs, wearing her little green dress that I bought from a Capitol trader that came to the district. My sister made a few adjustments to make it look like a nice calm flowing dress, not at all what it was made to be. We eat in silence as a sort of tradition so we don't have to share the nervous talk we have shared for the past two years of 'What if I get picked? What if I end up dead? What if I go so insane from the games after I win, if I could, I can't remember who she is?' All these things pop up on this day. Each time they do I always end up the same, saying everything is ok.
I quickly run upstairs and get dressed for the reaping; I am wearing a short sleeved blue button up shirt, black jeans which are ripped at the knee from working in them all the time and my working boots. This is what almost every boy in the district shall wear today, just instead of blue it will be green or brown, a colour we were assigned after the districts were crushed again and District Twelve had to be rebuilt, but after that for a few games the losing streak they had broken. A girl named Primrose something managed to win at age eighteen followed by two other victors before the streak was back, but the district still managed to get close every year, closer than any male from District Eleven that is. I quickly walk to the door, opening it into the small village of people who live near the orchards. We are a tight knit community but we are the lowest of the low - we aren't even good enough to stay in the actual district, we just stay out here until reaping day, then they will at random pull out a few people from the reaping to carry on the work. I can only beg I'm one of them. I drop my sister off at a friend's house who will take her to the reaping for me so I don't have to worry about what could happen to her whilst I'm there, which is good, because today after the reaping she may not be feeling too happy.
Once I arrive at the reaping, the place is packed as usual with people walking to and from the square, along with the many lucky families who have had their kids name taken out of the bowl for this year. How I loathe them so. Once I get to the front of the line I can only beg I will see an amber light on that stupid needle so I can turn around and just go to work, forget about this day for a year, that's what I want. I hold out my hand as the needle gently enters my ring finger, then out again, a droplet of blood just sneaking out before it is slammed down quickly onto the piece of paper. Then she uses the scanner on the needle, all I can hope for whilst its reading is an amber light, please just one is all I want, nothing more, please, just this once. The green light flashes on the needle and I nearly allow a tear to escape my eyes. I am still counted in the reaping, the one year my name is in there most, mainly for taking out food and oil for my friends families to boot. My name is in there so many times, if I'm not picked I may as well volunteer. The word seems foreign to me, it's like a word we refuse to speak, because if we do something terrible will happen if spoken upon this day. This is very accurate because if you say it at just the right time something terrible will happen. You'll be a tribute.
I slowly make my way into the section filled to the brim with boys my age, fourteen years old. I stand between my friends as we all exchange a nervous and friendly smile in hopes that won't be the last we share together, that we will always be able to share these moments. How untrue after today that will be. "Good luck." I say because even if one of them got picked today, the odds are in their favour I'm volunteering. None of us dare look up whilst the beginning goes on, all about how we failed to rebel twice and how if the districts ever rebelled again the Capitol may not be so merciful a third time. I curse under my breath as it goes on. It's basically feeding us Capitol bread, lies on how they've made life better. Say that to the mutts in the orchard that attack me daily. Once the speech of lies is over the girls reaping begins and I look nervously around at the faces of my friends and people I don't know. I can see all of my friends sticking out like sore thumbs like me and my sister do, but none of them seem worried and most of them aren't here. "Luna Grove." the crazy woman yells. I suddenly feel an urge to look at her then instantly regret it. She's wearing high heeled pink boots and a bikini shaped like apples with a green see through jacket and she has bright green hair. I suddenly wish I kept my head down; I can't help but break down laughing as I draw loads of attention to myself. Being the rebel of the district doesn't help. Once I'm done with my laughing fit the reaping goes on normally. She plunges her hand into the bowl of tributes and I beg for my name to be there just so I can act scared, as all the cameras think it was one of my friends not me. She slowly unravels the paper and I stand on edge as she opens her mouth. She takes a breath and her lips form the syllables. "Dallas Robern!" she yells in an loud perky voice.
I step forwards away from the crowds, my friends try to pull me back but I won't let them. For once I'm doing something for someone else. I'm saving their life. I stick my hand up high in the air and before I can control myself the words "I volunteer!" are past my mouth and the crowd is silent.
