I've been working on this short story off and on as a distraction to clear writer's block while writing other stories. I think it's ready for prime time, so I'm posting. Don't know if anyone will be interested in it, the theme's probably been done to death, but it popped into my head and I've been tinkering with it for months.

This is my first attempt at 1st person and present tense and a story in this fandom. A lot of firsts and I would guess it shows painfully so in this story, but I hope, in the end, it's not total crap.

Don't own any of it

We stand facing Mayor Wrighthall, our mayor of District 4, and listen to the speech he gives about those souls lost at sea, how they gave their lives for the good of Panem. He speaks of how honorable their deaths were and how they will be remembered. We all know the truth, though. They won't be remembered except by the loved ones they've left behind. For my parents, they only have me to remember them.

After the mayor finishes his speech and the crowd wanders away, Finnick, our victor from the Games last year, clings to one of the other victors everyone calls Mags. Holding him tightly with one arm, she uses her free hand to pat his back gently, speaking soothing words in his ear while swaying from side to side. The pain in her eyes is as clear as day and says to me that somehow she understands his loss.

I wonder who he'd lost. His grief distracts me from my own if only for a moment, and I'm thankful for that.

The other children around me leave with the parent they have left, but some are like me, waiting for an official to collect us and take us to the community home because we don't have parents anymore. Unlike those with some family left, we won't be sent home with one month's wages; it'll go to the home for our care.

I have no say in the matter. At twelve years old, they won't let me live on my own, and I have no family left to take me in. So I'm left to become like the children I've seen who live there. They're well fed, but there's a kind of desperation in their eyes like no one else from my district. Usually, that look is seen in the eyes of those from the outer districts.

I know I shouldn't, and I try not to, but I can't stop the tears that start to trickle down my cheek. No matter how hard I try to fight it, I can't, and to my shame my nose starts to run, forcing me to sniffle. I look at all of the people left around me, and have never felt so alone in my life. Just when my tears start to stream down my cheeks I feel a hand slip into mine, and I look up to see a boy standing beside me. He doesn't have any parents with him either, and he looks just as lost as I feel.

He crosses his eyes to complete a silly face he makes at me, and it makes him look so out of place that I can't help but giggle.

"There's safety in numbers. An alliance?" he whispers to me. It's a philosophy that makes sense, the whole reason why our tributes try to team up with those from Districts 1 and 2 in the Hunger Games. "You and me?" he asks to coax me to agree with him.

I look down at our entwined hands and then back at the boy with his auburn hair and green eyes. I don't feel so alone anymore. "You and me," I say as my grip tightens in his hand. I don't know him, but I feel some comfort in having him near me. It's not much, but it's all I have to cling to.