Hello! This is my first story and sorry for some grammar issues. Hope you enjoy!
District seven isn't exactly the sort of district that trains kids to prepare for the Hunger Games. Unlike your typical district, one and two, who always have their children train for their games. Later volunteering for the games and becoming career tributes.
District seven is known as the lumber district. Yeah your average district that produces their own product that they are supposed to produce for the Capitol. Though, as people told me, I'm not like anyone in my district. I don't help my parents cut down trees, distribute wood, build stuff. My parents don't want that. Since I was their only child, they worry about me becoming a tribute in one of the Hunger Games, so, at the age of five, they instead they take advantage of the forest environment and secretly teach me how to fight, how to survive in the wild, and how to protect myself, making me home schooled. My family has been inheriting these techniques ever since the games started. Amazing how none of them have become a tribute.
They taught me how you can tell how sharp a weapon is (by observing the blades of the axes and finding which one slices a tree with the least cuts), how to climb trees in a matter of seconds, and how to aim projectiles like arrows or knives. We improvised using kitchen knives and arrows made from scratch to practice with. They also trained me to be diverse with my weapons.
Later, when I was still five, I was wandering about in the park all by myself. I found a boy being bullied by a group of kids my age, surrounding him and kicking him to a pulp.
"Hey!" I shout. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Well what does it look like, bird brain?" one of the girls said.
She was blonde and she gave me an evil glare with her oblivious dark eyes. Her eyes were so dark, it almost seemed like she was a human possessed by a demon. That word really ticked me off. To hold my anger in, I shrugged. This gave her such a face that you know you really annoyed the heck out of her.
"Beat it, bird brain," she said as she waves a hand and turns back to the boy.
I walk towards her, and yank her hair, pulling her head directly towards my knee. She falls to the ground and runs off crying. I look back to the group of kids, who are staring right at me and scatter off running, leaving the beaten boy lying on the ground.
I walk to him and try to help him up, but he was too weak to stand. He had a brown bowl hair cut that was covering his eye brows, his clothes worn out and full of mud, and had bruises all over his body, including a black eye. I look around, but there were no adults or parents near by.
"Where are your mommy and daddy?" I ask.
The boy doesn't even look me in the eye, he just looks out in the distance, as if he was zoned out, but he finally answers, "I ran away from them."
Guilt and pity washed over my heart. I wrap his arm around my shoulders and help him up, then sit him down on the nearest bench before asking, "What is your name?"
He finally looks at me with his hazel eyes. "Ian, what's yours?"
"Ruby," I smile. As we sit there for an hour, bringing up conversations, getting to know each other, I husk him around my shoulders again and bring him to my house.
"Umm, Ruby, who is this boy?" my mom asks as she opens the front door.
"My new friend," I answer. Her eyes lit up, and she fixes her posture. "Can he sleep over?"
My mom gives me a confused look before answering, "Sure, help yourself in the kitchen, you can eat anything we've got."
My family is pretty wealthy compared to my peers in district seven. We could buy anything in these walls, well of course I don't mean literally.
"Thank you," Ian said and smiles and walks towards the kitchen.
As I walk inside and I gesture her to lower herself for me to whisper to her. She does so and I whisper, "We will talk later." She nods and follows Ian to the kitchen.
"So who's the new boy?" my dad asks as he reads back to his newspaper. "You don't usually invite friends to the house, or at all."
My parents know that I don't normally have any friends, which worries them, but I've always told them that I've always wanted to be alone, and that I don't really want to get to know people. I don't know why, but Ian was different.
"Yeah, well I found Ian in the park," I answer. "I found him being bullied. Seeing how he was dirty and all and how there wasn't any other parents around, I asked where his were and he said that he ran away from them."
I observe my dad's face and I can tell it was a "So that explains everything," face. He sighs and says, "Okay, but how would we know that we can trust this young boy to sleep over?"
"We're just going to have to wait and see for ourselves," I smile. "So, do you think we can adopt him? I've always wanted to have a brother," I giggle.
My dad looks at me with a flabbergasted look, but then smiles, "Maybe…let's see what your mom says."
Ian's POV
It's really nice how Ruby let me stay in her house for a little while. I feel that I owe her big time.
For now, Ruby's mom is trying to pick up a conversation from where I met Ruby, to where I came from. She was giving me no expression or emotion to anything that I have been explaining to her. She was just listening as I eat my sandwich.
However, her expression changed as she asked, "So, what are you going to do after you leave?" Her voice seemed a little shaky, and her face looked nervous and insecure.
"I don't know, I wasn't really expecting anyone to let me stay at their house," I say shyly.
She brightens up, giving me a wide smile and her voice became excited, "Well, you're welcome to stay anytime you want. Heck, I can probably adopt you! We have plenty of room and you can accompany Ruby!"
Well that escalated quickly.
"I'm going to cook something up for dinner. That sandwich isn't going to be enough to fill you up." She turns and mumbles something that I can barely hear, "Finally, Ruby won't be alone anymore."
Third Person POV
Dinner sits out all over the table as everyone sits there quietly eating their food. There was a displeasing silence surrounding the room until Ruby's mom says something.
"So…love…what do you think about adopting…" her sentence stops there. Ruby's dad looks straight at his daughter as she looks back at him with the same astounded face.
Then he looks at his loving wife and answers, "Well…you see…Ruby and I-"
Ruby interrupts by giving her father a formidable glare. With a face that says, "Don't bring me into this; this is a decision between you and YOUR wife!"
"I mean I was thinking about that too," he says nervously.
Ruby's mom keeps a straight calm face with her head up high. We are going to adopt him and Ruby WILL be happy and so will we! "Good, so we're on the same page. So…are we adopting him or not?"
She darts her eyes straight at her husband, knowing that he must say yes no matter what she says. Ruby and Ian look at each other in terror.
"Y-yes…yes we are adopting Ian. I'll fill out all the papers," Ruby's dad says as he quickly looks straight at his food.
"Good, welcome to the family Ian."
Ruby's POV
Ever since Ian joined the family, he and I trained together for the Hunger Games. Finally, when we reached sixteen, we weren't afraid of the reaping anymore.
The reaping has begun. Before Tia was able to pick the name from the bowl in the female side, I raise my hand, "I volunteer as tribute!"
Everyone looks straight at me. They all look perplexed, maybe even frightened. So, to avoid any more faces, I walk towards the stage and stand next to Tia.
"Wow! Our first volunteer," she says.
Then, she begins to grab a name from the boy's side until…
"I volunteer as tribute!"
All the faces look towards the boy with hair that flows to his forehead, making his bangs spiky. Their faces looked even more stunned than when they looked at me, but I smirked.
"Wow! Two volunteers? How interesting!" Tia cheers.
Ian and I stare at each other before shaking hands. He smiles at me, but I give him a straight face. This is all going according to plan, but I'm not even sure if I'm ready to let him go.
We face the crowd and Tia raises both our hands high. "To our two 74th Hunger Games tributes!" Tia shouts. Instead of clapping, they salute us. I think I even saw one of the kids tear up.
Ian's POV
We sit next to each other in the train and I keep thinking to myself, We've been training with each other our whole lives for this. We've been training with each other our whole lives for this!
Knowing how Ruby has been training for the Hunger Games and eventually telling me that she was considering in volunteering, I've always wondered why. So, since she was going out there in the arena with someone she probably barely knows, instead why not I volunteer with her to protect her? I mean, I do owe her my life for the things she has done for me. If it weren't for her, I probably would've suicide a long time ago. I don't think I have a purpose in life except protecting my beloved sister.
Later in the train she asks me, "You know, what would happen if it were just the two of us left standing? Would we fight to the death, or…"
She stops there, but then I answer, "If we were the last two standing, then I would sacrifice myself in order to get you out of that hell hole."
Ruby looks at me appalled, but then lays her head on my shoulder. With this sort of gesture and the look on her face, I know she needs comfort. I've always been learning her looks and emotions ever since we were five.
So, I do what I usually do to keep her calm and soothed. I pet her head, grooming her hair, and hug her as close as I can, laying my head on hers and my arm around her shoulder. I'm specifically like her supportive older brother.