This is the first fanfiction I have ever had the guts to publish, be sure to leave reviews on what you think

Chapter 1

I wasn't often scared, and on the rare occasion when I was, I was never one to admit it. There was one day however, when I and countless other children across Panem were afraid and were not ashamed to admit it.

It was known as the Reaping which originated from the word reaps, meaning to harvest a crop or to reap a reward. It was ironic once one really thought about it, since the majority of Panem went to bed hungry and only one of the twenty-four children reaped would ever receive a reward, if it even could be considered that.

It was on this day, the reaping day, that I would proudly admit I was afraid. I would never show it of course, but it was there hidden behind a carefully constructed poker face. For years I had watched the children of my district aged 12-18 gather together in the town square to await their fate and it was this year that I would finally be among them.

I watched them cry for their loved ones and friends, from relief that they had escaped the dreaded Games for another year. I watched as the District celebrated the children that remained, whilst the families of the tributes chosen made their way home where they could mourn their almost certain upcoming deaths. Two years ago I had watched in despair as my older brother, the provider, the rock of the family, bravely made his way up on the stage to face the solemn District, not knowing whether he would ever return.

This years reaping was more terrifying than any other because this year my name was printed on six of the flimsy white papers that were folded neatly into one of the huge clear glass reaping bowls. I had always thought it funny that a glass ball held our lives in the balance. My name was entered more than once because my brother's death resulted in my having to take over as my family's provider, and despite the fact Ean had clearly told me never to take tesserae if he were to die, it was either that or being sent to a Community Home where Tariq and I would be separated.

Though I knew it was unlikely I would ever be reaped, as there were thousands of slips in the bowl, I couldn't help the feeling of dread and apprehension that washed over me when I considered my name being picked from the bowl.

Tariq, my baby brother, who was only three would be shipped of to the Community Home and would soon forget all about me just like he had forgotten Ean. He would grow up alone, hungry, starved and unloved. I knew, from observing them at school, that the community kids were a lot weaker than others, this was probably due to severe malnourishment and atrocious living conditions. The Community Home didn't get much funding and most of the food was procured from the inhabitants tesserae. Their poor immune systems couldn't fight off the majority of deadly viruses and were more susceptible to illnesses and diseases. Therefore it was very likely that my beloved Tariq wouldn't live very long.

Tariq had always been small, born prematurely through an emergency caesarean. He had wailed his first cry as my mother breathed her last breath. Our father had despised him from the second he learned of our mothers death, he blamed him for the death of his beloved death, despite the fact it takes more than one person to conceive a baby.

It was me and Ean who looked after him. We fed him when he needed feeding, changed him when he needed changing, comforted him when he cried and most of all we loved him. Ean used to say that we loved him enough that it didn't matter that mother was dead and father couldn't stand to look at him.

After the death of our mother, our father turned to drinking. Any spare money we had disappeared so that eventually Ean had to take out tesserae if we were to eat, despite the fact mother had never wanted him to. Father was mean, rude and abusive, not the man I had grown up calling daddy and certainly not the man I had respected fro most of my short life.

It was when Tariq was one, Ean fourteen and I nine that it happened. Our father had turned up drunk to work and no one had noticed. The chemical factory he worked in exploded. There were no survivors, 326 dead at our father's reckless hands.

We were shunned. It was a miracle we survived at all at the beginning. It didn't seem to matter that we did nothing wrong. We were related to him and that was considered a crime. Ean was old enough to work, but no one would employ him, the son of a murderer. If it hadn't been for the mercy of an old friend of our mothers, we probably would have starved to death in those first few months. Maria Turnips had been our mother's childhood best friend. Her husband was the local butcher and would give Ean odd jobs here and now. Ean had only been working there for a few months when he was reaped. He never made it home.

I could remember that day as if it were yesterday. It was the first reaping after our father's death and Ean had just turned fifteen. We were dressed in the finest clothes we owned. Ean was in an old worn blue dress shirt that had one belonged to father, and I was in a simple shabby brown dress. Tariq, who had developed a fondness for running array, was being held tightly to Ean's chest. Ean had grown stronger in the past few months from hoisting heavy meats around for the butcher, and looked more like a man than a boy to my ten-year old eyes. It had been Ean's dream to invent things before father's death. He had even received an invitation to join the Academy, but he had to decline. I knew it was unsatisfying for him working for the butcher, it wasn't challenging enough for him, but we had to eat.

When we reached the checkpoint Ean handed Tariq to me and warned me to keep a tight hold of him before striding towards the group of fifteen year olds. I made my way to the crowd of bystanders as usual, Tariq's heavy weight squirming irritatingly against my hip, desperately hoping that the reaping would be over and done with soon so we could go home.

The girl was picked first, Anneliese Marks the mayors daughter. I watched as she made her way bravely to the stage stepping away from her fellow fourteen year olds, her petite blond form shaky. I didn't know her personally, but she had stopped another girl from her class from pushing me once so I was a little saddened by her being picked.

Then it was the boys turn. My breath hitched slightly in anticipation, and then, and then she called Ean's name. I froze. Out of the thousands of slips in that stupid oversized glass bowl, our ever cheerful escort picked the one that had my brother's name on it. I watched with tear filled eyes as he jerkily made his way onto the stage, his face a stoic mask, and his eyes I knew filled with the determination not to show his fear.

I could hear the murmured whispers around me. Good riddance someone whispered. Paying for his father's sin said another. I glared through my tears at the people who were glad my adored brother was being sent to his death.

The proceedings went by in a blur before we were all dismissed. I ran towards the Justice Building, Tariq complaining on my hip. The first person I went to see was Anneliese. I had never thanked her for saving me from her classmate's ruthless actions. She looked surprised to see me, she even laughed when I explained why I was there. Any decent person would have done the same, she said before I left wishing her luck.

My visit with Ean was much more emotional. When the peacekeeper let us through I ran into his arms ignoring Tariq's whine of protest to being squashed between us. We simply held each other for a few minutes before Ean started talking. He loved us, he said. He would try his best to come home. In the meantime I wasn't to take any Tessera and I would have to try to find a job. I knew Ean knew it was pointless though. School was mandatory until you were thirteen and I had just turned ten. If Ean didn't come home Tariq and I were headed for the Community Home.

Ean kissed us both on our foreheads and hugged us both one more time before being pulled away by peacekeepers. That was the last time I ever saw him. As I left the Justice Building I contemplated Annaleise's last words to me any decent person would have done the same. Panem didn't have a lot of decent people I decided. Weeks later my prediction was confirmed when Anna died on the third day of the games, stabbed in the back by the girl she had allied with and trusted.

Life after those particular games was tough. I had no means of procuring any money and we were hungrier every day. I knew that if we were to survive we would have to enrol ourselves into the Community Home soon. Surprisingly it was Beetee, who had been Ean's mentor in the games that was the first to approach me after his death as well to offer me help.

Due to his insistence Tariq and I moved in with him and Wiress. Almost immediately we fell into a comfortable routine. Everyday after school I would make my way to the Victor's Village where I would cook and clean for them. They tried to tell me it wasn't necessary, but I was much too proud to accept what I thought of as charity so they allowed me to keep my pride intact, and help keep the house orderly. I did however know that they appreciated my cooking, as they were both awful at it. I also liked to make sure they actually came down to eat, as I suspected they were often to immersed in new ideas to eat most of the time since they were far to skinny.

I grew fond of the adorable inventing couple. They were quiet and observant and mostly kept to themselves in public, but were very out going when you got to know them. Beetee got me interested in technology again, he liked to tell me interesting facts, he asked for my opinion on all his inventions and he let me borrow his books when I admitted to finding my schoolwork dull, boring and unchallenging. Wiress was warm and motherly, always trying to make me laugh. She had taken a liking to Tariq and looked after him when I was at school.

I was grateful for them, their generosity and kind hearts. But despite their reassurances that I wouldn't get picked this year I made them promise to look after Tariq anyway. I laughed sheepishly when they asked what I thought they would do with Tariq, throw him in a dumpster?

Eventually the day came when I was standing for the first time among the crowd of District 3 children, on the much dreaded day of the year which would decide whether or not we lived or died. I sucked my sore thumb nervously. The peace-keepers had pricked my finger for a drop of blood when I had signed in to identify me, and they hadn't been to gentle about it either, leaving the wound open and leaking blood.

The crowd I was standing in was getting restless and my fellow twelve-year old's anxious whispers and frantic eyes were making me more nervous than I was before. I tried distracting herself; Tariq's birthday was coming up. He was getting so big, so big that I couldn't carry him around any more. He looked more like Ean every day, I thought morosely. All three of us had shared the same thick black-brown curls, and high cheekbones, creamy skin and golden eyes, but Tariq was a boy so looked more like Ean then me.

I loved my little brother more than anything else in the world. I had always been protective over him, even more so after Ean's death. When peacekeepers came round after those dreaded games to take him away from me, I pounced on them with a knife. Luckily for me, the peacekeepers thought I was just having a hard time coping with Ean's loss, and Beetee arrived soon after to sort out the mess.

A loud screeching noise pulled me out of my thoughts. I winced as Tropicana Weedle, our escort, noisily adjusted the microphone. Tropicana looked as ridiculous as always. Her skin was dyed a pale, unnatural white and her lips, eyes and afro hairdo were bright orange which clashed horribly with her hot pink outfit and shoes. She smiled brightly towards her unwilling audience her fake, white teeth blinding.

It disgusted me that the citizens of the Capitol could afford to make themselves look like freaks, whilst people in my district died daily from starvation and curable infections. It was humiliating and repulsive that the Capitol treated the Hunger Games like a sporting event from the past; pitting each district against each other like their lives did not matter.

One day, I thought darkly, I would like to see how the capitolites would feel if it were their children, capitol children, fighting to the death. I hoped that day would come soon. I watched scowling as District 3's Mayor made his way to the stage. He had never been the same after Anneliese's death. She had been his only child and his wife had soon gone mad with grief. He was much quieter nowadays going about his responsibilities swiftly and without much enthusiasm.

He began his compulsorily speech. It was the same one every year accompanied with the same video of how Panem came to be. In History class at school we learned that Panem was once known as America. From the ashes of a war-torn America Panem rose. It was ruled by the tyrannous Capitol which took advantage of the surrounding thirteen districts. We were given the worst food, the shabbiest clothing and the poorest housing.

He tells us about the rebellion, how we fell, how District 13 was destroyed, and how as punishment, the Hunger Games came to be. To make sure we understood who was in charge, every year two tributes one girl and one boy would be picked from each of the twelve remaining districts to participate in the barbarity of the Hunger Games. Where they would then proceed to fight to the death, the last one standing was the winner, and would become an instant celebrity in the Capitols eyes.

He read out the list of past District 3 victors. In the last seventy years District 3 has only had three. Beetee who won the 48th Hunger Games, Wiress who won the 53rd and Tiffa Johnson who won the 15th and died of morphine overdose a few years back. She was an addict which I had never fully understood until we had been made to watch her games in school one day. It had been one of the most gruesome games I had ever seen, and I had always made sure to smile at her whenever I saw her after that.

Tropicana takes over after that. She grins that fake cheshire smile again before broadcasting that she would pick the boy first this year as a change. I wanted to punch her. It didn't matter who got picked first the end result would be the same. They would both end up dying.

I watch as she reaches into the giant reaping bowl and plucks out one of the folded names with her perfectly manicured and done up fingers. She opens the folded paper up and the tension in the air becomes thicker as she clears her throat and pronounces clearly, so that everyone can hear;

'Marius Blakely'.

I could hear sobs of grief coming from the crowd of bystanders watching us indubitably a family member. The name is unfamiliar to me so my eyes follow those of the girl next to me, to see a tall boy slowly make his way up to the stage through the crowd of eighteen year olds. His last year, such a pity, he would have gotten by never having to worry about the games again if he hadn't been picked. The peacekeepers watched him warily as if he would try to make a run for it. It was ridiculous really; we were the smart district, we weren't stupid enough as to try to run when we knew the consequences.

I had never met Marius Blakely, but he was clearly well off wearing a clean white shirt and dress pants that had yet to be stained grey by the permanent cloud of mist and soot that seemed to continuously surround our district. He had red hair, an oddity around here where the majority of the district was blonde with a few dark haired people now and then. He wasn't crying nor did he look confident. In fact he had a slightly lost look on his face, like he didn't know where he was as he stood there on the stage.

We clapped in sync with each other like we always did though there was nothing happy to be clapping about, as one of our own had been most probably sentenced to his death, but Tropicana just laughed oblivious to our distaste for her and everything her surgically enhanced body stood for.

After shaking Marius's hand Tropicana walks towards the other reaping bowl, the one full to the brim with the names of the hundreds of girls that inhabited District 3, the bowl that held six slips of paper with my name neatly printed on them.

I watch as her hand digs deep into the bowl before she extracts one. I watch in slow motion as she opens that flimsy piece of paper and that's when it hits me, that feeling of dread and apprehension that washes over me every time something bad is about to happen.

I shiver, my eyes set firmly on the stage as Tropicana announces the unlucky tribute, and the name coming out her mouth?

It's mine.

Sooooooo what did you think? Was it any good? The next chapter should be up soon but it may be a little delayed due to exams: D