Let The Games Begin

Chapter One

Reaping

For the third time, today marks the end of the world. Today. Reaping day.

I know that it doesn't make sense, but I'm actually not the first person I worry about when this day comes. There are two people who are my life, my best friends, everything I could ever need. My twin brother and our best friend. And if either of their names were drawn in the reaping, I swear I would die. I would volunteer for our friend, but I couldn't do a thing for my brother. And that's what hurts.

"Riiiiiin!" I hear Teto's voice as she charges up the dirt path leading to our house. Well, it leads to the coal mine, which our house is right by. Hers is close too. The three of us, we live in District 12. Teto pushes the door open. She's 15, a year older than me and Len. Teto slams the door open. "RIN!!" she repeats, flinging herself onto me. "The reaping is today!" I can hear Len groan. "Shh," I whisper. "I think you woke Len up." She giggles. "Oooops." Then she wails, "WHAT IF ONE OF US GETS CALLED?" She collapses into a fit of fake-sobbing, but I know that all of the emotion behind it is real. Just like I would be devastated if Len or Teto got called, he and Teto would be devastated if I got called.

"Teto! Relax!" I command, grabbing her shoulders. "This is your third year. It's Len's and my second. We haven't been called yet!" Teto cuts off her fake-sniffling. "Fine," she sighs. "Let's go hunt. LEN!" she screams up the stairs. "COME ON! HUNTING!"

Hunting is almost unheard of in District 12. I've heard that Katniss, the ultra-famous winner of the Seventy-Fourth Games, did hunting before she went in the arena. She doesn't anymore. For a long time, nobody hunted. But now, Teto, Len, and I are all hunting. Illegally, still, but hunting. We all have our specialties. Teto can use a bow and arrow to shoot a rabbit half a mile away. Len set snares that could trap someone heavier than me, and throws spears. I'm decent with a knife.

"Ughhh," Len groans, rubbing the back of his head as he comes into the small main room. "Teto!" he snaps. "I was asleep!" She giggles. "Come on," she urges. Grabbing my wrist, then Len's, she pulls us out of our own house towards the woods.

"Let's go," Teto whispers. She wriggles under the fence in a rut she found about a year ago, while Len and I climb over it. It's supposed to be electrified but Mayor Undersee really doesn't care, esepcially since she buys some of what we find.

As usual, once we get to the other side, Teto has already started pulling a snare line over. I carefully grab two of my four knives in one hand, looking for game. Len takes over the snares, grabbing his forage bag and spear from where he stashes them. He starts walking down the line of snares, grabbing whatever fell into his delicate traps. Teto grabs her bow and a quiver of arrows. "You go left, I go right," she calls, starting to skirt along the edge of the trees. It's her typical instruction. I start walking through the trees, pulling a third knife from my thin jacket into my left hand. Maybe we'd find a treat for reaping day. The odds were against us being pulled--none of us took tessarae; we were all perfectly happy with our hunting. Technically, Teto had the highest chance of the three of us, and even then it was a thin chance. I grinned. Another year, another fear, another reaping going to come and leave harmlessly.

Gripping my knives even tighter now, I make my way deeper into the forest. Suddenly, I stop and stare. No way. There was no way that I was looking at this.

Standing, poised as though it was ready to run but thought I may be safe, was a deer.

I threw the knife in my left hand hard. It hit dead center in the flank. Suddenly sensing that I wasn't safe, the deer started running too late. It collapsed to the ground, still trying to somehow crawl. I took my two knives in my right hand and threw them. One hit in its head, the other in its neck. I ran over, quickly pulling all three out. A deer--what amazing luck! Just when I was thinking about a treat for not getting reaped! I grabbed it and hurried back to where we started. About ten minutes later, Len came back with a full forage bag. He had reset every snare down the line--knowing him, it had taken almost no time. He gaped at the massive deer. "Whoa." I grinned. "You like?"

A couple minutes later, Teto arrived, wide-eyed. "Have you even seen all the deer here?" she demanded. "I didn't get one, but I got some rabbits--RIN!! YOU GOT A DEER!!" she squealed, wrapping me in a massive hug. "Treat for reaping day!" I giggled. Teto's excitement was infectious. Before long, Len had squeezed me too. "Nice work," he whispered in my ear. I grinned. "Good snare run. C'mon."

On the way back, all three of us had to go under the fence. Teto went first, with her forage bag. Then, we managed to push the deer through, and Len's forage bag. Finally, Len and I wriggled under. I grinned at the thought of how much we could get. We'd probably sell half the deer in the Hob, and half of Len's snare run. Teto didn't like selling her stuff--she normally fifty-fiftied it between Len and I, and her and her much-older brother Ted. We could get so much for all of this.

An hour of cutting, haggling, and trading later, the three of us have a feast ready for after the reaping. We had the legs and rump of the deer, five squirrels, three rabbits, a massive bowl of stew courtesy of Mira (Greasy Sae's daughter), some beautiful loaves of bread, and some tart-looking blackberries that we had picked soon after leaving the woods. Teto grins at the impressive spread. "What--a--FEAST!" she declares joyously. "How amazing is this going to be?" she asks, giggling.

Three hours later, it's time for the reaping. I can't stop the bile that rises in my stomach, or the awful pain of fear that I feel. But I know that the odds are beautifully slim for me being called, or Len, or Teto. Len and I go through our clothes until we find nice reaping outfits. I have a nice light ice-blue sundress with satiny pink wrap. Len has a lot less to choose from, but in the end, he chooses a dark blue suit, with the sleeves cut to three-quarters. The two of us? Ready for the worst.

Len and I stand, side by side, gripping hands with force enough to turn every knuckle white. We stand at the front of the group of fourteen-year-olds. Teto is at the back of the fifteen-year-old group. She keeps on looking back at us, as if trying to ascertain that we hadn't disappeared or something. I swallow hard every time that she does. It makes me even more nervous.

Pretty soon, it's time for the ceremonies to start. Mayor Madge Undersee is standing on the podium. Two of the four District 12 victors are still alive. Neither particularly like reapings. They come, but they really didn't come--they just sort of sit there and clap when everyone else does and don't pay attention. They only focus when it's time to train, or so I've heard. Not that anyone's ever lived to say that. Just rumors and letters to home.

Anyways, the victors, Katniss and Peeta, are sitting in a couple of chairs to Madge's left, and with them the bubbly escort, Effie Abernathy, named after her mother Effie Trinket. I keep gripping Len's hand tighter, then loosening. He does the same to me. Neither of us really pay much attention to a word that Madge says. We just sit there, gripping and releasing, until Effie comes up to center stage. I don't know who she's calling first, boys or girls, because she changes it every so often, and some years instead of saying "Ladies first," she says--

"Let's have the gentlemen first for once, shall we?" I'm ready to collapse. What if Len gets called, no he won't, no he can't, the odds are so slim, and now she's rooting around in the bowl with the slips of paper, and three of them have something awful written on them, and what if she pulls out one that says--

"Len Kagamine!"

Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no! How could this had happened? He had three slips of paper in the bowl, out of probably a thousand! How could this have happened?! And now I'm squeezing him like I want to break him, and Teto's squeezing us, and then we have to let go, and Len's walking up to the stage, and he looks ready to faint, and I just need to stop thinking and relax...

"Now, for the ladies!" But I can't relax! What if I get called? That would be hell. And what if Teto got called? That would be even worse! Teto and I are gripping each other now, trying to remind each other about our deal. I think back to the deal we made two years ago.

"Teto?" I ask, nervously. It's the day of my first reaping. "Can I ask you a question?" She looks up at me from where she's sitting on a rock. "What is it, Rin?" I swallow, hard. "Can I make a deal with you?" She frowns. "What?" I swallow again.

"Well... it's just, if I get called, I wouldn't want you to go in for me... and if you get called, I know you wouldn't want me to go in for you... so, could we both agree... not to volunteer?" Teto looks pained, like I had just tried to stab her in the back, but she can see the logic. I can tell. The recognition is in her eyes. Finally, after a few minutes, she sighs. "Yeah. Sure, Rin."

"Promise?" I demand. I don't want her to go in for me. I would hate myself if she went in for me. She would hate herself if I went in for her. I stick out my hand. Shake it, Teto...

Effie has pulled out the slip of paper, and she's said the name, but I can't hear it. I can't hear anything. All I can hear is my heartbeat and my breaths. That's all I want to hear, because I can almost hear the worst. Teto's squeezing me now, sobbing uncontrollably into my shoulder, and whispering something that sounds like "Remember I love you both" into my ear. Has Teto been called? But, no. Because I almost can't understand a thing, but the next time I'm fully aware, I'm standing on a stage, squeezing hands again. It's not with Teto this time, though. I'm squeezing hands with Len. And all of a sudden, I let myself hear what Effie said, because I think I know what it is. And I'm right. I hear the two words that can suddenly terrify me.

"Rin Kagamine."

A/N: Critiques, people! Reviews! Say what you think, pleeeeease! Comments, questions, anything! Mille grazie, fellow psychos and non-psychos. Ciao!