Hello everyone! This is my first story on FanFiction, as I usually do FictionPress, but I hope you like it! So this is what Prim was thinking and doing while Katniss was in the arena. Well, not quite yet in this first chapter but next chapter it gets more into the Games :). R&R please!

-gdmango

Prim

I wake up sweaty in the middle of the night, screaming Katniss' name, waiting for her to come to my side as she does every time I have a nightmare. Although she doesn't come. I wait a little longer and then start to panic. Katniss? Are you here? Where are you, Katniss? Then I remember. My brave older sister is in the Hunger Games. She volunteered to take my place when I was reaped, basically sacrificing herself for me. My lip starts to tremble again, but then I remember what I promised her when we said our last goodbyes. I told her I would stay strong and support Mom and I with what I could make.

Even though it's around 5:00 am, I can't get back to sleep. I slip out from under my thin blanket and let my feet find the surface of the rough wooden floor. I walk out of my room that I used to share with Katniss, and soundlessly find my way over to the sagging couch and sit down, feeling the comforting worn fabric underneath me. The Hunger Games start today. I turn on the small television that's in our house. I don't need to change the channel, as the there's only one because the Capitol doesn't want us watching anything besides the Hunger Games during the season. That started today. At 9:00 a.m., the tributes will be released to kill each other. Katniss could kill someone. Someone could kill her. Caesar Flickerman is on his talk show that he does every morning, but this morning his guest is Seneca Crane. The man that could decide Katniss' fate.

"So, Seneca, what can Panem expect in the 74th Hunger Games that's new and exciting?" Caesar eagerly asks Crane.

"Well, Caesar, I don't want to give anything away, but it's going to be a very exciting year in the arena for these, ah, unfortunate adolescents! There's going to be a variety of landscapes, and no matter which way they go, they'll experience something that they didn't expect." Crane smiled maliciously.

"Ooh! How exciting! I can't wait to see what you have in store for us, Seneca!" Caesar gleefully clapped his hands.

"Yes, I'm excited to see how it comes across with Panem this year," Seneca Crane sadistically wondered. "I hope you like it; we put a lot of work into it, as we do every year, but this year I'm especially excited!"

"Ahaha!" Caesar's deep and loud yet charming laugh reverberates across the set of his talk show. "Well folks, only 3 and ½ hours until the long wait is over and the 74th Hunger Games begin! Thank you so much for being on our little show this morning, Seneca, and we'll be waiting ever so patiently for these exciting events you speak of! See you soon, folks, and this is Caesar Flickerman, signing off!" The screen cuts to black. I can feel the fear and worry claw at the insides of my churning stomach. Exciting events? Variety of landscapes? Unfortunate adolescents? What exactly was this arena going to be? I begin to cry, trying to get out all my grief for Katniss before she's even dead. But she's not going to die. She promised me she'd try to win. She promised. And a promise from Katniss is all I have right now, besides all of her clothes and belongings that I don't touch except to smell them, because weird as it sounds, they still smell like her. Mainly like the woods; pine, oak, maple, but also a tinge of meat and bread and soup.

Bread. Peeta. Peeta, who Katniss has never spoken of. Ever. And now he's proclaimed his love for her and what the heck is she supposed to do about it? The bakery has remained open, it seems like Peeta's parents don't even care that he's going to die. I just assume that he's going to die because he'll have to in order for Katniss to come home. Which she will.

I look at the ticking clock above the cupboards, dusty from neglect. 6:00. In 3 hours Katniss could be dead. I need something to do. I know if I were Katniss, I would go hunting. But I can't stand killing innocent animals just so I can feed myself. And my mother, of course. What can I do? What can I do until 9:00? I look at the clock again. I can barely see from the dust coating the face, but vaguely it states that it's 6:02. Great. I've gotten rid of 2 minutes. Wait, the dust coating on the clock face. I'll clean the house!

I get out our make-shift broom, duster, mop and bucket, fill the bucket with water from the nearby well, and get to work. I dust the tops and insides of the cupboards first, then I sweep the floors. I don't clean mother's room, though, because every since Katniss got reaped she's stayed shut up in her room, even though she promised Katniss she wouldn't. After sweeping and dusting, I throw all the dust and dirt outside, and bring our 3 rugs outside and start beating them. The plume of grime that comes off of them is enough for me to stagger around for 5 minutes, coughing, but at least they got cleaned. I don't think the house has been cleaned for months, as mother fades in and out of herself these days, Katniss is usually out hunting with Gale, and I'm either at school or playing with Buttercup or Lady. While the rugs are still outside, I move all the furniture into my/Katniss' room and started mopping the rest of the floors. Once they were all wet, I checked the clock again. 6:45. Only 2 hours and 15 minutes and Katniss could be dead. But she won't be. Because she's coming home.

I sighed and got some raggedy towels out from a closet and started drying the floor. What if the arena's going to be cold? What if this raggedy blanket in my hands could mean the warmth between life and death for Katniss? No, they wouldn't do that. One year they did that, a super cold, snowy, and icy arena and it was a really boring year. There was barely any hand-to-hand combat, mainly just the tributes freezing to death. It seems so awful to say that it was boring now, when in reality I couldn't bear to watch them die. That was the first year that I really understood what the Capitol was doing to these kids. At every death that year, I cried. Those poor kids' families! Their parents who raised them just to see them slaughtered, their friends who cried for them, their siblings that fought with them but still loved them unconditionally. It was also the first year that Katniss was eligible for the Reaping. I had found out about what the Capitol was really doing to them a week before the Reaping, so on the day of it I was going berserk, convinced that Katniss was going off into the Games. The worry of her being Reaped heightened every year, because of the tesserae, but never in a million years did I think that she was actually going to go into them. It was all just a bunch of mindless worrying, not really thinking about what would happen if she was Reaped. Much less did I expect that I would be Reaped and she would go in for me.

I kept drying the floors. The clock read 7:30. My heart skipped a beat. Less than 2 hours and Katniss- or what's left of her- could be sitting at our doorstep in a wooden box.

"Stop that!" I scolded myself. "Katniss is coming home, remember?"

The floors were finally dry, and I slid all the rugs back to where they were, and heaved all the furniture back into their places, before collapsing in a tired heap on the couch again. I sat there for about 5 minutes, daydreaming, before being startled back into reality by a voice.

"Are you hungry?"

Mother's voice sounded hollow, as did her face. I tried to be nice to her, but sometimes she just bugged me. I know I'm supposed to be the sweet and innocent one, but that doesn't mean that I can't be annoyed with other people. I just wished that Mother tried more. That she gave more effort into life. Yes, it's been hard for her. The one and only man she loved died in a mining accident, and her eldest daughter is probably going to die—I mean, she's going to get HURT, but she's not going to die—But she's not the only one that's gone through those tragedies. I've gone through both, and so has Katniss, and for Katniss it's even worse, because she's the one that has to go through the Hunger Games, probably coming out not ever being the same again.

"No thanks." My stomach says otherwise as it growles loudly.

"I'll make some toast."

"I'm fine." I took a deep breath, before putting a small smile on my face and turning around to look at her. I didn't want us to waste any food that we could sell to get money to sponsor Katniss with.

"Are you sure?" She sounded like she almost wanted to make me something.

"Yes. Thank you, though."

8:15. Less than an hour. I decided to turn on the television to watch the pre-Games highlights. Once the Games start, the TV can't be turned off. The Capitol practically forces Panem to watch the Games, to watch their own children die, whether they want to or not. The Reapings are playing again. District 1's tributes are chosen, both volunteers out of breath from running up to the stage faster than all the other wanna-be volunteers. Glimmer, I have to say, is gorgeous. But she's a usual Career. All brawn, no brains. The boy, Marvel, looks kind of funny. District 2's boy tribute is extremely sexy, and the girl looks super menacing. Both big threats to Katniss. District 3's tributes are easily dismissible. District 4's are the same. Same with District 5's, though the girl looks like she has a strange steeliness to her. District 6 is no challenge at all, same with 7, 8, 9, and 10. The guy from 11 is HUGE and a HUGE threat, but the girl… the poor girl. Only 12. My age! Then there's me getting reaped, and Katniss volunteering for me, and Peeta being called.

After that is the Chariot rides and there's nothing special besides a little fight between the District 3 tributes, and the Girl on Fire. When she came out in that costume, it literally took my breath away. I was so awestruck by what her and Peeta's stylists did to them, that I swear my heart stopped for a few seconds. I hope that got her at least a few sponsors. 8:45. A lump in my throat formed, and I caught my breath. 15 minutes until the Games began. Caesar started talking and joking with Claudius, at which I scowled. Doesn't he understand? Doesn't he get it that my big sister is probably going to die? That only one of these poor kids gets to go home? I curse at him under my breath. He thinks this is all fun and games, but it's not. It's not anything close. My thoughts go off in their own world, and I wonder what Katniss is thinking right now. She's probably calm but nervous. If I was in her place right now, I'd probably be freaking out and jumping off the walls and screaming my head off, pleading that they not make me do this. If I was in the Hunger Games, I'd probably die in the Bloodbath. I'd try my best, just like Katniss promised me she'd do, but honest to goodness I'd most likely die on the first day. 8:56. 4 minutes. Mother sits down next to me and takes my hand in her calloused one, and squeezes it. I close my eyes and surprisingly the gesture calms me a bit. I'm still jittery inside, but not panicking anymore. When I open them, there's an aerial view of the tributes rising up into the arena that's grassy and to one side there's woods! I immediately spot Katniss and she looks confused and is looking at Peeta. For heaven's sake! I just want to yell at her. Focus on the arena, not on Peeta! Claudius Templesmith starts the 10 second countdown, and my breath is caught in my throat.

"Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One."

The Gong sounds.