I stared out the window at dawn, which held one of the top views of the ocean in District 4. Studying the waves crashing into the shore brought a certain calmness. Peace. Happiness. Unlike my miserable life. Sometimes I wished I could be just be a dolphin.

I sighed as I looked back to see Annie curled up in the fiddle position as she mumbled in her sleep. I guess Annie had worn some of herself on me. To make me into a dreamer that she once exemplified as a child. Glancing back to the window, I remembered that I had seen the dolphins once when I was eight. Thinking of that age brought back another memory. One that I wasn't so fond of, and yet, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Annie Cresta and I were very close friends from a young age, so close in fact people would have accepted us to be sisters if not for the physical and personal differences. While Annie had long, wavy dark brownhair and amazing sea-green eyes, I had long straight fiery red hair and blues eyes deeper than sea. As children Annie was always the more reserved, shy, naive, forgiving dreamer whereas I was a outgoing troublemaker that lacked patience and wasn't forgiving if betrayed. Somehow we worked to keep each other in check. I think the only other thing we had in common with each other was that we both didn't know how to swim.

I could remember that summer day when we decided to meet up to our normal hangout by the beach. The hot sand was blaring under my bare feet and the smell of the sea-salted air began to blow to the shore as I reach closer to our destination. Even though I dared not to go pass knee deep into the ocean, i couldn't help love it. I really did wish I could swim, swim with the dolphins I saw with my father that year, but I was too scared to even attempt it.

Creeping up to the shoreline, I noticed Annie's usual sewing needle, thread and small collected shells she would use to decorate hers, but mostly my clothes were in a pile, but there was no Annie. Scanning around the beach in fear I noticed there were two kids on the dock by the fishermen's row boats. My lips pressed together knowing kids went allowed to use their stuff. Period. After all those boats and equipment, which are hard to come by, were used to keep us alive in this district.

Taking a couple steps closer, I recognized the boy standing on the dock untying the rope that held a boat. It was Erving Waters. The annoying boy that always had a crush on Annie. My blue eyes glanced over to see who the other person he was with, but to my surprise I didn't see anyone else on the old dock. Instead I realized the boat he had just released had a small person inside it. I squinted my eyes to see who the second idiot was that was dumb enough to go out their alone. Maybe it was Gannet Murdock. He's was one of his friends that would do anything to get attention.

With the sun gleaning down, I placed my hands over my eyes to notice the person had peep up over the side of the boat. They had long brown hair and eyes that had reflected the same color as the water they were surround in. Annie!

Annie waved to me from the boat and my stomach dropped. I subtle waved back in shock and was trying to figure out how to get her back to the dock. Maybe the rope was still there? I quickly sprint as fast as I could to the dock and to see Erving smiling and watching Annie float away. "What the hell are you doing?" I ask out outraged.

Erving too caught up in his amusement jump at the sound of my voice. He shrunk under my glare as he said innocently, "Annie said she wanted to be in the ocean, but couldn't swim. So I offered the idea to let her go in the boat. She's safe and happy."

I glanced around the dock to see the rope to pull her in was now floating on the watery surface. With my temper rising I said, "You let the rope go?"

He gave me a look of being offend and said cocky, "I'm not that stupid to let the rope go, I have it lying on the floor…." He glanced down to the floor to see the rope had fallen into the water. He said hopefully, "She could always row with the oars."

I was about to shove him into the ocean until I noticed two oars lying on the floor of the dock. I grabbed him by the shirt as I yanked him over the oars. I hissed in annoyance, "You mean these oars, idiot." Annie was now further out into the bay and I turned to face him, "The only thing your good at is making things worse than it has to be. So why don't you make yourself useful and leave."

I stormed off the dock and aligned myself across from where Annie was floating. I yelled, "Annie pull in the rope." Annie nodded her head and I could tell she was scared by her wide eyes.

I asked, "Can you throw the rope as close as you can to me?"

Annie threw it pretty far, but not at a distance I could reach especially when I was slowly walking into the water until it was to my torso. She reeled in the rope again, but it was short. Annie said, "I'm scared. I can't do it."

She began to cry and I said as I started to go back out of the water, "I'm going to get help."

Annie yelled in panic, "Don't leave."

As I turned back around I saw her stand up in the bow to throw the rope as hard as she could. I yelled terrified, "Annie don't stand!"

But it was too late the boat rocked from the unbalance placement of her body and Annie tumbled into the water. I screamed in fear as Annie splashed to keep herself a float. I charge into the water, but my legs seemed to be glued to the floor when the water was close to my shoulders. I yelled and screamed for her.

I cried and yelled more for any soul to help her. She was slipping from my view until I noticed something quickly splashing through the water toward her. Then it dove under the deathly water where Annie had disappeared. I was still and stared waiting and hoping it was friendly and not some kind of animal that was charging her.

"Annie?" I yelled back to the silence. It was in those few seconds Annie resurfaced the water with someone I didn't know. He swam Annie back where I was waiting and I help move her to the shore. Annie laid limp on the ground and I panic when I realized she wasn't breathing. "Annie!" The boy quickly began to kiss her and I smacked him in the head, yelling, "What are you doing?"

He stared at me fiercely with his eyes and yelled, "Saving her life."

He went back to what he was doing and I just sat on the sandy ground and waited. I don't know why I left him continue at first. Maybe I trusted him because he was trying to help her. Or maybe it was because he had the same eyes as Annie that gave me this connective trust. The boy continued to switch back and forth from breathing in her mouth to pushing on her chest, until Annie began to cough up water. Her beautiful sea-green eyes opened up and I clung my one hand onto Annie's arm while pushing her matted hair out of her face with my other hand. I said calming, "Its okay. You're safe now." She cradled her arms around me as she cried horsed from the sea water.

I glanced over to the boy that saved my sister's life and mouthed with sincerity, "Thank you." From there on, all three of us had become close friends. Inseparable really.

Twisting away from the window, I placed the blanket over Annie's body and kissed her forehead. She again was talking in her sleep in coherent sentences mostly about water, the scars that the games left in her delicate mind and Finnick. I softly moved out of the room we share and check in on my little brother, Reid. Unlike my bond with Annie, Reid was actually related to me by blood. I opened the door to see him still fast asleep with his brown hair covering his eyes. Down in the pit of my stomach I been having a bad feeling for weeks that something was going to happen. And no matter how much I tried to shake it off, it seemed to linger in the back of my mind.

A week ago my brother had just turned twelve. Twelve is a big deal here. It's the age where you have the honor of putting your name on a slip of paper. And if the odds were in your favor you could be chosen to win a life of glory or an honorable death. At least that's what some people believed or pretended to believe to feel like they were in control of their decision. It was last year a young girl of twelve was picked and even though she looked like a twig and had no chance at winning, no one volunteered to take her place. It would be a disgrace not only on the kid's family, but the district itself.

So not even her older siblings offered themselves in exchange, instead they sentence her to death. I felt more sick now at the thought of the reaping was today. It wasn't because I was scared for myself; if anything I had Mags, a wonderful woman, to look after Reid and Annie. If anything it was my brother I worried about even though I have been reassured that his name had only been place once in the bowl. If anything I had more of a chance to being picked. In order to get tessera, a ration of grain and oil, I had to exchange my name, thus increasing my chances at being picked. My name was put in there at least 28 times, but in my mind it was worth it. It kept my brother and me alive for at least four years, after my father just disappeared on a sea exposition.

Thankfully, because I worked and added my name into the bowl, we could keep our normal lives living in our home, which felt empty most of the time. With my father missing and my mother dying after giving birth to Reid, it literally was just us. Well that's not totally true, later on when I had reach 15 I had the privilege to meet with Maggie Dew. From there on, Mags would invited us over a lot to the nicer development of champions and spoil my brother as I went off to work or train. And after Annie had won the 70th Hunger Games, her father had given me a raise at my job making snares, traps and nets for fishing.

Anyway, I began to return back to the stair well of Mags' mansion, which we weren't suppose to live in, but that seemed never to stop Mags. And technically we weren't, we just visited so often that it was close to making it a home.

The pots and pans were beginning rustled in the kitchen and I knew she was making breakfast for us all. I pushed the door open to see her struggling to bend over in her age to pick up a pot that she had just dropped. Briefly walking over I picked it up and handed to her. "I could have gotten it. I'm not that old yet."

I laughed and replied, "At heart you are not Mags."

She glanced over to me with her warm smile, but then observed my demeanor, "It'll be over soon sweetie. Reid should be fine. One out of a million." More like one out of eight hundred, I thought. Around here, not many people either wanted kids or had time for kids. We were an industrial place that meant time was money and money meant not starving and living a comfortable life. "Want some eggs?"

Mags version of eggs were fancier and way more delicious than anything I could ever cook. Though getting the ingredients would bankrupt my life saving in one fellow swoop. The last time she added Lobster with scrabble eggs. I replied, "Sure."

Mags pulled out the smoke Salmon she prepared last night and diced piece of in into the frying pan with different spices and eggs. Placing it on a dish, she said, "Smoked Salmon Dill Benedict."

I took a bite in my mouth and it was indeed good. I turned my attention back to Mags, who was now washing some dishes and asked, "So Finnick will be coming to town now?"

She stopped her motion for a second and then nodded. "Yes, he has to be present for the reaping; after all he's a mentor like me."

Footsteps paddle toward the door and Reid entered with a sleepy expression still. He yawned out loud stretching his arms up and said, "That smells good." I waved him over and gave him a larger portion of my food. He asked questioning my appetite, "Aren't you hungry?"

I shook my head even though I knew the acid was eating a new layer of my stomach. "Na, you go ahead and eat it." He knew that I was upset with what day it was and he placed his hand over mine in comfort. Unlike me, he seemed at eased, as if he had accepted this life style of being sentence to death as a matter of fact. That's one thing I've always envy him about, how he could accept change without it upset his being.

I subconsciously watched him eat the whole hardy meal like it's our last supper before our death. Kind of like the guy named Jesus, who was arrested and was supposed to be put to death. Was he I will never know? At the black market, locate in the wood area is an abandon shack. There I've been able to purchase at dirt cheap cost, pages from books beyond our time. Some hold parts of interesting stories; some had information on things I never even heard of, like white blood cells and how when you have an infection they go up to fight the infection? What this things looked like or how to find them I'll never know. Maybe the Capital kept them locked up for their beyond medicines? Other papers just contained numbers and formulas. These were once apart of books I am told, but after disaster struck, the capital burned all of them. They said they would poison our minds with the pre-historic knowledge that led to extinction of the place once called America. I do wonder at times, what that place must have been like. Did they have games to kill innocent children too?

Pushing those thoughts a side, I told Reid, "You should get dressed and ready for today."

He rolled his eyes and complained, "Do I really have too? It's so itchy."

It's my turn to roll my eyes and I said sternly, "Yes. Now go."

Reid grumbled as he pushed the swinging door open hard. It's hard enough to knock into the person behind it. "Owwff!"

Reid recognizing the man, who was about to enter through the kitchen said, "Hey Finnick! What are you doing here?"

Finnick wiping his nose from blood coming down replied with a smile, "I came to visit you squirt. Here give me a high five."

Reid excitedly responded with a slap to Finnick's hand and said, "All be back. I have to get changed." Reid quickly climbed up the stairs and disappeared.

In the mean time, while watching my brother idolize Finnick I had grabbed some ice from the fridge and placed it into a towel for his nose. "Here." I said catching his attention.

He had change again from the last time I had spoken to him. That had to be about eight years ago, after he was reaped. For one he had somehow grown taller and more muscular than I seemed to recall. His hair was now grown out more and not the buzz cut he loved so much. The only thing that she could recognized was his eyes which use to reflect Annie's until the hunger games. Now hers have a glassy look to them.

In that time he was taking me in too, for I could say proudly I not that skinny little girl I used to be. He walked hesitantly closer taking the cloth of ice in appreciation. "Thanks."

My eye's shift down as I moved past him to get ready for the reaping. I knew it was unfair that I directed my anger at him, but I couldn't help it. He didn't have to endure the sad pain of watching Annie cry her heart out because Finnick didn't come home to her or when she heard rumors of him with other girls. He was breaking her heart and I was the one doing collateral damage.

Also, Finnick didn't have to endure watching everyday Annie be not the person I used to love. She was gone most of the time, except with Finnick. I think that's what made me most sick. I, her sister, wasn't remembered and couldn't get one respond out of her while, Finnick, who come by once in a blue moon had somehow brought Annie out of her stupor for a little while. I truly envy him to have that ability.

I bit my lip harder than I should have as I ripped off my sandy and ragged clothes. Clapping hands caught my attention as I was about to slip into my navy blue dress I borrowed from Mags childhood years. Sitting up in bed, Annie was staring off and clamping in the air as if to catch a bug flying around her. Fixing the seam of my dress to lay flat, I walked over to Annie and said, "Good morning Annie."

I kiss her head and there is no response that my presence is even heard. I suddenly felt guiltier and angry at myself more. Could she be pun…. The door knocked, breaking my thought. And I asked, "Who is it?" as if I don't already know.

Finnick a jarred the door and asked, "Can I come and see Annie?"

Just with the sound of his voice Annie somehow lights ups and said in her dead pan tone, "Hey Finnick." It pained me to hear her voice once again. It used to have life and happiness run through it. I nodded my head not even trying to make contact with Finnick. I think if I did I may cry.

Closing the door behind me, I felt trapped in this feeling of wretchedness and I needed to get out of the house. I quickly sprint to the front door and sat on the porch to clear my emotions and mind. I've gotten pretty good at it since Annie came back home. Heck, I think I've grown more patience than I ever thought I would achieve too.

Reid stepped out onto the porch in a green button down shirt and tan slacks. He asked, "Do I have to wear the jacket and tie?"

I evaluated him with my blue eyes and responded, "It's too hot out for a jacket, so leave it." He was about to jump for joy until I added, "But the tie is a must."

His face pulled down, "Ahhh…come on . The other boys don't wear one."

I rolled my eyes and just let it go because I already felt worn out. "Fine."

He ran over and hugged me as he exclaimed, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're the best sister ever."

A smile reached my face at those words. I replied sarcastically, "You better believe it."

Mags stepped outside with Finn and Annie following behind. Mags told us, "It's time."

I glanced over at Annie, who began to giggle uncontrollably and Finnick stated to Mags, "I'll take Annie home and meet you there." We all stood up and I could still feel something looming in the back of me. I had a bad feeling it was death.