!NOTE FROM LACHANCE!

I am writing this alongside my Elder Scrolls story- I can't access any of my home files, until I get home, but I literally just wrote this and uploaded it. I do love me some pay computers:) Enjoy

I hate water.

Being from District 4, it's a strange thing to hate. Most of the other kids around here love it; they spend all day splashing in the shallows, and catching the tiny fish that swim around there. I watch from the Community Home window, wishing silently I could be out there with them. These rich kids with their still-alive parents, who get to go outside and play with other kids. It's not a house, here, it's a tomb. Behind each door, locked from the outside, lies a child, dying. Sometimes, Matron will go into a room and drag out a dead body. What do they feed us? They feed us off the "community" so that means nothing. Being 15, I have to work, but aside from that…

The only times I get to leave this place is to go down to the harbour and mend fishing nets for pittance, or go to the training centre to work on my skills in tridents and knives and learn to read and write. But I like going down to the harbour more, because I can be near people who don't know me; the men who go out in their boats to fish. I half hate and half want to be them. I want their freedom, I want to be liked as they like each other. But I don't want to go near water. Because water is where my father died, and he could still be down there, watching from the deep. His mouldy fingers reaching out to grab, to snatch, to pull you down. God, I can see why people call me insane. A 15 year old boy, still scared of water… I can swim. A long, long time ago, I loved to swim; splashing around with my older brother and sister in the sea. They hated me even then. My mother died in childbirth, you see, giving birth to me and a twin sister. My twin sister died, too, but the doctors managed to keep me breathing with minor brain damage. Brain damage that makes me crazy, apparently.

Out of the window, I can see a small tanned boy being swirled around, quite far out, by a current. Nobody seems to have noticed, but I watch him intently from my window. He's either laughing or screaming; I can't tell from this far away. I hope he doesn't die, but even if he does, why should it matter to me? His death won't be the first I've seen, and I don't even know this kid. There's no way it'll be as bad as watching my father slipping into the depths, his green eyes going blank and those two bubbles… Two damned bubbles…

It's quite early in the morning, about six, and I'll be going to the training centre in an hour. Because it's the last day before the Reaping, everybody will be running around madly, readying themselves for the Games. We're a Career District so everyone wants to be a tribute; for the glory of District 4 and all that shit. Really, I don't get why everyone wants to win. After being trained to kill your entire life, why would you want to live? What purpose in life, after winning the Games, is there for us?

The boy's gone under, and there's a commotion on the beach. Some strong, heavily muscled man is swimming out to get him; he won't drown. However, I watch with some kind of morbid interest. If he did die, how would everyone react? He hasn't: the strong man is swimming back with him, having hauled him out of the current. I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

The sound of a lock clicking wakes me out of my stupor, and I look up to see that Matron is unlocking my door. I stand up immediately; having been in the Community Home for seven years, I know protocol. If you don't stand up when Matron, a fat, red-haired and red-faced woman comes into your room, you get thrashed. She's never said a civil word to me, but who cares, honestly? Three years and I'm out of this dump. She pokes her head round the door, and throws a stale slice of bread at me. It's typical District 4 bread; tinged green with seaweed, and it tastes good. Oddly, after all these years, I've actually grown a bit of a taste for it stale. God knows why- I'm probably going even more insane, if that's possible.

Catching it nimbly, I bow my head in thanks and she sniffs, giving me a suspicious look.

"What have you been doing, 616?" she doesn't refer to any of us by our real names. I'm just number 616, and she's just Matron. I don't know, and I don't want to know her real name. None of us Community Home kids call each other by our real names, either; we call each other either by our number, tattooed onto our hands, or by some crude nickname. Usually, I'm called Knife-Boy, because of my talent with knives. Sometimes I'm called Kid, Dumbass, Prick, or Douchebag, or worse. And I'm one of the lucky ones.

"Nothing Matron," I reply coolly, returning to my seat by the window and staring out of it. "Sitting here and watching small children drown, you know the stuff." Looking at her, I watch her flare her nostrils and feel a little amusement. I love making morbid jokes, simply because of people's reactions. I'm a strange person, I've been told that plenty of times, but my dark humour tends to get me into trouble. And today isn't special, because Matron comes and cuffs me around the head, hard. As usual, it hurts a great deal (she's got very meaty fists, let's say), but I'm used to it by now.

"Stop trying to be funny." the woman says harshly, before waddling off to unlock the next room. I sit by the window for a few more seconds, nursing my painful head, before starting to nibble away at the bread. As we don't get lunch, I'll have to make it last until dinner time. So I only eat half, before getting up and getting dressed in my allotted clothing. Ripped canvas trousers and shoes with a black shirt. I've tried to darn up my trousers, but I'm no District 8 kid. They look even worse now than they originally did- whoever I pass them on to, once they get too small, is an unlucky kid.

I've got to report at the training centre for seven, so I get up quickly and walk downstairs. Stopping to tick my name off on the signing out sheet (Matron likes to keep track of where we've gone so she can spy on us, basically), I walk out into the streets and inhale the stench of District 4. Sea salt, fish, and seaweed. It's a strong smell, but I love it; it's the smell of home. The streets are full of early morning fishermen coming back, carrying their wares already, and others only just walking out. Kids my age are also walking out towards the Training Centre, and most avoid me like the plague. Even amongst kids my own age, I'm considered freaky. It doesn't matter to me; they're all meatheaded, unintelligent idiots anyway.

Hands in my pockets, I walk down the street, following the tide of kids from age about 8 to 18 towards the warehouse where we train. It's supposed to be like a school, as well, and it sort of is- we get read literature, and it serves as a school for those of us who can't afford to go to the proper school. In Career districts, they charge money to go to the actual schools, because they're for people who want to grow up and work in offices and stuff. Those of us who know we're either going to compete in the Hunger Games, or become fishermen, we just learn at the training centre. I've got work from four thirty till eight, this evening. My days are busy, but repetitive. Train, learn, work. Train, learn, work. Every single damn day. Then, I get to watch those rich kids who can afford to go to school play in the sea.

Eventually, I make it to the warehouse; I dawdled along the high street, watching the tide go in and out. The tanned kid from earlier was playing with his friends, and I stopped to watch him for a moment. Apparently, he doesn't care that he almost died.

When I open the door, I find that Mr Ancholl, the principal, is sitting at his desk just inside. He gives me a lazy glance, before I walk up to him and sign my name off on the register. The sound of chatting from inside the centre is loud on my ears, and I stand still for a second, examining my nails, before Mr Ancholl prods me with his foot to keep me going, as there is a tide of people behind me giving me evil looks. I look blankly back at them, before walking towards the door into the main centre, where almost everyone is already assembled. We have an assembly before we go into our separate classes, and we are taught by age group- the kids from eight to eleven go together, then from twelve to fourteen, then from fifteen to seventeen, then the big eighteen year olds get a class to themselves. Mostly it's eighteen year olds who get into the games- not this time. I'm volunteering first.

You see, I've been thinking it over; if I die, what have I got to lose? Life, sure, but I don't have much of a life anyway. And I think that maybe, just maybe, if I win… People would like me. Trust me; I'd be the pride of District 4. And I can win: I've been training just as long as all the other Careers, and my skill with knives is unmatchable.

Moving into line with all the other fifteen to seventeen year olds, I sit down in between a tall girl with a rather limp brown ponytail and a smug expression, and a small boy who looks barely fifteen, with a curly crop of red hair and a weak chin. The girl sniffs and moves away from me, not wanting to be seen sitting next to a weirdo, and starts talking to her friends on the other side. The boy looks longingly after her, before giving me dull look. I sort of know this boy, from training together; he's not half bad. As he's just as outcast as I am, we tend to stick together with the other outsiders. His name is Prosec.

"Morning, Lykos." he says to me, and I nod my head. Although we tend to get lumped together, I don't talk to him, or anyone, much. Usually, I avoid speaking so not to offend. Knowing me as he does, he grimaces, then turns to watch the girl on the other side of me with eager, puppy-dog eyes. It's almost pathetic; she's not even pretty.

Just as I'm thinking it, she turns around and glares at me, looking at me with challenging olive eyes. "What you looking at, pussy-cat?" she asks sharply, and I stare at her from under heavy lids, then look away and sit back in my seat. Pussy cat is another one of my nicknames- because of my tawny shoulder length hair and my green "catlike" eyes, I guess, and the pointy ears and the sharp teeth… And the habit of always falling on my feet… alright, I'm the human embodiment of a cat, okay? Honestly, I just wish people would actually call me by my real name- it's Lykos. Lykos Danio, not pussy-cat.

"It's Lykos Danio," I reply quietly. The girl looks me full in the face and laughs sarcastically, before turning back to her friends with a contemptuous sniff.

"Good for you."

I can hear them laughing about me, so I turn around to the front where the eighteen year old's teacher, Mr Candoras (an ex victor from ages ago), starts us of by reading out of the Dark Days book. It basically talks about the rebellion and the Hunger Games, and what they mean to us Districts. It would be quite an interesting talk, except for the fact his face and bored, monotone voice make it dull as hell. When he eventually finishes and wishes us luck for "another day of learning", we split off and go to our classrooms. The others chat but I stay silent at the back, not looking at anybody. As long as I don't look at people, I've learned, they stay away from me. Some are scared of my skills as a knife-thrower. Some are scared of just… me.

Our teacher, a young woman in her mid twenties named Miss Wellwood tells us to sit down on a long bench at the back and we do so. There is no space by the time I've shuffled over to the back, so I lean against the wall, knowing that I am now going to be picked on. Teachers never like me, for my morbid jokes and never turning up to school on time, and Miss Wellwood is no exception. She's tough as nails, and always carries a crop around with her to hit things with. She doesn't even need it, everyone's too afraid of her to step out of line, but she just likes twirling it around for her own amusement. She notices that I'm the only one standing and takes it as an excuse to pick on me.

"Danio, come to the front." everyone grins, knowing something's coming up and I'm going to be ridiculed. We can all see it from the look of sadistic enjoyment on her smooth face; I am going to be teased until she gets bored of playing with me and moves on to somebody else. With a heavy sigh, I get up from the wall and walk to the front of the class, not looking at anyone. I don't care about any of them. I stare straight at Miss Wellwood, who walks around me with a cruel grin on her lips. The class is practically bursting with anticipation. And eventually, after looking me up and down several times, she says very clearly, "Why are you so skinny, Lykos Danio?"

A few of the kids laugh and I ignore them. This little game has nothing to do with them- it's just her and me, and I'm going to win. There's no way that I'm going to let her play me like she's trying to- I won't give her the satisfaction. "I'm allergic to food." I come up with eventually, and mentally slap myself in the face. I'm allergic to food?! What's that supposed to mean?! Oh for Gods sake, why couldn't I just tell her that, because I'm from the Community Home, I don't get any food? Nervously, I look over at the clock. It's eight, and I leave here at four. This is going to be a long day.

The teacher prowls around me, holding her crop tightly. I can see, in those pitiless blue eyes of hers, that she desperately wants to hit me with it. The littlest provocation, and she will. A flash of amusement appears on her face. "You're… allergic to food?" she says, raising her eyebrows sarcastically. Some cruel kids in the class laugh at me, but, unfazed, I know I have to go along with it now. I've said it, and I'll look even weirder if I just deny it. So, standing up straight, I shrug.

"Yeah. Makes me puke if I have some… certain types of food."

Why do I always get myself into these situations? These situations where I have to make up crap so not to appear as a total idiot? But I must look even more stupid than if I'd just admitted that I made the allergy to food up, carrying on my evident lie. What makes it worse is that I have a half eaten crust of bread in my pocket. Oh God.

Miss Wellwood raises her cleanly plucked eyebrows at me, still circling. Then, she sighs and shakes her head at me, a look of pity on her face. "For Gods' sake, Lykos, you must be one of the most stupid and irrational people I have ever had the misfortune to meet. You tell lies to me like that?"

At least I know it's nothing personal; she goes through this whole regime with a different kid everyday. Well not always a different kid; it's been me a few more times than most of the others, but that's just because I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's either the kid who's not managed to get a place on the bench, or the kid who can't find a partner when she calls for us to pair up: in other words, she picks on the outcasts. Slightly sickening, but that's Miss Wellwood and most of the other teachers in this place. It's not the only training centre in District 4, there are two others, but I can only imagine that the situation is the same in both of them as well. And anyway, complaining to Matron would get me nowhere. She'd either shout at me for complaining, beat me for complaining, or not listen and irritatedly tell me it "builds character" and push me out of her way. It's happened before.

"It's not a lie, Miss. If I have food, I puke all over the place. Seriously, it's a medical condition- I have to be fed through tubes at home." This story is getting more and more complicated, stupid, and full of holes. Any second now I'm going to run out of this classroom screaming. When am I going to have to give it up? She sighs and raises her eyebrows, looking at me with disgust in her eyes. The woman sends me back to where the others are, and I squat this time, trying not to be seen. I'm a fluent (bad, terrible, appalling) liar, and I seem to do it impulsively. My dad used to call it "Telling stories". My older sister Winnow refers to it as "Talking Crap". In most situations, I have to agree with my older sister's version.

We go through the usual stuff that morning: a maths test, a study on the poem The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe; we move onto more exciting things after that. Miss Wellwood starts a class discussion on the best ways to throw knives, and I even get to demonstrate. She really doesn't have anything personal against ME, she actually smiles at me after I hit each target she throws my way dead-on, but has to ruin it with questioning my intelligence again. By four, I'm tired, hungry and ready to go home; after sitting with the other community home kids and watching everyone else eat lunch while we starve, I'm hungrier than ever. But I can't eat dinner till eight; however, I do have half my bread left in my pocket. After the "I'm allergic to food" incident, I couldn't risk eating at lunchtime, in case Miss Wellwood or anyone from my class saw.

After class I walk to the harbour, where I sit and weave ropes together clumsily. Even after three years of it I'm still no good at my job; I just can't sew. I half wish and half dread that they might someday let me go out in a boat- I want the freedom, but I hate water. Because water swallowed up my father. After three and a half hours of fixing nets, the harbour-master shakes his head wearily at my appalling work, and sends me home with ten coins. I have to give most of it to Matron, for "expenses", but I get to keep two of them. And you know what I spend all my money on? Sweet things.

I've always had a passion for sweets although I can rarely afford them; I've been saving for weeks and I finally have ten coins. Enough for a small bag of lemon sherbets. The sweet shop is very expensive, and just looking in the window makes my mouth water. As there are quite a few rich people in District 4, the shop gets good business; I watch rich brats walking out of there with their hands and pockets full of sweets and chocolate. Truly, I envy them, being able to taste the sweet goodness that costs so much for me. Lemon sherbets are my favourites: they taste delicious, and if you suck the sherbet and let it bubble up in your mouth, you look like you're having a fit. Hilarious.

Walking down the High Street, I dodge out of the way of a group of rich children walking out of the sweet shop, and duck right in. Immediately, the smell of burnt sugar hits my nostrils and I inhale deeply, savouring.

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to buy something? I don't want street kids in my shop." The one drawback of this shop to me- the owner. A raggedy old bitch with a temper; she hates everyone under the age of eighteen, even more so if you don't have much money. For a second I consider walking straight back out, but the lemon sherbets are practically calling to me from their little jar. Walking over to the counter, I put down my hard earned ten coins and she looks at them, a greedy expression on her skinny face. How can she work among all this delicious food and not eat any of it? If I was in her position, I'd be so fat I'd break the scales.

"What'll it be then?" she says, her voice considerably friendlier than before after seeing my money. Stifling a laugh, I point out the sweets I want and she bustles over to the jar and weighs out five of them into a little paper bag. Then, after measuring them out again and again, making sure I don't get my money's worth, she steps back towards me with an evidently fake smile. "Thank you, please come again. I love having children around." she says, scooping the coins into her pockets.

By the time I get back to the community home, it's almost dinner time. I hide the bag of sweets in my pocket, knowing that any of the other kids will literally attack me for them. Signing myself in as 616, I run up the stairs to my room (room… cell…?) and dump my stuff, making sure to hide the sweets in my mattress. Matron won't hesitate to confiscate- and eat- them herself if she catches a whiff of them. I go back downstairs, and the smell of fish hits my nostrils. Being from District 4, we always have fish for dinner; whatever type of fish is available, really. Shellfish, oysters, white fish, flat fish… You get the idea. Turning into the kitchen, I see the thirty or so other community home kids sitting at tables waiting for food. Matron is at the stove with two of the older girls, peeling shellfish. Mmm.

Sitting down by a 13 year old boy numbered 627, I say quietly,

"Excited for the Reaping tomorrow?"

He almost jumps out of his seat at the unexpected voice, and then calms. But then, looking round at my face, I see fear enter his eyes again. I'm famous throughout the home, it appears. I've never talked to this kid before in my life, but he fears me? Funny. "Yeah… rem… yeah, I'm pretty excited… 616…" the kid's voice is laced with fear. What does he think I'm going to do- attack him? Ever since I got in a fight with 605, an eighteen year old boy the size of a shark, everyone thinks that I'm dangerous all of a sudden. Which could or could not be the case.

I leave it at that, because one of the girls is handing out the shellfish; doling out a lump of it onto everyone's plates. When she gets to me, I realise it's my older sister, Winnow. She glares at me, and when she slops the fish onto my plate, she gives me comparatively less than any of the others. I give her a look and she slams the pot down at the head of the table, grudgingly taking a seat next to me and tucking into her own plate of the salty flesh. She's seventeen, eighteen in a few weeks, and can't wait to be out of the home and "away from Lykos". My older brother Derry, who is nineteen, left this place almost two years ago and says it's the best thing that ever happened to him. Derry doesn't like me either, but can admit that it wasn't my fault our mother died. He just dislikes me in person. Winnow? She hates me with every pore of her being: she hates the fact that I "killed" mum, she hates the fact I was with dad when he died, she hates my personality, she hates that I'm considered "attractive"… She full on hates me. Get it?

"Evening, Winnow." I say, and my sister shoots me a look laced with hatred. You'd never guess, looking at us, that we're siblings: same with Derry. Those two are short and stocky with dark hair and eyes, like mum, and I'm 5ft10 and skinny with tawny hair and green eyes, like dad.

"What do you want, 616?" she snarls back. She doesn't refer to me by name, very often; she likes to kid the others here that we aren't related at all. But they all know. I figure I must ruin her perfect little reputation. She's actually given me scars: I've got an ugly scar across my chin from where, when I was seven and she was nine, she slashed me across the face with a fishing hook. Seriously, if I went into the Hunger Games and was decapitated, slowly, she'd cheer on whoever was doing it.

"Oh nothing, big sister," I continue slightly maliciously, taking a forkful of the shellfish on my plate and eating it, promptly forgetting the fact that "I'm allergic to food". I take care to enunciate the words "big sister" particularly loudly, so the whole room can hear me. Winnow scowls. "Just wanted to say hello to my favourite big sister in the world."

She kicks me hard under the table in the shin, and I wince in pain. She really does have issues, my older sister; I don't think I'm the only one who came out of mum crazy. She's given me too many injuries to count: the scar on my chin, another going across my stomach from where she pushed me onto a barbed wire fence, the time she broke my nose smashing my head into a wall, the time she broke my arm pushing me off the side of a building… You see any family love here? Because I sure don't. She's even given Derry scars, and I think she quite likes him.

We eat mostly in silence, with Matron watching us over stonily, a ladle held in her hand like a sword. Somewhere in her mind, she is considering using it to hit someone over the head, I can see in her eyes. Those piggy, crazy little eyes… In fact, it would be a good idea not to look at her; it's my strategy not to look at people so they don't think I'm trying to communicate anything to them. If you don't look people in the eyes, or at them at all, they'll think you don't give a crap about them. Which is what I'm trying to get across to basically everyone in this room.

After finishing the shellfish, we all go upstairs to our rooms and get straight into bed. I get my own room, since everybody refuses to share one with me, which I like; although mine was originally a store-cupboard that Matron hollowed out just enough to fit a window on ground level, a mattress on the floor, and a small cupboard with all my possessions in. As I lie back in bed, I hear the click that means she's locked the door to my room. No getting out now. Although it's dark outside, I can just make out the fishing boats still coming in from outside the window.

It's with that, slightly soothing thought that I fall asleep. Tomorrow is the Reaping, and I will become the tribute for District 4. I am absolutely sure of it. I'll be able to prove myself to my whole District, to Matron, to Winnow, to Derry to… to everyone. I can win; even Miss Wellwood, the nastiest teacher in the Training Centre, smiled after watching me throw knives this morning. There is a reason they call me Knife-Boy, I promise you. And hopefully, the nickname Pussy-Cat will put in something useful too. They say cats have nine lives, and if I'm going into the Hunger Games, those nine lives will definitely be needed.

XXX

Next chapter, the Reaping, the train ride, and Lykos arriving in the Capitol.

Thank you for reading, and the next chapter will be out soon!

Please review if you have the time.

Astrid :)