Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins does. I'm just obsessed with the series and characters.
Hey people! For those of you who don't know me, I'm Guardian2Be! (Duh, you can read my name right up there…) I haven't written any HG stuff, but I'm willing to try and go for it. So, here we go!
WAVES
Prologue
Getting up is hard; that's the simple truth. But everyday I do it. I'm not sure how, but I manage to drag myself out of bed, get dressed, and head down to the docks to help my family fish before school starts. After school, I would help my family on our boat, pull in today's haul, head home, do my homework, and go to bed. In the morning it begins again. But that's on most days. All except for one day of every year. The reaping. The reaping is on June seventh. Today is that day.
The day starts like any other. Get out of bed, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, slip on some sneakers that are really worn out, and go out the door, heading for District Four's ocean. For some reason, I've never liked the heat. I find it distasteful, because my hair—whose natural curls bounce all around my head like mad, even when I'm walking—gets all frizzy and hard to contain. But I love the water. I can't get enough. I swim the most out of all of my friends, and can beat them in a race any day. But most times we just go in there for fun. Callista, Abbey, Pearl, River, Juniper, and me; we go in there, splash around for a bit, and get out. That's all. Normally, we'd all be on separate boats, helping our parents with their work that we will one day take over.
Callista calls all of us lucky, because we get to be in the reaping for a while longer, while she's eighteen and her final chance to compete in the Hunger Games is this reaping. The Seventieth Annual Hunger Games. She's told us many times over that she'll volunteer this year; and she will. I know she will. She's been training her whole life to be a tribute, whereas Abbey, Pearl, and I don't train at all. Juniper and River train some, but they just started. You have to fifteen to eighteen to train for the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games. Where should I begin?
I guess I'll start with the Rebellion. Seventy years ago, District Thirteen rebelled against the Capitol, our harsh totalitarian government. See, the Capitol has this twisted point of view, where the Districts that are closer (for example One, Two, and Four, my District) serve more valuable items than the ones farther away. So that's why District Thirteen, and a lot of other Districts, Four included, fought against the Capitol. The Capitol fought back and then some, and one by one, each District was defeated. Since Thirteen was the leader in the Rebellion, the Capitol destroyed the district and the people in it. Thirteen was blown off the map.
So, in order to keep the other Districts from inciting another Rebellion, they created the Hunger Games, which was forcing a boy and a girl from each District between the ages of twelve and eighteen to compete in the Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live television. Only one can survive. Out of all the Seventy years, District Four has had twenty Victors. Eleven are still alive today.
The Reaping is the choosing of the names, the names go in by lottery. If someone volunteers, which someone almost always does, then they will go in instead of the name initially chosen. In a week's time, the two tributes will ride in a train to the Capitol, which is one day and night by train, go through a complete make over, ride in Chariots throughout the Capitol's City Circle (the Town Square), do an interview with Ceaser Flickerman, the host of the Games, and then be thrown in an outdoor arena to fight to the death.
Spoiler Alert: We All Die.
Oh, right. My name's Annie Cresta. I am fourteen years old, have no interest in the Games, and am determined to go through the Reaping without getting Reaped. Because here, getting picked is your worst nightmare.