Prologue
The sun was up before I was. It glared in between the cracks in the shades that were crumbling from old age. The buzz of the generators in our district was faintly heard over the usual squabble downstairs in the Orphanage. As I stared up at the ceiling, that was both smudged with dirt and crumbling like the blinds illuminated from the filtering sunlight. I rolled onto my side.
I didn't want to get up.
I wanted to be sick, or old or dead. Any would be fine. I welcomed all three. I didn't want to pull on my nice clothes, that were becoming thread bear from being worn by many people. I didn't want to eat a small slice of bread and a piece of fruit and drink dirty water. I didn't want to walk outside and stand and hope and pray and wish that I won't be called up onto the stage and congratulated to be selected to die with every person in Panem watching. I didn't want to go to the reaping like everyone else. I didn't want to face the world I was born into. Where you die of starvation and are punished for trying to survive. That is why I run all day, I run around and pass people and myself and forget about everything and only concentrate on making my feet move and to jump over the mines that everyone avoids and to avoid the Peacekeepers.
I, Poppy Allen, an orphan out of many in District 5, did not want to get up and face the twisted world that the Capital had made. I didn't want to become part of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games, the Third Quarter Quell.
But I never had a choice.
Thank you for reading this is my first fanfiction, so it would be real nice if you all could comment and/or review this. I'll be happy to take suggestions.
