I have read the Hunger Games Trilogy, watch both movies and read alot of fanfiction on this site. This is my fanfiction. All I ask is that you bear with me through the beginning.

Disclaimer: Some of the ideas, characters and the universe in this story are owned by Suzanne Collins.

Shake them up! Shake them up! Shake them up! Shake them

I let the dice roll off of my finger tips, hoping for a seven or eleven. I watch them hit the wall, roll back,

bounce three time and land on a seven.

-"What! What!" I exclaim. "Pay up kid!" The guy in front of me looks completely dejected. I know him,

well I don't know him per say, I know his type. This money lying on the floor is probably money saved

from his paycheck, working daily twelve hour shifts at one of the many factories or train tracks here in

District 6. He probably took his chance coming here feeling lucky, thinking he could add a couple more

dollars on his saving. Well that's too bad because I didn't plan on losing.

-"Shit! We have to go!" my buddy Riley says. I watch as he runs past me, in my crouching position in

front of the pile of money. "Come on we have to go! We have to go now!" I watch as he hops over the

fence that closing the back alley we're in. I turn to grab the rest of the money, and see my opponent

reaching for the money. I instinctively plant my heavy working boots on his reaching hand. He reflexively

looks up, his eyes filled with pain and panic, and I take this opportunity to bring down my fist hard on his

jaw. Damn I think I knocked him out, I pause for a second to look down at him. But then the sound of

approaching Peacekeeper boots reminds me that I have to leave, now. I quickly grab all the money on

the floor and follow Riley over the fence.

As soon as my boots hit the ground, I can hear the Keepers on the other side of the fence. One gives the

command to collect the boy on the floor and tells the others to run after us. I start to run to my right,

but run straight someone. It's Riley, he helps me up.

-"Wrong way! There's a bunch of them coming from that side." Riley says in an out-of-breath voice.

We run twenty yards the opposite direction and come out onto a main street.

-"You go left, and I go right!" I tell him.

After running past a few local stores, I run into Mr. Roberts' Delicatessen and straight out the back. I

hear him yell after me and I smile to myself. Mr. Roberts is as old as anybody in District 6, we often joke

about how he was probably around during the Dark Days, and was part of the rebel army. In all honesty,

the whole thing about him being in the army might be false, but I do think he was around during the

Dark Days.

Anyways, after running through the backdoor, I find myself in another smelly back alley. A smirk crosses

my face when I realize that I know this neighborhood. If I use the access ladder on the side of the

building and go up to the roof. Then use the door on the roof, to get inside the building and go down to

her apartment on the fourth floor; then I can just lay low for a while until these guys can forget about

me. I have barely started my trip up the ladder, when I hear the sound of peacekeepers boots behind

me.

Damn it! How the hell did they know I would be here? I scurry up the ladder; I see an open window on

the first floor and slip through it. I think it might be too late, and they've already seen me. Because I can

hear one of them give the orders to enter and search the building. When I turn around, I find myself in a

small kitchen with two gaping little kids staring at me. They sit on the kitchen table sharing a sandwich

made of only a slice of ham and two slices of bread.

They look hungry; their faces are skinny and their eyes hollow. I want to help; I swear I really do want to

help them. But I can't. This money is not for me, it's for Riley, his mother and his little sister. If I don't get

that money to them then they risk not having enough for the upcoming week. I don't know how it is in

the rest of Panem, but here in District 6 also known as "The Jungle", if you let your heart dictate your

decisions and not your brain then you won't live long enough to see your twenty-first birthday. I signal

for them to be quite by putting my index finger on my lips and rush out the door without looking back.

I run down the hallway, and through the doors that lead to the staircase. I hear them coming up the

steps. I put my back to the wall so they don't see me as I carefully make my way up to the fourth floor.

Once I reach her door, I knock in a rhythmic fashion that I know she will understand. After a couple of

minutes she opens the door, but I can't go inside because she still has the safety chains on the door.

-"What do you want!?" She says rolling her eyes.

-"Hey sweetie!" I say with a smirk on my face, trying hard to control my breathing. "I thought you'd be

running to open the door for me."

She starts closing the door in my face. But I place a firm hand on the door before she can close it. Okay,

maybe the flirting won't help me today.

-"Okay… okay, listen I'm sorry, but you have to help me." I say worriedly looking back at the door of the

staircase. I can hear the Peacekeepers coming up the staircase. "Come on, please." I try to compose

myself, but I come off as whinny.

She takes the safety chains off and opens the door a little wider to let me in. I turn around to watch her

close the door behind her. She turns around and our bodies are merely inches apart. I lean in a little, but

she moves away. I smile and follow her into the small living room.

-"Makai! What the hell is all this about? I thought I told you-"

-"Lisa! This time it wasn't my fault. I didn't even know they were coming." I try explaining to her.

-"Don't you get it!? I don't care anymore." She says with her beautiful almond shaped green brown eyes

staring right into mine. "I am done fighting with you, about hanging around Han and Riley and getting

yourselves in trouble. I'm done. All I want to know is why you came here?" She ends her little rant with

her pale small hands resting on her small, yet curvy hips. That little gesture alone is enough to make me

smile and want her as much when we were together.

I move a little closer to her, but she takes a step back and crosses her arms in front of her chest. It's

clear, that she isn't up for all of my B.S today. I look at her for while trying to get a read on her, but her

eyes and face are completely unreadable.

I give up.

-"So do you still have some of my clothes?"

-"Yes, I have a shirt and some pants… That's all I have." She says walking towards her room.

She comes back with the neatly folded clothes in her arms and she hands them to me.

-"Hurry up! My father is coming home soon and I don't want him to see you here, like this."

-"He never caught me before, what makes you think he'd catch me now."

-"Whatever. Just hurry up okay." She says. I don't miss the hint of a smile playing on her lips. I think

about going in for a kiss. But I know she is right, her father will be home soon, and I am not looking

forward to seeing that man.

In a matter of seconds, I change my clothes. She gives me a bag for my other clothes and I exit her

apartment through the fire escape, but not before planting a big kiss on her cheeks. I laugh as she wipes

it off with the back of her hand.

I get home about an hour after leaving my ex-girlfriend's apartment. And I am tired from a long day of

work at the factory, and running away from the Peacekeepers. Most importantly, I am hungry. I ate my

only meal of the day, a sandwich my mother made, for launch.

- "Ma! I'm home." I shout at the front door, as I take my boots off before stepping in the house.

-"Honey, I'm in here." I hear her call back from the kitchen.

As soon as I step in the house I can smell it; the sweet smell of my mother cooking my favorite food. Its

white rice, with sauce made with shrimp, onions, green peppers, garlic and bunch of other things my

mother puts in there that makes it delicious. My mother has made this exact dish every year, the night

before every reaping day, since my twelfth birthday.

-"Ma. What are you cooking?" I ask pretending not to know. As I walk into the kitchen and kiss her on

the cheek.

-"You'll see when it's on the table." She says, reaching around me to grab the salt.

-"Come on, Ma. " I say in a whining voice, I have used since I was two."I need to know, so I know how

much time I have to save myself." I mutter just loud enough for her to hear.

-"Hey!" She exclaims. And I smile. "You. Ungrateful. Little boy." She says in feign disbelieving tone. She

follows it with a weak throw of the cloth she was using to hold the pot. I grab it off the floor and place it

back on the kitchen counter.

-"Well, guess I'll just go take a shower."I say taking a shrimp from the pot, she gives me a slap on the

wrist, but I don't let it go.

-"You shouldn't do that. Ugh! You stink." She says dismissively waving her hands.

I twist and turn on my bed. It has been nearly two hours since I have gone to bed, but I am still suffering

from insomnia. I know it cannot be hunger, because I am still full from the wonderful dinner my mother

cooked earlier. It can't be the reaping tomorrow. I haven't been worried about those, since my first

reaping and the reaping that came the year after my friend; Little Joey got his throat, brutally ripped out

by the District 2 female tribute.

The death of Little Joey is the singular reason why I equally hate her and the Games. Before Joey's

games three years ago, the Hunger Games never mattered; they always felt impersonal to me. Of course

I knew, the concept of picking a boy and a girl from Twelve districts annually, sending them into a

physically challenging arena and forcing them to kill each other in front of a national audience until one

of them remained was wrong. However, because the Games didn't impact me or anyone I knew, they

had no meaning to me.

My memories fail me sometimes, but I remember Little Joey as the most care free, adventurous person I

met in my life. Sure, his antics and pranks often got us in trouble in school and with our parents, but his

love for life and positive energy always made it seem like we could overcome any obstacles and

tribulations. Anyone who ever met Little Joey knew the kid was harmless, for crying out loud even he

made the legendary Caesar Flickerman laugh, genuinely laugh on stage. What that girl from Two did was

pure evil and I will never forgive her for that.

Anyway, all that nostalgic thinking has got me exhausted. So I close my eyes, and gladly let the darkness

take me.