"Kat! Kat!" Rose runs across the empty lot and into my arms. "Dylan is trying to hit me!"
"No I'm not, Rosie!" Dylan protests, and I roll my eyes at the situation.
"C'mon, Rose, it's just a game. You know that Dylan won't actually hurt you." I gently set Rose back on her feet. "You'll be fine. Now, go play, and don't get into too much trouble."
"Okay," Rose says, before she tags Dylan and starts laughing hysterically as she runs from sight. Dylan chases after her, and I stand there for a moment, thinking, before my friend, Oliver Donner, comes and taps my shoulder.
"Hey, Kat," he says, and I groan. I hate being called Kat, though I allow my sister to call me that because I can't find it in my heart to say no to her.
"Can you please stop calling me that?" I ask, not bothering to hide my anger. He knows me better than anyone else.
"Sorry, but Katherine is way too long to say," Oliver says, laughing.
He has a point. My name is Katherine Aberdeen, which many people think is a mouthful, including myself. I envy my sister sometimes. Her name is short and sweet. Rose Aberdeen.
"Doesn't matter," I say, smirking. "You'll just have to live with it. At least it's not your name."
"Whatever," he says, flicking a coin into the air and then catching it as he leans back against the brick wall behind us. It's a habit of his to flip coins. It relaxes him. Our lives are too stressful to live in without relaxing.
"Did your father get that job?" I ask, and he shakes his head.
"Of course not. Why would they hire some poor technician if they can get one that went to college?" He laughs bitterly. "Of course. All employers are the same. The whole lot of them are pompous idiots. The only job available here is in the coal mines."
I nod my head in agreement. Of course. Nobody hires someone that can barely afford to feed their family, making coal mining the only option. I feel tears in my eyes, but I blink them away before Oliver can notice.
"Will anything ever change for us?" I ask myself quietly, but Oliver hears and answers.
"No. God only helps those who are lucky," he says.
"And we're the opposite of lucky. Dead." I grit my teeth. "I don't even remember the last time Rose has had a proper meal."
"She still has that cow in the field, doesn't she?" Oliver asks.
"Yeah. Thank God. Or our bones would be breaking left and right." I snort. "And you know what she found with Dylan? An ugly dog with a leg missing and cataracts. I told her that we don't have enough food to feed it, but she's so stubborn! She said that she'll feed him with food from her plate. She'll starve just trying to save that stupid dog. I offered to kill it for her, but she started crying, so I couldn't."
Oliver doesn't respond for a moment. "I'll help feed the dog. But first, we need to find a good source of food. Perhaps stealing from the grocery store?"
"No. We'd be caught and we'd have to pay a fine that we can't afford to pay unless we want to die," I say, running a hand through my black hair.
"What are we going to do?" he asks, sounding like the whole world is on his shoulders.
"I don't know," I say, leaning against the wall, our shoulders almost touching. I look up to the sky and over at the forest. I love the forest. It's a place for me to escape. Oliver and I have had our best times in the forest, up in trees, pretending to be hunters hunting deer… That's it!
"You look like you just got a brilliant idea, Katherine," Oliver says, starting to grin. "Spit it out."
I grin. "We can hunt. We used to go in the woods all the time, so why not hunt while we're there? It doesn't cost anything, and you know that before my father-" I choke up slightly. He died a year ago, but I still get emotional. But I can't afford to get emotional anymore. Emotions messed with rational thought, almost leaving my family to starve for two months before I realized that I had to take matters into my own hands if we needed to survive. Not even my mother did anything to help. It was on me if she and Rose were to survive. So I did whatever I could. I took odd jobs and I stole food, begged for food or got scraps from trash cans behind restaurants. It wasn't much, but it was enough. It is enough for now. And now that I am sixteen, I can hopefully be taken seriously when I ask for a job.
"Kat? Are you okay?" Oliver asks, concerned.
I square my shoulders and fix my eyes on small figure of Rose, who's playing with Dylan near the old playground. This is why I live. I live for Rose and Dylan and Oliver.
"I'm fine," I say shortly before my voice lightens up a bit. "Anyway, I still have the bows that my father made. I sold most of them, but I kept two, just in case. Now they'll come in handy."
"Do you know how to use a bow? Because I definitely don't," says Oliver, smiling sheepishly. "Even when your father taught me, I couldn't do it."
"That's fine. You can make snares and maybe use knives to kill an animal if an arrow doesn't," I say, understanding his predicament. My father always said that archery wasn't for everyone. "I haven't used a bow in a long time." I can't keep the wistfulness out of my voice.
"I think this is a good idea," says Oliver, smiling. "We can do this."
I nod in agreement. "Yes, we can."
"Where are you going?" Rose asks as I am tiptoeing to the front door of our small apartment.
"Out," I say, looking over to see if our mother is still asleep. She is.
"Can I come?" Rose asks, and I shake my head.
"Not this time," I say. "I'll bring you someday. I promise. Now, go sleep with Mom."
"When will you be back?" she asks, and I smile.
"I'll be back before you know it," I say, and I am about to open the door when she stops me.
"Why are you wearing Dad's old hunting boots and jacket?"
I freeze in my tracks and try to give her another smile. "No reason."
Rose looks at me suspiciously before she climbs into bed with our mother. I'm glad that she's never been a very curious girl. She takes after our mother. I take after my father.
I close the door quietly behind me and walk towards the "garage". It's empty except for my father's bows and arrows and a few knives and ropes. And a small gun. I grin. Oliver will love this. I have the bow and arrow and he'll have the gun. We can really do this. We can hunt.
I grab everything and put it in an old, worn sack. We'll need everything. This is our first time hunting, and while I believe that together Oliver and I can do this, it won't be as easy as the alphabet. I haven't used a bow in a couple years. I used to be really bad. I got better before my father's death, but after that, I never came in here or even thought about using a bow.
I walk out and towards the old playground, where I see Oliver sitting on one of the swings. It's too dark to see his face, but I can tell from the silhouette of his messy blonde hair that it's him. I smile to myself. Oliver doesn't fit in with the rest of the people who live in the poor part of town. My mother and sister don't fit in either. Most people who live around here look like me. Black hair, olive skin and gray eyes. I have green eyes, though, but besides that, I look the same as everyone else. We call this part of town the Seam. I don't know why. The name just stuck, I guess.
"There you are, Kat!" Oliver says with a grin on his face as I drop the sack on the ground in front of him. "What's in the bag?"
"Hunting stuff," I say, opening the sack to reveal the gun and the two bows. There are also about ten arrows. "You get the gun, unless you want to try to be an archer for a day."
"I've never actually seen you use a bow," says Oliver, and I shrug.
"My father taught me," I say, and his mouth forms a small 'o'.
"Do you wanna get going?" he asks, and I nod eagerly. I quickly pack everything up except for one bow, an arrow and the gun, which is in Oliver's hand.
I throw the sack over my shoulder and carry the bow and arrow in my left hand as we walk towards the woods. The sun is just starting to shine from over the buildings in town and into the forest. I hope the paths that Oliver and I take aren't covered with overgrown plants. It's been a while since we've been here.
We enter the forest and an immediate serene feeling comes over me. One reason might be because I remember walking along this path with my father, and the other reason might be because Oliver and I have a chance of feeding our families. Begging in the streets had been a pitiful experience, and I am slightly mad at myself that it's taken me this long to realize that I can hunt for food.
"What if an animal attacks us?" Oliver asks, sounding slightly fearful.
I roll my eyes. "Shoot it."
Oliver huffs. "Seriously, Katherine."
"Fine, fine, I have a serious answer: Climb up a tree," I say, gesturing to a tall pine. "But I doubt that deer will attack us."
"There aren't just deer in the woods, Kat," Oliver says, slightly fearfully. "We could get mauled by a bear."
"Why are you so scared now?" I ask, irritated. "We used to come in here all the time, and you were never scared of bears. And bears don't even come here! They're deeper in the woods."
"But-" Oliver protests, and I glare at him.
"Oliver Donner, we are going to hunt and feed our families. If that's a problem with you, leave now," I say, my voice cold. I am not going to let him destroy my chance of feeding Rose and my mother, friend or not. I refuse to go back out on the streets and beg, and I refuse to apply for a job I won't get because I don't have much of an education. Because I live in the Seam.
Oliver straightens up and holds the gun tightly in his hand. "Let's go hunt."
"Good," I say, and we walk deeper into the woods.
The sunlight has just barely reached where we are, making it a perfect place to stake out and hide. I've never hunted before, so this is new for me. My old targets with the bow and arrow were just trees that were visible from the playground.
Suddenly, a stick breaks, and both Oliver and I jump. I look over to where I think I heard the stick break and quickly get my bow and arrow ready. I aim it towards a tree for now.
"There, Katherine!" Oliver shouts, and as the deer starts running from behind the tree, I pull the arrow back, almost letting it touch my mouth, and I release it.
Well, there's the first chapter. I'll try to have the second chapter out by next Sunday. Forgive me if it's not updated. I have finals and Regents soon. Also, if you've noticed how Katherine and Katniss are very alike, that's on purpose, only for Katherine, there are no Hunger Games because this story takes place before, during and right after the Dark Days. Anyway, please review!