1Please read and review, better than it seems... I think... OCs belong to me, but the Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins!

Let the Hunger Games begin!

I stare up at the boy from District 6. His face is covered in blood, both his own and other tributes'. He must be blind in one eye, his left eye, as it is slit vertically from his brow to half way down his cheek. I can't even see what was left of his once blue orb. His unharmed eye is wild and bulging with hate at me. I try to wriggle free from his weight, his knees pinned into my tiny thighs, both my wrists collected in one of his hands. I beg him for mercy, plead with him to let me live, but he shakes his head and grins at me.

"Nighty night." He growls, his voice gruff and sounding completely insane. The words fall over each other, like he can't say a simple sentence without slurring. He raises the blade he had in his free hand, high above his head. Before he plunges it into my chest, I go over everything that has happened to me over the course of five weeks.

Bloodshed and fear

for the ones we hold dear.

Slaughter and savages,

in the arena that will hold ravages.

Who shall be next, who shall be chosen,

who's turn is it to have their heart become frozen?

There is no way out once the Games begin,

and that is when everyone turns to sin.

One name shall be picked and many shall be spared,

and one by one their deaths shall be aired.

So without further or do, let the Games begin,

watch the blood spill as we all turn to sin.

Reaping day. The day every resident in District 10 dreaded. The time where every mother had nightmares of their children, the time where children knew they had a chance of dying. And this year, I was one who had nightmares centered around the Hunger Games. The chance of being picked. The chance to have my death seen worldwide. I had woken that morning feeling numb, paralyzed with fear under my sheets. I could have stared at that ceiling all day and not get bored, because if I could have, I would have to avoid hearing my name read out. My gut had been twisting so furiously with nausea that it was all I could do to keep my meal from the previous night down in my stomach.

There was a soft knock on my door, and my mother crept in with features that were both twisted with horror and fright. She had a red dress slung over her arm, which trembled in waves with her body. She was so pale, her lips and cheeks free of any colour they had once possessed. She had her brunette hair in a tight bun and drawn away from her face, looking tight on her scalp. Her blue eyes still glistened, but she had dark shadows under her eyes. She hadn't slept either then.

"Coco, come on, time to get ready." She said, but her voice cracked on every word. I swallowed and nodded stiffly. She gently pulled back the covers from my body and handed me the dress. I slipped into it, the skirt dancing around my quivering legs. Mother pulled a thick white ribbon around my waist, helping the dress to hug my body nicely, and tied a bow around my back. She had a pair of scissors in her hand and she came to stand in front of me. She told me to close my eyes and she trimmed my fringe, adjusting it into a side fringe and brushing it across my forehead. She did nothing else with my hair, it was too short and spiky to do anything with. I had had it cut to just below my jaw, long hair always irritated me. Mother chopped it herself: she was very handy with a pair of scissors at hand. She looked out a pair of black flats for me to slip my feet into before she took in my appearance.

"Lovely." She murmured. I lowered my eyes from her and shivered, the dress rippling with me. She pulled me into her arms and kissed my head several times, and I clung to her embrace. "Shh, everything will be alright, you'll see." She whispered. I relished her warmth, let the sound of her heartbeat run through my ears. I breathed in her scent, the smell of daisies and strawberries, and smell that belonged only to her. In her embrace I felt protected and loved, and i knew that there was a chance that that feeling would be ripped away from me by the call of my name. But I had to be brave and not believe in the inevitable. I won't get picked. There was no way I would get picked. I would come home tonight to a nice chicken dinner, and chatter with my family happily. We would then sit around the fire with warm cups of tea and carry on as normal, only to pray for the poor souls chosen in my place. Everything would be alright. I would be alright.

At the dining table were my siblings. Twenty year old Ash, my brother, and nineteen year old Myth, my sister. Yes, they had survived the six years of the Hunger Games threat, but I was only about to begin. The two of them looked ill with worry, their plates of food untouched. We didn't do bad for a living, really, earning enough to keep our bellies full, but there were days where we suffered from hunger. But they didn't last long. My father and Ash helped at the butchers, earning meat as reward and sometimes money. We never complained. We often helped people in the District who struggled for food, and we were a fairly popular family in the area. "The family of Blossoms." we often got addressed as. People often said that once we enter a room, one of us or all of us, the room blossoms.

A seat next to Myth was available, a bowl of porridge waiting for me. My stomach groaned in protest and they all saw my hesitance.

"Come on, Coco, you have to eat." Ash encouraged. I nodded and sat down, welcoming Myth's arm around my shoulders. I trembled, forcing my breakfast down my throat and trying not to heave.

"Listen, you know that the chances of you being picked are like, four in a million?" Myth said, mussing my hair.

"There's still that four." I muttered to my bowl, my bravery burning to dust already. Me and Myth, we were very alike in appearance. Both with hair so dark it was close to black, both with the same smouldering brown eyes. We had the same skin colour, a little on the pale side but with pink blushes faint on our cheeks. Perhaps, if not for the age difference, we could have been mistaken for twins. Ash, however, had light brown hair with baby blue eyes, his hair scruffy on his head and curling around his ears. His skin was slightly darker than ours, because of working in the fields with the cattle and what not, like our father. Also, he was incredibly tall, whereas me, Myth and mother were all tiny, me especially. I didn't even reach Ash's shoulders, and Myth was a head shorter than him.

We stayed quiet all morning after my clear fact, and in all honesty, I didn't want to talk. Father had gone to the butchers early, which angered me in a way. He'd rather be there than be here with me comforting me. The Reaping started at twelve, where Evey Cloversign would stand at the town centre, two bowls on either side of her: one for the boys and one for the girls. Evey was a strange woman, always wearing high heels each years, her hair bright green that flowed like water down her back. She liked to wear pastel blue lipstick and brightly coloured dresses. And her voice, so unnerved each year as she called out the names who would face their deaths. She would always smile, and I hated her for it. She sent my brother's best friend to the Capitol, to be prepped for the Arena, and he never came back. We all watched him die on screen to an axe in the back. He didn't even last two minutes.

It was now eleven in the morning, and I was so close to throwing up it was unreal. The unnatural churn on my gut was enough to send my head spinning. I bumped into a few of my friends, who would also be attending the Reaping, and the thought of them being picked was almost as bad as the thought of me being picked. Amongst them was Masis Basilflee, a boy who was a year or so older than me. He had escaped the clutches of the Reaping last year, both he and his friends, but the fear that took him today was more immense. His sad grey eyes met mine as I left the house, before he followed his family towards the town's centre. I let out a shaky breath and took my mother's hand as she led me to the Reaping, my siblings following silently.

It was a good half an hour walk to the centre, and we were in no rush. I hoped that the walk would take forever. But of course it didn't. The closer we got, the more sick I felt. I found myself gripping onto my mother's hand more tightly, fighting back tears of dread. Our father joined us as we past the butchers, is face solemn. I pushed away any anger I felt and clung to his hand with my free one, and he bent down to kiss my head several times. That was enough for me. So my entire family went to the Reaping to see how my fate went down.

In the yard, fenced which was just that, a deserved yard in the shape of a square. No buildings, no trees, not even any nice scenery. Just a prepared stage with a large TV, and then a fence behind it that surrounded the entire district. There, I had to go to the front on the many children awaiting their fates, my family unable to join me. The Peacekeepers made sure of it, blocking them from following me any further into the yard. I loathed them people in the white suits beforehand, I loathed them ten times more when they stopped my family from supporting me. But I made my way to the front, mingling into the huge group of twelve and thirteen year old boys and girls.

I met with my friends, hugged them and wished them good luck, Masis being one of them. Venna Swish, a fourteen year old blond girl who was my best friend, was in tears at my side, clenching my hand in hers so tightly she stopped the blood flow. Even though the age difference made our friendship odd, she was like another sister to me, and I to her. So she had an extra person to worry over. She's so very poor, almost always starving, and even with my help of giving her meat it was never enough. To make up for it she took tesserae, putting her name towards the Hunger Games far more times than myself. I had only got four pieces of paper in the girls' bowl with my name on, having took some tesserae myself and for my family for good measures. It wasn't necessary, but it was more for the citizens in the District than ourselves. Yes, we were all selfless, and we didn't care. My mother hadn't made me do it but I insisted, for the sake of my friends. Venna has had her name put in so many times she had lost count. And so has her five siblings who were all above twelve years old, so she was dreading having her name picked or a member of her family and now myself.

And then Evey Cloversign appeared, her hair still long a bright green, pastel blue lipstick still plastered on her lips. She grinned down at us, waving pleasantly, as she came to stand in between the two horrid bowls of names. The anthem of Panem began to play, which ignored, followed by the speech of our president, President Snow, who I wanted dead. He did this to us. He was the reason we were here. He was then one that was sending us to our deaths. His speech meant nothing to me. Normally our Mayor would tell the speech, but he was executed shortly after the last Games for reasons unknown to us. So the Capitol concocted a video of Snow telling the speech himself, specially for us. The loathing that rose up inside me was painful, and even though he couldn't see me, poor defenceless little Coco, I glared daggers at him on screen.

And then Evey spoke up once the speech ended. "Welcome to the 60th annual Hunger Games!" she cried happily. "May the odds be ever in your favour! Now then, who shall we have first? I think the ladies, can't be rude!" and then she trotted over to the bowl stuffed with girls names, placing in her hand and pulling out a name from the very bottom. I held my breath, listening to Venna wheezing beside me and listened to everyone else hold their breaths. She pulled out the slip, raised it to her line of sight, and read out a name.

"Coco Blossom, up you come!"