Summary: Fifteen-year-old Scarlette Everdeen volunteers for her younger sister Primrose in the 74th Annual Hunger Games. With her is the handsome baker's son, Peeta Mellark. Over the course of their journey into the limelight of the Capitol, they fall in love. But with the Games looming closer, can they hold onto their love, or will it be their undoing?... Twenty-four go in, and only one comes out.
Note: This is NOT a Peeta/Katniss story. This pairing is only because Katniss has a certain significance to the story. I'm sorry if you have clicked on this and expected to get some Peetniss (?) action, but the pairing is my OC and Peeta. If you could, maybe read my story anyway? It'd be very much appreciated. :-)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games. Anything you recognise, whether it be the plot or characters, are the property of the lovely Suzanne Collins. I just play with the storyline. ;-)
Chapter One
The sun filters through the tattered curtains, permeating the otherwise pitch-black room and making my closed eyes burn. I groan softly, careful not to wake my mother and two sisters. I feel myself blindly reaching across the bed, seeking Prim's warmth. Her side of the bed is cold. I open my eyes; there she is, in the bed across the room with our mother. She must have had a nightmare. I don't blame her. I was so very nervous my first Reaping as well.
Being careful not to wake my sleeping elder sister up, I slide out of the bed and change out of my nightgown that I've had since I was ten; not a lot has changed in five years. I throw on a shirt and a pair of jeans, not sure whether they're mine or Katniss's, tie my blond hair up, bunch it up in a loose-fitting cap and put my hunting boots on. My father gave my elder sister and I a pair of hunting boots each when we were younger. Not Prim, though. She's too young. That was before the mining explosion.
I relish the feel of the faded brown leather, softened from wear of use. I grab Katniss's hunting bag and check everything is in there. Good. My eye catches the bedside table, and I smile. Prim's left us some goat's cheese from her goat, Lady. I take off the wooden bowl that she used to shield it from the ravenous rats around our house and pack it in the bag; Gale, Katniss and I can have it for our breakfast.
I softly shake my sister awake. I've given her enough time to sleep in.
"Katniss? We have to go now," I whisper softly. We have to be quiet or we'll wake Prim and mom up.
"Unggghh," she groans blearily. "It's morning already?"
"Just after dawn," I smile. Typical Katniss. "Get dressed. Let's go."
Usually, the part of District 12 I live in, the Seam, where all the poor people congregate, is swarming with both men and women ready to start a hard day's work in the mines. Not today. Today it is silent. Today is the Reaping. Katniss and I head over to the fence, an electrical one that is never on. Theoretically, it is supposed to be on 24 hours a day, but we're lucky if we even get an hour. Still, she listens for the tell-tale humming of the electricity crackling through the barbed wire. She shakes her head.
If you were to look closely, there is a hole just big enough for someone to slip through. We found it quite by accident, several years ago, and still use it to this day. We continue in companionable silence, picking the occasional blueberry from a nearby bush; no words are needed on a morning like this. As soon as Katniss and I are sheltered by the dark, thick mass of trees, we grab our choice weapons from the hollow; two pairs of bows and arrows, one each, and a set of knives for me, because Katniss can't aim with a knife. At least, not well enough to score a kill. Further in, we encounter several animal traps hidden amongst the meandering green. I smile to myself. Gale was here.
We know the path through this wood like the back of our hand. We've had to. It's the only way we'll get enough food in order to survive. I hear a crunch behind me. I lurch, and grab Katniss's arm in front of me out of instinct. I spot a deer behind us, and before I can shoot, I hear a throat being cleared. The deer bounds off, startled. I groan in annoyance. Katniss jumps; I relax, because I already know who it is. I smile.
"Hey, Gale," Katniss says easily. We turn around, and there he is, a small, bitter smile on his face. That's the only kind of smile he smiles anymore. Our way of life in this hellhole of a District has ruined him.
"Hey, Catnip, Scar." He replies. Catnip is a nickname he calls my sister; when we first met him in these very same woods, when he was fourteen, Katniss was twelve and I was eleven, she introduced herself so quietly that he had mistaken her name for 'Catnip'. It stuck. My real name is Scarlette, but he just finds it fun to call us names, I suppose.
"You ruined my shot, dammit!" I grumble.
"I was saving you from your stupidity! We haven't brought our knives with us; we can't skin it. Imagine what it would look like if the Peacekeepers found us lugging a buck back through the town. We'd be put on the whipping post before we could explain ourselves," Gale replies, picking up a stone and throwing it.
Instantly, a flock of birds rise up from the trees, startled by the sudden noise. I instinctively pull arrows out and shoot rapid-fire, aiming for as many as I can. I know I have hit my target, because I hear several muffled thuds as the birds fall to the ground. Gale pulls out a make-shift bow; he isn't as good as Katniss and I, but he makes do. Katniss joins in on the hunt. After the rest of the birds have flown away, Katniss collects our kill.
"Fourteen!" She says triumphantly, unsticking the arrows from the left eyes of the birds and handing them to me. It's my signature move, the left eye. Katniss is the right eye. Gale... well, wherever. She hands back my arrows, all six of them, and places the bird carcasses in her bag. I laugh. We can all split the profits between our families.
We settle down and fish from the lake in our clearing as we talk for a while, a tradition we have upheld since we first discovered this place. We can talk about everything and anything here, where it's quiet; what we did the previous day, our thoughts and feelings about the oppression of the Capitol. It's the only place we can be ourselves; free from the hopeless dragging of our feet in our District and the Peacekeepers, who, ironically, cause more trouble than they solve. We rarely partake in happy musings. We amass a good deal of fish also, which is stored in my bag in brown paper so it doesn't spoil as we eat. While the conversation is still good, I take out the cheese, which is wrapped in a large green leaf.
"Look what Prim's left us!" I say brightly. I also take out the little sack of berries I collected in my journey here. Katniss and Gale stare at them hungrily. It's not often that we get such nice cheese, but it's Prim's gift to us on Reaping day. Reaping day. Today is the day where one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen – the tributes – are selected to participate in the Hunger Games.
Our country of Panem is said to have risen up from the ashes of a place once known as North America, after some kind of nuclear war. It seems like picture-perfect ideology; thirteen Districts surrounding a glorious Capitol. Yeah, right. Because some time into this settlement, the thirteenth District rebelled. They were crushed by the Capitol. Now, there are only twelve Districts and a large, empty wasteland with fumes still rising from the nuclear bombs. We see the wreckage on television sometimes. It's to remind us that if we try to gain our freedom, we will be destroyed. Well, another reminder, at least.
The Capitol's punishment for District 13's rebelling was to create the Hunger Games; an annual event where the tributes from each District are forced to participate in a contest where they kill each other in order to survive. Twenty-four go in, only one comes out. That's the rule. They broadcast it on national television each year, and, to humiliate us further, we are forced to watch it and treat it as a celebration. No wonder Gale, Katniss and I feel trapped in the confines of our District.
Gale reaches into his bag and pulls out a fresh loaf of bread. I feel my eyes widen.
"How much did that cost you?" I ask incredulously; it's not often that we get such a treat as fresh bread.
"Just a squirrel," he replies. "Mr Mellark, the baker, has a soft spot for them." He looks pointedly at me. I feel my cheeks begin to burn and I look away, embarrassed.
It has been a near constant practice of Gale's to inadvertently tease me about the baker's handsome sixteen-year-old son, Peeta, after he claimed he caught the boy staring at me on school grounds from his side of the oval. I sit with Katniss, so I tell him it's probably more likely to be her he looks at. Who wouldn't, though? She's beautiful, with her dark hair, olive skin and grey eyes, pretty much the complete opposite of me. It's rare to look like me, Prim, and mom in the Seam, with our fair skin, equally fair hair and blue eyes.
I change the subject hastily. "Now we can really have a feast!"
We tuck in vigorously. It isn't likely that we'll get such a treat as this again for another year, so we savour it as much as we can. When we are finished spreading the cheese over the bread slices and practically inhaling it, the conversation takes a darker turn, like it always does.
"One day, I'm gonna take my kids out here and show them what we used to do together," Gale smiles as he wipes his hands on his jeans. I'm glad for him. He is very good-looking; he'll have no trouble finding a wife. You can tell by the way the girls at school whisper about him as he walks past that they want to get with him.
"I don't want kids," I say. Gale seems to be disappointed. Probably because he missed out on the chance of being an uncle. I know Katniss shares my view. Who would want to raise a child up for slaughter in the Hunger Games, or live with the constant fear that the government instils in us? I couldn't do that to a child. Maybe if things were different, but they're not. This is our reality.
"Wonder who is going to be Reaped?" Katniss mumbles.
"Probably more Seam brats," Gales says, spitting the words out with contempt. He can't let go of what the escort for our District, Effie Trinket, said about last year's tributes. We knew them, kind of. They lived a few streets down from me and Katniss. They were killed in the bloodbath, the initial fight after the horn sounds that signals the beginning of the Games. We all knew they would. District 12 never has tributes that last longer than five minutes in the Arena.
There is an uncomfortable silence.
"We could do it, you know. We could take off from here, find somewhere else or maybe go into hiding. We can survive off the animals and plants in the woods," he says, almost pleading with us.
"No way. What about Prim? What about Vick and Rory, Posy, your mom?" I retort, getting angry.
"What about our mom?" Katniss adds. I tense. I don't particularly care for that part.
"I was just saying," Gale snaps back, obviously hurt at our blunt rejection of him. He and Katniss stare each other down, glaring. I feel guilty for speaking so harshly.
"Now, now, children," I try to smooth the situation over by acting like Effie, with her strangely accentuated vowels and precise, halting pronunciation that is so common from Capitol citizens.
It works. They burst into laughter. Gale takes his remaining berry and states in the same excited, anxious voice, tossing it into the air: "And may the odds –"
I catch the berry in my mouth, feeling the flavour hit my tongue in a refreshing burst of sweetness. "– be ever in your favour!" I say with equal fervour, finishing the phrase that ends Effie's speech just before the Reaping each year.
We chuckle for a few moments, caught up in the peaceful ambience of our surroundings, before Katniss looks to the horizon.
"The Reaping is soon. We should head back," she says. Just like that, our dampened spirits return.
Just before we go back, I take it upon myself to collect a bunch of the fresh strawberries that grow on the bushes in this clearing. I put several in a decently sized sack, much like the one I use for the blueberries. I save these for the Mayor; I trade them in exchange for gold coins, so that Katniss doesn't have to put her name in for more tesserae.
Tesserae is worth a meagre year's grain and oil supply; we get extra rations of tesserae each time we enter our name into the Reaping. On our first Reaping, provided we don't enter our names for tesserae, our names are entered once; second, twice; third, three times, and so on. By the time we are eighteen, the last year of the Reaping, we have our names in the pool seven times. Katniss has her name in twenty times, I have mine in fourteen times, and Gale has his in forty-two times this year. Gale refuses to let his younger brother, Rory, put his name in for tesserae. Since we usually have a lot, I donate some of my tessera to the families in my street who simply can't afford to have their names in more than required. Katniss says I shouldn't, but I feel bad for them. She always says I'm too kind for my own good.
After I have collected a good amount of strawberries for both my family and the Mayor's, Gale, Katniss and I head back through to the fence. We check that the fence is not on and quickly slip through before we are noticed by the Peacekeepers.
Gale and I hand our bags to Katniss. She nods and runs off to the Hob, the black market of our District. The owner, Greasy Sae, is always willing to buy whatever we can afford to spare from our daily hunts. She always keeps it confidential; after all, it is illegal to venture beyond the fence of our District.
Walking quickly, Gale and I head down the road to Mayor Undersee's house, right in the centre of the good side of town. We knock on the door; his daughter, Madge, answers the door. She is Katniss's age, and we sit with her at school. Katniss isn't exactly good at making friends, and Madge is the closest thing to that for us.
"Pretty dress," Gale says, nodding to her attire. He's right – it is pretty, with the white satin veneer and pink sash with a matching pink bow in her dirty blond hair. A change from the normal drab outfit she wears, but that is just because of the Reaping. We're all expected to change into something nice to watch one another be sent to our deaths.
"I want to look nice if I'm going to the Capitol," she replies coolly. I can sense Gale's anger from behind me, and I can instantly see his way of reasoning, his thoughts; what is the likelihood of someone like Madge, the Mayor's daughter, being Reaped today when she's never even had to think about tesserae all her sheltered life?
'You won't," I reassure her, and partly for Gale's benefit. I give her the bag of strawberries and smile awkwardly. "Here."
She accepts it graciously, placing more than the usual amount of money in my hand. I look up, confused.
"Good luck, Scarlette," she says softly. "You too, Gale."
"Yeah, you too," he mumbles. I nudge him in the stomach as the door shuts, silently chastising him for his behaviour. We find ourselves back in our street in no time.
"See you, Gale. Good luck."
He turns. "Good luck, Scar."
Entering my house, I find Prim and Katniss already dressed for the Reaping, mom standing in the doorway. They look beautiful. Prim is dressed in my first Reaping outfit, and Katniss's before that; a beige skirt and white blouse with black lace up shoes and frilly white knee-high socks with matching white ribbons on her two braids. Katniss is wearing one of mom's old dresses that she would wear back when she worked in the apothecary and met my dad. She used to live in the good part of town, and wore beautiful dresses like that all the time. It brings out the blue specks in my sister's eyes. Her hair is done up in a braided bun and she has blue ballet flats on her feet. I place the money for the strawberries in Katniss's hand.
"He gave us too much," Katniss stares at the gold coins, just as confused as I was.
"Everyone can be generous every now and then," I say. "You look very pretty, by the way. Both of you do," I add, dropping a kiss on Prim's head as I head to wash my hair and face in the basin.
It takes a while; I may not have hair as long as Katniss, but it is most certainly more thick. When I am done, I see mom has laid out another dress from her apothecary days; pale blue with ruffled sleeves and white lace trimming, and a pair of blue buckle shoes. I dress myself and look in the mirror.
"Let me do your hair," mom says from the door. I have long since resigned myself to accepting her help, and let her work my hair without saying a word.
After dad died, mom became so depressed she was almost catatonic. She left Katniss and me to fend for ourselves and Prim. That is why I feel embarrassed whenever Gale brings the baker's son up. He saved our lives. When I was ten, Katniss and I were forced to go around town stealing the waste food from people's bins because we were so starved. Mom wouldn't do anything, so we took it upon ourselves. If it weren't for him, we would have all died. I think back to the day.
I was picking through the bin behind the bakery when Mrs Mellark, the baker's wife and a horrible woman, hit me across the head. I was sent sprawling, too weak to bother getting up. I just lay there, shivering in the rain from the cold and fatigue.
I felt something warm touch my arm; my eyes snapped open and I saw him there, standing over me with a concerned look in his eyes. I felt confused as he crouched down to my level. He helped me stand up, wrapping his arms around my waist; once he was certain I wouldn't fall, he let go and gave me a large plastic bag, the kind they use inside the bakery. It was heavy. I looked inside and saw three expensive loaves of bread, still warm, obviously stolen from the front of the store for me. I looked up at him, confused.
"Go," he said, smiling gently. I turned and stumbled back home, and for the first time since my father died, my mom, Prim, Katniss and I all went to bed with full stomachs.
She has gotten better over the years. Prim loves mother, so she was forgiven straightaway, and Katniss isn't as cold as she once was. I'm not so forgiving. It shouldn't have been up to us to be the breadwinners of the house. For some reason, I can't forgive her for leaving us like that. We could have died.
After my mom has finished, I look at my reflection in the glass. My hair is done up in some kind of intricate braided pattern, winding around my head.
"Wow. You look beautiful," Prim gasps from the hall, her reflection poking its head through the door. I agree. Beautiful – but entirely unlike myself.
"Thanks, mom," I mutter before pushing out of the room and out the door.
Attendance for the Reaping is mandatory unless you are on your deathbed, which the Peacekeepers come to check. We all file out to the main square. On the stage, the Mayor, a couple of Capitol officials and the oh-so-lovely Effie Trinket, our District escort, sit in the chairs provided. She helps make the sales and, hence the word, escorts us to the Capitol.
I laugh to myself as I see a visibly drunk Haymitch join the people onstage, late as per usual, knocking pieces of equipment over and stumbling into Effie, at which she lets out a squeal of disgust. I would too. Haymitch Abernathy is the only Hunger Games winner that we've had in a long time. He is meant to mentor the tributes and show them ways to stay alive, but I doubt he is of much use. It is rare that he is sober, and when he is, everyone tries to steer clear of him; he is even less pleasant then.
The area below the stage is roped off into fifteen sections; one for each of the year groups, males and females separated, and large one for the families, of which are either too young for the Reaping or have made it through safe. I see families holding onto one another. Katniss and I take Prim to go sign up.
Katniss has her finger stuck and is let through the queue. I hear a sniff. I nod to Katniss to go on and bend down in front of Prim. Her eyes are filled with tears and her bottom lip is quivering.
"Oh, Prim. Don't worry. You're not gonna get picked, I promise." I hug her. It seems to work, because she steels herself and places her hand on the table. She winces as they jab her and smear her blood on a card marked with the name PRIMROSE EVERDEEN. I'm next. I always hate it when they stick you with a blunt needle and press it to the card. I'm pushed by Peacekeepers to the fifteen-year-old's section. I turn.
"I'll see you later, Prim," I yell to her.
I stand with the other girl fifteens, exchanging terse nods as the Mayor intones his dull speech about the importance and historical value of the day. No one likes Reaping day. I look behind me to Katniss, trying to catch her eye; she smiles and waggles her eyebrows in an attempt to get me to lighten up. I giggle to myself, attracting a couple of stares from people next to me. I turn to look back at Gale with the eighteen-year-old boys across the square. He's looking nervous, probably regretting putting his name in so many times. As I turn to face the stage, I see someone staring in my direction. I lock eyes with Peeta Mellark; he smiles in a friendly manner. I look away, feeling guilty all of a sudden. I never said thank you to him that day.
An overexcited Effie, with bright white hair, garish green make-up and a powder-white face with an overly flamboyant pink dress comes up to the podium as the Mayor finishes to polite applause. We wait for her address. You could hear a pin drop now. Now comes the Reaping. Two families will go home tonight, lock their doors and mourn for their children. Once a District 12 tribute goes in, they don't come out. It's a death sentence.
"Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour!" she squeals enthusiastically into the microphone. One of the reasons I despise Effie Trinket so is that she treats the Hunger Games as nothing more than another Capitol event, not seeing it for what it truly is; a cruel, admittedly imaginative way to punish the country for something that wasn't even our fault. Still, her overly atrocious appearance and pronounced words adds the slightest hint of humour to the otherwise melancholy occasion.
"Ladies first!"
She reaches into the glass ball containing the girls' names for District 12. In that ball, twenty of Katniss's name slips are in there and only one is Prim's. She rummages around in the ball and yanks out a slip of paper. I relax. It's probably another Seam kid. I look around at the scared faces of the bedraggled girls that are so obviously of Seam origin.
"Primrose Everdeen."
My world shatters. I feel my heart drop, and I forget to breathe. She didn't. I'm imagining it. I search wildly for Prim's form ahead of me, and my breath catches in my throat as I see her little form being marched by four Peacekeepers to the stage. A scream comes from behind me.
"Prim! NO!"
Katniss rushes up the aisle, screaming and sobbing unintelligibly. She tries to get around the Peacekeepers to Prim and instantly I know what she is about to do. I feel myself pushing through the sea of girls out into the aisle on numb legs, growing increasingly hysterical. They let me through, startled by this turn of events. I can't lose either of them. I won't – whatever it takes.
"I –" I hear Katniss start, and before she can throw her life away, I scream out the words and seal my fate.
"I VOLUNTEER! I volunteer as tribute."
DUN dun dun! Please remember to hit the blue button below and let me know how my very first story is! I'm new to all this, so any feedback would make my day. Thanks :-)