(A/N: I know that I haven't written in awhile but I finally decided to write another story. I hope that this story turns out better than my first one. I got the characters' names from a user by the name of Saltey.)
I wake up to the sound of animals making all types of annoying sounds. I've gotten used to it be now, because that's what I hear every day. I get off of my bed and get ready for the day. I put on some old jeans that I stole from a neighbor the other day, and a shirt, that I also stole from a neighbor the other day. The clothes are old, broken, and too big for me but I can manage for a month or two. I grab my hair and put it up into some style that I can work with.
I leave the room that my brother, who is still in bed, and I share. It's not a big room but I can live with it, then again I don't have anything to fill the room with. I walk to the kitchen to find my parents making some breakfast with the food from last year's tesserae, could be mine or my brother's but as long as it's food it's not a problem. I sit down on one of the old rotting chairs that my family has had ever since I was young.
"Hello dear, isn't your brother up? Do me a favor and wake him up for me, you'll both be late for school." says my mother as she sets the table.
"Don't worry, if he doesn't wake up then I'll just go to school myself," I say as I walk back to the room.
"Just wake him up."
"Fine," I sigh as I roll my eyes.
I walk back into the room to find my brother asleep on his bed. He sleeps like a drooling animal, all of the sheets are on the floor and his hair is a mess. God, I hope I don't look that bad when I wake up in the morning.
"Buck," I say as I tap his shoulder. "Buck wake up, we're going to be late for school." He just moans and shifts his body away from me. "Seriously stop fooling around, Mom told me to come and get you." I grab one of his arms and pull him. "God you weigh more than a pregnant cow, what did you eat?" I keep on pulling but Buck is just too heavy, he's two years older than me so it makes sense. I stop pulling on Buck's arm because I know that there's no point in doing so. I walk to my bed, grab a straw-filled pillow and I walk back to Buck. "Wake up!" I yell as I smack his face with a pillow.
"What do you want?" Buck asks as he rubs his face.
"Get up! We're going to be late for school!"
"Alright... I'm up." I walk back to the kitchen to see that my mother has finished setting the table.
"Well it's about time," says my father once he sees Buck. He comes out of the room dressed up and ready for school. He sits down next to me and starts to shove food down his throat. I attempt to shove food down my throat but I soon realize that I'm dropping food all around me. I don't bother finishing my breakfast, I know that I'll be hungry during school but I'm already used to starving and having nothing to eat. Buck and I grab the usual things that we bring to school, say our goodbyes and run out the door.
The school is far from our farm, takes about an hour to walk there. When I was younger I used to complain about walking to school, I would be exhausted by the time I reached the front of the school. That's nothing compared to how exhausted I am when I have to help my dad in the farm after school.
"We're not going to make it in time, we need to run." Buck says.
"I wonder why we can't make it." I say.
"Just run." I tightly grip my supplies and start to run after Buck. We can't run all the way to the school, I can manage running halfway to the school but not all the way.
"Buck," I say after minutes of running. "We need to... stop" I say in between breaths.
"Come, on Belinda, you are the one that wants to be early to school."
"Let them mark me late, I'm not going to have a heart-attack for a school that barley teaches us anything. I swear a cow can teach us more than the teachers in our school."
"Tell me about it," Buck starts. "One time when I was about ten, the teacher told us to hold up eleven fingers. She corrected herself quickly but, once you say something you say something. It was funny at the moment." He says once he sees my face.
"She could have had any extra finger somewhere."
"I'm pretty sure she only had ten fingers Belinda. Class is going to start soon; we should go back to running."
"I'm still tired, and anyways the teachers may not care if I'm late or not, the Reaping is tomorrow."
"And your teacher has a twelve year-old, right?"
"Yeah,"
"She's probably not going to care about you being late; she'll be focusing on her child or something." I kick a stone across the path.
"At least I only have this year and next year, and then I'm free from the Reaping."
"Trust me; it's a great feeling when it's the last time that your name is in the bowl. How many times are you entering this year?'
"I don't know, there's the six times that I have to be put in and then there's a lot more for the tesserae, so it's about thirty times."
"Great, least we'll have some food for the year."
"That's the only good thing about this corrupted world."
"Let's get this clear, there isn't anything good about this place."
"Okay, but it's the best thing about the Games, cause you do have the chance that you are going to be picked and entered into a place to die."
"Anyways, school's only a couple of minutes away in walking distance, want to run there?" Buck says while he's already walking faster.
"Sure, I'm not that tired anymore."
We arrive to the school ten minutes late. The school itself isn't in a great shape either, the windows are old and broken plus some of the wooden walls are starting to rot because of all of the rain that we've gotten so far. Peacekeepers patrol the area, as usual. They always carry their weapons and stare at you like they know everything about you, it's freaky when they look at you for too long and then start to ask questions. I walk into the school to see that another part of the floor has broken, that's not going to be fixed anytime soon. There are things that have been broken here for so long but no one bothers to fix it, the money is usually used for food, rent, and other necessities that seem more important than school. Buck and I separate to go into our classrooms.
"You're late Belinda," Ms. Callahan says as I step into the room.
"I know and I'm sorry, my brother woke up late." It was stupid of me to think that she wouldn't mark me late.
"That's no excuse for you to be late, just sit down." She takes a pencil and marks something on a piece of paper, which is most likely where the attendance is. "Okay now for today's lesson, which I think is fitting; today we will be learning about the forming of the Annual Hunger Games."
Every year they do this to us, talk about how the Games and the world as we know it came to be.
"As we all know, fifty six years ago, there was no such thing as the Hunger Games and there were thirteen districts instead of twelve. All thirteen districts went against the Capitol, who is now in charge of Panem. During this act District thirteen was completely obliterated and the rest of the districts were taken over by the Capitol. As a reminder to the districts, the Capitol decided to create a game, where each child from each district, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, has their name inside the Reaping Bowl. From there one male and female from each district shall be chosen to compete in an arena to fight until one person, the victor, remains." Ms. Callahan continues to speak about the Games itself, individual Games and the Quarter quells until the school day is over.
After school, I wait by the door for Buck to come out of the building. He is talking to some of his friends and when he sees me, he departs from them.
"What did you learn about today Belinda?"
"Absolutely nothing Ms. Callahan just kept on talking about the Games, and other stuff I already knew."
"At least you didn't have to do an essay, like I did."
"Sucks to be you."
"No," he says, "sucks to be you. You, my friend still have to go to the Reaping, while I get to see which unfortunate souls get picked for the Games. You still have the fear; I on the other hand do not."
"What if I get picked?" I ask raising an eyebrow.
"Like I said before, you have the fear, I do not."
"I feel so loved." I add sarcastically.
"Yeah, you should, I could just throw you in the lake while you're sleeping if I wanted to."
"So can I," I answer.
"Oh please Belinda," Buck starts. "You couldn't even drag me out of bed this morning."
"Fair point."
"Go get dressed and out into the farm with your father." says my mother once we reach the front steps of the house.
"No hello, no how was your day?" asks Buck.
"You both have to go and work, tomorrow is the Reaping and there is a good chance that the Capitol will need extra meat for the tributes, the feasts and anything else that the Capitol does with the meat we send."
"Okay," Buck and I say in unison. We each go to our side of the room and get dressed. I put on broken pants and a broken shirt that I found one day after school. I fix my hair again before leaving with Buck to head to the farm. Our farm has the simple animals, pigs, cows, goats, hens, roosters and chicks.
"Buck you'll be helping me with slaughtering the pigs today." says my father. "Belinda, I've already gotten the first pig, you'll be getting two more and bringing them to Buck and I to slaughter."
"Okay." I say.
"Have fun getting those pigs." Buck says.
"I'll try." I say as I walk to the pig pen. I look at each one of the pigs, I can here squeals coming from the slaughter house, must be from the pig that's being killed. I look at the pig pen, some of the pigs are not old enough, others are just piglets, some are too slim and then there are the ones that look sick. I spot one that isn't fat, but it's as fat as we could get them, and another that also isn't fat but it's one of the few that aren't sick or showing its rib cage. I grab the slimmer pig first and tie a rope around its neck. I take the pig from the pen and walk it to the slaughter house.
The slaughter house itself is a little bigger than the room that Buck and I share. It smells heavily of meat, blood and metal. On the corner are some aprons, made form old pieces of fabric, a couple of knives that my father made from metal scrapes and some animal organs which need to be thrown out. Past the knives is another pig pen, which I place the pig into. I walk over to the slaughtering table, as I like to call it, to see Buck and my father covered in blood and small pieces of pig organs.
"Well you two look like you are having fun." I say.
"Believe it or not, we are," says Buck.
"Well, here's the first pig, the next one is a little fatter, so it will be worth more than this one." I say as I point to the pig in the slaughter pen.
"Good, go ahead and get it Belinda," says my father. I walk out of the slaughter house and back to the pig pen to grab the fatter pig. I remove it from the pen and tie the string around its neck. Before I can even grab the other side of the rope, the pig starts to walk away.
"No, get back here." I get off of the ground, grab the rope and start to pull the pig towards the slaughter house. The pig refuses to move towards the slaughter house, it tries to go the opposite direction. It's like playing tug a war with a pig, I want to go one way but the pig wants to go another way. "Look here you pig; you have to go into the house." The pig still doesn't want to move. "This is stupid." I mumble under my breath.
"Belinda, what's taking you so long?" Buck asks me as he leaves the slaughter house.
"Oh, you know just enjoying the day, relaxing." I tug the rope harder. "What does it look like I'm doing?" I ask in a harsher tone.
"Looks like you're having fun, enjoy yourself."
"Just come over here and get the pig." Buck comes to me and grabs the pig with the rope and walks it back to the slaughter house.
"You know what, next time you slaughter and I'll get the animal."
"Agreed."
(A/N: I wanted to write about the daily life of the character instead of starting with the Reaping right away. I hope this chapter was good and you got the District 10 vibe. I also hope that this chapter did not have that many spelling/grammar mistakes.)