As I woke from my horrid nightmare, I looked over to see Katniss, sleeping like she always did. I was about to wake her when I remembered what the next morning was. The Reaping. That's what my nightmare was about. Effie Trinket, the escort of District 12, reaching her long, pale hand into the glass dome, swirling around for my name on that tiny piece of paper. I'd woken up, just as she said my name. I wasn't going to wake Katniss. Not before the Reaping. I slowly slipped out of Katniss' arm, and tiptoed to my mother's bed. I quietly got under the duvet, and scrunched up to my mother. As I shut my eyes, I tried not to think about Effie Trinket, and her big green wig. The Hunger Games... Would start tomorrow...
As I wake up, my mother is not next to me, but quietly making our breakfast from the scraps that we can receive. I push myself up, so my head is resting on a wooden plank that my father added to the bed before he died. My father died, along with many others, in the coal mines. He was sick, and shouldn't have gone down there, but he never listened. I looked over to my usual bed. Empty. I knew exactly where she was, and so did my mother, but we didn't like to say. Katniss, my sister, was in the forest. Her and my father had visited the forest every day after my father came home from the mines, and they'd visit the forest. I didn't know what they did, but now I know where we got our extra food from. Katniss would now go into the forest with Gale, a handsome guy who was a year older than her. His father also died in the mine, leaving his wife and three other kids. Katniss told me that she would take me into the forest, but I've never wanted too...
As I finished buttoning my pale blue shirt up, Katniss entered with her dirty boots, and her wet jacket. Sometimes she annoys me on Reaping days. This is the one day that we all get to dress up nice, and she spends half of the day running around the woods with Gale, and comes back to have a go at my mother. As I threw her pale blue dress at her, she went to get in her cold bath. As she walked past me, she told me:
"You look lovely," she tucked in a small part of my shirt in to my skirt, "No duck tail today."
As the broken clock on the wall reached one o'clock, Katniss and I pushed our plates forward, held hands, and started to walk towards the door. My mother quickly pushed in between us, and held both our hands. As we turned around the corner of the Seam, this is what we call the poor part of District 12, we saw most of the people that we knew already standing, ready to see which kid would be chosen to die. Each gender was split into two grids, youngest to oldest. There were more girls than boys, and most of them young girls. When our Mother let us both go, our index finger was pricked, and a small amount of blood was taken. This was so that the people in the Capitol can make sure we are who we say. There is a rumour that the Capitol makes clones of us, but I've never really taken notice of it. As me and Katniss depart, to go to each of our age groups, we smile at each other. As I shuffle in between girls from my class, I wonder if I'll be chosen this year. We all wait in silence for five minutes, until Effie Trinket skips onto the stage, in a bundle of joy.
"Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to the District 12 tribute Reaping, and may the odds be ever in your favour," she smiled at all the solemn faces of the young people, as her hand slowly floated over the glass bowl with every girl's name in. Effie pulled one out, and smiled. "The female tribute for District 12 of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games is... PRIMROSE EVERDEEN!"