AN: Okay, before you read on, make sure that you read my story, Cannons, first, or you will not understand anything I'm saying. Get it? Got it? Good.
Scarlett's POV
I feel like a juvenile delinquent.
Ever since I've come back from arena, have I heard any congratulations? No. What about appreciation for all I've done? Nope. Did anyone openly admit that they cried while I was gone? Again, no.
I've practically been rejected by society. At least in every other district, everyone celebrates your return and treats you like a hero. Correction – a god.
But the 70th Hunger Games apparently are the exception to that unspoken agreement among the citizens. Everyone stares daggers at me, thinking me to be an animal. Well, go reconsider your thoughts, everyone, because I only killed two people. Two freaking people.
Even my family won't talk to me. My five older brothers won't look me in the eye, and my parents don't invite me over to visit anymore. I'm living on my own in the Victor's Village, along with the sparse amount of victors from District Three, who are treated considerably better than I.
Just imagine how the past year has been for me, and multiply that misery by a hundred. You'd have a pretty good idea of how I've been feeling even since I've had to travel all around Panem, watching all my fellow tributes being buried.
Pleasant, am I right?
Today is certainly no exception. It's only one day before the reaping, one day before the anniversary of when I was picked to fight to the death. Am I looking forward to it?
Of course I'm not.
I sit up in bed, wallowing in my thoughts of how this day was a year ago, when I was seventeen and not hated by everyone in the district. I pull my knees to my chest, the pale blue comforter coming with them. I hook my arms together, using them to keep my legs up, and let out an irritated scream. Just like every morning for nearly a year.
I get up, gently placing my feet on the plush carpet and walking out the door, down the hall, and gliding down the stairs. When I reach the kitchen, I sit at the table ungracefully. I stare at the wall, hoping that I have enough food so I won't have to venture out into the open, where my self-esteem always takes a huge blow. When I get up to go check, a knock comes from the nearby door that leads outside. I shuffle over, not caring if I'm in my pajamas or if my eyes have bags under them. I slowly open the door so whoever is outside can only see my face. Not my pajamas, not my lime green hair. Just my face.
Outside is a man who has dark black hair and ashen skin, who is fidgeting with his large, round glasses. Next to him is a woman looking much like him, staring off into space like she's calculating something.
The woman I recognize. She was my mentor last year, Wiress. The man, not so much. He looks to be older than her, so I guess that he was her mentor when she was thrown into the arena.
"Hi, Scarlett," Wiress says, smiling a little. I try to smile, since this is the first time in months that anyone has even tried to be nice to me. The man holds out his hand for a handshake. "This is Beetee," Wiress says. "He was my mentor back in the day."
"Nice to meet you," I say, trying to be courteous. In reality, though, I'm probably in a worse mood than anyone else in Panem. I can just feel my nastiness growing.
"So, what are you two doing here?" I awkwardly ask, looking at the pair.
Beetee gives me a toothy grin. "What, you thought that you were going to the Capitol this year without any guidance?"
oOo
Drew's POV
Waking up on reaping day is certainly not the greatest thing in the world, even when you live in the wealthy portion of District Three.
It's always the same. Everyone gets all paranoid about it being them going into the Games, and how they might not ever come home from the reaping, blah blah blah. A bunch of bologna, if you ask me.
My friends are the type of people who assume the worst. Because both of my best friends come from the poor part of the district, they have to apply for tesserae, putting their names in multiple times for survival. They have the right to be paranoid. But these snobby rich neighbors I am forced to go to school with every day? Nope. They have no reason to worry about being reaped.
I literally fall out of bed when I wake up, hitting the upstairs floor with my rear, hard. Very hard. My mom rushes over from her bedroom, an apron on and her hair pulled into a messy bun, a worried look on her face. "Drew, honey, are you okay?" she asks.
"Fine," I grumble, rubbing my bottom when I stand up. I shoo her away, since I hate people watching me change and I love, love, loooooove privacy. Of course my older sister has to be the exception, since she always manages to stop my door from closing, like now.
"Drew," Olivia says, poking her head through my door. "Do you have that brown dress off hand, or are you wearing it?"
"I'm wearing it, Ollie," I tell her. "Don't you have a green one that you can wear?"
"It doesn't match my skin tone," she says, just to irk me. "Actually, it doesn't fit anymore. You can have it if you want?"
"You're smaller than I am, Ollie. How would it even fit without the seams bursting?"
Ollie is definitely smaller than I am. She may be nineteen and three years older than me, but she's the tiniest person in her class. She's also the most beautiful, though. She has short, brown hair that touches her shoulders on days when it decides to be flatter. Her eyes are a bright blue, like mine, with silver flecks in them. Her skin is somewhat tan due to her work as a weapon's saleswoman, so she gets to travel all over Panem and visit the sunniest of places to the greyest of places. Her main client is the Capitol, though, who stock up for Peacekeepers and such. You can tell that she's been affected by the Capitol, too, because she's started caring more about her looks and how "proper" she is.
Sometimes she can be as freaky as those Capitol freaks.
"Well, you might want to get ready now," Ollie says, "because we leave in an hour, Drew."
I nod and finally, finally close the door.
Privacy is amazing, let me tell you. I'm dressed and ready to go in five minutes, at the most. I bound down the stairs, eat whatever Mom made earlier while I was sleeping, and tell Mom and Ollie that I'm leaving early to go meet my friends.
Teagan and Calder are both wearing their "fancy" – meaning casual in Mom and Ollie's standards – clothing, waiting for me by the edge of the pack of teenagers, waiting to be reaped. We exchange a few casual greetings and go to our designated sections, where Teagan and I stand together with the other sixteen-year-old girls, and Calder stands only a few feet away with all the rowdy boys.
A few minutes later, the mayor and the escort for this year, who no one knows about nor cares for, step onto the stage, and within a few seconds the crowd goes silent. Oddly enough, the mentor for this year, Scarlett Chadsworth, isn't here yet. The mayor goes through his usual drawl of history and boring stuff, regardless, that no one actually listens to anyway. The escort, however, looks absolutely fascinated.
She's obviously new.
When he's done, the escort bounces up to the two glass bowls, filled with slips of paper that have each child from the ages twelve to eighteen's name on them. She puts her manicured finger into the bowl with the girl's names, and pulls out a pure white strip of paper, and reads the print.
Through her heavy Capitol accent, I make out, "Drew Russell." My name.
Oh, well, that's a cool way to start off reaping day.
Yeah, so, I'm trying to do multiply point of views now… this might be harder than I thought! Oh well. I'll make it work somehow with my magical idea-making-abilities that I totally have – that's a joke. Ha. Ha. Why aren't you laughing?
Hopefully I'll have chapter 2 up for you all soon!