Life is Hunger Games

Prologue

When I woke up, I felt like I just had a horrible nightmare.
Just for a moment, I thought that it wasn't real, since I was lying in a bed. Unfortunately, after just few seconds, I didn't recognize that mattress as mine. It was too cozy, and the sheets too clean. Then, I remembered everything.

It was a rainy day, in District 3. But a really special day. It was my second-last year of the Reap. I'm seventeen, so I had to wait just two years and the possibility of being chosen for the Hunger Games would have been gone.

However, I've never been a lucky girl.
Each District had to sacrifice a male Tribute and a female one, both of an age between twelve and eighteen.
That day two teenager of each District would have been obliged to leave their family to become murderers in just two weeks of training. Or victims. Our choose.

It's obvious that if I'm talking to you right now, I'm in trouble. Even if I haven't grow up in District 3, I'm one of his Tributes this year. I know that it's not an excuse, but I'm feeling like I need to find some reason to be angry for what's happening to me.
Maybe I should introduce me to you. I'm Max, and I was born in District 4, on the coast that once was called Arcadia Bay. Now there's no name for any place, in Panem. I used to fish any type of ocean creature with my best friend, Chloe Price. We were inseparable. I really loved her, and we had a cheerful childhood. However, it was just because we knew nothing about the facts.

Since we were ten, we used to go sailing on our parents' boats, far away from the coast, to explore the deep ocean. Actually, we had our limits too: we have never get far enough to lose the coast on our sight. But it was adventurous as well, and we really enjoyed playing as pirates.

Furthermore, we were also proud of us, because we were used to catch some fish for our family. It was exciting, because it was against the law: in fact, you must sell every creature you fish to the Government.
But when we used to sail on our little boat, built by our own hands, nobody cared about what we were doing, and nobody controlled us since we were kids; so we used to hide our precious loot in our clothes, and then cook it up in our secret hiding place: a cave in the promontory near the luxurious neighbourhood.
If there were some leftovers, we used to give them to our parents.
However, even without our help, our family were doing cool. Their daughters seemed to be intended to become excellent fisherwomen.
Life in District 4 it's pretty good, actually. Not like in District 3.

Unfortunately, one day, my parents decided to move. It happened right after Chloe's dad death. It happened a terrible, terrible accident.
He wasn't doing good, since he didn't have fished the quantity of fish weekly required from the State yet, so he needed to find more of that, or the Peacekeeper would have made him pay a fee. And if he couldn't afford it, they might have kick his family out of their home. So he desperately needed the right amount of food for the government's request. Therefore, although there was a storm coming, he sailed the ocean with his loyal daughter.

And he never returned alive.

Chloe, instead, unbelievably managed to return on the seaside swimming. She was destroyed.

At the end, Chloe and her mother lost everything. A really good men, their boat and, I presume, even their home. I couldn't feel less guilty than I was when I left. If I was there… maybe I could have helped her family, they could have stayed at my home. I don't even know if Chloe's still alive, because I haven't replied to her letters the first and the second year after my transfer, so she stopped writing me. And now… I suppose the karma is coming. I'm going to die in an arena, by the hand of a murderer of my age.

Author's note

Hey there! Thank you for reading the prologue of my first fanfiction in English. The chapters will be longer than this introduction, of course; I just wanted to intrigue you, and I hope I managed to do that^^
The first and the second chapter are ready, and I'll post them soon!

I hope to see you again ;)

Clovniss_Kia