A/N: …So the inspiration for this story is a kind of even mix between The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Running Man by Stephen King. READ THEM COS THEY ARE AMAZING! Ermm… I hope you enjoy this fanfiction :D

DEDICATED TO: my friend Kirsty who has had to hear me rant about how much I love fanfiction (srsly though u guys are awesome) Thank you Kirsty!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Percy Jackson ( Rick Riordan does;))

The Silver Line

-Chapter One-

PERCY.

I woke to the sound of my sister, Hazel, crying. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to keep the bright red and gold lights of the dawn, out of my tired eyes.

"Hazel?" I croaked "Hazel, what's wrong?"

I could see her small, delicate frame balancing gently against the frame of my bed.

"Hazel, come here."

I motioned for her to come and lie on my small bed beside me. She whimpered slightly, as I pulled her in closer to me. She was so cold.

"It happened again." She whispered

I hugged her close to me. So that's why she is so cold.

"Only this time I asked why."

I narrowed my eyes and turned her face towards mine. I could see the deep, jagged gash that ran along her cheek bones. Rage boiled inside of me, and I guess it must have showed, because she frowned.

"Please, Percy, don't do anything stupid. We only have…"

She sat bolt upright, eyes widening with fright. She stared at me, mouthing drooping at the corners, slightly agape.

"Percy! It's today. Today… PERCY!" she cried, as she flung herself at me. She wrapped her bony arms around my neck and started to sob. She seemed completely heartbroken, and I was about to ask who did this, so I could go and give them a good thrashing… and then I realised what the hell she was talking about. I think I said something intelligent like "uh… I guess it is" but I'm not one hundred per cent sure. My mind was preoccupied with some final thoughts about dying and stuff ran through my brain at about 1000mph. She let go, and looked at me with those big, golden puppy dog eyes that I found so hard to say no to. Those past few months, I saw reflected in her eyes all that pain she had been feeling had finally arrived. The climax point.

HAZEL.

I stared at Percy. He stared back. I stared. He stared. I… I lost hope. He was my life. If The Silver Line dared to take him away from me… No. If Gabe hadn't entered him, he wouldn't be taken away from me. The only thing my mother managed to teach me before I ran away, was that you must place blame correctly. No point doing it, if you're not doing it right, she used to say to me. Percy's mother, on the other hand, taught me many things. Many useful things, like how to trust other people, to forgive them if they wronged you. Percy taught me the most important thing of all though: how to live. But all this advice I had never helped me at all. I had no mother, Percy hadn't had one for three years now, and neither of us knew who our fathers were. All we had was each other, and Smelly Gabe. But now The Silver Line, threatened even that tenuous bond. The Silver Line, was a game show, the deadliest game show on air, to be precise. To enter all you had to do was send away the invitation that every home received, even the cardboard shelters that littered the streets in the big city received the invitations , to be in with a chance of winning the grand prize; £380 million. In order to win, all you had to was survive 38 days in an amphitheatre, filled with traps, assassins and other contestants. We received the list of the other contestants a few weeks ago. Percy took one look at it and threw it in the closest gutter, but I salvaged it and had taken to studying it, when I was worried. I tried to picture each person, judging purely on their name. I had picked a few names, that I really liked; Dakota North, Juniper Ash, Jason Grace and Annabeth Chase. Another few which sounded mean or spiteful; Octavian Augustus, Rachel Dare, Ethan Nakamura, Drew Pearce. The rest just sounded like kids names; Reyna Loy, Leo Valdez, Piper McLean, Grover Underwood, Katie Gardener, Travis Stoll, Gwen Easton, Will Solace, Silena Beauregard, Charlie Beckendorf, Lee Fletcher, Lou Ellen Holmes, Kelli Dempsey, Luke Castellan and Thalia Grace (who I'm guessing is Jason's sister). 24 contestants in all. I wondered how many had entered willingly.