I come home tired. I always do. When you work in one of the battery factories, it isn't uncommon to come home with finger burns. I lie down on my bed and start my homework. It's pretty basic stuff, English and Maths mostly. It's not like we have any need to do any of the more complex stuff here. District 5. Power. I'm 15 years old. When I started Secondary School, everyone in my year was assigned jobs. I remember, there were ages of discussion about what job we wanted. I ended up with the worst job- Battery Dismemberment. I come home everyday with scalds and burns on my fingers from the acid and the putrid smell of it on my clothes, which may be one of the main contributing factors towards the fact that I have next to no friends... Well, not next to none, it's just none really. I hear mom open the door and come in. I sigh. Mum and i don't get on, ever since my dad cleared out last year, she was withdrawn to start with, then she just got downright unbearable to be near. "Jen! Come down! Now!"she yells. I roll over tiredly. "what?" I hear her sigh of annoyance as she makes her way up the stairs. As she tromps into my room noisily, I turn round. "What mom‽ I'm doing homework!" "Jenna, really? Like you know any of it." Ouch. That stung. I am actually pretty smart, though I'd never tell mom that, she'd just bend the fact to her advantage somehow. Once in school, I took and IQ test on one of the battered old school computers, and I actually got a very good score. 168. I hear thats considered high anyway, we don't have those type of tests any more. I float off into a fantasy about what I could do with this 'genius' IQ.. "Anyway" mom says bringing me back to reality. "What with the reaping tomorrow... I was thinking, you should volunteer!" I stare at her, searching for any sign that she's making some sick joke. I see nothing. "No way Mom!" I yell. "Are you insane‽" "Come on Jen! Just think how our lives would change! Think how much better it would be for Jeb" She is truly evil. She knows I would do anything for my little brother Jeb. He's the only person I actually care about in District 5. "Mom! I'm. Not. Volunteering!" I say this with a sense of finality. "But Jen-""NO!" I yell. Mom sighs and heads back downstairs in defeat. I lie staring at the ceiling, thinking about tomorrow. The Reaping. Here in District 5 it's not really considered good to be chosen. In some districts like 1 and 2 they spend years training to play the games. It's considered an honour there. The glory brought to the district. My mom is one of the few here who thinks the games are a good thing. She probably would have volunteered when she was my age... Well, actually, she did. She used to live in District 2, and she trained for years, but then, when she was eighteen, the year she was due to go into the arena, she got pregnant with me. She volunteered anyway, but the trainer who was in charge of her gym had found out, and he stepped in and sent another girl in instead. She won that year, which just makes mom even angrier that the didn't get to play. As far as I know she killed my biological dad cause she was so pissed of at him. Normally, she would have got the death penalty for that, but because she was pregnant, and because she was one of the best careers 2 ever had, she was allowed to live, but she was exiled to 5. She got married again here, and got promoted to a high place in the management here. She's in charge of most of the major ass-kissing to the Capitol that goes on here. The other districts tend to kind of overlook us here in 5, they look at us as just a sort of average district, we don't have it too good, like 1 or 2, bit not too bad like 12 or 11 either. They don't realise that it's actually pretty harsh here. I finish my homework quickly, but instead of doing something normal, like dawning or going outside, I find some of the textbooks I'll be using next year and start doing some Maths. It sounds mad, but doing Maths relaxes me, and it just feels like the one thing I'm good at. As I work through the sums dutifully, I think again about tomorrow. Will I be reaped? It's possible, but not too likely. I'm 15, so I'll have 4 slips in anyway, but a few years ago, when I was 12, I signed up for tesserae, for me and Jeb. I couldn't have cared less if Mom starved, but I entered my name twice for Jeb and myself. So I'll have 6 entries. After that one year, mom got promoted, so I didn't have to enter again, but I still have the slips. The odds are pretty much in my favour, and Jeb's only 6, so he's not at risk at all. I check my clock, and see its now 21:25. The district lights off is 21:30. So I pack away my stuff and change quickly, my mind still occupied with tomorrow, which somehow seems scarier than all my other reapings. I remember to get some clothes for tomorrow out, and with a quick look around my room to confirm I haven't forgotten anything, I jump into bed, just as the horn blares to remind us to turn the lights off or face a public whipping. Its a long time before I fall asleep.
A/N: Please reveiw and tell me what you think of it! First fanfic so be nice :D xx