Hey guys! Alright so I hope that you guys like this. I just had the idea that, if Prim went, I honestly think that she could make it through. Everyone thinks that she is too weak and sweet to ever be able to win, but I don't think so. She seems like she would be able to do so she's resourceful enough.

Alright, so enough of my Prim-rambling. I hope that you all like this chapter and, even more, that you all like this story. I'll let you get to reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own nothing.

Chapter One: Prim in the Reaping

"Primrose Everdeen!"

My breath stopped. Had she just called out what I thought? But of course my suspicions were confirmed when everybody around me turned and looked at me. My best friend Amabella looked at me with a startled and fearful expression on her face.

"Where are you dear?" I heard Miss Trinket call from the podium. "Come on! Come up!"

As if of their own accord, my feet began to move until I came to the front of the crowd. Two people dressed in white, Peace Keepers, grabbed me by the arms and roughly dragged me up to the podium, my sister Katniss screaming from behind me. She sounded scared, and that only served to scare me more. I looked over my shoulder at her.

"Katniss!" I called above her voice, my own shaking in fear. "Take care of mom!"

"NO!" she yelled. "I voluntee-"

My eyes widened in horror at what she was about to say, and before I could stop myself, I shouted, "I volunteer!"

The entire place went deadly quiet, and as I walked up to the podium with the guards, resuming my walk, I heard Katniss yelling and screaming behind me, and looking over my shoulder I saw Gale holding her back. Tears raced down my face as I trekked up to the podium and went to stand beside Miss Trinket.

"Hello dear," she said, her voice happy and a grin on her face. "And how old are you, miss Primrose?"

"Twelve," I whispered, my voice filled with dread and my face dripping wet. "I'm twelve."

"Well then," said MissTrinket. "Let's give a round of applause for our lady tribute!"

Nobody said or did anything for a moment, and then one by one everyone began holding up our district's sign.

"And now for the boys," Miss Trinket said after a moment, reaching into the bowl of papers on the boy's side. When she finally came out with it, she looked up, and with a slightly less happy voice, said, "Danvid Archettah."

I looked at the boy, standing frozen in the middle of a crowd of boys all looking at him. He was about a year older than me, with dirty blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes that reflected the fear that I was feeling. Slowly, he came up and, without a single word from anyone in the audience, stood on the opposite side of Miss Trinket. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said. "This year's District Twelve Tributes!"

"You have three minutes," said the guard from right outside the door of the dark room that they had put me in for the moment. "Make it quick."

"Prim!" cried Katniss as the door was shut behind her and mom. "Why would you do something like that? I could have saved you Prim!"

"I'm sorry Katniss!" I said, more tears flowing when I saw the fearful tears in her eyes. "I didn't mean to!"

Katniss seemed to suddenly understand just how very scared I was, and knelt in front of me. "Shhh," she said, wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug. "It's gonna be okay Prim. You can win this, I know you can. Think of all the times that you helped Gale and me with the hunting. I know you don't like to, but you know how to use a hunting knife, and I've started teaching you to use a bow as well. You can be okay. Just try to win for me, and know that no matter what I believe in you. Remember the pin that I gave you this morning. As long as you wear it, no harm can come to you."

I tried my hardest to believe her words, to let them give me hope. But it didn't help, I thought as I walked out the door, that she seemed to be trying as hard as me to believe in what she had said.

The train they took me to was luxurious, if I could pay them no other compliment. The rooms were lovely and bright, though very lonely. Neither Danvid nor I wanted to talk, so it was quiet, though I could feel his eyes on me for the last five minutes before our new mentor, Haymitch, a tall man with long, blonde hair, walked in. More like stumbled in, actually.

He sighed as he looked at me and the boy next to me. "Congratulations," he said in a heavy voice. He walked over to the tray next to Danvid, where several different types of alcohol sat, and grabbed a red one that looked something like wine, but was slightly different.

"Where's the ice?" he said finally, after he had poured the liquid into his glass.

"I don't know," the boy next to me finally spoke up. Haymitch didn't seem to like that answer much, and put down the flask that he was looking for ice in rather hard, causing a clink on the glass tray.

"Okay," I said finally, my voice low, showing how scared I was. "When do we start training then?"

Haymitch looked at me not unlike one would look a mental patient. "So eager," he said. "Most of you aren't in such a hurry."

"Yeah," said Danvid from beside me. His voice was slightly deeper than a young boy's, but not so much as a man's. "That's the plan. You're our mentor. You're supposed to teach us how to get sponsors, how to stay alive."

"Oh," said Haymitch. "Okay. So, um, embrace the probability of your imminent death, and know in your heart that there is nothing I can do to save you." He smiled sarcastically in the way that only a drunk man can.

I frowned. "So why are you here?" I asked timidly. "You're supposed to help us, aren't you?"

"Hmm," he said. "The refreshments."

"Okay," said Danvid. "I think that you've had enough to drink."

As Danvid tried to reach for the drink in the older man's hand, suddenly Haymitch shifted and before my eyes could register what was happening, Danvid was sitting down again in the chair, his back pushed all the way back as Haymitch's foot rested on his chest, keeping him back. "You made me spill my drink," he said. "On my brand new pants." He began to get up. "You know," he said. "I think I'll go finish this in my room."

And with that he was off.

Danvid and I stared after him for a moment before he sat back up. "He'll come around," he said, looking over at me. "Right?"

I frowned slightly. "I don't know," I said. "But I hope so. I don't think that we have much more of a chance of survival if he doesn't."

We sat there in silence for a bit before finally I got up. "I'm going to go watch TV," I said. "Maybe I can find something on past competitions that will help us."

"Alright," said Danvid. "Can I go with you?"

I nodded at him and together we went to another very well furnished car, where there was a couch in front of the TV, and turned it on. On it was the news man, Caesar Flickerman.

"They're twelve and thirteen year olds," he was saying, videos of past competitions playing behind them. I looked at Danvid. He knew just as well as I did that we were the topic of conversation. "That's never happened before. I have to say, they do seem like the underdogs."

"Yes they do," said the other man next to Caesar, before looking behind them at the screen. "Do you remember this year?"

"Yes I do," said the Mister Flickerman. "It was one of my favorite years, as well as my favorite arenas. The use of the rubble in the ruined city; it's very exciting."

Suddenly the screen changed and it was a picture of a perhaps sixteen year old black boy, laying over another boy, a brick in his hand as he raised it above his head and brought it back down on the other boy's skull repeatedly. "Look at that moment," said Caesar. "That is a moment you never forget; the moment that a tribute becomes a victor."

I couldn't stand it anymore; I turned off the TV, leaning back on the couch, and bringing my knees up so that my chin rested on them. "No," I repeated to myself quietly. "No, no, no."

A second later a hand reached out and touched my back, running smooth circles over it over and over. I looked up to see that Danvid was leaning over me, rubbing my back and mouthing out the tune to a song that Katniss had taught me when we were little, and had in fact sung to me that morning.

"Deep in the meadow, under the willow, a bed of grass, a soft green pillow…" I whispered. He looked at me, an odd look in his eye, and scooted a bit closer, wrapping his arm around me tentatively. I sighed. This had been a nightmare so far, and I hadn't even gotten there yet. I couldn't even think what would happen when eventually it came down to actually having to kill someone, including the person currently consoling me, just to let me survive.

The next morning I woke up later than usual for some odd reason, and found that I was alone. Taking my two braids down from my hair, I quickly put my hair back up in the simple high ponytail that I usually wore it in before stepping out into the hallway and making my way to the dining car for breakfast.

Once there, I found that Haymitch and Danvid were already there and having breakfast. "–You'd freeze to death first," Haymitch was saying.

"No," said Danvid. "I would light a fire."

"Well that's a good way to get killed."

"How come?" I asked, making myself known finally. Haymitch looked over at me.

"Oh joy," he said. "Why don't you join us? I was just giving some life-saving advice."

"Like what?" I asked.

"I was just asking how to find shelter," said Danvid.

"Which would come in handy if you were, in fact, still alive," said Haymitch.

"How do you find shelter?" I asked.

"Pass the jam please," Haymitch said, ignoring my question.

I ignored him. If I was going to learn anything, I was going to have to do what Katniss would do in this situation. "How do you find shelter," I repeated.

"Give me a chance to wake up, sweetheart," said Haymitch, his tone hard and annoying. "This mentoring is very taxing stuff." He poured himself some liquid that looked almost like tea, but definitely wasn't, from a flask. "Can you pass the marmalade-?"

Before he could finish his sentence, my hand moved from the knife I was holding and, before anyone could blink, the knife was stabbed into the table right between his middle and index fingers where he had tried to grab the butter. From behind me, I heard the startled gasp from Miss Trinket.

"That is mahogany!" she yelled in a scolding tone.

I ignored her, my eyes boring into Haymitch's angry ones. "Look at you," he said, his voice sarcastic as he grabbed the knife from the table. "You just killed a placemat."

I said nothing and simply watched him as he looked at me and Danvid. "You wanna know how to survive?" he asked, the topic changing abruptly as he looked at me. "You get people to like you. Oh, not what you were expecting? Well, in the middle of the games, when you're starving, or freezing, some water, a knife, or even some matches can mean the difference between life and death. And those things only come from sponsors. And to get sponsors, you have to make people like you. And right now, sweetheart, you aren't doing a very good job."

"There it is," said Danvid suddenly, getting up and rushing to the window. "It's huge. That's incredible."

I watched out the window with Haymitch and Danvid as we rolled into the city, the crowd outside the train roaring with applause. "Come on!" said Danvid.

"You better take this knife," said Haymitch, holding up the knife from earlier. "He knows what he's doing."

Not too long later, I was brought into a room with lots of cubicle-like things where people dressed like doctors came in and shaved, waxed, pricked, and hosed me before finally leaving me alone for a while, laying on a brightly lit bed that reminded me vaguely of an x-ray machine.

I laid there, staring at the ceiling for a few before a man's voice broke through the silence, making me sit up in surprise. "That was the most touching thing I've ever seen," the man said. "With your sister. My name's Cinna."

Cinna was a black man of about twenty-five years old, with curly hair and dark eyes, wearing all black. His eyes were very kind. "Look," he said. "I'm sorry that this happened to you. But I'm here to help you in any way I can."

"Most people offer congratulations," I said. "Not condolences."

"Well," said Cinna. "I don't see the point in that. So tonight, there's going to be a Tribute Parade. They're gonna take you out and show you to the world."

"So you're here to make me look pretty," I said.

"I'm here," said Cinna. "To help you make an impression. Now, usually they dress you in clothes from your district."

"Yeah," I said. "Mine's coal miners."

"Yeah but I don't wanna do that," said Cinna. "I wanna do something that they're gonna remember. I take it they told you about sponsors?" I nodded. "Well then let's see how good you are at making friends. I just think that somebody who would do something like you and your sister did shouldn't be dressed up in some stupid costume, now should they?"

"I hope not," I said, smiling.

"Are you ready?" asked Cinna a while later, looking between both me and Danvid.

We were both wearing dark blue– I had on a knee length dress with inch-thick straps that was tight around the bodice before loosening in the skirt. The bodice had a sweetheart neckline and was covered with black lace with several intricate designs in it of small flowers –primroses. To show that my district was coalminers, Cinna had made it so that the dress looked charred in some places, with the blue being even darker in those places. My hair was done in a beautiful bun atop my head, with two strands hanging down from either side, and in front of the bun, on a gorgeous silver comb, was a dark blue primrose. For shoes I wore black two-inch heels. Meanwhile, Danvid was wearing a regular suit with a blue shirt and black vest and pants. Pinned to his lapel was the same blue flower that I sported– a dark blue primrose. His hair was spiked slightly and looked wonderful. His shoes were slick back dress shoes. Both of us held nervous looks on our faces.

"I'm ready," I said, though my voice was shaking and I was trying to convince myself just as much as him that I was okay with all of this.

Beside me, Danvid nodded in agreement. "I'm ready too," he said.

Cinna smiled and nodded at both of us. "Good luck," he said as we got into the carriage.

I looked straight ahead as our carriage was pulled into the arena, not daring to focus on anything and hoping that the look on my face was more of a smile than a grimace.

As we pulled out into the sunlight, I could feel the stares of thousands of people, and I couldn't help but feel a bit nervous and bashful. I took a deep breath to calm myself like Katniss had taught me, and luckily that seemed to work, so I did so again.

Suddenly I felt Danvid's hand brush my own, trying to hold it, and before he could do so I pulled my hand away. "Oh come on," he said, looking down at me slightly. "They'll love it."

I thought about it for a moment. Cinna and Haymitch had said that we needed to make an impression…

I grabbed Danvid's hand and I couldn't help the grin that lit up my face as he smiled and we pushed our intertwined hands into the air above us. The crowd went wild and I could hear Mister Flickerman yelling into the microphone, but couldn't bring myself to care what he was saying as our chariot made its way to President Snow before stopping.

In that moment I could only imagine the grin that Katniss was most likely sporting at home.

Alright sorry guys but I had to stop it there. The chapter was getting long, and I didn't want it to go over 3,000 words. Anyway, I would love to know what you all think of it! Please review! I'll update in a week!

-CahillGirl2001