The smell of the woods have always calmed me. Whenever I was a child, when my father was still here, we would come into the woods whenever we could. This is where I first learned to shoot a bow. I can come here whenever I need to clear my head. It's my home. More so than my actual one.

Ever since my father died in a mine explosion a few years ago, my home life has been hell. That's the best way to describe it. My sister hates me, for what reason I'm not sure, since I've always tried my best to look out for her and do whatever I can for her. I'm pretty sure my mother only keeps me around because I bring in more food hunting than she can by with the money she gets as a healer. And whenever I can't get a good haul, she makes sure I suffer dearly for it.

As if I don't try hard enough to get some food in our stomachs.

Out of the three of us, I am the skinniest. My mother adores Prim, so she makes sure they both have a full belly before they go to bed at night. I get whatever they don't eat, which is mostly a couple of berries and a rabbit's leg, if I'm lucky.

My mother makes sure to take advantage of my weakness, too; hitting me in my already pain-ridden stomach, kicking me in the spots where she knows my bones are weaker, and so on.

The only good thing that comes out of it all is that I make a little bit of money from my trading in the Hob; money that I can hopefully use one day to get away from that house. I don't see it happening anytime soon though, seeing as my mother spends most of my money on things for her and Prim, like new dresses and shoes, expensive cakes. As for me, all I'll say is I'm glad I haven't grown much in the last couple of years.

I hear a sound coming from a tree above me, and I stop to listen. I hear it again, only this time a little over to my left. I pull the string on the bow back as I inhale, and as I exhale, I release the string and watch the squirrel fall to the ground with a small smile on my face. I go over how much I managed to collect today. Three squirrels, three birds, and about five pouches of berries. It should get me some money at the Hob, but not that much.

I start my walk back to the fence that separated the woods from the district, putting up my walls as I do so. People in the district know me as closed off, but strong in a way. But at my home, when the doors and windows are closed and there is no one besides my mother and Prim to see the pain, the walls drop, and I am weak, alone, and scared.

Shaking my head to clear those thoughts, I climb through the fence and walk through the meadow, soon enough finding my way to the town square. I go through my usual trading routine, first the Hob, where I sell a bird and two pouches of berries, the butcher, who buys the other two birds and one squirrel, and finally I arrive at my last place of trade for the day, the bakery.

This is one of my favorite places to trade, but not because of the food the Mellark's give me in return. They're all so kind to me. I always make sure to save a squirrel for Mr. Mellark, and a pouch of berries for Ms. Mellark. They have three sons, two of which have moved out already. The youngest, Peeta, is my age. He never says much to me, just smiles politely before looking away shyly. At school, he nods at me in the halls. It's one of the friendliest gestures I get at school or home.

I knock on the door and am greeted my Peeta himself. I give him a small smile. "Hi Peeta." He smiles back, and I notice how….nice his smile is. Also, how blue his eyes are. They remind me of the ocean, so clear and bright….

I shake my head, and dig out a squirrel. "I have one squirrel and two pouches of berries." I'd love to sell all of them, but my mother would be livid if I didn't bring anything back besides a few pieces of meat and whatever the baker decides to give me. "If this isn't enough, I'm going back in the morning, so I can try to get you a little something more."

Peeta hurriedly shakes his head back and forth. "No Katniss. This is plenty, thank you. I'll take the squirrel and a pouch of those berries. You can step inside for a second while I go grab you something." I smile at him. "Thanks," I say, glad to be out of this chilly fall weather. Though I wouldn't admit it, I'm kind of glad he didn't say he needed more. Winter is coming fast, and soon all the animals will go into hibernation, making it difficult to get a decent haul. It also means more beatings from my mother, since it will be much harder to get food for us.

As I stand by the door, waiting for Peeta to return with my loaf of bread, Mr. Mellark comes in. Once he sees me, his eyes light up and he smiles brightly at me. Mr. Mellark has always been a kind man, and when my father died he took it upon himself to be as much of a father to me as he could whenever I came to trade. He comes over to me and gives me a quick hug. His hand touches one of the many bruises on my back, and I bite my tongue to keep myself from whimpering.

When he pulls back, he keeps his hand on my shoulders, his smile as bright as ever.

"Katniss!" he exclaims. "Wonderful to see you! I trust you're here to trade?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, let me run go get you a little something."

I'm about to say something when Peeta walks in, carrying a brown paper bag. He sees us talking and blushes slightly. "Sorry, did I interrupt something?" I shake my head, and take the bag with a small thank you.

Before I leave, Mr. Mellark places a hand on my shoulder, and I turn back to him. "Katniss," he starts off at a normal tone, but then lowers his voice to a whisper. "I'm not trying to imply anything when I say this, but I know things haven't been easy these past few years for your family, especially you. I want you to know if you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to come to us. You're like a daughter to me and Jenna, and I know you're like a sister to the boys. Well, most of them…" he trails off, a small smile on his face. I decide to ignore it.

"Thank you Mr. Mellark, and I will." Before I leave, I give Peeta a small smile and thank him once again for the bread. I wave at them both one last time before I head back outside, preparing myself for what I will face at home.

I walk inside, and immedetly take my boots off. Mother hates it when I "track dirt into her clean house." Honestly, the only reason it's clean is because I can't take living in a dirty house. I empty the contents in my game bag onto the table and find the bag Peeta gave me at the bakery. I open it to find a loaf of bread with raisins and nuts in it.

I'm taken aback for a moment, since the baker usually only gives me a loaf of regular bread, and sometimes a cookie for the road. I try to politely decline him most of the time, not wanting to make it seem like I was freeloading. But the man won't take no for an answer sometimes. Then I remember that is was Peeta that traded with me today, not the baker. I hate it sometimes when he does, because he always somehow seems to sneak a little bit extra in my bag when I don't notice, which makes me work myself to death the next time I go out in the woods to get more to repay them with. I shake my head, thinking to myself how long it would take to pay this one off, considering this happened to be one of the more pricier items for sale.

I tell myself to worry about it later, and start on preparing dinner. I take out two plates, one for my mother and one for Prim, and set them on the table. I take out the pouch of berries and the squirrel, and start to make a stew, the one of the only things I can cook. I quickly skin the squirrel and set it in the pot, and throw in some wild plants left from a previous meal. While the stew cooks I slice the bread and put two slices on each of the plates, along with an even dose of berries. At the sight of the warm bread and cooking stew, my stomach clenches to the point of pain, and I try to remember when it was I last ate. A day ago, I believe.

I must remind myself to let Prim and my mother eat first, and I can get whatever is left over, if there is anything. They've come up with a cruel joke about this, as if beating me to the point of blacking out and screaming terrible things at me weren't enough, they now try to eat as much as possible, so there is little to nothing left for me to eat. They've done this for the past two months or so, and now I can easily count each one of my ribs.

As much as I try to fight it, the pain in my stomach wins, and I eat less than a spoonful of berries. I almost sigh in happiness, glad to finally have something in my stomach, but my mother chooses that moment to stumble into the kitchen.

I've never really known why she hates me now. I suspect it is her way of grieving for my father, in a strange and cruel way. I was always told I looked a lot like him, and I guess my mother thought so too. I guess the pain of seeing her dead husband in my features is too much for her, so she tries to make me look less and less like him by leaving purple and blue bruises all over me. At least, that is my guess.

When she sees me eating the berries, her face turns red with anger, and she marches over to me and slaps me with enough force to make my head whip to the side. "You little bitch! Who the hell gave you permission to eat the food off of my plate!" the food I got for you "Answer me!"

"No one," I mutter, not daring to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry mom, it won't happen again."

She's silent for a moment, which makes me worry. Finally, she punches me in the gut with enough strength to make me double over in pain, and with a kick to my shin, I am on the ground. She leans in to whisper to me. "Damn straight it won't happen again, and I'm going to make sure of it."

After what feels like hours, the lashes of the belt against my back stop. I stopped trying to hold in tears after the fifth or so lash, and now I can feel the blood running down my back. After one last kick to my stomach, my mother walks away, leaving me lying on the ground trying to gather enough strength to pick myself up off the ground so I can go upstairs and examine my wound.

I'm about halfway off the ground (with the support of the countertop) when Prim comes into the kitchen, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Once she sees me, she sneers at me, picks up her dinner, and leaves me in the kitchen. I didn't expect anything different.

Finally, after minutes of struggling, I am able to stand without anything supporting me, even though it kills my back. I head up the stairs and into the small bathroom, where I close and lock the door behind me. I strip off my shirt and turn my back to the mirror. I gasp in horror at what I see.

The skin on my back is dark red from blood, most of the skin gone. Whatever skin is left and isn't bleeding is bright red, letting me know I would get some more scars to add to the ever growing collection. Joy.

I sigh and take the first aid kit I keep behind the mirror out, and clean the blood off as best as I can, which isn't very much considering I could barely reach certain areas on my back and it burned like hell whenever I tried to move in the slightest. When most of the blood is gone, I apply some disinfectant cream and wrap it the best I can with gauze. As I go to put my shirt back on, I notice the back completely soaked in blood. I sigh to myself, and slip it back on long enough to go to my room and get a clean one.

After I'm in a new shirt and the blood stained one is disposed in the trash, completely ruined, I quietly go downstairs to clean up from dinner. As quietly as I can, I eat what little food was left, which was barely a bowl full of stew and a couple of berries. As I go to put the dishes in the sink, I (ironically) slip on some of my own blood that lies on the floor from my mother's beating before that has yet to be mopped up. I drop the plate I was holding and it shatters on my foot, I bite back a scream of pain as pieces from the plate get stuck in my foot, and hurriedly bend down to clean up the mess incase my mother heard.

Unfortunately, she did hear, and comes into the kitchen. Once she sees me kneeling over the pieces of broken plate, she turns red with anger, making the vein in her neck pop.

"What the hell did you do?!" she screams at me. I flinch back, curling into a ball with my back on the cupboards trying to cover my face as she creeps closer to me. "Do you know how much that cost? More than you're worthless ass is worth!" She plants a kick to my arm, causing me to momentarily break my position against the cupboards long enough for her to kick me in my ribs. She grabs me by my hair, and shoves me towards the door.

"Get the hell out of my house! And don't you dare come back tonight if you have any sense!"

I have just enough time for me to grab my boots and my father's jacket before I am shoved into the cold night air.

I manage to limp my way into town, and sit under a tree and try my best to pull the pieces of broken plate out of my foot. Afterwards I rip a piece of my shirt off and tie it around my foot as a make-do-bandage. I take a minute to think about what I'll have to do now that I don't have a place to stay. After about ten minutes of thinking, I'd decided to camping out in an alley or sleeping under a tree in the woods, when I remember what Mr. Mellark told me earlier. If you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to come to us.

Using the tree for support, I slowly stand up and limp my way to Mellark's Bakery.

Hello fanfiction! I just want to make this clear; I AM NOT DEAD AND I AM INCREDIBLY, HONESTLY, AND WHOLE-HEARDETLY SORRY FOR MAKING YOU ALL WAIT THIS LONG! Since I've made you all wait this long, I tried to make it as long as I could without unnecessarily stretching it out. I'll be taking down my first version of this story about an hour after I post this, so be sure to follow this story and favorite if you did that to the last story. I'm on Christmas break, so I'm going to try to start writing the next chapter for this story, but I'm now going to focus on the next chapter for my other story, Realization. Thank you all so much for waiting , and I can never thank you enough for not losing your patience with me(but if you thought about killing me once in my sleep, that's cool, I understand).

Song for this chapter:

Of all the things I felt

But never really showed.

Perhaps the worst is that

I ever let you go

I should not ever let you go

Oh, oh, oh

P.S. During the time that I've been on this sight, I've never mentioned this before, but I'm going to now; one of my favorite shows ever is Avatar: The Last Airbender, and now I have The Legend of Korra, and I can WAIT until the new season comes out! Anybody else share in my guilty pleasure? Leave me your answer in the reviews, along with what you thought of this chapter!