Chapter 1

I toss and turn, never finding a spot cool enough for me to sleep properly. That's probably why I wake early, before the sun's shown any sign of rising. I make a drink of cold water in an attempt to cool down. By the time I get back to my bed, it's cooled enough for me to sleep. I sleep until I am woken several hours later by my mother. Normally I'd get up straight away, although one look at the six dresses hanging up makes me want to stay in bed. Of course, I don't.

I sit up and follow my sisters to the next room, where there is a slice of bread for each of us. We all eat in silence, whereas usually we'd be talking about what we plan to do during the day. We sit there in silence for about ten minutes before we decide there's no point sitting there anymore. We go back into the bedroom and stand in a row. My mother hands out the dresses out to us one by one.

First my youngest sister, Lucy, gets this white dress with small light pink flowers dotted about and a matching headband covered in the same flowers. Then it's my turn. I get a purple dress with a layered skirt, edged with tiny black flowers. My slightly older sister, Lily gets a bright pink dress that reaches from the top of her right knee to the bottom of her left, with an intricate floral pattern in black. My middle oldest sister, Lottie is given a plain white blouse and a black skirt with a widely netted rainbow overskirt with small multi-coloured flowers at each cross. My eldest sister, Louise, gets a grass green dress with large white flowers at the neckline, belt and bottom of the skirt. My mother wears the same blue dress she wears every year.

My mother usually spends the whole year making these dresses, a new theme each year. It's clear to us all that this year it's flowers. My mother really tries hard to make the reaping fun. This year, Lottie helped. She insisted on making her own outfit this year. That probably explains why it's so simple.

This year feels so much more uneasy to me. I don't know why, but I have a bad gut feeling. This year is the first quarter quell, meaning it's been twenty-five years since the uprising. Every twenty-five years is special. This is the only time it's happened so far. This year, you have to choose who goes in. Normally, any person between the ages of twelve and eighteen has a possibility of being chosen, but this year most feel safer. So why don't I?

We walk out into the square in front of the Justice Building, where we sign in and we're roped off into different categories for our ages. Lucy's taken to the back with the other twelve year olds, I'm taken to the area for the fourteen year olds, Lily goes with the fifteen year olds and Lottie goes to the seventeen year olds. This year, Louise is lucky enough to be nineteen. She's now too old to be chosen and she gets to comfort our mother.

There's two points that affect the chance of being chosen. The first is age. At twelve, your name is in the ball only once. At thirteen, twice. At fourteen, three times and so on, until you are eighteen, your name is in there seven times. The second point is tesserae. If you are starving, you can take out a year's supply of grain and oil. You can do this as many times as you like. The only problem is, your name is added to the reaping ball once more each time. And every year it stays there.

Last year, Louise had her name in seven times because she was eighteen, and all the tesserae she had to buy for us totalled that to thirty one times. (She had to buy all six of us tesserae when she was twelve and thirteen, then when she was fourteen she split it between her and Lottie, etc.)

This year, Lottie will have her name in eighteen times, Lily will have her name in ten times, I will have my name in six times and Lucy will have her name in only twice. Louise would have loved to have bought all the tesserae every year, but she'd have her name in forty-three times.

I wait there for only a minute or so before I spot my best and only friend, standing on his tiptoes and trying to look through the crowd of fourteen year olds. I sneak up behind and say right in his ear:

"Looking for someone?" He jumps around, obviously startled by my sudden appearance.
"Ehh, just some midget who's taken to following me around." He quips, ruffling my hair that I'd taken time to braid. I sigh.
"Darren! Watch the hair!" I whine playfully.
"Why? You'll be hard to spot from this crowd." He grins, then turns to face the stage. "Do you need me to pick you up so you can see?" He asks without turning around. I punch him on the shoulder in reply.

The stage is set up as it usually is, with the podium at the front with the microphone on it, two stands that usually hold two glass balls, but appear to hold a golden envelope each, and four chairs; one for our mayor, one for our escort, Catherine Lowe, and the last two for our previous victors.

Our mayor walks up to the microphone and starts telling the story of Panem, which I find easy to block out. I only start listening again when I hear him start to introduce our previous victors.
"Gavin Matthews," The mayor says as a man in his mid-thirties raises one hand in acknowledgement.
"And Grace Davies," The young woman sitting next to him smiles. I think she won recently, because she can't be much older than twenty.
"And now," The mayor says, drawing attention back to himself, "our Capitol escort, Catherine Lowe."
The mayor sits down as a woman walks up to the microphone. If you didn't know who she was, you'd know for a fact that she wasn't from here. For starters, even the most vivid clothes here looks a dull, drab grey compared to her practically neon orange dress and matching hair. Even her skin looks more of a shimmery orange, probably one of the Capitol's weird adjustments they have. She reaches the microphone and says in a high pitched, girlish voice that was probably put on:
"Well, let's do ladies first, shall we?" I catch Lucy glancing around worriedly. I meet her eye and shake my head. Nobody would choose a twelve year old. Not even the cruellest person. I turn back to the front just in time to see Catherine open the first golden envelope and announce,

"Libby Hartshorne"

A/N I'M SO, SO SORRY! I really can't explain why starting a new story is easier for me than continuing all the unfinished ones. Ah, well, can't be helped really. Please review, it doesn't murder puppies. You don't even need to log in! Seriously, please review because I might actually get past four chapters for this one if just one person reviews! (Before I started fanfiction, I promised I wouldn't beg for reviews. Great.)

Also the next chapter will most likely be out soon if I don't get writer's block / mind blank / whatever you want to call it. Or, as John Green says; my thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations. That is the most elegant way I've heard it put. Yeah, no, this is going to get super long if I don't stop now. (Oh god, only two pages on word. I hoped it'd be longer)