Hello fellow authors and my dear readers I am new on fanfiction! This is my first story so please read and leave a review ! all sorts of critical appreciation in welcome! So r and r!

Prologue

I was running for my life with the trackjer jackers at my trail. They had already stung me though. I could hear someone in our group cry , " head towards the lake" . it was probably cato. I ran fast . I cut through branches and tripped over my own feet many times. I was in pain . my vision was swimming . somewhere in my incoherent thoughts a name caught my attention . it was the name of the person I wanted to protect . "KATNISS" . I finally felt myself half soaked in water with clove pulling me underwater. "the tracker jackers will hunt us down, so underwater now lover boy!" I thought that I had forgotten about someone or something important again. But cato s current outburst reminded me of her again . "KATNISS'' . I kept on repeating her name like a mantra to keep myself sane . I had sworn that I would protect her . Cato swore angrily , " I am going after her she cant be far. Come on clove ,marvel , peeta" but the other two passed out.i had to save her so I ran behind cato as he went to the sight of massacre where we had lost glimmer. My incoherent mind hastily put together a plan . I forgot my pain and ran ahead of cato hoping that he would not smell a rat too soon . my love for her was more than my love for my own life. I felt happy that I would die protecting her. my thoughts were fading fast and my heart was thudding , I ran as fast as possible and stopped as soon as I saw her. She was wrestling the bow out of glimmer s hand . my rising hysteria numbed my fear of a cruel death by cato's hand .my love for her overpowered all other thoughts. She has to survive and go home to prim. I will keep on protecting her until I die. With all my thoughts in place , I used my remaining strength and I warned her and said " run katniss , go! " she looked at me with a dazed expression . this confused me more and I pushed her towards the forest . but cato burst into the clearing and became aware of my betrayal as he saw me push her into the forest. I tried to hit him with my spear. But my fading strength and poor vision thwarted my attempts . he tossed aside my spear with a flick of his sword and cut me on my upper thigh and ran back to the career camp leaving me writhing in agony. I gathered the last of my strength and walked collecting leaves and branches. I covered myself with the leaves hoping that hey would disguise me . the last of my strength gave away as I fell into a soft bed of mud and lost myself in the land of dreams and dreamt of the day when all of this began…..

Flash back

As the sunlight flitted through the window of his house , peeta mellark awoke. His mother said " get down here fast ! Look at your brothers! They are so hardworking and devoted towards our bakery unlike you! Get down to work you waste of space!" .. When he was a little boy, his mothers behaviour would astound him. He would desperately wonder and ask himself "why does my mother hate me so much? Why she doesn't love me? And why am I so unfortunate?''. But now he was used to his mother s banter and never took it to heart. He replied " coming down mother".

As he pulled the bread out of the oven, he heard their shop bell ring. He decided to go greet their first customer for the day. He went to the shop's window and came face to face with Gale Hawthorne. He had always wondered about his relationship with Katniss everdeen, his childhood secret love .peeta had never gathered his courage to ever talk to her. He would sit and wonder about her. He would see her in school as she would pass by him silently or when she would come to his shop to trade. He knew her very well. She appeared hard – hearted . but as they say a hard nut has a soft inner, her heart was a mountain of gold for her little sister, prim. Seeing gale, he would always wonder whether she would ever notice him or not. He knew he had no chances with her with gale around . Gale would come to the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade some fresh game he ' d caught for some bread . so quenching his insecurities , peeta greeted him and called his father. His father gave gale a loaf of bread for the squirrel. This trade was done behind his mother's back as she could not tolerate " the seam brats.' Mr mellark looked at gale and wished him luck.

Today everyone would need some luck on their side as it was the reaping day for the hunger games. The odds were in nobody's favour. These games were held every year to honour the capitol's victory over the districts at the end of the rebellion of the dark ages. District 12 was the meanest of all districts where one could starve to death . It only had two victors out of which only one was alive

He heard the sirens as the peacekeepers approached and prepared the justice building .there was a gloom over the justice building . Peeta had a feeling that something earth-shattering was going to happen to him . He ignored the gut wrenching feeling and decided to don his best clothes for the reaping where twenty four children , two from each district , one girl and one boy would fight to death in a pageant known as " the hunger games"

a/n : the flashback will continue till we get to that scene! So be prepared for peetas journey!