Star crossed lovers
I woke up with sweat dripping down my forehead. Today was the day of the reaping.
My name is Katniss Everdeen and I come from District 12. Coal miners. Every year the capitol does someting called the hunger games. It's the their cruel way of showing how "generous" they were. Yeah right. All it is is 24 kids, 2 from each district from the ages 12- 18 fighting to the death until one victor remains. That's how they show their generosity by letting 1 out of 24 live and then giving them riches and such.
It's sick.
This year is my second to last year. 17 years old. And as I'm heading down to the town square for the reaping. I suddenly felt scared shitless. I had a horrible feeling about this.
As I was walking, my best friend Gale met up with me.
"Hey Catnip" I ignored him and kept walking but not leaving him behind. We signed in and waved as we went to go stand with our groups.
Effie, all dressed in her usual colorful outfits took the stage. We watched the video as we do every year, yada yada yada…
And then finally came the time to draw this year's tributes.
"As usual, ladies first" Effie gave a little nod and kind of spun on her heals to the glass ball with the girls names. As she pulled the slip out, I knew who it was.
And to make my assumption correct, she said my name. Of course she said my name.
I walked up; I felt the worst I had ever felt in my whole life.
"Now for the boys" she reached in and drew Peeta Mellarks name.
I knew him, he was the bread boy. Peeta looked very shocked.
He walked on stage, almost crying. After we shook hands, we went into the building to wait for our loved ones to say goodbye. Gale was the only one who came in.
When he burst through that door, I ran into his arms. We didn't say anything. "Whatever you do, get to a bow." I had been illegally hunting with my father's bow since he died. I had a house to run all on my own since my whole family died.
I just nodded when he told me that. He then pulled apart from me and he kissed me. At first it was a surprise so he pulled back. But I leaned in again.
We had never kissed before, but we both knew it was probably going to be the only chance we got.
The peace keepers told him time was up and we did one last kiss and embrassed eachother until they dragged him out of the room, crying. I had never seen Gale cry before.
As we drove to the train, I noticed Peeta was crying for sure.
Cato's POV
I woke up to the sound of my mom screaming at me from the bottom of the stairs to get up.
I groaned as I stood up. Today is reaping day.
I being from district 2, the Hunger Games isn't such a horrible thing. Our district and district 1 win it almost every year.
But sometimes the other districts get lucky
I took a shower and dressed in the nicest most expensive clothes I owned. I look pretty sexy.
I am pretty popular with girls. I may seem like a prick, but all I'm doing is trying to find a girl to challenge me and stand up to me.
But girls are too big or wimps these days.
As I walked the block down to the town square, I saw my best friend Brady making out with his girlfriend under a tree.
I rolled my eyes and signed in to do this crap.
To some people, I seem vicious and violent but it's just an act. Right now, I'm scared to death.
I don't want to be picked, even though I could probably win.
Our mayor walked on stage saying nobody from the capitol was here to draw the names. He drew the names instead.
Of course the girls were first. Which I didn't mind but it's very cliché.
The mayor drew Cloves name.
I saw her go on stage and recognized her. She is a grade lower than me.
Many people volunteered for her but she refused.
Next he drew the boys, and a wave of shock over whelmed me.
It was me.
I was going into the hunger games.
I fake smirked like I was glad to go; but really, I was really upset and scared.
My mom visited me before I left and told me that I had better win or she would kill me herself. Mom always makes little jokes like that. We hugged one more time and she left before the peace keepers could come for her
I strolled to the train and ate my heart out and worked out a ton before we got to the capitol. After all, I've got to tone up before the Hunger Games.
Yet, I was still scared to death.
Katniss POV
This year, all the tributes shared the train to save fuel or something like that. Yet again another stupid thing the capitol does since they have all the money in the world.
Me and Peeta being from District 12, we were the last to be picked up. Most of the food was already eaten but luckily, they had more. I had never seen so much food. Me and Peeta immediately stuffed ourselves until we felt sick. It was amazing.
We went to our separate cars, which of course was the very last one. We passed district one and the blonde girl just smirked at the look of our dirty ratty cloths compared to their clean beautiful dress and suit.
When we passes the district to tributes, I saw a tall blonde handsome boy who looked scared to death but quickly looked fine when we walked in. He looked Peeta up and down, and just laughed and turned away.
Peeta just rolled his eyes and kept walking.
I didn't look away from this strange boy. He had a strong look of fear in his eyes but was trying so hard not to show it. I didn't see the girl from their district though.
We finally made it to our car. It was big and open with 2 rooms at the end. I went into my room to see a beautiful silver and gold bed spread. I layed down and almost instantly fell asleep because of how comfortable it was.
I awoke to Peeta knocking on my door.
I told him he could come in. "Katniss, I know we just met but I want to get to know you and train with you as soon as possible." I just looked at him which obviously told him my answer.
I couldn't get to know him, become friends and then have to kill him.
He understood my look and just nodded. He stood up and left the room.
I layed back down and slept some more.
Cato's POV
When I got on the train from my district, I didn't realize we weren't going straight to the capitol this year. We were taking all the other tributes on the same train.