Disclaimer: I obviously do not own The Hunger Games.
Tomorrow is Reaping Day.
I've been training for this for as long as I can remember. Tomorrow I will volunteer to be the District 4 female tribute in the 70th Annual Hunger Games, and I will bring pride to my district.
Across our small dinner table, my father smiles at me with something that I think is supposed to be affection. I don't know if I've ever seen the real thing. Being the daughter of a crazy woman who hung herself fifteen years ago means that I've been left with nothing but an ice-cold father and acquaintances too nervous to cross the line into friendship.
My life revolves around the Games.
When I was just four years old, my father scraped together enough money to hire a trainer for me. Ever since, I have learned new ways to fight and kill people every single day, several hours a day.
I was born to do this. My father tried to talk my mother into making me a Career tribute as soon as they knew I was coming, but it wasn't until she killed herself that he was able to follow through with it.
If I'm being honest with myself, I know it's a little bit gruesome. But District 4 is a wealthy district, where being chosen as tribute is a great honor, and our victors are all regarded as local heroes. Soon, I will be one. I won't disappoint my father, or my trainer, or my district. Because competing in the Games is what I was born to do.
My father bids me goodnight, still using his plastic voice, and not for the first time in my life I wonder what could possibly be going on in his head.
Tomorrow I will volunteer as a tribute, and within the month, I will be a victor.
It's what I was born to do.
As I slip into unconsciousness, I feel a familiar, dark, nagging feeling trying to catch my attention, but I don't let it out of the cage I've constructed to contain it. I realized a long time ago that if I let that demon out, I'd never be able to lock it up again.