VARA
"Vara Hayes."
The voice rings out across the square.
I take slow, shaking steps towards the platform.
I feel the eyes of a hundred people fixed on my trembling figure.
My mother lets out a cry. Sinks to her knees.
His eyes, bright green-gold, staring into mine.
"Promise me Vara!"
I wake with a jolt.
For a few moments, my eyes scan the room frantically, looking for a familiar object, something to confirm that I am safe at home, with my family, where I belong.
Then I realise that I am not lying on the thin, straw-filled mattress I slept on every night since I was a year old. I'm entangled in sweat-drenched satin sheets, and a blur of scenery rushes past a window opposite my bed.
The train.
With a tearful sigh, I sink back into the feather mattress, taking deep breaths to steady my racing heart. I try to recall everything that happened to me since before I climbed into this bed last night...
The reaping.
Saying goodbye to my parents.
Resisting the urge to punch my over-enthusiastic escort in the face.
Throwing up after eating a decent meal for the first time in my life.
And accepting that these might be my last days on earth.
I get out of bed, and slip into a silk dressing-gown hanging on the back of the door. I stroke the soft fabric, remembering that my mother used to own a beautiful pink dress made of the same material. In the end she sold it to buy us some dinner for that evening.
I'm just about to go outside when suddenly the door opens, and I find myself looking into his eyes, piercing green flecked with gold, the mirror of my own.
"Good morning." says my brother.
DEVAN
Our maddeningly cheerful escort, Florentina ("Just call me Flo!") greets us with the usual dazzling smile, and ushers us into the room. "How did you sleep?" she asks, and then without waiting for a reply, continues to babble on about how it's so easy to sleep on trains, why she slept like a baby, of course she was up very late trying to sort out schedules and paperwork and the like, so she was fully entitled to a good night's sleep wouldn't you agree, ha-ha, but the excitement of the Games is worth the work, she simply can't wait to see what the Gamemakers will have in store for us this year, looks like there'll be some pretty tough competition but after all we have three days of training ahead of us, oh isn't it just so thrilling, and would I like some marmalade with that?
"No thank you," I reply, struggling to stay polite.
Vara stays silent, as usual, head bowed as she picks at her food. The table is heaving under the weight of bread, fruit, pastries, jugs of milk and juice, but she seems reluctant to eat anything else. I can't really blame her. After the five-course meal yesterday, both of us ended up with our heads over the toilet for half the night.
Back home, our idea of a balanced diet was a bowl of porridge in the morning, a bowl of stew for lunch (with a slice of bread if you could afford to be so extravagant) and a couple of potatoes for dinner. A five-course meal of soup, meat, vegetables, cheese, bread, pasta, and cake would probably cost, oh, about two month's wages.
After brooding over her muffin for twenty minutes, Vara gets up and trails back to her room. I watch her leave, wondering how long it will take her to forgive me.
I won't hold my breath.
"Vara Hayes."
I jerk upright, staring at the smiling figure standing on the platform, clad in bright Capitol colours that stand out alarmingly against the grey building and the grey figures in the square. Like a rose amongst weeds. "Vara Hayes."
No...surely I misheard her...it can't be Vara, it can't.
"Vara Hayes?"
No...not her, not her, anyone but her...
She stumbles, rather than steps out from the crowd, and slowly makes her way towards the platform. Her movements are clumsy and awkward, and her eyes are wide and frightened. Like a rabbit frozen in the headlights.
Mother lets a sharp cry that stabs my heart like a knife. She sinks to her knees, and digs her fingernails into the mud-packed ground, her shoulders shaking violently. Another woman tries to help her to her feet, but she refuses to move. Vara stares down at her, horror-struck. Tears sparkle in her piercing green eyes, flecked with gold, the mirror of my own.
A boy's name is called out. He walks up to the platform. I don't know who it is. They all look exactly the same, grey and thin and pinched and gaunt. Nobody else exists except Vara, my sister Vara Hayes, alone on the platform.
I step out from the crowd. Push the boy aside.
"I volunteer as tribute."