I feel like this goes without saying, but none of these characters are mine. This Story is like a Hunger Games meets The Selection meets Fifty Shades of Grey.
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have wanted to get ready early, and mother is probably helping her. Of course, she did. This is the day of The Selection.
I prop myself up on one elbow. The battery powered light in the bedroom flickers as my twin sister, Prim, sitting with her shoulders straight, is letting my mother wax the tips of her hair so that it will hold a curl. Prim's face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother, the spitting image just 20 years in the future. Or so they tell me.
Sitting at Prim's feet, guarding her, is the world's ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. My mother got rid of the vermin, and he's a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Now, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. So, I guess it turned out okay.
I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. My mother and sister don't even spare a glance. I pull on trousers, and a shirt. In contrast to my sister's shining blonde hair, I tuck my own tangled, dark braid up into a cap, and grab my forage bag. On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, sits a perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves. Prim's gift to me on Selection Day. I put the cheese carefully in my pocket as I slip outside.
Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour, but today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the squat gray houses are closed. The Selection isn't until two. May as well sleep in. If you can...
Enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire loops. In theory, it's supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day as a deterrent to the predators that live in the woods like packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, bears, but since we're lucky to even get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, it's usually safe to touch. Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flatten out on my belly and slide under a two-foot stretch that's been loose for years.
As soon as I'm in the trees, I retrieve a bow and sheath of arrows from a hollow log. Electrified or not, the fence has been successful at keeping the flesh-eaters out of District 12. Inside the woods they roam freely, and there are added concerns like venomous snakes, rabid animals, and no real paths to follow. But there's also food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. I'm 20 now, and I still wake up screaming for him to run.
When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. I avoid discussing tricky topics now. Like the original Hunger Games, or what the eventually evolved into. The sick compromise that we now call The Selection.
The Hunger Games were a morbid and brutal competition which took place annually for 69 years. Every year, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 were selected from each of the twelve districts as tributes who would train for a week and then were sent into an outdoor arena to fight to the death. Four years ago, at the announcing of the 70th Hunger Games, the winner of the 69th Hunger Games publicly challenged the President to allow the districts to vote for a new leader, and cast himself as a worthy opponent.
We all thought he would disappear in the night, but the opposite happened. President Snow died and our new President by default, became Mr. Grey the champion of the 69th hunger games, who won the games with cunning and ferocious sadism in a mere matter of days. The first thing he did was abolish the hunger games. And for a year, we thought we were finally safe. We were wrong.
Four years ago, my sister got her first Selection letter. The first part of the selection process is an application. Select males and females age 16 - 21 are sent applications to fill out and return. It doesn't matter if you're single, and it doesn't matter if you want to. Participation is mandatory. At first, we thought the selection was an honorary process in which talented, attractive young men and women from the districts were given the opportunity to succeed in the capitol. 3 Girls (on odd years) or Boys (on even years) from Each District are Selected to go to the capitol and be taught the ways of "New Panem" and compete for a spot among the 12. It was soon evident that girls and boys who did not make the cut never came home and if they were from one of our poorer districts, they were more or less sold to the highest bidder to be exotic concubines or worse. However, the twelve who pass the Selection were given a grand tour of the Districts and a place in the capitol where they take a permanent residence with a sizable dowry or trust. Every other year, the female selection allows the selected 12 to compete for the hand of the President, but none have been chose. There are dark rumors surrounding why he will not choose a wife. He will have the opportunity to choose this year, as it is another year of girls.
And this year, both my twin sister and I received applications, but I burned mine.