Primrose's Odds

by Fancyclopedia

Katniss was a bit older, and died in the mine explosion with her father. Fifteen-year-old Prim does not hunt, but she gathers herbs and runs an apothecary shop with her mother. Mrs. Everdeen is emotionally unstable and slips in and out of reality, sometimes leaving Prim on her own for weeks on end. Prim does her best to deal with this, but of course, things go terribly wrong.

1. Prim

I wake up early on the reaping day. Swift and silent, I tug on the dark leather boots that belonged to Katniss. As I duck out the door, I shrug into my father's wool coat. It's too big for me to fill, but it keeps me warm on these early morning excursions. Sprinting through the slumbering streets of District 12, I can't help but feel helpless. Here we are - or, I should say, here they are – sleeping in and enjoying the holiday, when in a few hours at least two of us will be sentenced to death. I learned three years ago that I couldn't sleep the night before reaping day. Unlike so many others, I can't accept that everything could be gone in a matter of hours. That's when I started sneaking out at night. At first I would just go to the very edge of the fence and gather herbs for the apothecary shop, but then I grew bolder- or maybe just more careless- and ducked through the harmless fence to the forest. It's always hard to leave the forest. Everything there is so peaceful, but at the same time it's wild and free.

I always go the farthest on reaping day. Especially this time when my name has been entered more times than I like to think about, and it seems like I have nothing to lose. Shot for trespassing, selected for the Games- at least with one I will get the opportunity to die with my loved ones. Today I make my way as far as I dare, making sure that I will be able to return home before the district awakens. The lake. The lake. The lake is a safe place for me; always has been. At the lake I feel close to my sister, Katniss. It's silly, but here all around me the Katniss tubers that she was named for aim their arrow-shaped leaves towards the skies, and I like to think that even in death she is helping us survive every time I bring home the tubers for dinner. Mom never eats when we have Katniss. Still, Katniss wouldn't want us to starve on her behalf. I can't help but smirk as I think of Katniss eating. Every time we had any kind of extra food she would gulp it down ravenously. But not, I think, until after she made sure I had eaten my fill. She always looked out for me. Even now she looks out for me and Mom, because tonight we will eat her tubers for dinner. As long as Katniss is around, we'll never starve.

I pull up some tubers, then move on to some herbs for the shop. I strip the bark from pine trees to help soothe colds, collect calendula for burns and stings, pick mint leaves for stomach cramps, and even stumble across some oregano that will help with the headaches that come from a long day in a mine. All too soon, the sun is rising, and I have to go back. Every year, this gets harder. I don't want to go back. I could escape, I think, and I know it's true. The capitol wouldn't even care about one 15-year-old girl, and I could probably spend the rest of my days free from the Games and District 12. But I could never take my mother. She's too fragile, too weak. She wouldn't last 5 days in the woods, and besides, we'd have nowhere to run to. With a heavy sigh, I shoulder my bag, now weighted with herbs, and begin the jog back home.