My first Fanfiction! The 100th Hunger Games: Quarter Quell. I do not own the Hunger Games (sadly). Here we go!
I awake to a faint chirping of morning birds singing. I sit up, look out the dirty window and see my home of District 4 and rub my eyes; it appeared to be past dawn. I close my eyes and soon feel a little nudge against me legs, " Hey Izzy," I mumble, Izzy is my cat; she's completely black with only a speck of white on her small stomach. I reach my hand up and pet her back while she purrs. I eventually stand up and look around the room; there were only three real beds in our house, one belonged to our father and the other two were occupied by three kids per bed. I being 'privileged' enough got to sleep by myself on a mattress that we found on the street. I sigh and get dressed 'better get started on breakfast early for the kids' I think. I head down the dirt filled stairs to the fridge, take out the eggs and start cracking them over a large bowl. I had just finished making them when little Mae comes out, she rubs her sparkly blue eyes and states "Jilly, I want food". Jilly isn't my real name, my name is Jill, but it is some kind of joke now with them calling me Jilly. I serve her some eggs on a plate, lift her up in a chair and she starts to eat. Just after I let Mae eat her eggs the rest of the kids come out. They're not my kids of course; they are my younger brothers and sisters, eight-I mean seven of us in all. There used to be eight of us but my one and only older sibling Astrid who took care of us after our mothers death and our father turning into a raging drunk died a few years ago at the young age of sixteen. I being the oldest now at fourteen am responsible to take care of us all.
They all sit down at the same time as if one and look at me expectantly to serve them breakfast. I grab the small tin plates that we have, fill each one with eggs and hand them out to each child. When I am finished I sit down with my plate of food, making sure to leave some food in the pan if our father decides today is the day he wants to wake up from his drunken mind, eat some food and be a normal dad. I take a bite of my eggs and put my fork down. I find myself looking at each of the kids; it starts with Theresa with her long soft brown hair in an array around her head and her shining deep blue eyes, to Jack with very short red-orange hair and bright blue eyes that show his intelligence, to Maverick with his shaggy, dog like brown hair and barely seen but beautiful chocolate brown eyes, to Maria with little blond tufts of piggy tails and stormy grey eyes that look around, always curious, to Fin, the twin of Mae with his curly short blond hair and milky cream brown eyes that always squint, and finally I stop on Mae, whose red curls have egg bits in them and bright blue eyes always sparkling and loving. These kids, my sisters and brothers, they are the only reason I work as hard as I do, to keep them- us alive here and not at an orphanage with millions of other kids.
It has been seventy-seven years since the war, the rebellion against the capitol. You'd think everything would be all better, bright and beautiful, not starving families slowly rotting away, and The Hunger Games. Before my mother died, she told me of a time where the Hunger Games did not exist, when she was just a mere child there was no such thing as the Hunger Games; but it came back. The Hunger Games is a 'game' where two children one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve to eighteen fight to the death in an outdoor arena on live television for the nation of Panem to watch. They tell us on our small television each year that it is a ritual that our great ancestors used to watch and participate in every year. There are also years called Quarter Quells, my mother told me about these also, she said that when grandmother was a child the Quarter Quells used to be terrible, making it harder for the tributes to survive and come back to their families. But, now the t.v. people tell us that Quarter Quells are times where they help the tributes, like bringing in an extra item from home, or getting to know what the arena will be like before they go into it, etc. (Glad to know they care about us a little!). This year is a Quarter Quell year, even during these games nobody volunteers, you very rarely see volunteers from any district and the ones stupid enough to do so always almost die in what they call the 'bloodbath' at the cornucopia. It is just sheer luck that I haven't been chosen yet, seeing that I am taking out tesserae every other day. I feel somebody nudge my arm and hear "Jill, Jill are you alright?" I snap back to reality and see Theresa looking at me worried. "Huh, oh yes I'm fine Theresa thanks, come on let's get you ready for your first reaping; and all of you need to get dressed, you still have to show up". I gather the plates and my mind wanders to all the things that could possibly happen today.
Thank you for reading the first chapter! Please review, don't be afraid to tell me how bad it is, I've never written anything out of school before! I'm just a 13 year old aspiring to become an author so... review!
