A/N: I do not own The Hunger Games. Secondly, i would like to thank pacesettergurl18 for her amazing editing work. Check out her stories if you like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games
I grab my arrows that Clay gave me and I begin to run to a spot on a hill that overlooks a valley. Since we were eleven, the time we became friends, we have been meeting here. Most of my happy memories take place with Clay there, which is why it's so special to me. But this day, Reaping Day, it's all different. How can you be happy, how can you be cheerful, when you know that there are sixteen pieces of paper with your name on it, sitting in a big glass bowl just itching to be picked? This thought doesn't exactly help my anxious mood, so I quickly think about other things. Like Clay's chances of being picked. How can I be so selfish, knowing his name is written on twenty-eight slips of paper? Really, if anybody should be worried, it would be him. Nobody our age has as many entrances as he does. By time he is eighteen, the number will be astronomically high. Again, this thought makes me shudder, so I brush that thought away too.
Up ahead, I can just make out the faint outline of Clay through the morning mist. At nearly 5'11, he is really not that hard to miss.
"Hey Hawthorne!" I call out, grinning at the thought of his comeback.
Clay turns around and my smile quickly fades from my face. It's written all over his features. Fear. Fear of being reaped.
"Hey," he responds, and turns his head away. His nervousness is starting to get to me. Clay is the consistently brave one. Not me. So it's hard not to share the anxiety.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," I say in the affected Capitol accent jokingly, nudging him in the ribs. Usually an antic like that would have gotten a laugh out of him, but he doesn't even smile.
"But the odds aren't in my favor," he whispers quietly. This immediately wipes the weak smile off my face.
"You won't get reaped," I say, but my voice isn't certain. Clay picks up on it to.
"But what if I do?" he asks, more to himself than me. He starts picking at a blade of dewy grass absentmindedly. I can tell that there is a lot on his mind.
"You won't," I say more firmly, and tug the grass out of his hand. "Now let's get some game to eat when we watch the reapings tonight."
"You better be right," Clay answers heavily. "Because you know there's nothing I hate more than a liar."
I say nothing, but instead pull out my bow, and notch an arrow. Next to me Clay is fixing a snare.
Almost immediately, I shoot a rabbit,
After we get some game and the plants my mom had asked for, we sneak back under the hole that I made in the electric gate nearly four years ago. Silently, we make our way through the deserted streets until we reach the nearly established black market called the Hob. It used to be an old coal storage unit, but it serves as a illegal trading place just as well. We get to the very young and attractive Greasy Sae and we hand over some wild dog and katniss tubers to her. She adds them to her soup and gives us a hot, steamy bowl. Clay, the ever polite one, thanks her and I quickly vocalize my appreciation too.
"You're welcome boys," she says, and pats Clay's arm in a friendly manner. go o ur separate ways and into our houses. "Mom! I'm home. And I got your katniss tubes and blackberries." I yell out to the empty house. "Fantastic! Well, go get your reaping clothes out and we shall head out right away!" my mom yells from the kitchen. I bring her the game bag and head to my room to get dressed. I put on a white, ruffled shirt and some black pants. I head downstairs and see my sister in a small yellow dress, blonde hair waving before her head, and my mother in a light blue dress. We leave the house and to the square, where we see most of District 12 standing and ready to be chosen to fight to their death. I get into the 14 boy line and I see Clay right in front of me. An attractive, about 20 year old lady in pink and blue walks out and tells us her name ("Effie Trinket") and she begins to call the girls from a bowl of names. I sigh in relief as my twelve year old sister doesn't get called and I see my mother hold her heart in relief. I look up as Effie calls the name of some boy and looks around to find him. I look around and the name comes to my mind more clearly. Clay Hawthorne. The boy is in front of me.
I watch as Clay turns around to me and mouths the word "liar" and walks hesitantly to the stage where the young Effie and handsome Mayor Undersee sit.
Liar.
The accusation runs through my head and bounces around like a ball.
Liar.
I am a liar. I told him he wouldn't get chosen.
And he won't.
Before I know what I am doing, I run from the line yelling, "Me! Me! I volunteer!"
Clay looks at me in shock and when I pass him on my way to the stage, I whisper, "I don't lie."
And suddenly, it hits me. What I've done.
Because what I have done will mean almost certain death.
The next things that happen I couldn't tell. My world is in a daze, and everything has a weird, muted feel about it. I can only hear the thudding of my own heart, and the echo of the words, "Me! Me! I volunteer!"
I feel a hand pushing me towards the doors of the Justice Building. A place I have never seen. Normally, the idea of seeing it would have excited me. But this isn't normal. I am now a tribute.
Tribute.
The word rolls off my tongue. It feels strange, even foreign. But definitely not a word I would use to describe myself. And that's just the thing. Now that is the word to describe me.
"Courtney, over here," says Effie, pushing a girl with long dark hair into a room. It takes a minute before the name registers. A daughter of a merchant, somehow related to the Undersees. But other than that, I have no idea who she is.
After she is lead away, a Peacekeeper rudely shoves me into a similar deserted room. I know this is where I will make my final goodbyes. Because there will be no coming back.
The first person to walk in is Clay. His face is paper white, and his hands are shaking. We stand there in stunned silence, which I break cautiously.
"Well, I am not a liar," I say.
Clay doesn't say anything, and I start to get the impression that he is angry with me. I know my time with him is winding down, so I ask about my mother and sister.
"Your mother collapsed after you volunteered, she is still trying to be revived. Annabelle ran from the crowd, and no one can find her just yet."
The news that I won't see my family one last time is like a blow to the stomach. Now I face death utterly alone.
"Why?" Clay asks abruptly.
"Why what?"
But I will never get to know what he wanted to know because he is ushered out of the room. And then I am left to wait for another ten minutes until Effie quietly knocks on my door. Maybe she is expecting me to have tears streaming down my face, or to be screaming in denial, but when she walks in she looks like she is interrupting a funeral.
"We are ready for you," she whispers, beckoning me to get up. I do, and follow her, where Courtney is waiting. Her face is red and blotchy. It is only too obvious she has been crying.
Together, we board a train and I walk to a seat by myself, away from the others. The numbness has worn away, and instead of fear, I just feel tired. I want it all to be over with.
Leaning my head against a cold window, I watch as District 12 disappears before my eyes. Everything that has happened today begins to run through my mind. From the tense feelings of this morning, to the emptiness I feel now. Maybe it's I just haven't registered what just happened. It'll hit full force soon.
I get called down to a lounge room where I sit with Effie, and our last victor, a slightly aging man with graying hair, with piercing gray eyes, and Courtney Hanes. We watch recaps of the reaping from each District. I watch people try to wave to their families, friends. I watch some people that have nobody to even look at. I see a boy and girl, Cane Gage and Glitter Sole, from District 1 smile as they get reaped, and the girl and boy from 2, Aden and Cher, quickly volunteer. The thought is sickening to me. They are actually excited by the idea of killing twenty-three other innocent people.
The reapings continue. Among the memorable is the girl from 3, Taylin Jewels, who seems confused. But I notice that she is extremely pretty. And those are the girls that get the most sponsors.
Another District, 4, the two tributes, Aqua and Maygan, actually high five on stage. This gives me the impression that the two are just as hungry for bloodlust as the tributes from Districts 1 and 2, which makes them even more intimating. A boy from 6, Mitchell Plaster, slowly sways up the stage. He looks scared and small, but something about him reminds me of Clay. Maybe it's the dark hair. Or the olive skin. But whatever it is, it makes an eerie impression. A rather large boy from 7, Reese Moors, intimates me by his sheer size. He has to be at least 6'2, and he looks around two-hundred pounds of pure muscle. As his name is called, he just simply nods, as if resigned at his fate. The tribute from 8, a girl named Second Chance, tears up but slowly walks up to her stage and doesn't resist as she is escorted from her hysterical parents. The glint in her eye and the she carries herself makes me uneasy, even through her tears. The last reaping before ours shows Amber Gase, a dark skinned girl with wide eyes, who has to have help exiting the stage by a few Peacekeepers because she looks as if she is about to faint.
Soon enough, they show Courtney get reaped and they show me volunteering for Clay. I hear the strain in my voice and the see the almost maniac expression I have on my face as I take his place. I hear the shrill scream of my mother. I see the countless faces, dumbstruck at my sacrifice. And I see the bewildered face of Clay, which briefly changes to relief, and then back to terror as he realizes that I have volunteered. While watching, I get the pounding in ears again, and I have to excuse myself. The scarce breakfast that I had seems to be bent on making a reappearance.
"I need to go," I gasp, leaving without permission. But no one stops me and I run into a door labeled "Male Tribute."
Once I am alone in the dark room, the faces of all the other reaped children haunt me. I see some crying, I see some triumphant. And among those I see one winner. And I know it won't be me.
