Author's note: I dont own The Hunger Games or the characters except the ones I made up blah blah
My first fanfiction, please R&R I like constructive criticism :)
This is a story I've started writing with an original female character, there may be some times when things aren't explained to the fullest and thats cause I'm assuming that whoever is reading this has most likely read and/or watched THG and I did that because I dont seem to get why there's so many stories on here that are basically the book word by word :P
Enjoy ! :D
"Peeta Mellark."
It's funny how big of an effect Effie Trinket saying his name into the microphone has on me. It rings out above the heads of the District 12 population standing in the Main square in front of the Justice building, all wearing the frighteningly similar grim expression on their faces. I feel as if somebody has punched me in my stomach, hard, and for a brief second I'm scared I'll actually throw up. I keep my lips tightly shut in a thin line, grind my teeth and stare straight ahead, my eyes wide.
It's funny how quickly my mind replays all of our encounters. So unbelievably fast, yet each one so clear and distinct. Our latest one lingers just a slight bit more. Did it really happen just yesterday? There was a storm, the biggest one we've had in years. It came so suddenly, the dark clouds rushed in at an incredible speed, quickly covering the whole sky. The pace of the wind increased, bending trees and ripping off quite a few wooden boards from the small shaky houses of District 12. A tremendous rain started falling, and then it turned into a hail. The wind still hadn't calmed down. The large pieces of hail collided brutally with my face and I realized that I was the only person left walking on the streets. Everyone had taken cover, shut themselves in their homes, locked their doors and closed the shutters on their windows. They were most likely huddled up in a blanket, the harsh wind blowing into the room through the thin cracks in the walls, the less fortunate ones in as many layers of bed sheets that they had and the more fortunate ones next to a fire. "Shit, shit, shit" I muttered when I saw that the house to my right, the one that was closest to me, was on lockdown. I ran to the next one, the bakery. The Mellark family owned it, and their bread was wonderful. I hesitated at the front door. Mrs. Mellark, Peeta's mom, wasn't a friendly woman. Hell, she was nowhere close to being friendly, I've never seen her smile, most of the time she was screaming, at strangers as well as at her sons and I knew for a fact that there had been several occasions when she would strike Peeta and his younger brother across the face, either with her hand or a household object laying around nearby, like a rolling pin, without an ounce of pity. She was miserable. But when a flying branch, luckily a thin one, hit against my left cheekbone, I swung the door open and stepped inside. The door flew back open right after I had closed it, with such a force that for an instant I worriedly thought that it had been completely ripped off its handles. I reached for it to constitute another feeble attempt at closing it, but a pair of large soft hands that I immediately recognized as Peeta's gently pulled me back and closed it firmly, locking it right away because of, I assumed, the same thought that I had, that the second time it would surely be blown off. "Sorry" I said, my voice hoarse. I was soaked, my normally voluminous dirty blonde locks hung in wet strings around my face, and my clothes clung to my body, water not dripping but flowing onto the floor. Mrs. Mellark was going to send me back out there the second she saw me. I would like to find out what it would take to gain her sympathy, now that I thought about it. "It's alright" said Peeta with his signature half-smile playing on his lips and his eyebrows raised. "I.. I'll buy something before I leave, I just can't go back out there for the moment" I said quietly. "Is your mom here?" I added quickly, not giving him the time to reply to what I had said just before. "No, I'm alone. Everyone else is at my uncle's, somebody had to stay behind to watch the bakery." "For some reason I doubt you'll get any customers now" I smirked playfully. He laughed. "I don't think anybody was expecting this storm" he said, "Come on, let's get you out of these clothes." He led me past the display counter and the old-fashioned cash register into a room that I assumed to be the living room. I had never been inside his home, just in his bakery where I stopped by quite often to exchange game for bread. Squirrels mostly, but also the occasional rabbit or deer, that I killed when I went hunting illegally a couple of days a week at dawn in the woods past the fence separating them from our district. The fence was supposed to always be electrified but District 12 is too poor to use electricity for that. You see, I'm handy with a knife. I can throw it to hit a target from quite far away, I have good aim and strength, the knife sticks itself into the animal and stays there. So I don't waste time searching for knives on the ground beneath the sticks and leaves of the woods. Knife throwing, that's when I let my emotions out. Anger, frustration, hurt, those types of feelings usually. Otherwise I'm smiling, dreamily walking around barefoot picking daisies to turn them into necklaces. I get along with as many people as possible, and I try to help around as much as I can. My older brother, Angus, is confused as to why I'm not shitting myself in certain situations, particularly on Reaping day. I prefer to answer "I'm fine", gradually convincing myself at the same time as others. I prefer to keep my knife-throwing skills a secret. Well, I don't lie about it and spend time plotting ways to cover it up, but I don't boast or even talk about it. It's a part of my life that means a lot to me, and it feels nice to keep it a bit personal. Every time I imagine people's faces if ever they stumbled upon me caught up in a knife-throwing frenzy fuming with hysterical annoyance, I can't stop myself from laughing. It just doesn't seem to fit the personality that they know of me. This special therapy of mine is advantageous though, I bring back meat, food for me and my two brothers, and food to sell and exchange for other necessities we lack to survive. Oh, anyways! Peeta provided me with some clean dry clothes and we laughed at the way his t-shirt hung down on me. It was obviously too large, even for him. We sat on a blanket next to his fireplace where a small fire flickered and ate freshly baked bread with warm milk. And we talked. One hour passed, two, three. He watched my face intently and brushed his thumb over the place where I had gotten struck with the branch. And just like that, I realized that I was slowly falling in love with him. I tried to deny it, suppress it, but it was there and I couldn't do anything about it. This was something that was out of my control. And then the storm was over. I had to get out of there. I was running away, but for a good reason. What's the good in falling in love the day before the Reaping just to find out one of you has been chosen to compete in a forced teenage bloodbath and will most likely die in the days to come? I wasn't being pessimistic, I valued realism; I was being smart. Next week, when school resumed, I wouldn't still be running. "Thank you so much for everything, I owe you one and I won't forget" I smiled. He took my face in his hands. Our faces were so close. "Don't worry about it, I had a good time" he paused, "I really, really hope you don't get picked tomorrow." Hours of talking and neither of us had brought up the Reaping. I swallowed and nodded, avoiding looking into his big blue eyes. He was still holding my face in his hands. I put my hand on his hand and let it rest there for a few seconds. Then I took both of his hands off my face, turned away and made my way to the door. He was going to kiss me, I knew it. And that couldn't happen, not yet. Just before I stepped outside, I turned back and said, "It would break my heart if you got picked."
If I hadn't witnessed it, or been caught up in it actually, I would've still been able to tell that there had been a storm. The ground was still soft but thankfully it had dried enough to walk on it without your shoes getting stuck in the mud. There were branches, window shutters, and a bunch of other things, some quite random, laying all over the streets. I walked to the Main square holding my younger brother Jonah's hand. This was his first time in the Reaping. It was my fifth. I guess you could say I had sort of gotten used to it over the years, the nervousness kicked in at some point during the short introduction film that was shown every year before Effie called the names. The fear came when she wiggled her fingers above the bowl containing the papers with the names written on them. This year, however, I'm more scared for Jonah. I can't bear to think of him being chosen, his plump face whitening and his lips parting in shock as the awful realization hits him. The good thing is, he's safe. Because I know I'll volunteer for him. I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn't, and anyway, it'll be just as terrible to watch him in the arena as to be there myself. Angus barely talks until the Reaping's over. We've gotten used to it. He walks next to us and stares straight ahead, his handsome face unusually clean on this day. Every once in a while, he pats my shoulder. I think it calms him down a bit. He confided to me once, and never mentioned it since then, that he feels useless during the Reaping. He's 20, meaning he's not allowed to participate in the Hunger Games anymore. I just shook my head when he told me this, because I undoubtedly know, and even little Jonah understands, that he wouldn't hesitate to volunteer for either one of us if ever we were chosen. Useless is something Angus is not, ever. Nobody could've taken better care of us than him, considering the circumstances, after mom and dad died.
"Alice Kankouran" I froze. The Main square was completely silent, but I felt like there was someone blowing a whistle into each one of my ears. Angus put his hand on my shoulder once again, but he didn't pat it this time. Instead, he squeezed it hard, and I figured that I'd be able to see the red marks of his rough fingers later. Jonah hugged me and started to cry. I planted a kiss on the top of his head, pried his hands from my waist and made my way towards the stage. I felt disconnected from my body, I was walking but I wasn't in touch with my leg muscles. I clenched my fists and dug my nails into my palms. I needed to feel something.
"Peeta Mellark." It's funny how many different intense emotions can run through your body all at once, spreading all the way to the tip of your fingertips and finally shooting up to your brain, like an electric shock