Okay, this is Genie. I won't be doing the same funny commentary that I usually do because this is a serious story and if I put that humor in it, it might detract away from the suspense and drama I hope to correctly write. Nevertheless, I will be popping in on occasion and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my first Hunger Games story.
Chapter 1
My eyes flashed open, ridding the reoccurring nightmare from my vision. Coarse, white sheets are wrapped around my ankles from my constant thrashing. The same nightmare that had been plaguing me for years off and on usually came around this time of year. Or, more specifically, the day, because today was the day of the reaping.
I propped myself up on one elbow, shoving my tangled auburn hair from my face. My cheeks were flushed and sweaty from the dream that still ran through my mind. There's enough light to see the tiny bedroom I sleep in. My small, worn out bed is pushed nearly flush with the wall while the small table beside my bed holds the only thing I treasure: a photo of me, my father, and brother. It's been four years since my family was whole.
A soft meow stirs me from my thoughts. I turned to look for the source and saw a muddy yellow shape sitting in my window. Buttercup, Prim's horrendous looking cat. He looked up at me with his rotten squash colored eyes. He's missing at least half of one ear and his nose looks like it was smashed in repeatedly with a piece of wood, but Prim loves him to death anyway. How she can love a creature that ugly and mean is beyond me. Numerous times I've tried to befriend him (and Katniss tried to drown him on at least one occasion) and Buttercup just has it in his head that he hates me. Yet he stills hops into my house like he and I are best friends.
I kicked the covers off of my feet before sliding out of bed. I quickly yanked on dark brown trousers, a lighter brown shirt and I threw my hair up in a messy knot at the back of my head. After throwing on a pair of old hand-me-down hunting boots from Katniss, I gave myself a once over and realized that I had started mimicking her style. I grabbed my hunting knives out from under my bed and shoved them in the sheaths on my waist. Thankfully, they were hidden from view by my long shirt. I grabbed the remaining three apples that I traded as many squirrels for, shoving them in my small satchel as I went, and stepped out into the cool morning air.
I live directly in the middle of District 12's Seam. Usually, coal miners are heading out at this time to start their morning shift. Once men and women turn eighteen, they're put to work. Most of them spend their lives in and out of the coal mines, growing older with hunched backs and perpetual black dust under their fingernails and in their hair. Their faces, lined with pain and toil, make them seem much older than they really are. But today, the roads are bare. The weathered grey shutters are closed tightly, as if they're trying to hide from the inevitable. The reaping wasn't until two. Only a handful of hours before two families are torn apart.
Just outside of District 12 is a large field. It's nothing special, just some really tall grass and a few sparse bushes. But that's before you get to the forest. The woods are filled with all types of game: squirrels, any and all birds, the occasional deer, and if you're really lucky, a wild boar. But I haven't seen one of those since before my father died. Separating the woods from District 12 is a large chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. It's supposed to electrified twenty-four hours a day, supposedly deterring the more vicious animals: bears, cougars and wild dogs, but usually it's off. Sometimes it'll run for about three hours before its shut off again. But still, after getting shocked once because I was cocky, I stopped assuming. The only reason I wasn't fried to a cinder was because the electricity had been shut off for a few minutes, but there was an underlying current that had yet to fully dissipate.
The tell-tale hum of a live fence was non-existent. I dropped onto my stomach and slid under a stretch of fence that's been loose for years, hovering off of the ground by at least two feet. After sliding fully past the fence, I yanked my bag over to my side, and then took off running into the trees. Running in the woods makes me feel alive. To feel the wind whipping by, dodging the low hanging branches, leaping over fallen trees, it's paradise for me in my little piece of hell.
I remember being a little girl, running after my father's long strides as he went to grab his new kill. He may not have been a very good hunter with the bow and arrow like Katniss' father, but he was deadly with anything that had a blade. I saw him more than once throw a small dagger at a squirrel running in a tree above our heads only to have the squirrel land on the ground dead a second later with the knife in its chest.
All of that stopped one winter when I was 13. Katniss' father had just died a few months previous in a mine explosion and my father and I were working even harder trying to help their family and ours. It started out with a simple cough he developed after hunting in the snow for hours one day. I fed him the warm quail soup I had been cooking and he went to bed shortly after. The next day, he was worse. The coughing turned into hacking and wheezing, and his head was hot. I tried my best to help him. I fed him, I kept him warm, I called for Katniss' mother who was the District's healer, but he just didn't get better. The last time I saw him alive, he was smiling at me just before he fell asleep. I checked on him the next morning, and he wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating, and his skin was ice cold.
I shook my head of the memories, focusing on the present. My eyes locked on a turkey, pecking at the ground not twenty feet from my current position. I slowly unsheathed my knife and gripped it in my dominant hand. I raised my left arm, to throw, when I heard a familiar voice boom out behind me.
"Hey, Raincloud!"
I lowered my knife in slight annoyance as one of my best friends scared away the wild bird. "Gale, you owe me a turkey." I turned to grin at him. My name is Ryna, but when I first met him, I was extremely moody, usually very mad. So, in his mind, I was like a rain cloud: dark and angry.
Katniss popped up behind him, holding her father's old bow and arrows, smiling. The only time she really shows any emotion is when she's alone or when she's in the woods; finally free.
We sat down in our little thicket of blackberry bushes overlooking a valley when Gale held up an arrow.
"Look what I shot." A loaf of fresh bakery bread was skewered on the tip. His corny joke earned a laugh from both Katniss and me. Katniss slipped the bread off of the arrow and broke it into pieces for each of us. Fresh bread like this is nothing like the dense, tough, flat loaves we make from grain rations.
"Mm, it's still warm." Katniss sighs, inhaling the aroma of the bread. I took my piece and broke off a little nibble. I suppressed a moan. It was delicious.
"What did it cost you?" I asked.
"Just a squirrel. Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning." Gale said. "Even wished me luck."
"Now is he wishing you good luck that you won't be chosen or bad luck so it won't be one of his?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Gale grinned cheekily at me. "I don't think he's sure."
"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we? Prim left us a cheese." Katniss says as she pulls out the goat cheese. Gale's face brightens while my mouth waters.
"Thank you, Prim! We'll have a real feast." Gale cheers.
I reached into my bag and pull out the three apples. "It's not a feast without fresh fruits." I tossed each of them an apple.
Gale takes a large bite out of the apple with a loud crunch and a large goofy grin. "I almost forgot!" He says, adopting the ridiculous Capitol accent as he mimics Effie Trinket. A freakishly upbeat woman, who comes down once a year to sentence- I mean, read out the names of the two tributes at the reaping. "Happy Hunger Games!" He plucked off a few of the blackberries from the bushes, tossing a few at us. "And may the odds-"
Katniss caught at least one while most of the rest just bounced off of my cheeks. "-be ever in your favor!" She and I finish simultaneously with equal enthusiasm. We constantly joke about it because to do otherwise would make us scared stiff. Besides, anything said in the Capitol accent is hilarious anyway. You could probably hand out the punishment for someone's crime, say it in that accent, and they might accept the punishment while laughing their heads off.
Gale spread the goat cheese across the top of the bread slices and tops each with a single basil leaf. I took a bite of the bread and cheese. This time, I didn't quiet the moan that escaped my lips. The warm bread was melting the goat cheese, letting it seep into the dough. The apple was sweet and crisp while the berries were tart.
"We could do it, you know." Gale's voice interrupts my obsessive thoughts on the food.
"What?" Katniss asked.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. We could make it, all three of us."
"And we'd be running for the rest of our lives, trying not to be spotted by any of the Capitol's hovercrafts." I remarked, wiping a bit of berry juice from the corner of my mouth.
"If we didn't have so many kids, it'd be easier." Gale commented. He was referring to his and Katniss' family. He had two younger brothers and one sister while Katniss had Prim. They also had to think of their mothers that they provided for as well. I had no one to look after except myself. I have had no real family since I was nine when my brother was killed.
"I never want to have kids." Katniss said.
"I might. If I didn't live here." Gale responded.
I had never given much thought to having children. The idea was so foreign to me. Me? A mother? I stayed silent.
"But you do." Katniss snapped, irritated.
"Forget it." Gale snapped back.
The cheerful mocking of the Capitol, long forgotten. This wasn't the first time Gale had brought up leaving District 12. Actually, it was a pretty frequent conversation between the two of us. He usually kept stuff like this away from Katniss, knowing her propensity to be a pessimist.
I studied the harsh stances that Gale and Katniss adopted. Both had hunched shoulders, and both had identical scowls marring their faces. If I hadn't known any better, I'd say they were related. They both had straight black hair, the same olive skin tone, even the same startling gray eyes. But what really made them seem related was their tempers and stubbornness.
"What do you want to do?" Katniss asked, breaking the awkward silence.
"We could go fishing at the lake." I suggested, wiping the last bread crumbs off of my lap.
Gale nods in agreement. "We can leave our poles and gather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight."
Tonight after the reaping most people would be celebrating that their family would remain whole for another year. But while they were out having a good time, two families would be locking themselves in, shutters closed as they hoped that their child would come back to them in the next several weeks.
By late morning we had gotten a pretty good haul. The three of us had managed to get a bag of greens, a dozen and a half fish, and a gallon of bright red strawberries from a patch Katniss and I discovered a few years ago.
On the way home, Katniss and gale decided to swing by the Hob. It's the black market of District 12 that operates out of an abandoned warehouse that once held coal. The Hob gradually took over the warehouse after a more efficient method for transporting coal came about. Most businesses are closed on reaping day, but the Hob is in full swing.
I waved good-bye to Katniss and Gale, heading off on my own. I began thinking about their chances of being in the Hunger Games, which were very high. You become eligible to enter the Hunger Games at the age of twelve when your name is put in once. Each year until you're eighteen, your name gets added an extra time. But see, here's the catch. If you're poor and starving to death, you can have your name added an extra time for tessera, a meager year's supply of oil and grain for one person. Katniss, Gale and I have each signed up for tessera to help each other. My name is in seventeen times, Katniss' twenty, and Gale's forty-two.
I sigh and shake my head. I feel bad for all families that have had a son or daughter taken away from them because of these games. I lost my brother to the Hunger Games. The boy from District 3 in the sixty-seventh annual Hunger Games bludgeoned my brother over the head with a rock before slicing his neck with a hunting knife. I was nine; he was seventeen.
Once at home, I get dressed in appropriate clothing for the reaping. I pull out a simple dress that my mother once wore. It's mainly white but with a few yellow flowers along the bottom. After pulling on a pair of nice white shoes, I take my hair out of its knot and put it up in a simple braid, a hairstyle that I've come to enjoy thanks to Katniss. I looked myself over in the only mirror in my house. My auburn hair is pulled back from my lightly tanned, heart shaped face. My almond shaped green eyes stare back at me. I've been told that I'm the spitting image of my mother, but I wouldn't know. She died giving birth to me and my father only had one picture of her- or so he said- but I've never been able to find it.
I closed my front door behind me before walking down the street to Katniss' house. Each of the houses looked alike in the Seam. All of them short, squatty houses with dull gray as the only color. Broken or breaking shutters framed each of the cracked and dirty windows.
I knocked on the front door lightly. The smiling face of Primrose Everdeen was beaming up at me as she opened the door.
"Ryna!" She squealed, enveloped me in a tight hug around my waist.
"Hey, Rosie!" I ruffled her hair. She poked her tongue out at me when I used my old nickname for her. "Where's Katniss?" I asked as she closed the door behind me.
"Mom's putting up her hair." Prim answered. "Did you get the cheese I gave you?"
"Yes, Katniss shared it with Gale and me. We all really loved it." I said just as Katniss walked in wearing a simple blue dress.
She gave me one of her half smiles before looking down at Prim. "Tuck you tail in, little duck." She said, fixing Prim's blouse that had come undone in the back.
Prim giggled. "Quack."
"Quack yourself." Katniss replied with a laugh. She only laughs like that because of Prim. "Come on, let's eat." She said, kissing the top of Prim's head.
We ate a small meal of rough tessera grain bread and goat milk from Prim's goat, Lady. The meal wasn't very filling, but we weren't very hungry anyway.
At one o'clock, we all head out to the town square for the reaping. Attendance is mandatory unless you are dying. And I mean that you are a literal breath away from dying. If you don't show up, you'll be imprisoned.
Sadly, they hold the reaping in the square. It's one of the few (legal) places in District 12 that's actually a bit pleasant. It's surrounded by shops that are usually bursting with life, but today, despite all of the cheerful banners hanging off of the buildings, there's a daunting feeling looming over all of us.
People are herded in silently and signed in. Twelve through eighteen-year-olds are corralled into roped off areas marked off in age groups. The oldest are in the front while the younger ones, including Prim, were in the back. Family members and anxious friends filled every remaining space left in the square. Most were holding each other in some way: holding hands, hugging, or arms draped across shoulders, but there were plenty of others who didn't care and were taking bets on the two kids who would be forced to participate in the games.
Katniss gave Prim a last comforting hug before joining me in the sixteen-year-olds, most from the Seam. We all nodded at each other politely, but anxiously as we turned out attention to the temporary stage. Three chairs, a podium where Effie Trinket would stand, and two glass ball holding slips of paper with the names of all eligible boys and girls. The ball holding the girls' names catches my attention. Seventeen slips of paper have Ryna Gallin written on them. Twenty have Katniss Everdeen. Our chances weren't looking good. Two of the chairs are soon occupied with Mayor Undersee and Effie Trinket who looked fairly scary with pink tinted blonde hair, a blindingly green suit and an overly cheerful, obviously fake smile.
The clock strikes two with a loud chime and the mayor steps up to the podium to read the same story that he does every year. It's the history of Panem, the country that rose up when the previous country called North America fell. He lists all of the disasters that took place: droughts, fires, earthquakes, wind storms and so many more. He reads about the brutal war that was fought for the little remaining sustenance. Thus, Panem was born. A shining Capitol surrounded by thirteen districts that brought about peace. Then there were the Dark Days. The districts rebelled against the Capitol and lost. Twelve of the districts were defeated, one destroyed. A Treaty of Treason was signed giving us new laws to "guarantee" peace. Our yearly reminder of the Dark Days and how they should never be repeated was the Hunger Games.
The rules are simple. One boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, called tributes, were sent to the Capitol to participate in the Hunger Game usually against their will, but occasionally there would be volunteers. The twenty-four tributes are forced into an outdoor arena and imprisoned in there for weeks where they're forced to fight to the death. The last tribute alive is the winner.
Forcing us to watch as our children are forced to murder each other in a wild fight to the death for televised "entertainment" is just the Capitol's cruel way of reminding us how much power they truly hold over us.
The Capitol uses this story to convey a very obvious message: Look at what we can do. We can take your children, force them to kill each other and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop us. If you try, you'll meet an even worse fate than District 13. To make things even worse, the Capitol makes every district treat it like it's a holiday where it's a simple sport to pit all districts against each other in a duel to the death. As a prize to the last tribute alive (besides living through the Hunger Games) their district is showered with gifts and an abundance of food for a year. All year, the Capitol showers that district with grains and oils and even rarities like sugar and other sweets while the other eleven districts continue starving.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks." The mayor droned the usual required sentence that we all thought was a load of hooey, but none of us we brave enough to say what we really thought.
He then read the names of all the victors District 12 has had in the last seventy-four years. We've had two. Only one of which was still alive today: Haymitch Abernathy. A loud, easily irritated, middle-aged drunk. Speaking of which, he just stumbled onto the stage, practically falling into the third chair, mumbling unintelligibly to no one in particular. Effie Trinket looked positively repulsed to be anywhere in the same district as him. He attempted to give her a large hug while the crowd politely applauded his appearance. She barely fended him off, standing to her feet.
As the mayor called her up to the podium, she almost ran away from the still mumbling Haymitch, pasting on another overly fake, white smile. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" She chirped. Her pinkish-blonde hair has shifted slightly off center to the right ever since she dodged Haymitch's unwanted bear hug. She starts a small speech of how much an honor it is to be here in District 12, although we all know that's a lie because everyone knows she wishes to be the spokesperson to any other district. I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to be forced near a drunk who has a bad temper and always shows up drunk off his feet.
Gale turned back to us, with the faintest of smiles on his lips. At least this reaping has some entertainment. But, my mind flashes to the glass ball holding the boy's names and I think of how Gale's name is in there forty-two times. The odds may not be in his favor, but if he isn't chosen, he never has to worry about going into the Hunger Games ever again. I looked over at Katniss and knew she must be thinking the same thing. Gale turned back to the stage just as Effie Trinket crossed over to the ball with the girls' names.
"Ladies first!" She reached a carefully manicured hand into the ball and rooted around for a second before pulling out a single piece of paper. The whole crowd is on the edge of their seats as she opens the folded slip. I close my eyes, hoping that it isn't me or Katniss.
I listened to the sound of Effie's heels clacking against the stage as she walked back to the podium. She opens her mouth, and says the one name I would've never thought to hear.
"Primrose Everdeen!" Her voice calls out over the crowd and my eyes snap open.
That's it for chapter one! Just so everyone knows: Ryna's name is pronounced like Rain-a. This story will follow the books mostly and not the movie, but once the Hunger Game start, it severely deviates from canon and I hope you all enjoy it. Please leave honest feedback and I look forward to reading all your comments!