Chapter 2 -
The First Volunteer

Silence. For a minute it's dead silent as I stand in front of the children. The kids stop crying and the adults stop talking among themselves. The children look at me with wet eyes and pale white faces. The Vice President is also pale and is starting right at me. Besides the ridiculous expression on his face, he also looks the part. He is wearing clothes the first president, George Washington wore. He has a blue military jacket on, white leggings, leather boots, and to top it off a big white curly wig on his head. My father is standing right behind him wearing only a black suit and tie.

I put down my arm and look back at the Vice President. I decide it's time to kill the silence between us. "I volunteer myself, but only me. No other child is to be reaped." I say out loud, making sure that everyone has heard me.

The Vice President breaks his silence with a simple, "No."

"And why not?" I ask him.

"Because every District must have two tributes. Plus you cannot volunteer yourself. Those are the rules." He tells me with a fake smile. It would be funny if he was wearing George Washington's wooden teeth, so I could tell him to stop barking at me, oh well.

Instead I tell him, "Is that so? Do the rules allow you to bribe my father for money that you obviously don't need, so that I won't have to be reaped with the rest of these children?" I respond with a genuine grin.

The adults in the crowd gasp with surprise and begin booing him. The Vice President's fake smile quickly fades and is replaced by a real ashamed frown. He grabs the microphone in a hurry and makes an awkward attempt to adjust his blood red tie. He nervously asks the people in the crowd to be quiet and looks into one of the cameras that a camera man holds near him. "I didn't bribe this young man's father, this boy is clearly lying to all of you to save himself from the games." He lies.

The crowd stops booing and one man in the back row shouts, "Is this true Marcus?"

I truthfully tell the crowd what they want to hear, "No of course not, why would I want to save myself? I volunteered remember."

The crowd begins to boo again at the Vice President. He on the other hand looks even more nervous than before. He steps away from the mic and waves me over to follow him into the City Hall building. I am reluctant to follow him, but I do so anyways. As soon as I enter the door, he instantly slams the doors behind me and grabs me by my plain white tee. I was never fond of wearing fancy suits and ties. If I wore a tie, the Vice President would have pulled my neck off with it.

"Listen you little punk! I didn't sit on a cheap commercial airline for six hours just to come here and be humiliated on national television, you understand?" The Vice President shouts in my ear.

"Why are you so angry Mr. Snow? You should chill." I mock him, then laugh in his face. He shakes me again but I push him back. I find it funny that this man, who has to be in his mid-twenties, can so easily be outraged by a fifteen year old guy like me.

I quickly think of something clever to say so I can make him nervous again. I choose my words carefully and then whisper into his ear, "Careful Mr. Vice President, you wouldn't want to get more blood on your hands, you understand?"

It works, his face becomes pale again like snow, and he freezes wear he stands. I am one of the few people who knows about his dirty little secret. My father told me a long time ago that Mr. Snow once killed an innocent boy with his bear hands, and then went to prison for his crime. However, during the riots of the Second Civil War, most prisoners managed to escape from captivity and flee all across the country. Thus rendering the prison system useless. The Vice President may of changed his full name to hide his true identity from the public, but my father was too cunning to be fooled by him. He recognized Mr. Snow's face immediately when he saw him supporting the current president on television five years ago.

"So are you going to let me play your sick little game now? Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to see the only person who knows about your past die?" I try to reassure the Vice President.

To be continued...