No one else has submitted tributes and I don't think anyone is going to, so I've decided that the tributes that are already submitted will be focus points. I've decided to keep one POV until the character dies etc. I'll determine this by drawing the character out of a hat so it's fair. I hope no one is annoyed that I'm using this POV, but I just find it boring if I keep changing. So instead of doing 24 different reapings, I'll just do one, but I'll talk about the other characters too. Everyone will be mentioned.
Chapter One - Seventeen
Anton Urie – District Twelve
My mother had told me the story so many times I practically knew it off by heart, yet still I loved hearing how she fell in love with him. Perhaps it was because it was one of the only memories of my father, or maybe it was that I, somehow, wanted to be just like him. Either way, I always listened intently to the far-away voice of my mother.
The bitter gale wind hammered against her exposed cheeks and threatened to engulf her in snow, but still my mother pressed on, journeying her way through the streets of district twelve to her parent's (my grandparent's) clothing store. It was a freezing mid-winter night, and the inhabitants of her district were rugged up inside their poorly insulated houses, trying to preserve body heat as they sat by dwindling fires. Instead, my mother was outside, battling her way through the ongoing storm. She never told me why on earth she was outside, but it didn't seem important. I suppose she was running errands. Either way she was not protected from the harsh weather and was becoming weaker and weaker as she blindly navigated her way along. When she finally reached what she thought was her house, she knocked wildly on the door, and my father opened it. He was tall, with unruly dark hair, glinting chocolate eyes with thick lashes. In the haze she felt, my mother said she mistook him for an angel. He gallantly welcomed her to his home, and fed her warm a warm brothy soup that she described as 'the best thing I have ever tasted'. They exchanged conversation and immediately felt the connection. Slowly, they became friends, and then fell in love. My mother always described it as 'you're the best of friends one day, and see how beautiful and irrevocably wonderful each other are the next'. It was like a fairy tale – until the reaping day.
When my father's name was called, my mother's world came crashing down, as only that morning, Camden Urie asked her to be his. She called frantically through the crowd 'I love you!' and he cried the same back. In the waiting room, she was sobbing like mad and he was comforting her. "I will come back, I swear." he told her. That never happened. I believe their last words to each other were "I love you, I love you like the world will never end." And "Stay safe, my darling, I shall see you again, on the other side of the darkness, until then, let my love be with you,"
My mother has never been the same since that, especially when she found out she was pregnant two days after my father was killed. It wasn't that she never found love again, she did. But it just wasn't the same. I don't know how my mother would cope if she lost me in the Hunger Games, except that I realize that she would do something to end her pain.
Braeden wouldn't let her though; he would lock her inside the house under constant surveillance if he had to. Mum loved him so much, but to me, he was just another typical step-dad. The sort of person who favoured his own kids over his wife's ones, and always treated then with more care and respect. None of that bothered me, but I did feel excluded from the family as we sat down to the tiny scrubbed wooden table in our minute kitchen for dinner. While they chatted away, I just sat there, gazing off into space, until my mother tried to include me in the conversation. She knew, as my friends did that I was a really social person, just not around Braeden.
My mother met Braeden when I was ten. He didn't pay me a single ounce of attention, and I pretty much hated him. A change of heart occurred when he proposed to my mother. We did everything together, and I really began to warm up to him. He was actually like a second father to me; until things sidled back to the ways they used to be, silence between us. I don't have a clue what happened, but it tore us apart. Only when Micah was born did I realize that he was not stealing my family, he was adding to it.
Another thing I would miss if I died in the Hunger Games would be my half-siblings. I would sorely long for their laughter, their optimistic ways only a child could comprise of. Sometimes I dreamed about what they would be like in the future. They were scary thoughts, but I wanted them to do well, it would be my dying wish.
All of these feelings were racing through my mind as I was herded into the area roped off for the seventeen year-olds. If the reaping frightened me, then it must be petrifying for the younger kids. It was terrifying, terrorizing, horrifying…the list just went on and on. I spotted my mother, clutching Karly's little hand, her face buried in Braeden's second-hand coat, looking as pale as a sheet. Braeden looked nervous as well, with Micah scooped up in his free arm.
"Tony?" a voice sounded from behind me. I whipped my head around and saw my best friend, Hugo Grant; his usual jubilant demeanor was interrupted by a jittery outbreak of anxiety. Trying to keep relaxed, I replied,
"It's me!" and grinned. Hugo returned the smile ever so slightly.
Like it was yesterday, I could remember how we became acquainted. We were only seven, so innocent back then (hardly). We met in the principal's office, after starting a food fight at school. We were both young, and reckless and carefree; we became inseparable after that –each other's shadows.
And here we stood, cowering in a sea of just as scared teenagers, all waiting to see if they were safe for another year. The District twelve announcer, Sequin Moon, was standing elegantly on the stage, observing the restless crowd. This was her first year as an escort, and as always, the new ones get the most boring district; ours. We had Effie Trinket a few years back, but she was upgraded to a better district after Katniss Everdeen won the Hunger Games and became a living legend. Sequin had curly, sparkly gold locks that looked like they've been dyed one hundred times over. She also had liquid silver eyes that could only look like that after being genetically modified by the capitol.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" she piped. "Happy Hunger Games! And now, ladies first!" Her hand dived into the huge glass barrel containing the girls' names. "Chrysanta Mercade!" A petite girl crept through the twelve year-old section and onto the stage. She was slight, with cropped black hair, her trusting blue eyes dilated in fear. "Any volunteers?" Silence. That didn't surprise me at all, in our district; the Hunger Games was a death sentence. We have only had a handful of victors in the last ninety eight years. The tributes from the other districts crushed us like bugs on almost all occasions. "Now the males!" Was it me, or did sequin actually look genuinely excited? Then I realized, the games were made for entertainment.
She lunged her hand downwards and fumbled, managing to grasp on to a slip of paper. Somewhere in this crowd, there was a child that would be sent to their death, this is sick. Sequin drew a deep breath and read, "Anton Urie!" I was dreaming, I had to be! There was no way that one of my twenty-five slips could have been reaped. It was one slip in thousands. I hated this. I tried telling myself I had nothing to lose to make dying easier, but that was far from true, I had everything to lose. I slowly made my way to the stage, my teeth biting my lips in case I was to burst into tears; I felt like I was. Everything came crashing down, and I now know what he felt like when my father was reaped, except he had more on the line, a pregnant fiancée and a loving family. I was too afraid to look at the faces of my loved ones.
The mayor read the dull treaty of treason before it finally hit me: I was a piece in the Hunger Games. I was going to die. Like my father, like the other ninety-five tributes from District twelve. I was going to leave this world at seventeen.
