Sorry its been so long! I will try and update quicker. The next chapter will be the reaping! It will start off with D12 and the D11 and so on. I still need more tributes! You can submit up to two tributes, but you cant submit two female tributes, because I have too many. You can submit two male tributes or a male and a female tribute :)

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Thank you to all who reviewed, two more reviews til I update! I still need someone to submit the ally girl by the way!

Hope you enjoy the chapter, please review!


Wish You Were Here


Sometimes I break. I go to the meadow and I lie there, for hours on the grass and I beg for my father back. But I know inside that that will never happen. I will never see my father again. I will never have anyone to pick me up and spin me around in the air when I come home from school and there will be no one to tell me I'm their little angel. I will never have anyone to hold me tight if I have a nightmare and tell me its ok, it's not real.

I miss my father; I wish so much that he was still here. It's been nine years since he disappeared, and I still wake up thinking that my father will be downstairs, waiting for me, with that big smile and cheery voice. But each time I come, reality hits me hard as I realise that my daddy won't be there to hug me, that he will never be there to kiss me.

No. I couldn't accept it. My father was not dead. He could have been captured, held there for nine years. Everyone might have just assumed he was dead because they lost contact with him. He can't be dead.

It hurts so much to think about it. It hurts even more now I know what actually happened. I still remember the day when they told me.

It was a bright and sunny day. There were no clouds in the sky and daddy would be home soon. He was always going to other districts to do work. He mostly went to district one, two and four. He said that they were most important for his work. He only went for a week at the most.

Daddy would be coming home in about half an hour. I always kept watch for the black train that came. It was shiny and new and had blacked out windows. That was my daddy's train, the one he always came home in.

I waited for an hour and he still wasn't there. I didn't worry; he must be running a little late. Another hour, then another and another. Maybe I had got the wrong day, maybe he was coming tomorrow. NO, I told myself. Daddy is never, ever longer than a week. Ever.

It was time for dinner now. I slowly walked home. When I arrived, I immediately sensed that something was wrong. There were hushed voices in the other room and dinner wasn't even cooked yet.

"She is five years old, you can't tell her that." I heard as I pressed my ear to the door.

"It's her father, she has ever right to know." My mother's voice. What about my father? What was going on?

"This is secret business," another voice said, "you can tell her when she is older, but not now. She could tell someone else and word could get out. Then where would we be?"

"One more thing," the first voice said, "her father asked me to teach her how to fight and defend herself. Just in case."

Footsteps, I dived for the front door and pretended that I had just walked in. I was good at being quiet, no one noticed me when I didn't want to be seen.

"Hello, sweetheart." My mother said softly as she walked out of the room with two other people, a man and a woman.

"When will dinner be ready?" I questioned.

"I will prepare it soon," my mother told me, "first I have to tell you something."

She looked as if she was about to cry, for a second I thought that something was wrong with Lilly; she had only been born a couple of months ago. I quickly dismissed the thought when I looked at the two strangers in our house.

"I would like to introduce two people to you," my mother began, "this is Mr. James," she pointed to a big, tall man who needed a shave, "and this is Katniss Everdeen." She pointed to a young woman with brown hair and grey eyes. Her hair was in a braid.

My father had always taught me to be polite so I said it was nice to meet them both and shook their hands.

My mother continued talking, "Honey, your father didn't come on the train today did he?" I shook my head, "well no one seems to know where he is. After he went to district 2 he didn't come back. I'm sorry," she paused a little before continuing, "Katniss is here to see you, she has something to ask." She motioned for Katniss to start talking.

"I was wondering if you would like to learn how to hunt. You can come to the Meadow every day after school with Seb and I, I'm sure that you would enjoy it."

I paused and considered this. Sebastien was my age, just a couple of months older, so I'm sure that we could make friends. But what if other children teased me for knowing Katniss? I just wouldn't tell them. Simple.

"Yes," I replied, "I'd love to learn how to hunt."

And that was that. I started learning how to hunt and Sebastien and I became best friends. We are both fourteen now, so we hunt on our own, we have been doing so ever since we were ten.

Only now I know why I had to learn how to hunt, why Sebastien had to learn how to hunt. It was because, even all those years ago, some of us knew that the Hunger Games were going to be brought back. My father was one of those people who knew, which was why he'd asked Katniss to teach me how to hunt. Just in case.

As it turns out, it's pretty likely that Sebastien or I would be reaped. But at least I know I will have a chance of survival. I could win.

I walked out of my room carefully, checking to see if there was anyone else in the house, no one could ever see me like this. Frizzy hair, tear stained eyes, shaking hands. It was a side of me that no one but myself knew. A side that no one could ever know.

I stood in front of the mirror and cleaned myself up. I composed myself before I wiped my eyes gently, combed my hair and tied it back in one complicated braid. I changed in to my hunting clothes and made my way to the Meadow.

I knew even before I got to the Meadow that Sebastien would be sitting on the rock next to the lake, staring out in to space. His brown hair perfectly placed on his head, his blue eyes sparkling in the sun. He was toned and incredibly beautiful, I couldn't deny that. The perfect combination of his parents. He had his mother's fire and his father's calmness. I didn't have a crush on him like most girls in school. He was just my best friend. My funny, arrogant, cheeky best friend.

As I had predicted, when I came to the lake, Sebastien was sat there on a rock, gazing off in to space. I remembered when he had brought his sister with him a couple of years ago. Katniss wanted her to learn how to hunt too and had given Sebastien and me the job of teaching her. Primrose-Rue Everdeen was a year older than Sebastien and I. She could not hunt at all. When Sebastien aimed his crossbow and shot the deer through the eye (something both he and I could do) she fainted. It was actually quite funny; neither of us knew what to do. In the end Sebastien poured a bucket of freezing cold water over her. She slapped him when she woke up. I had actually tried to stop him, but Sebastien was stronger than me, even though I would never admit it to his face.

Primrose-Rue had really tried her best to save the deer, but it was dead the second the arrow pierced its eye. Sebastien and I were overjoyed. We had never seen a deer before, never mind caught one. At night we took it to the butchers. Katniss had told us never to take something that big to the hob, she said everyone would tear it to pieces and you wouldn't get a very good price for it. So, when we took it to the butchers, we got an excellent price for it. We bought food that would last us for a week, clothes, medicine and other things that we needed. We still had money left in the end, though. So Sebastien and I spent it on two rings, exactly the same. They were silver, engraved with the word 'forever' on them. I had never taken the ring off since I had bought it and I doubted Sebastien had either.

In the end we had taught Primrose-Rue how to hunt. She had never actually killed anything, but she could, if she wanted to. She mainly gathered plants and stuff. She was really good at being able to tell which plants are edible and which ones are not.

"Sup, El." Sebastien had finally stopped staring at nothing and noticed me. He called me El just to piss me off. My full name is actually Laurel.

"Hey, Sebby." His eyes narrowed and I smirked. If I was to have an annoying nickname, so was he. I usually call him Seb, unless he uses an annoying nickname.

"What about Kathy?" That was short for Katherine, my middle name. Unfortunately Seb didn't have a middle name that I could make fun of.

"Just call me Laurel, dick head."

Seb laughed. "I set up some snares further on to the right, race you there!"

We both set of running. We were very fast, but I was faster, just. I ran a little to the left, knowing the snares would be on the right and I didn't want to get caught in the ones that hadn't been set off.

Only when I was hanging upside down in the air by one leg did I realise that Seb had tricked me. I suppose I should have seen that coming. I crossed my arms and shouted at Seb, now rolling around on the floor in hysterics.

"Sebastien Mellark, get me down from here right now!" I shouted.

"I don't know, I kind of like you up there, you don't kick and punch as much."

I resisted the urge to smile at that. I did kick and punch a lot. "Seb!" I screamed as he started to walk away.

"Ok, ok. I'll get you down." He cut the rope and caught me as I fell. I kicked his shin as hard as I could when I got down. He fell on the floor rolling about in pain, holding his shin. Now it was my turn to laugh.

"Come on, we need to check the other snares, in case we caught anything."

"You mean in case I caught anything." Seb corrected.

I ignored him and walked off. I tried to walk with swag, I was pretty sure I could now.

"Why are you limping like that?" Seb asked.

"It's called swag."

"No, it's called you being weird."

I ignored that comment. We only caught two squirrels in the end so we gathered some vegetables too. We had a squirrel, five potatoes and three carrots each in total. We had some strawberries left so we headed to the hob to see how much we could get for them.

It was quite busy for a Tuesday at the Hob. Seb and I went straight to Greasy Sae to trade. She was the oldest and most experienced person there. Katniss told us to always trade with her. She was also the only one who would buy wild dog.

We got a little money for the strawberries and we bought some bread at the bakery with it. We had a loaf each and it was my favourite bread, it had poppy seeds scattered over it.

"Bye now sissypoo." Was how Seb said goodbye. I slapped him in the face. That was my way of saying goodbye.

I walked home quietly. Lilly was really excited when I got home. My mother had got us some sweets. We had never had sweets before, it was the nicest thing in the world. My mother looked happy too, when she saw the food I had brought home. We hadn't had a meal as big as this in a long time.

I went to bed the happiest I had been in a long time.