"Happy Hunger Games!" Kloe exclaims, as she runs into our room olive skin, grey eyes, and auburn hair flying behind her. I chuckle. "If you ask me the only happy thing about the hunger games is the free food we get to have at the celebration after the reaping", I say. Yes, a little more hateful then what I meant it to be but she has no idea how nerve racking it is fearing that your name will be called. But she'll understand next year when she's twelve.
"Azalia!"
"Mother wants you", Kloe says.
"Yes, I heard her". Still a little too hateful.
I walk out of my room and into the kitchen where my mother stands. It's like my sister is a miniature version of her. The only resemblance between us is the skin tone and eye color. My hair isn't a simple auburn at all, my hair is bright crimson.
"Yes ma'am?", I ask.
She turns around and looks at me with astonishment. It takes me awhile to realize she's surprised by what I'm wearing. A jet black dress with a shiny silver ribbon wrapped around the waist ending in a big bow, and silver slip on shoes. She put her hands on my cheeks and with a weary smile.
"Sweetie you look beautiful! I knew my old dress would fit you wonderfully! Now one last finishing touch".
My mother carefully takes off her necklace. It's a small flower shaped pendant with a tiny shimmering red gem in the middle of it. I'm reluctant to accept it. It's a gift to my mother from my father. One of the last tokens of him.
He died nine years ago, working in the mines of District 12. He fell ill to some disease far beyond my District's capacity to heal. Shorty after his death my mother took a job as a maid. I've always admired her strength. She always smiled around Zoe and I. No matter how she felt, but sometimes I would hear her crying softly at night. And more often I find her staring longingly at a his photo.
"Sweetie?", my mother asked with the necklace cuffed in her out stretched hands.
I then allow her to clasp the thin golden chain around my neck and then tie my hair up in a bow. We all walk out of our home together. And then out of the Seam. A small community of the poorer people. Usually the mine workers and their families live in the Seam, small houses one bedroom, and a kitchen. We make it to the plaza and I take my place next to my friend Tekka.
Our districts' escort begins.
"Welcome everyone, to the reaping of the 62nd Hunger Games". She seems to be in haste like she's running late for an important dinner or something.
"Now let's get started?", she smirks. She drops her hand in the glass bowl concealing an abundance of innocent girls. She pulls out the paper and squints at the name, and I know everyone is in anticipation for her to read the slip of paper aloud.
The women squints at the piece of paper and says a name that I can't hear from all the way back here. Apparently, whomever the girl was, she heard perfectly she walks on stage with her head held high and her bright red hair in a ponytail filing close behind. She turns to us and does the most shockingly gutsy thing I've ever seen of a tribute she curtsies stands back upright and smiles. Outwardly the escort women feels the same why I do about the girl: mystified. The escort pulls herself together and gets back on track with pulling the name on the male tribute. She's a elderly women it seems, she uses the microphone and still I can barely hear her. But I do hear my name: Brant Embers.
I take the stage and try to express the same courage, strength, independence, and best of all defiance to the Capitol just as that girl did. I shake everyone's hands bow to my district, shake hands with Azalia and we bow down together one final time. They rush us into a room in the justice building. My first and only visitor is my dad. He comes in and hugs me.
"I love you, son", he says "We all do".
The "we" he is referring to being my older sister and two brothers.
"I love you too, dad. Let them know I love them too,". I say trying to keep from crying. We hug one last time and then he exits just as fast he entered.
The peacekeepers bring me to the train where Azalia is waiting. I nonchalantly study the girl's face. It shows no sign of tears or any emotion at all. I wonder to myself who, if anyone, came to see her off. The train pulls up and the escort rushes us inside and guides us to our rooms for the next few hours until our arrival into the Capitol. Once the escort leaves we both thank her politely and walk into our rooms without a word to each other. Lying on my bed is a tuxedo, along with shoes, folded nicely and crisply . I've only worn one once. In District 12 you only wear one at a wedding or a funeral if you have the money to buy one. In my case it was the latter, my mother passed away 8 years ago when I was 10. She got sick after moving to the Seam with my father. The district apothicary couldn't treat her, only make her last days more comfortable. There's a small tapping at my door and a avox boy is standing there with a note. Avox are those who were punished by the Capitol and had their tongues cut out never to talk again.
I thank him and he walks off. The note tells me to get dressed and to meet Haymitch, our District's only living victor. The escort women, and Azalia in the dining section of the train. It takes me a little time to get reacquainted with the tux so an avox comes in and helps me, then no sooner leaves. I walk to Azalia's room and knock lightly, when she doesn't answer I decide to head over to the dining car until I hear soft sobbing in the room. I press my ear to the door and confirm my thought. I knock two more times without any response. The room isn't locked so I creak the door open and peak my head through. I look through the darkness in search of the silhouette of the scarlet haired girl. I go deeper into the room and along with Azalia I find the dress she is to wear at dinner still folded on the bed. Azalia was sitting in the corner of the room when I find her. I turn on the lights and her eyes are puffy and as red as the hair on their owner's head. I crouch down and wrap my arm around her shoulder. I don't know why, but I feel like I should. Surprisingly she allows me to.
"Fourteen. I'm fourteen years old and I want to die!" she exclaims. Well you have a good chance of dying in the arena I think to myself. But I refrain from including that in hopes of comforting her.
"I feel the exact same way". She looks up astonished at my sympathy and understanding.
"The reason for the games is to break us, and the districts, to keep all of us weak and vulnerable. The first thing they won't is for the tributes to break down and cry in a corner. I don't know about you but I'm tired of living by the Capitol's rules. Now, say you clean you face, get dressed, and we both walk down to dinner together?". She smiles lightly, takes up her dress and heels and walks into the bathroom. Ten minutes later her face shows no sign of a girl broken but of a stronger women. Her dress is black and white as is my tux. We walk into the dining car, find where Haymitch and the escort ,who's name I later find out to be Iris, sitting at rectangular table with four seats set up, two on either side. Azalia and I take the two seats next to each other. Iris begins
"How nice of you two to join us, now let's begin".
