District 1 Female - Dahlia Athena Ares


I woke up a little before my alarm was due to go of on the day of the Reaping and quickly press the button so that it doesn't. Noise doesn't suit the Training Academy and I don't want to be one of the ones who lets their alarm break the spell. I glance quietly around me at my pink bedroom, with pink and green floral wallpaper, a desk that was hot pink, chairs with pale pink mink all over it that was soft to the touch, a pink poodle statue by the corner of the room and numerous more pink artifacts with a wistful sigh, as if after seventeen years I still couldn't believe these were mind, before heading to the communal bathroom to brush my teeth and prepare for the Reaping.

It's a small bathroom with only three sinks and it would be too much chaos if we were left to figure out who had bathroom rights or not every day, depending on the times we naturally arose, so a schedule had been designed for us, and we followed it every single day of the week, from the term to the holidays, but it was only on public holidays and special events that schedule was let up.

The Reaping was one of them.

I finished my morning routine then went back to my bedroom to put on my Reaping outfit. One that had been handpicked for me by a mentor at the Academy.

Despite being born in District 1, one of the wealthiest, most beautiful, most Capitol-like Districts out of the whole of Panem, I was given up to a clinic as a baby by a mother who couldn't raise me then. Placed through a slit into a box and left there overnight until the worker that checked the chute every day saw me, and then I was taken to the hospital for a brief check-up, and then the orphanage until I was selected to train for the Hunger Games at the age of three years old. Then I moved to the Training Academy and had lived there ever since.

I guess I should be lucky because everyone from my classmates to the teachers, to every adult I'd met said orphanages weren't nice. Underfunded, not cared for properly, full of children who were disabled or suffering from other severe health conditions that the parents couldn't handle, physical, emotional or sexual abuse sometimes, but I was only 3 when I'd left so my memories of the orphanage were few and far in between. I only remember 6 distinct ones, that I replay in my head at night to try and justify my gratitude at training for the Hunger Games, trying to convince myself they were real because life at the orphanage felt so surreal to me that sometimes I was almost angry I was training for the Hunger Games and thought I was the most unfortunate, most unlucky, person in the world, but none of those memories had proved to be very bad, and if it was true that I would be screwed up had I stayed at the orphanage, I was too young to have any sense of it.

Sometimes I think I'm lucky, that the orphanage was a very distant world for me, and all I really remembered were the Training Academy, which was a more luxurious place than I imagined something like this would be.

I stared at myself in the mirror. One of the reasons I was chosen to train for the Hunger Games was because I was beautiful. I was athletic too, but also beautiful and it was a universal opinion at the Training Academy that the more beautiful tributes had a higher chance of coming back alive. The Hunger Games was ultimately a reality tv show, and they had to pander to the audience. The Capitol loved beauty.

I was tall, one of the tallest, if not the tallest, girls in the room. Also skinny but incredibly muscular as well, just in a lean way that others missed at first glance. I had fluffy blonde hair in large curls, blue eyes with green flecks in them that caught the light apparently, and a pretty and plain face. I was one of the more attractive girls from the orphanage, which was evident even when I was a toddler apparently. I also had just about enough curves in all the right places.

I clipped my hair back with a black clip, and let my curls cascade down. My hair was always somewhere around halfway down my back. I wasn't allowed to cut it for fear of losing my appeal. I had put on a bit of makeup to look good for the cameras because that was important. I was wearing a fluttery knee-length red dress with a bow at the waist - reminiscent of the simpler Capitol fashion back near the beginning of the Hunger Games in hopes to appeal to the audience, and a pair of dark red flats. After staring at myself in the mirror one last time I went downstairs to have breakfast.

The dining room was large and cold, with grey walls, grey floors and ceiling. A single long wooden table was near the centre, old stools with chips taken out of them and carvings that had lost their sharpness loitered around. A supervisor stood with a taser at the end of the room, and us kids barely dared to look each other in the eye as we ate. Ridiculously hot, steaming food piped high with nutrients however, a glass of water, milk and orange juice. We sometimes took vitamins, protein powder, that sort of stuff, but we were alleviated of it on the Reaping day. Despite the grim dining room our meals were always good - they had to be for District 1's chance for a victor was on the line, and I remembered nothing less than the very best meals growing up. (And also punishments if we did not fully finish it as they didn't want us to do anything that might impact our health or make it harder for District 1 to get a victor.)

After breakfast we could scarcely say a word to each other as we hopped onto the bus that would drive us to the underground carpark in the City Hall, where the Reaping was held. Some of my friends began to talk, try to lighten up the mood, but I could scarcely join in so I just remained silent and flicked my gaze out the window where I tried to enjoy the increasingly metropolitan scenery passing us by before the Reaping. I so scarcely ventured into the city of the District as the Training Academies were further out, and the school we'd attended was also further out, but it wasn't out of true enjoyment that I was lost in my thoughts, rather a mix of twisted feelings that I didn't know the words for.

They couldn't make us volunteer for the Hunger Games. We had to raise our hands, shout that we volunteered and then run or strut to the stage ourselves, and that was how we volunteered. As much as they trained us, brainwashed us to want to fight and win a Hunger Games, and all of that, they couldn't control our arms or hands, and make us volunteer if we didn't do it out of our own autonomy.

How did they ensure District 1 had volunteers most years through their own autonomy?

By making life unbearably harder for us if we didn't.

By making a set of unimaginable consequences play out if we didn't volunteer, and we knew we would've bought it on if we didn't.

They threatened to take away Marigold.

I didn't have many real friends at the Training Academy. I'm not sure anyone did. It was a place where most of the people there weren't in their right minds or happy at all, training for something like the Training Academy, so no one found it easy to form friends. I would've almost grown up with just dormates, company, if it weren't for Marigold, who was my first friend, and perhaps only real friend that I'd made at the Training Academy.

We were friends when I was 7 and she was 6. We're now 17 and 16, we've been friends since, and she was the only reason I got through some of the harsh nights at the Academy. The only reason my heart beat and my head was lined with beautiful dreams and thoughts of the future somehow. She was...well if you knew her, you'd know she was one of those people who could see the light in everything, the way out, and she was more brilliant than you knew.

She was my rock. She knew me, and I knew her.

I knew her.

I knew she would absolutely be gutted if she had to go to the Hunger Games. It was like some light inside of her had not fully accepted the darkness of the Hunger Games yet, and she lived in a state of dissonance regarding it. Because of this light she happened to be so insightful and philosophical and cheerful and wonderful all at once, but I also knew that if she was reaped, or forced to volunteer, she would absolutely hate it, and maybe end up traumaticised for life.

They threatened to kill her if I didn't volunteer.

Not just that, but torture her too.

I would say it's a joke but I've known they've done the same for other students at the academy in previous years. We were all canon fodder for the Hunger Games anyway. They didn't care if we died in them, or died in order to punish someone else who was too cowardly to die anyway. What did it matter to them? They were prepared to see us go anyway.

Five other students had been killed for this reason.

I didn't want Marigold to be the sixth. And that, was how I found myself preparing to volunteer.

If I came back, Marigold wouldn't be made to volunteer the next year. It was like I got impunity for myself and her.

And the trainers made sure I knew, that they knew if I didn't volunteer, I would be responsible for the extensive torture and murder of Marigold.

Probably after they also killed me. Many of the other students were also killed if they didn't volunteer. The reason why they sometimes threatened to kill their friends was because sometimes, just the thought of one's own death wasn't enough, but the idea of someone else you loved dying twisted your heart too much you couldn't.

That's how I found myself preparing to volunteer for the 76th Hunger Games this year.

I'd already said my goodbyes, made my promises, about what I'm going to do if I come back, about making peace with death if I don't. I've prepared for this...I've now got to make a good impression on the Capitol.

"Faustine Smith," read Gallica Gnomes, the Capitol escort for District 1.

"I volunteer-" I screamed before rushing forwards.

There was momentary silence, and then a round of loud applause. No one in District 1 knew of the real reason why we volunteered. They all thought we were truly so brainwashed against the Capitol that we did out of sheer pride. There was always a bit of silence as they processed the fact that there was someone who was 'patriotically dumb enough' to volunteer to represent District 1 for something like this, relief that they won't have to see an innocent go of to the Hunger Games, and also a bit of approval at our height or strength.

They didn't even know one half of the bitterness behind the decision.

"Wonderful, now for the male tribute..."


Author's Note: This isn't a SYOT. I'm making up maybe 8-12 tributes and writing a Hunger Games with it. I've always wanted to write my own HG but with a manageable number so this is it! There'll be more worldbuilding later on. Updates are going to be so so random. Feel free to make love, like, neutral, dislike, hate etc tables as well :)