Lysta Crank,16, District 5 female
"Come on! Come on! Anything will do!" I say to myself as I rip open a trash bag and my nostrils are immediately met with a foul odor as I only curl my nose. Yuck! Not sure what I was expecting, but yuck anyways!
I continue rambling through the trash but I find nothing useful and only sigh as I stand back up and walk over to the the next trash bag. There has to be something here, something I can use for my chemistry!
"Why are you digging through the trash?" I hear a voice behind me and I turn around to see a boy around my age with a confused look on his face.
"Cause I want to!" I bluntly say and he seems taken back as he only shrugs his shoulders and begins walking away. Oh no was I rude again?
"Oh uhmm hey mister? Was I rude just now?" I curiously ask.
"Well kinda, but it's not really any of my business what you're doing." he shrugs again.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to! Sometimes I don't even realize how blunt I am, but yeah I love chemistry! I love chemistry very very much! Do you like chemistry? I'm just trying to find anything that'll be useful for chemistry cause you know, it's just so cool seeing chemicals react and then boom! That does sound cool right?" I shout with a huge smile plastered across my face. He only gives me a puzzled look as he looks like he's trying to process everything I just said.
"Uh yeah, I guess chemistry is uh cool, but-" he begins.
"I know right!? What's your favorite part about chemistry? How long have you been studying it? You know any cool chemical reactions you can tell me about!? Preferably explosions! Oh I'm talking over you aren't i? I'm so sorry! I'm just getting really, really excited! " I excitedly talk over him and he once again only gives me a puzzled look.
"Uh, I think my mom is calling me, I should go check it out." He quickly say before dashing away.
"But wait! You didn't even tell me your favorite part about chemistry!" I shout but I get no answer and only continue looking for anything cool I can use for my chemistry.
I continue prowling through the trash bag and I suddenly feel a wrapper of candies of some sort and i quickly pull it out to see it's a half eaten pack of mints.
"Ooooh." I examine the object thoroughly from all corners and angles and jot some notes down in my notepad that I always keep with me. I've never seen these kinds of mints before! I remember reading something very cool though, something about putting mints in a bottle of soda but I never got around to it as I was busy trying so many other chemistry experiments, why not try it now!?
I cheer out loud but realize I don't have any soda back at home. They're pretty pricey too and with mom and dad at work, i'll have to earn the money myself. Might aswell see if my neighbor Mr. Hydro has any work for me, and I head towards his house.
Chemistry, this is what I was born to do, just hearing the word lights me up! One day I want to earn a scholarship to a capitol university and I'm going to earn it by doing such a cool experiment in public that the captiol will have no choice but to take notice of me. I'd preferably be more discreet about it however! Not too long ago I blew up a public bench with one of my experiments and nearly got arrested! This experiment is also why I have no eyebrows either as they got blown off! It was pretty horrifying but so worth it!
This is my goal though and when I have a goal, I see it through to the end cause I decide my own future. My parents work often and aren't home very much. My mom works as an assistant for a capitolite who owns a tax prep business and my father is a taxi driver. I'm alone a lot as a result but I prefer that. I can actually focus on my plans a lot better with no interuptions.
I stop infront of Mr. Hydro's door and gently knock on it. Mr. Hydro is my neighbor, we live on the same floor and he's only a few rooms down from me. He's a happily retired and kind man and I usually help him with small jobs like carrying his groceries and cleaning. We even play board games together sometimes! Anyways he usually gives me a bit of money after I help him out and I always buy stuff for my chemistry experiments with it!
The door opens a moment later and I jump in excitement as I see him.
"Hello Mr. Hydro! How are you today!?" I happily greet him.
"I'm doing well! Come on in, make yourself at home!" He smiles and I enter his home and see he's watching what appears to be a very old tv show.
"Wow what's this?" I excitedly ask.
"Oh just a show I grew up with, brings back such good memories!" he reflects as he sits across his sofa.
"Wow! This must be a really, really old show then if you grew up with it!" I comment aloud and Mr. Hydro only laughs and I realize just how rude and blunt that was!
"Oh I didn't mean it that way!" I quickly apologize.
"Oh, no no! It's fine, This is an old show, even older than me!" he laughs.
"Wow that's amazing!" I laugh with him.
Mr. Hydro is eighty two years old, he's witnessed so much! He was alive for every single hunger games that took place so far and he can name the victor for each year, even the very first Victor! Magnus Fluxwell from district 9!
Mr. Hydro is full of so many amazing stories though, sometimes I'd sit here for hours just listening to him but I couldn't stay for too long, since I always have experiments to work on.
"Yup, this show aired five years before I was born, what do you have planned today though Lysta? Any chemistry experiments?" He questions.
"Oh yes! Yes! I was actually hoping you had some work for me today though so I can buy some soda! I want to make it explode!" I shout in excitement.
"Yeah? How do you do that?" he asks.
"It is so easy! All you have to do is mix it up with these mints!" I laugh as I pull the half eaten pack of mints out my pocket.
"Oh I see! I see! I almost feel like a moron for not knowing that." Hydro laughs.
"No please don't feel that way! I probably could've phrased that better!" I apologize.
"Oh it's fine Lysta, Hey come to think of it I may have some soda in the fridge, would you like to check? It'll be really fun if I can see one of your experiments first hand!" He smiles.
"R-really!? Why didn't you say it sooner!? Ofcourse I'll check your fridge!" I cheer as I jump up to my feet and race into his kitchen. I open it up and I see he Infact does have some Soda in here, cola to be more precise and it's even diet which supposedly has a more potent reaction than the non diet variants. I yelp in excitement as I pull out the unopened bottle of cola and dash into the living room.
"Wow turns out I did have some afterall!" Mr. Hydro laughs.
"Yeah! This is so cool! Now I can show you my experiment!" I cheer.
"Ah! I've always wanted to see one of these, this'll be a sight to behold!" he relaxes in his sofa.
"It'll be quite messy though! You sure?" I warn him.
"Oh ofcourse, nothing a little cleaning can't fix right?" Mr. Hydro smiles and I get right to it.
"Ok ok, so I only read about this but never tried it so let's see. You just have to open the cola." I twist the top off before holding the mints above the opening and I grin.
"Are you ready?" my grin grows wider and he smiles as he nods in anticipation. I then release the mints as they fall into the bottle and the cola immediately fizzes and shoots up at the ceiling as I shout in excitement. Some cola gets on me but that only makes it more awesome as me and Mr. Hydro cheer together.
"That was so cool! Wasn't it? Wasn't it!?" I shout.
"Fabulous! All the things I've seen for all these years. This is definitely up there!" He claps his hands.
"Wait till you see my other experiments! There is so much more I need to show you!" I happily shout.
"I'm looking quite forward to it Lysta!" he smiles and takes a deep breath as he relaxes back on his sofa.
"Ok, I'll get this cleaned up in no time!" I assure him and I get right to it. He offers to help but I tell him it's ok and the living room is sparkling clean shortly after.
"Ok Mr. Hydro! Living room is as good as new! Is there anything else you'd like?" I ask.
"Oh, I'll just take a cold glass of water." He calmly say as he rests his head against the sofa.
"On it!" I assure him and I race to the kitchen and begin pouring a glass of water. I already know what experiment I'm going to show him next! I'm going to show him my crayon bombs! I walk out of the kitchen making sure not to spill the water and I arrive in the living room and see him resting against the sofa, his eyes closed with a smile on his face.
"Here's your glass of water Mr. Hydro!" I smile as I extend the glass of water to him, but he doesn't answer.
"Mr. Hydro?" I call again but he still doesn't respond. I then look at him for a moment and realize he's not breathing anymore.
"Mr. Hydro…" I mumble as I sit the glass of water on the table and look up at the ceiling as my eyes begin to water.
Thomas "Tom" Powell,18, District 5 male
"ge op." I hear a baby babble, but I continue snoring away...
"ge op!" the baby shouts louder and my eyes slowly open as I see my three year old sister Aimee.
"Hey there little one!" I smile as I hold my arms out to her and she laughs and holds out her arms before running into my embrace. I pick her up and hold her over me as I babble some unintelligible language and it makes her laugh even more. I put her close to my face to kiss her on the cheek but she puts her hand on my face.
"Dinky Dinky!" she babbles and I laugh, guess I should get up so I can brush my teeth.
"You up Tom?" I hear Luna call from the kitchen.
"Yup, be right there!" I call back as I sit up on my bed and stretch my arms.
"Be ri bear!" Aimee babbles as she runs out of the room and I only laugh before getting up and going into my bathroom to wash up. After washing my face I look myself in the mirror to get a good look at my face. I have curly ginger hair, bright blue close-set eyes, stand at 6'1" with pale and very freckled skin especially along my nose and arms. I give myself a half hearted smile before exiting the bathroom and go into the kitchen where my sister is trying to make pancakes.
"Good morning sleepyhead, enjoyed your beauty sleep?" Luna greets me and I smirk.
"Definitely wasn't the worst, look at you though! Making a mean breakfast!" I compliment.
"I would prefer your cooking over mines, you're much better than me at this." She comments as she removes a pancake from the skillet.
"C'mon I can't cook, you know that!" I laugh and Luna rolls her eyes
"Here you go again, you should really try being more confident in yourself, is there anything you think you're good at?" Luna asks.
"I don't really consider myself very talented at anything." I admit and it's the truth honestly, just doesn't seem like I can do anything right without embarrassing myself.
"Ok Tom, you'll realize just how incredible you are some day." She sighs but drops a pancake on the floor as she tries to remove it from the skillet.
"Dammit!" she curses.
"Day yet! Day Yet!" Aimee laughs and me and Luna grin at each other. Aimee picks up a lot of things she hear us saying, and that's why me and Luna need to be careful what we say around her.
Both of my parents worked at a factory. I was their first born, Luna was born three years later, and Aimee was born three years ago not long before both my parents were killed in a factory incident. Since both our parents were dead, we had to go to an orphange but I wasn't having that.
I wanted me and my sisters to stick together and not get seperated by the orphange system. The peacekeepers didn't care enough either so we just stayed in this house and tried to make ends meet. I worked much harder in school and made a little bit of income by doing homework for some of the wealthier kids in my school and i graduated last year at the age of seventeen, the youngest in my class.
The death of my parents brung me and Luna much closer to each other. We're very honest, open and spend the 2nd of every Wednesday reminiscing about our parents, not a second goes by where I'm not thinking of them.
"Here let me take over." I offer as I walk over to the skillet and there's knocking on the door afterwards.
"Fine with me, I'll get the door." Luna dashes out of the kitchen as I pour some batter into the skillet.
"Good morning! Good morning!" I hear a loud voice and I can't help but smile and he waltz into the kitchen shortly after.
"Whoa! something smells good in here!" Cosmo greets me and I smile as we both give each other a long and tight hug.
Cosmo is my bestfriend and we've known each other since we were small kids. When I say we have everything in common, it's no exaggeration, we are almost identical. Always coming up with so many ideas and inventions together and yeah we're quite the nerds but come from different upbringings. Cosmo's family are some of the wealthiest in the district and he's always happy to lend me and our other friends financial help even if we don't ask for it. I decline it often, I appreciate his help and generosity but I don't want him to think I'm taking advantage of him or anything.
"Well it's only cause of you that we're able to eat something this good in the first place!" I laugh as i put several pancakes on the large platter.
"Hey man, I'm always happy to help! just seeing you smile, seeing you happy, That will always brighten up my day no matter how dark it is!" He rubs my shoulder and I feel myself begin to blush. I have a huge crush on Cosmo, I'll even go as far as to say I'm in love with him. It sometimes seems like he looks at me more than just a bestfriend too, but I'm afraid to confess my feelings to him. I just think it'll make things awkward and ruin our friendship if the feelings aren't mutual.
"Seeing you smile brightens up my day aswell…" I confess and he looks at me for a moment and it seems like his head edges slightly closer to mines but there's more knocking on the door afterwards.
"Oh, haha that's probably the rest of the folks! We did all say we'll be having pancakes at your house today!" Cosmo reminds me.
"Yeah, yeah that's right!" I laugh along with him as I put turn off the fire and put the last pancake on the platter before I run to the door to open it. My two bestfriends Kim and Nicholas enters holding each other's hands.
"That smells good! I see Tom and Luna were in here doing their magic!" Kim inhales the blissful aroma of buttered pancakes.
"I might have to eat them all myself!" Nicholas jokes as he laughs aloud.
" well, yeah I didn't really do anything, Luna deserves all the credit." I shyly mumble.
"When he says that, he really means both of you put in equal effort right?" Kim grins at Luna and Luna only nods as she begins to smirk.
Kim and Nicholas are my good friends, I met them in school and we've been stuck like glue ever since. Me and Kim dated when i was thirteen but after a few months we just came to the conclusion that we didn't like each other like that and just remained good friends instead. She started dating Nicholas soon after and they got married after graduating high school last year.
"So where's Brighton? still didn't show up yet?" Nicholas asks as we all take a seat at the table and Luna sits Aimee in her high chair.
"So op het! So op het!" Aimee babbles and we all laugh.
"Still waiting for that slowpoke! lets get started anyways though. I told him yesterday the later we are to the square, the more likely one of us are to get bad luck!" Cosmo laughs.
"C'mon Cosmo even you know that's not true! What evidence do you have that supports that?" I speak much louder than intended and immediately start regretting it as he gives me an apologetic look. I personally hate unsupported theories like this, it upsets me to no end, but still I didn't have to lash out at Cosmo like that.
"Hey relax buddy, i'm only joking, I just said that to Brighton so he won't be late today. Apparently it didn't work though since he's still late haha!" Cosmo laughs as he cuts into a pancake.
"I'm sorry…" I immediately apologize.
"No I am, I know how much that upsets you, I should've been more considerate!" Cosmo smiles and I only let out a small sigh before there's more knocking on the door and Luna runs to it and Brighton enters.
"Yeah yeah, I'm late! Save it for later, let's just eat!" Brighton stretches and he immediately picks up Aimee and carries her around the living room as she giggles.
Brighton is another close friend of mines, and helps out a ton with Aimee when me and Luna are busy. He's probably the nicest guy I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and he'd do anything for his friends.
He sits Aimee back in her highchair and joins us at the table.
"Sorry I'm late guys my mom made me walk the the dog this morning, and I got here as fast as I could!" Brighton says aloud. All of my friends are nineteen now and safe from the reapings, but there's still me and Luna and i just hope neither of us gets reaped. I guess the very thought of that just put me on edge and Cosmo's joke about one of us getting bad luck just made me even more nervous.
We enjoy our breakfast, but can't spend too much time here as we obviously need to be at the reapings, once we're done though I dress in the yellow jumper and black trousers that Cosmo gave me and head back out to the living room where we're all about to leave.
"You look amazing!" Cosmo compliments me and I feel myself begin to blush a little.
"If only I looked as good as you." I respond and he only laughs.
"Oh please, you know you're way better looking than me!" He cackles and we all head out together.
We reach the square a few minutes later and we're already running pretty late as the annual video reminding us of how horrible our ancestors are is about to end. All of my friends stand on the sidelines with Aimee and me and Luna registers and go off into our respective sections. I look up at the stage where our escort Dwight, a dwarf with pointy ears stands on a high stool with our four living victors sitting nearby.
"Now without further ado! It is with an honor to select the female tribute for this year!" Dwight annoucnes as he jumps off the stool and has to tippy toe to reach the females bowl and pull out a name.
"Lysta Crank!" he calls, that name doesn't ring a bell but there's only an awkward silence as no one moves.
"Lysta Crank? Hello?" Dwight calls again and I see two peacekeepers immediately start marching towards the sixteen year old female crowd as they push past everyone who's in their way. They emerge from the crowd shortly after with a very dark skinned female with heart shaped lips, huge brown eyes, no eyebrows and tightly curled hair with a black skirt and white shirt. She only has a blank look on her face though as they escort her to the stage and I feel bad. She must've just been so overwhelmed that her mind just temporarily went blank.
"Anyone who will like to Volunteer?" Dwight asks but no one responds ofcourse and Lysta just stands still with the same blank look on her face.
"Ok! we'll now reap our male tribute then!" Dwight announces and walks over to the male's bowl before pulling out a name.
"Thomas Powell!" He calls, dammit!
"Of course, ofcourse this'll happen…" I mumble to myself as I begin walking to the stage. I feel my heart rate rapidly increasing as I envision myself getting my head smashed in by a career and I grit my teeth harder as I try to shake that thought away. I arrive on the stage and only look at the floor.
"Any Volunteers?" Dwight asks.
All of my friends already aged out so they can't volunteer for me even if they wanted to, I wouldn't want them to though. They still have a life to live, why give it for me? I I know I wasn't going to stand a chance in that arena, I just hope my death will be swift and painless.
"Here's our tributes representing district 5 this year! Shake hands you two!" Dwight declares.
Lysta is still out of it though as I extend my hand to her and I see several tears fall down her face as she stands still, guess it's finally starting to hit her too. We're so dead…there's just no way we're going to win this, especially not me...
Here's district 5! Lysta Crank and Tom Powell! We only have district 7 to go and then we are offically done with the reapings. I'll likely split the goodbyes in 3 chapters doing 4 districts a piece but i expect to have that out of the way relatively quickly. Anyways guys thanks again for the reviews and see you all soon! Till next time!