Chapter 3

Darkness slowly faded into a grayed misty color, then to a golden light that streamed through the windows. I cursed it for it's cheerfulness. Was it looking forward to me dying? Because I would surely be dead before the month was through. Hope had left me the night before.

I pulled myself out of bed, and looked through my closet. All the beautiful dresses that Mom had gotten me when I went through a girly phase a few years earlier, from what had been the capitol. I grimaced. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. I tip-toed out of my room, and into my mother's. I went through her closet until I found a pretty, worn blue dress. She had told me she wore it to her own reaping. I took it back to my room, and slid into it. It was a bit small for me; I had more meat to me than she had had, but I still fit. It had been her mother's before her, and she wasn't as small as Mom had been at that time. I went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table, running my fingers down my bow.

It had been one of Mom's, one her father had made. She had wanted me to have it. I wondered if Baby Blue would use it when she grew older. No, stop that Rosa. You can do this. You can win.

I went into the kitchen, and got something simple to eat; grits. I put it on the table and started up the fire. I put a thing of water over the fire to boil.

"Rosa," my father said behind me. I started. i hadn't heard him come up to me. I smiled, and gestured to the little flames. He nodded. Then, suddenly, he wrapped his arms around me. "You still might yet not go," he whispered into my hair.

"I might not," I said, biting back the response that even if my name wasn't drawn the first time, it surely would be drawn the second time. My name was in there 500 times, and District 12 wasn't too big, yet.

"Happy Hunger Games," Mom muttered sarcastically, walking into the room.

"Graveyard Games," Dad corrected gently, wrapping his arms around her.

"You know it's the Hunger Games. Don't even bother," she grumbled. Ash stumbled down the stairs, wiping sleep from his eyes. I turned back to the fire, and saw the water boiling. I grabbed a stray apron laying by the fire pit, and wrapped it around my hand before grabbing the kettle out of the fire. I poured water into my bowl of grits, and everybody nodded and walked over to the kitchen. As they came back in with their own bowls, I poured them full of water then placed the kettle on the stone hearth. I ate my grit's plain that day. I didn't have the stomach for anything else.

I took a deep breath as I finished, and put my bowl in the sink. I felt a weird numbness creeping up through my body, numbing all my emotions. I looked briefly at the clock, wondering when the reaping would be. Mom said something about the old reapings being at noon. It was only an agony waiting, knowing someone I knew and loved would be going, maybe even with me, and not all of us would make it back.

At ten, the men and blue came through the streets yelling for all the eligible children to come out and go to the square with them. Ash and I walked out and we were immediately surrounded by a wall of blue, and we marched to the square. We were arranged facing a platform. Standing there was a man that was no more than a hands-width wide, but had a humongous beer gut like he was pregnant. He had a lopsided black mustache and a black hat and tufts of graying black hair to either side of his head. His eyes were weird and beady, and his teeth were horridly crooked.

I couldn't help but wonder what happened to our mayor... but my stomach churned a little so I didn't continue the train of thought.

The guards separated Ash and I, and led him to the right side of the stage in the middle of the square and let me to the left. There were 14 roped off areas, each with a number and letter sewn into cloth and hung on the rope. They led me to the one with the 16F, and I shrugged them off and walked inside with my head high. The only other person there was Belle, sitting on the stone with her knees tucked up under her chin and her arms around her shins. I knelt down beside her, and hugged her. She unwrapped her arms from her legs and hugged me back, and I stood slowly bringing her with me.

"I'm scared, Rosa," she said looking at me. I smiled at her.

"Don't be. The chances you'll be picked are incredibly slim," i said with a forced smile.

"I didn't say I was scared for me," she said quietly, eyes big. My smile flickered, but I managed to hold it. A few more girls began trickling into our age group, all of which I knew. Minutes ticked by. 10:30; 11:02; around 11:45 people began trickling in; parents, aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, toddlers and wee babes and children just missing the cut-off by a year.

"Welcome to the first Graveyard Games, 100 years from the first Hunger Games," the man said. "Poetic, isn't it? I am your new mayor." Whispers rushed through the crowd. "Your old mayor... retired," he said with a crooked grin that set my insides bubbling. "Ah... the old saying is ladies first, eh?" he said, and a woman walked onto the stage. Two large men followed behind her each carrying a ball; one pink, one blue. They each had a slightly flattened indent on one side of the balls, and they settled them down on those. The woman reached her hand into the pink ball, and pulled out a single slip of paper.

"Allie Fitswitch," she read. A girl walked, stiff, from the roped off area with a 17 on it. As the lady reached in again, my heart sped up. Was it possible I wouldn't go? She pulled out another ticked of paper. "Primrose Everdeen Malark," she read. My hopes crushed. I knew better than that... sigh. I slid between the other girls in my roped off area, and walked calmly up to the stage. I stood beside Allie, and then the woman walked to the blue ball.

I allowed myself to hope that Ash wouldn't get called. At least then I could win without... I cut off the train of thought. She reached in, and drew out a slip. "Ash Everdeen Malark," she said. The hope was dashed as soon as it began. My heart started racing as I watched my little brother walk up to the stage, his eyes on me. The lady paused and looked back and forth between Ash and I. She reached into the ball and pulled out another slip. "Johnathon Peters," she said, and a boy with black hair from my age walked up onto the stage.

"Oohhhh, we're going to start the new games off with a kick!" the mayor said happily, looking from me to Ash and then back to me. I felt rebellion rise in my chest and on an impulse, I hugged Johnny, and then Allie even though I didn't know her. I glared fiercely at the mayor, and the peace keepers applauded happily, sadistic looks on their faces. The crowd clapped robotic-like. I saw Mom and Dad, and Mom was crying into Dad's shoulder and Baby Blue was watching me with a straight sober face, and sad eyes.

Two peacekeepers came up and led us off the stage quietly and to a building by the train-station. I threw one last look over my shoulder, seeing Baby Blue's head above the crowd, before going through the double doors.