My Hunger Games
Chapter One - Reaped
District One
"C'mon, pleeeeeeeease?"
"No."
"PLEASE? I'll be the best girl ever, I swear!"
My little sister Birdie reaches for my high up arms, begging to be thrown onto the bed again. I'm standing here with my arms folded, being goodnatured towards her. She's the only person in my family that I really love, how could I treat her unfairly?
"You're already the best girl ever!"
Birdie giggles and slaps her arms by her sides as I force my fingers beneath her underarms. She laughs in the cute way that she does, and I throw her a soft gown from the cupboard.
"Come on, we don't have time for this." I insist, and she stares at me, smiling cheekily as she pulls on the dress that Mum made for her over her head. It's a pretty little thing, peach coloured satin with a nice strap around the middle that becomes a huge bow at the back. It's got a sort of mushroom look to it, puffing out below the waist. Simple but pretty.
I frown as I'm admiring the dress. I try not to think like that. I guess I get it from my Mum.
My father Blade and my brother Lion walk in, discussing tactics for getting reaped.
"Dad, Lion!" I laugh at them, covering myself with my blanket at the last minute.
"Calm down, I thought you wanted to be a boy?" Lion snorts, and my father shoots me a disapproving glance as they walk through the other door in my room. I bundle my dress up, my face a whirling storm, and ask Birdie gently to leave my bedroom. I try with those two, I really do. I want to win the Hunger Games, no, I have to win the Hunger Games. I refuse to become some famous designer like my mother, I want to be like my father. Neither of my parents will accept it, and since Lion is Dad's favourite, he has the same opinions. Birdie just wants to have fun. Panther is a different matter.
Speaking of which, I snap back from my rant inside myself as my eldest brother walks into the room.
"Mum said she wanted you to have this one instead. She's trying to make you more girly." he says empathetically. I snap back at him.
"Yeah well you're a loner kid who's never gonna win anything. You can't even claim credit for the books you write!" He smiles at me and cocks his head to the side.
"What books?" he asks innocently. I huff angrily.
"The books that you write. They go to the Capitol. Under the pen name Tomas Evancloud?" His expression darkens.
"Who did you tell?"
"No one."
"Let's keep it that way Tigress. Please?" he stares almost into me. He looks like Dad. He's tall, thinner than him, but he's stronger than Lion even, and he has the same smooth dark hair and deep brown eyes. He's got Mum's nose. I nod, and take the dress from him, still in my underwear as he leaves the room. My dress is a light grey silk one, with a hem that can reach my feet, or go up to my thighs, and a maroon strip of fabric around the waist accompanied by a maroon blazer with grey lining. School girl clothes - currently the height of fashion in the Capitol. I throw it away in disgust, and choose a flowing, ivy green ball gown with jagged sleeves that cut up and down at random intervals. It is simple compared to some dresses, but it's right for me. I let my hair down, watching the ginger and black striped waves fall down to my shoulders, taking pleasure in my animal pelt-like hair through the mirror. I walk out and take my place next to the other popular girls in my year who are also fifteen, and I burst into a confident smile. The name Qiara Moonlake is called, a name unfamiliar to my mind, but I stand up straighter, my mouth forming the shape of an 'i'.
"Our female tribute for District 1 everybody! Would anybody like to volunteer?"
"I VOLUNTEER!" I shout. The escort has barely finished speaking but I jump up next to him on the stage, and he smiles. I think he recognises me.
"Tigress Deekoi everyone, our lady for District 1!" I smile and blow kisses into the crowd, waving at my family, who all stare at me in dismay and with hatred. Panther seems more sad though. I can't think why.
I awake, stretching my arm out for a cool space on my bed, kicking the duvet off of me lazily, and I sit up suddenly.
It's reaping day.
Today is the day I volunteer, and it's all about the timing. I stare at my holographic wall clock in alarm, as I read 1:45pm off of the sky blue walls. I shoot out of bed and grab some army green combat trousers with a handsome grey top and translucent yellow jacket made of plastic and a built in bow tie. I race out of the house, assuming that my parents would have forgotten about me, and run to the main square, where everyone has assembled. I stare up at the screens which show the stage through the Capitol camera men's point of view, and nervously jiggle about as they take a small sample of my blood and I push to the front of the sixteen's crowd.
"Drako! I had no idea where you were man, I thought you might miss it! I'm volunteering this time." my friend Alexei weaves his way through the crowd towards me. He's my best friend, sure, but he's as skinny as a rake, however attractive he may be.
"No way dude. This is my year." I shake my head and purposely tense the muscles in my arms. I have been training my entire life for this spot, he cannot, and will not take my place. Alexei backs down.
"Woah. You're not gonna hit me with those things are ya?" he puts on a brave face I guess. For someone his size. I study my arms and shrug.
"Maybe. Yes. I want to."
"Ok man. Put your muscles away. Take a deep breath. I'm doing it this year. You're not gonna hurt m-" I cut him off with a brutal punch in his nose, and watch the skin burst as blood sprays everywhere. Alexei screams like a girl, it's ridiculous. Fights break out often at the reapings, so it's not a big deal, but my wicked punch sprayed a lot of people, and some girls glare at me with looks that can kill. I'm tempted to punch them too.
Peacekeepers come and take him away for antibiotics but he doesn't come back by the time the speech about Panem is being told, and I smile. The reaping starts, and I doze off in my head for the first bit.
"Dark days...bad...treaty of treason...remind us...Glorious Capitol." I jerk my head back up and to find Deekoi's oldest girl on the stage, and I sigh. What a pretty face...she won't make it through the Bloodbath. I can tell she's never even been trained before. She replaced some sobbing 12 year old, and I'm glad for that, because I hate it when someone unprepared comes on and makes District 1 look bad. I look up to see the escort for our district with her hand plunged deep into the right hand bowl, and I pray that it's not me. A boy's name is chosen.
Surprisingly,
It's Alexei Chung.
I laugh loudly, and some kids around me get it, and join in too as I shout out loudly,
"I volunteer!"
About a hundred other boys volunteer for his place, but I'm first up their, and the escort has been bribed by my father anyway. I take my place up on the stage next to the girl, Tigress I think I heard, and we shake hands and hold our jointed arms in the air. She continues to blow kisses like a baby, trying to pathetically win the crowd's favour. I just wave and smile. Just wave and smile.
District Two
"Howl! Get up!"
I jerk out of bed, sitting up straight although my eyes are still blurry with the sleep that covers my eyelashes, to the pleasant image of my infuriated father.
"You were supposed to be up and dressed ten minutes ago!" he shouts above me. I sit up straighter, although a few seconds ago, I didn't think that was possible.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what got into me, and I'll be down in the training centre in five minutes." I say sweetly, my eyes narrowing more and more the longer I talk. My Dad steps back and glares at me.
"Don't you talk to me like that. If you're not there in three minutes, I will be having a serious chat with your Mother!" he snaps at me, spit flying in my face. The door hasn't even closed by the time I've got my underwear on, and I hurriedly pull up my skinny jeans and a grey tank top. My sister Elektra bought them for me before she ran off with that District 3 victor, they're really flexible, since they aren't actually made of denim, it's like an illusional plastic or something. I still miss her loads.
I sprint down the hallway and jump down the flight of stairs, hearing an annoyed "Hey!" from my mother as I fly past her in the kitchen and down the second set of stairs that lead to the dark basement before the Draconix family's personal training centre. Shoving the door open with all my might, I almost fall into the huge hall filled with spears, daggers, bows, arrows, swords and various other objects of death. I see a tall, dark haired figure much like my father launching a knife from his muscular arms, right into the heart of a moving dummy. He turns to me and grins.
"A little late, aren't you Howl?" he smirks as I jog past him, straight towards the array of spears. I scowl at him, and he laughs patronizingly.
"Aren't you a victor Azael? Why do you need to practice? In trouble with Dad for something?" I retort. Of course, that could never be the case. Since Azael won the 172nd Hunger Games, he has been my father's favourite person after my mum. They go everywhere together, discuss everything together, and they both hate me. Elektra was the only one in my family who kept things together for me. But this year, I'll win. If that's all anyone wants from me, then I'll get it, I'll show them what I can do.
Azael snorts, and turns back to the dummies, grabbing a fistful of knives by their handles and chucking them viciously towards the heads and hearts of the artificial tributes. He doesn't miss any of them.
I look up and down at my beloved mix of spears and javelins, some long, some short and all of them gold. There are only two silver ones in the training centre, and I don't use those very often. I only use them for role play, (when we get all of the servants in the house to be tributes and me and Azael and Dad try to kill them. They always have protective vests, but it feels great, because the vest are filled with fake blood that spurts out when you hit them. It's a phenomenal experience) because the most likely fact is, that in the arena, they'll only have silver spears.
My Dad comes into the arena after an three hours of me perfecting my archery skills, and trying out some of the other weapons, like swords. He hurries me and Azael along to the District center, where I crowd among the other twelve-year-olds who all look muscular and tough. They call the female tribute's name, and I don't bother to pay attention when she stands up on the stage, but as soon as they ask for volunteers, I practically scream "ME!"
I bounce up to the stage in excitement. The crowd cheer when they recognise me, the daughter of Kronos Draconix, the sister of Azael Draconix, and I know that they expect me to win. Well I will win, won't I? Of course. This is my year to rule the Hunger Games.
BEEP!
What is that noise..?
BEEP!
Ugh...
BEEP!
I roll over and slam my hand down onto the alarm clock, shattering it into pieces that spray over the carpet and my bed, and I feel a little pinch in my eye as one of the pieces flies into my closed eyelid. It's lucky it was closed. I sit up and groan, not out of pain, out of the ache in my back from training nonstop yesterday. The bright side is that I don't have to get up early today. The bad side is the result.
I do that a lot, breaking my clocks, so it's not unusual to see me buying ten or twelve of them at a time. I open the white doors to my huge walk-in-wardrobe, and grab a nice blue one that is technically a cushion that shows a holographic screen in your face when you press a button on the back. I like these ones. You can't easily destroy them, but I still do, and they're hardly ever in stock at the mall. I resist the temptation for a second, but then I launch myself back onto the bed.
"Riley?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you up yet?"
I roll over in my bed with my chest to the water-filled mattress. "I'm just coming downstairs! Keep your arse on!" I shout angrily, as I kick the duvet off of my body with my feet, and I rub my eyes to get the crumbly yellow stuff that sits on them at night off and my vision clears slightly. I take a huge step over to the wardrobe, looking through my trouser choices as I pull on a T-shirt with an illusion that creates the night sky on the fabric that outlines the muscular arms that I have. I choose a simple pair of plasnim shorts (plastic denim) and a silver crescent shaped hat that looks like a moon, and only covers half of my wild blonde hair. I put on white sandals that match the hat, and stroll confidently down the stairs into the kitchen, to the sight of my brother Mychal, who's munching on some dried fruit slices soaked in liquid-honey. He nods with his mouthful, and slides a bowl towards me.
"Where's Jackson?" My eldest brother Jackson, who looks much like me, with same blue eyes and easy smile, except he has dark brown hair. Mychal on the other hand has the same blonde hair as me, but he has grey eyes. He's always been popular with the ladies.
"Good morning to you too. He realised that when you said, 'I'm just coming down the stairs!' you weren't gonna be down for another ten minutes, so he left. Looks like he was right." My brother and I laugh, his cloud-like eyes sparkling with light humour. Neither of my brothers have ever won the Hunger Games, but it's all that I can think about. Jackson always wanted too, but he never managed to volunteer first, and the dream faded. Mychal was never interested. I don't know why. Who wouldn't want all that glory, all that respect and fame and wealth...and the thrill of seeing death in your enemies eyes in the actual Games...wouldn't that be amazing?
"Clever man. Are you coming to the reaping?" Mychal shakes his head.
"I never come, you know that." Every year, Mychal has his blood taken, and he stands in the crowd for the speech about Panem, but he escapes after that.
"Will you come this once? Please?" He looks at me suspiciously.
"Why? Are you going to volunteer?" his voice raises to an angry shout, but I can hear fear behind it. This confuses me.
"Um, no. My friend Melahee said she was going to volunteer, and I don't want to have to come to the Justice Building with Jackson. He's like, eleven years older than me, and it looks weird." Mychal holds his breath for a second, but then he sighs and his muscles relax.
"Fine. Well let's go then."
Once we're in the crowd, we have already missed the early speech and video, and there is a girl from the Draconix family up on stage. Good for her. Now who's the male tribute?
"Kiall Blue!" The boy walks up to the stage in a defeated hunch and stands tensed, ready to walk back down from the stage.
"I volunteer!" A boy across from me says at the same time as I shout, but after a tense couple of seconds, the escort beckons me up to the glass bowls. I smile at the boy and bunch my fists at him. He looks eighteen. I guess that was his last shot.
"What's your name sir?"
"Riley Townson." I say, and the announcer shouts my name to the whole of District Two, who cheer loudly and stamp their feet in approval. I hold hands with the Draconix girl, who's only twelve, and I smile with my teeth, shouting with happiness and hope, ignoring the tiny scrap beside me. My eyes find Mychal's in the crowd, and I frown at his look of betrayal, dismay, hopelessness. His mouth is open in protest, but I hear nothing coming out. Why doesn't he want this for me? Does he think that I can't win..? I'll show him. I'll show them all.