Retch

No one could cry prettily, there was always the onslaught. You lie there on the floor of the room, heaving sobs and retching against the sour, black tears that are falling. You whimper into the plush rug and stain it with the saltiness of your tears. Pull yourself together! But you can't, you try to hold it in but you let out a scream, twisting one hand into your dress, hitting the floor with the other. You don't want to die, but you will, you have no chance. You'll be the girl from District 8, forgotten and murdered so easily.

Easy

He finds her as he comes to say goodbye. He is the only one. She is on the floor, curled into a ball with her hands over her face. He runs to her and falls to his knees. He will make this better; he has to make this better. He pulls her onto his lap and strokes her hair back, she flinches at the touch. He kisses her lips, she opens her eyes. He says goodbye and the tears return, heavy and dark. He holds her too tightly as she cries on. Life would almost be easy without the games.

Acceptance

I couldn't stop it, we needed the food; he had to enter himself again. He entered himself seven times extra every year, there would be fifty six slips with his name on by the time he was eighteen, if her ever got there. I knew he would go into the games, he would be picked and no one would volunteer. You never got any volunteers in District 10, no one stood up for you. He was brave, my boy, he would fight and he would fall, no doubt. But what could I do to stop him? He was too strong.

Pressure

He was prepared, he knew how to fight and he knew how to die. What else did a career need? He'd been trained since the day he could walk; he could use any weapon you could name and any weapon that you couldn't name either. He was ready, his friends were egging him on and his instructors told him to go for it. He was only focussed on winning, he wouldn't lose. But if he had to die, he hoped he wouldn't be made fun of back home. He wanted to die heroically, or return as a champion. I volunteer!

Injustice

Everybody knows that everybody dies, but they hope that it will occur peacefully and in their sleep. Not the Capitol though. They wish for all traitors to live as they watch their children get torn apart by savage monsters, or by other children. They scream for blood, bask in the wide pools of the dying contestants eyes. They take bets on who'll get chosen at the reaping. They aren't children, they a pawns in chess. Some cry in anguish when their television transmission goes down and they miss a vital part of the proceedings. Oh, the injustice of it all.

Nearing

Winter means death from the cold. Summer means death from the games. They know it's coming; they can feel it in the air. It's almost like lambs to the slaughter, people think they're oblivious but it only takes one slip for it all to descend into chaos. The citizens try desperately to claw their way back up to normality, but knowing that two children will die in a matter of weeks isn't the best thing to go to sleep on. No one gets much sleep in the month preceding the reaping. No one gets much sleep after the reaping either.

Growing

The hordes of people grew as the time approached the ninth hour. Younger children were reaching out and grabbing onto their parents, begging them not to let go. There were the careers, flexing their muscles and laughing nervously as the minutes chime away on the clock tower. The Capitol representative would arrive in the town centre at exactly nine o'clock so there was nothing to look at, just the growing sense of pride as the stronger children swaggered up to their sections. They would die in pain and anger, their lives would be cut short in childhood. It wasn't fair.

A/N: I thought you lovely people deserved another chapter :D thanks for all the reviews you've given me, and please review this chapter too?