Reapings 7-12

District 7

Hazel Jackson

I go into my mother's room to check on her,

"Mom, are you doing okay?" I ask her.

"I…I…I'm okay Helen."

"No, Mom, its Hazel."

"I'm sorry sweetie , I was distracted by that big cloud that's floating in." My mother suffers from hallucinations, some say she is mentally unstable and want to put me and Helen, my twin sister, in a foster home, but I tell them that she is fine and that she I my mother, and not their problem. Sometimes the things she sees are as horrible as watching me and my twin sister Helen be murdered or as sweet as her and our father's – who died of a rare disease – wedding day, both things she would wake up from crying.

I look her in the eye, which is the only way to have her full attention and tell her that there is no cloud. I see her get confused and then she points to a shadow on the wall, mumbling something I can't catch.

"No Mom, that's a shadow." I try to be firm with her, but as soon as I look at her eyes I turn to mush, she has the eyes of a newborn cow, so trusting and hard to hurt.

"Mom, Helen and I need to go the Reapings, okay? We'll be back soon, I promise." I see her shake her head and then her eyes go wide, she knows there is a chance Helen or I might not come back.

"Don't volunteer." She croaks.

"I won't Mom, I promise. I'm sorry but I have to go."

She nods her head and I walk out the door. I walk into our bedroom, the one Helen and I share, and put on jeans, a black tee and some black boots, yup I definitely have a pattern going here.

I turn to look in the mirror to check my hair and see that Helen, who is always looking in the mirror, has already beaten me to it.

"El, do you mind?" I joke.

"Well suh-ry, some of us like to look like girls sometimes." She teases, keeping it light, but we decide we can both look in the mirror and then she starts giggling,

"What?" I ask.

"Look at us, we're complete opposites!" she laughs, and she's right, I'm in my almost all black outfit, with short auburn hair, and she's in a dress, a pretty one at that, with her long, and shiny hair in ringlets.

"El, where did you get that dress?" I ask knowing we definitely do not have the money for those kinds of things.

"I made it, I made you one too, but you said you would rather go into the Games than wear it." Now that she says it I do remember her showing me a horrifyingly frilly thing. But I wasn't aware that it was a dress.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know…I mean I didn't."

"Its fine." She says waving me off, we've become used to being opposites, but she's still my best friend.

"Let's go."

So we walk out the door and down to the Town Square arm in arm.

"WELCOME TO THE HUNGER GAMES!" booms our escort, Nolan Figgers, District 7 officials decided that since in the past some of our tributes have attempted to murder the escorts, since they were from the Capital, the officials assigned us an escort from D7, so now we have the only male escort, yippee for us.

"FIRST LET'S THANK OUR PRESIDENT FOR GIVING HIS TIME AND EFFORT TO OUR SPECIAL TRADITION!" Now would be the time that everyone would clap, but no one does, we all know why he's doing this, he wants to get put to a better district.

"NOW THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR…..THE CHOOSING OF OUR FEMALE TRIBUTE!"

He walks over to the bowl and starts fishing for a name, Helen starts to cut off the circulation in my hand and finally he calls out the "FEMALE TRIBUTE" I feel Helen's hand grow tighter.

"THIS YEAR'S FEMALE TRIBUTE IS…..HAZEL JAAAAAACKSON! COME ON UP HAZEL, DON'T BE SHY!"

I'm not being shy; I just don't particularly like death sentences.

But I walk up to the stage anyway, and shake his enthusiastic hand.

Well at least Helen will be here to take care of our mother while I can't

Cody Dawson

"Mom, Dad! I'm meeting… I've gotta go to the town square early, I'll see you there!" I call down to my parents, and then I rush out the back door to meet my friend Kali, she's my best friend, although she can be catty she's never turned on me. When I finally reach her house to pick her up – a tradition of ours –she is waiting on her front step, her head in her hands, but when she sees me she perks up.

"Ohhhh, I thought you were going to keep me waiting all day, not much of a gentleman you are!" she teases.

"My apologies." I say mocking her, it's an ongoing joke we have that we are dating, a rumor started by her "friend", but now whenever in public we pretend we are and are very formal.

"So, my lady, shall we be off?"

"Why sir, I think we should, don't want people to get ideas," she says, "or do we." She adds with a sly smile.

"I think…we don't, no today at least." I say.

"But, we have to remember that today could be the last day for them to make presumptions about us."

"But ma lady, I say we go off this instance!" I say throwing my hands up.

"Fine, if we must, but I declare we are taking the long way." She says, knowing that's as efficient as waiting until the bells ring to leave. And she also declared it so now we have to do what she wants. So we're off, around the sharp turns and through the allies, until finally I see the sun, I start to hurry up because the allies creep me out but then I remember that Kali is still on my arm, but she stops me,

"How do I look?" she asks, I roll my eyes because she's obsessed with appearance.

"You look fine, now really people really are going to get ideas."

"Hold on, hold on, your hair is messed up, let me fix it." She says, reaching her hand up to move my hair; but I swat it down,

"My hair looks fine, Kal, seriously we need to get there." I tell her.

"Calm down, we have time." Just as she says that the Peacekeepers start coming around looking for stragglers who thought they could ditch the Reapings. When they start to come down the ally we're in I shoot a look at Kali, "Run!" she hisses, and then we run.

"HEY GET BACK HERE!" one of the Peacekeepers yells, I'm afraid that they're going to shoot but we keep running.

As I'm running I hear a crash and I turn around I see that Kali has knocked down a crate so that the Peacekeepers can't come through. I hear exactly what I dread, the sound of guns going off.

I finally see the light, like literally the end of the ally and we break through panting,

"Well," she says panting and laughing, "that was fun!"

"Yeah, if fun was almost getting shot in the head!" I say,

"You know I almost hope I get reaped just so that I don't have to worry about being shot by Peacekeepers." I say, still joking.

"Alright bad boy, let's go." She whispers, because they have already called the female tribute.

"AND NOW FOR OUR MALE TRIBUTE!" screams Nolan Figgers, "COOOODDDDYYYYYYY DAWSON! COME ON UP CODY, DON'T BE SHY!"

I would like to tell him that I am not shy, I just don't particularly care for being reaped for my doom; but whatever. So I walk up to the stage and shake his hand and then Hazel's.

This is going to be a long week, or maybe an extremely short one.

District 8

Fawn Harrow

I giggle as Tin tells me about what he saw yesterday, his older sister and her boyfriend holding hands. But what I'm giggling at is the face he is making about it, as if it was some scandalous thing, holding someone's hand, so to make a point I grab Tin's hand and drag him off so I can say goodbye to my family in case I get reaped. As we run to my house Tin struggles to free his hand, but I'm not letting go. By the time we get there we are both out breath, which is good, that means he can't yell at me.

"See…it…wasn't….that…bad." I say in between breathes. I give him my mischievous smile, and he returns it. Tin is devilishly handsome, he has even been told he looks like Finnick Odair, who is considered the most handsome man in the world. But Tin also gets into a lot of trouble, although he is never punished. Tin is my best friend in the whole world, and although he is considered a "bad boy" he is the most thoughtful person in the world, at least to me he is.

As I walk in the door I see that most of my family has already left for the town square. But my father, Roman, is still here.

"Hello sweetie." He says, greeting me.

"Hey Dad," I say, "we were just stopping by to say goodbye."

"Oh, well then goodbye. I'll see you guys soon."

As we run down the street I run into Nill, my older brother, he's 18 and is always confident he won't get reaped, a confidence I seriously wish I had. When he sees that Tin and I are holding hands he gives us a mischievous smile, the same smile that I gave Tin earlier, when Tin realizes why we earned this smile he starts to blush but I just hold his hand tighter, I seriously need some way to get my stress about the games out and it seem like this is it, cutting off the circulation in Tin's hand.

"So, you two, what's going on?" Nill asks keeping up with that grin of his.

"Nothing, we're friends, Nill. Just friends. Okay?" as I look to my side I see Tin blushing, all the rumors he has going around about us and he chooses to blush at this? Baby. Well whatever.

"Let's go." I mutter to Tin and so we walk away, but not soon enough because I hear Nill call out "Have fun you two!"

Ughhh, he really knows how to embaress me; and my friends.

By the time we finally get to the Town Square everyone is already there so we just say goodbye, not without a friendly kiss on the cheek, and walk off to our sections.

First our mayor walks onto the stage for her speech, and then Oblivia Frelin comes up to reap the tributes.

"And now, for our female tribute!" she squeals out,

"FAWN HARROW! COME ON UP FAWN! FAWN HARROW ARE YOU THERE?" I realize she has called my name and I walk up to the stage, my legs feeling like lead.

"Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!" she starts squealing like a two year old.

"Thank you." I mutter, shaking her hand. I look around and see Nill shaking his head, and then I see my mother and father silently crying, but finally I see my best friend, Tin, blow me a kiss.

This is truly my worst nightmare.

Cole Madrox

I say goodbye to my mother, Tracy, my father, Flint, my sisters Aeela and Flora, and my brothers, Jax and Mason. And then my cousins Maritza and Cain. Next my aunt and uncle, Vin and Blake, and finally my grandparents. It's a tradition in my family to say goodbye to everyone before the reapings and then after we celebrate, it started when my grandfathers sister got reaped, they never got a chance to say goodbye to her, they were cheated, when they went to go say goodbye the Peacekeepers wouldn't let them. And now we say goodbye before the reapings. Finally when we are done I go out to find my friends, Faith, Jet, Carmen and Dale.

Faith is especially special to me, in fact I think I love her but I could never tell her, no there is too many dangers in our world for a family, a wife, kids. No, they could all be taken away as fast as I could reach them. Just look what happened to Peeta and Katniss, she tried to save both of them and now their district has to give double the tributes. When I finally find them Faith runs up and wraps her arms around me, she always get extremely sentimental on Reaping Days. "Hey" she says breathily.

"Hey" I chuckle, pulling her back a little.

"You look…good." I tell her, I want to tell her that she looks beautiful, amazing, gorgeous, stunning, but I think might scare her just a little. When I get over to everyone else they look at me oddly, but I just let it roll off.

"You guys ready?" Jet asks us, meaning to go to Town Square. We all nod our heads yes and we walk down the street. When we finally get to the town square Faith makes us all stop and she throws her arms around each one of us and gives us kisses on the cheeks, whispering good luck in each of our ears, or at least that's what she said to me.

When I finally get over to the dreaded reaping section Oblivia has already announced the girl tribute and I'm ecstatic it's not Faith; but then it's time for the male tribute.

"AND OUR FINE GENTLEMEN IS….COLE MADROX!"

No, no, no, no, no she must have called the wrong name but I know she hasn't so I shake my shaggy blond hair out of my face and walk up to the stage. First I shake Oblivia's hand and then Fawn's small delicate one, I really hope I don't have to kill her.

At least I already said goodbye to my family.

A/N Ok guys I'm sorry it took so long to update and it's not even the rest of the districts but I got a last minute tribute and couldn't turn them down so I decided that Katniss and Peeta did pull the berry stunt but rather than it turn into a revolution it failed and the punishment is that now D12 must submit 4 tributes, is that good with everyone? I already have my extra tributes. (they were submitted one through review the other through PM) I hope everyone is okay with this and I'm sorry it took me so long to update but the next Districts should be up in a few days! Tell me what you think!