A/N: In case you haven't noticed, I have spelling errors, 'cause I still use Wordpad...don't ask why, I just do. Sorry!
Scorpio Trough, District 4
I woke up before even the sun registered the day. The sky was tinted pink, blue, and purple hues from the chased night into the Reaping day. I hauled a dripping net from the side of my creaky boat to find a few small fish, nothing more. Usually they were biting about now. Maybe even they sensed the tension at the Reaping. It's worth a theory. I squinted my eyes to peer a smallish shadow on the nearby dock.
It was my little brother, Quarius. I waved, and he pulled my oily rope from the slivery green water to draw me in. He wiped his hands on his shirt.
"How many?" he asked. I shrugged, holding up the nearly empty net. He nodded.
"Let's go. Mom's waiting." he said, but there was a hint of sadness in his voice. No surprise. Quarius was just a baby when my father left. I still remembered him, but maybe I'd do better for me to forget even that. We walked across the dusty lane of Dewberry St. up to the Reaping square. My mother, Ariel, wrung her lace gloves together nervously. The gloves were the only the thing besides his fishing gear and the house that my father, Orion, left me. He named me after the constellation Scorpio, the scorpion, just as he was named Orion, after the hunter constellation.
"Someday," he's say, hooking another worm, "I'll bring you do the observatory in the Capitol." His promises were all dust in the wind now.
Our escort, a man who was dressed in a battered brown suit, tapped the microphone, causing it to squeal.
"Now then, let's get started." he said. He concentrated at the Reaping list, which I could see had pen marks circling names. But that would mean...
"Scorpio Trough to the stage, please." he spoke my fate. I drifted forward as if in a dream, a nightmare.
"And for the female, ahem, tribute, Ari Granhort!" he yelled. The speakers screamed.
A younger-looking girl with straight blond hair walked up the unstable stairs to the stage. She looked nervous. Her family consisted of her parents, and they shot her tired faces. No matter. She drew out what I guessed was her Token, a small golden nugget. I looked at my empty pockets and realized that the only thing for a Token I had with me was my old fishing line, which was sure to be revoked. Without Dewberry Lake, I don't know how life'll go on.
But it must. And it will.
Really enjoyed this character...