Left Alone{Gale Hawthorne Fanfiction} ➵ ➵ ➵

Chapter #5-May The Odds Be Never In Your Favor

A hush settles over the crowd as Undersee, our mayor, steps on to the stage.

Every year he tells us the same thing. He tells us about the terrible wars and natural disasters North America had experienced(now Panem) and how the only way to solve the fighting was the Hunger Games. Of course, we all know they could of solved it differently.

He also reads the list of previous victors in 12. In the last 74 years, there have been only two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He's drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he's confused and tries to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.

As the Mayor sits down in the chair next to the podium, 12's Escort to The Capitol, Effie Trinket bubbly takes his place near the bowl of death as I like to call it.

"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" says Effie adjusting her hair that must be a wig because the "hair" looks too fake. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.

I manage to find Katniss in the crowd of kids waiting for their name to get picked and die and give her a ghost of a smile knowing that those 42 slips of paper could cost me my life. The odds are never in my favor.

Soon it's time for the drawing.

As Always Effie says, "Ladies first" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. Slowly, she reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I'm feeling anxious and desperately hoping that it's not Katniss. Please let it not be her. Please. Please

As Effie crosses back near the podium, she opens the slip and with a clear voice reads the name. And it's not Katniss.

It's her sister.

Everything happened so fast. In an instant I saw Katniss pushing her way through the crowd pulling back Prim from the Peacekeepers.

"I VOLUNTEER!", she screams. "I VOLUNTEER FOR TRIBUTE!"

My worst nightmare has just become a living hell.