| The Forbidden | 1D | Hunger Games | 5SOS | Little Mix |

Chapter 1

Harry's P.O.V:

A cold shriek woke me from a restless sleep on that dreaded morning. I wasn't shocked to find that it was my older sister, Gemma, shaking and in a cold sweat, still asleep but muttering softly.

"Gem," I said gently, getting into her bed and stroking her sweat-soaked hair, "Gemma, wake up, it's okay, you're okay." As I spoke, she was shaking and her eyes slid open, red from crying.

"Harry," she said, her voice still uneven and breathy, "It was me, she picked me." As she spoke, she wiped the tears that had been haunting her. She awoke and clung to me.

I of course knew what she was referring to. Ever since she turned 12, Gemma was terrified of being chosen for the Hunger Games, a tragedy that was treated as a marvelous show by those who'd never experience the true horrors of the event. Every year, two tributes from ages twelve to eighteen were randomly selected from each of the twelve districts of Panem to fight to the death. For seventy years, one victor would surface in the life of luxury and spice. But the odds were definitely uneven, with better-off districts always taking the games. Coming from District 12, a tribute was almost guaranteed dead the second their name was spoken out of the district's ridiculous escort, Effie Trinket's mouth. The annual reaping. The saddest part of it all, in my eyes, was that there were people who enjoyed the Games. In the Capitol, the Hunger Games. The Capitol's children were never reaped (chosen), they didn't have to watch their friends kill anyone or die themselves. They looked forward to the glamorous parties before the Games, the excitement of watching the battle until their final heartbeat. It was sickening.

This would be Gemma's final reaping, as she turned 19 in three months, but she suspected her nightmares would never come back. Even while I was a year younger than her, I was always the one to comfort her. Although I was only seventeen, I was made the head of the household when my father ran away from the district. He tried to convince my mum of that for years, that they could make it on their own. The president forbade any sort of access outside of the district, afraid of what would happen once enough people were out of his control. "We could do it, Anne. I know there's something out there! How can we be on this gigantic Earth and be the only ones left?" my father plead with her. Eventually, he decided that he was going to find this place that he wasn't even sure existed with or without his family. It had been five years since anyone had seen or heard from my father. He, along with a majority of men in District 12, had worked in the coal mines, and that was their only source of money. My mum worked part time at a bakery, but that couldn't pay for a family of three. After my father left, Anne took up working full time, but it still wasn't enough to get by on, so Gemma took a job there too. When I was thirteen, I began singing at weddings and parties of those who could afford it, and eventually, word got around about my voice. I now support my family almost completely my own, and somehow , I became a emotional support as well.

"It wasn't real, it was all a dream," I whispered to her for quite possibly the thousandth time.

"But what if they pick me?" Gemma looked at me through wide, terrified eyes.

"They won't, Gem. I promise you. And you know what? This is the last one. The last time you'll have to be in it. It's gonna be alright," as I spoke, I held out my pinkie, and Gemma locked hers with mine, feeling infinitely better.

It was early morning, but not early enough to go back to bed, I began to get ready for the reaping. While Gemma dressed, I drew water to wash my face, hair, and hands. I brought the bucket to their small bathroom, setting it down in front of the mirror. I stared at my reflection as I scrubbed at my face, attempting to remove the coal dust that has settled into my skin. I never even been inside of the mines, but there was always black fog looming in the air.