The 64th Annual Hunger Games

Chapter One

I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep to the serene District 4 waves. Besides the noises of the water all was quite, but no one was sleeping. Tomorrow the children and adults alike of all Panem will gather around a pastel colored fool who will draw twenty-three to their deaths and one lucky soul to an empty life where they will be forever haunted by the faces and shrieks of dying children from their same country.

You can be drawn to the games from the year you turn twelve and you'll only be safe after your nineteenth birthday. Being eleven you'd think I would be care free for another year, but the day of the reaping just happens to fall on my birthday, making me just eligible to die.

My mom says not to worry and that the odds will be in my favor on my birthday, but something tells me it won't go well. Being in a career district we normally have an older volunteer, but there is a rumor going around school that nobody's gonna step up this year. My father was reaped when he was eighteen. By some miracle he won, but my mom says he was never the same. He was quiet and distant from everyone. When I was three he was shot and killed by peacekeepers before he reached the ground of the building he jumped off of. The capitol didn't say a word and made sure that the witnesses were taken care off. Our broken family was allowed to live to not draw suspicion and we continue to be showered with the riches of my father's victory if we don't mention him to anyone.

Somehow it's morning, though I know I didn't sleep. I'm twelve now and ready to die in the capitol's eyes. I say almost nothing to my mother all morning then I put on my nicest clothes. I don't know why we dress up so nicely for the people who will kill us. I look at myself in the mirror then take a good look at my room in case I never see it again.

I say a meaningful goodbye to my mom and start heading in to the crowd of other possible tributes. We each get our fingers pricked and there is a small commotion when the peace keeper thinks I'm too young, but she is quickly corrected that I turned twelve today and she locates my name in the book. I get my finger pricked and stamp my blood under my name. I laugh a little for some reason thinking to myself about how that's not going to be the first time I bleed at the fault of the Capitol. Others stare and I quickly depart to the large area in which other boys from my school are standing. I'm not really friends with too many of them and I end up standing next to my neighbor Finnick.

We don't converse, as many others do, and after an hour the talking silences and the representative the Capitol sent speaks up on the microphone. My heart beat drowns out the opening speech, then the neon turquoise women speaks up a little more.

"Let's not keep you all waiting for too long. I can tell your all just as excited as I am." She says with a smile and an accent. Of course no one makes a noise, but she looks as if she was expecting a laughing response. "Well then we'll just draw a lovely lady now, won't we?" She reaches in to the big glass bowl, ready to choose someone to die. I glance over at the thirteen year-old Finnick and see that he just has his eyes glued on a girl named Annie and worried look on his face. Before the Capitol women has the chance to pull out the paper that she had her fingers around a voice is heard amongst the crowd.

"I volunteer!" Says a deeper voiced girl. She steps in to the open and I get a good look at her. She was, no doubt, eighteen. She had very obvious muscles for a skinnier girl and her sand blonde hair was tied back to make her face visible. She strutted up to the stage with such confidence that you'd think that she'd rehearsed this yesterday. She steps on to the stage surprisingly delicately, and approaches the woman.

"Well now, that's the spirit young women! What is your name?" The announcer asks and holds a microphone up to her face.

"Key Brooks." She says, again with brute confidence.

"Well it's nice to have someone here enthusiastic about this honor." She says with a smile.

I look at Finnick and see that he is relived, but then he returns to a nervous expression when he realizes that he could still be reaped. I look back at Key and I can just picture her mercilessly tearing apart other tributes. She looks like nothing stop her from victory. I can't help but wonder what the name she was going to draw out of the bowl would've been, but my thoughts are interrupted by the microphone.

"Now let's see if we can find another strong tribute with the boys!" She says, and her hand dives straight to the bowl of male names and picks up one quickly. I don't know why I gave myself a false sense of hope that a boy would also volunteer since Key did, but all except her voice is dead silent.

I'm so scared that everything goes blank in my head for a bit and I can tell I'm probably shaking. She opens the slip of paper and loud and clear says the name of the male, district four, tribute.

"Asher Grey." She says with a pause between the first and last name. I instantly become dizzy with fear and I know that there are thousands of eyes on me. So much is happening in my head, yet somehow my feet are walking me closer to the stage. I want to just fall on the floor, cry, and wait for them to shoot me, but I don't. I keep walking, step by step, in front of everyone. I make the terrible mistake of looking back and manage to make out one face in all of the crowd. My mother is crying and holding her close friend. I quickly turn around and walk a little faster. I can't bare to see anyone cry over me. I decide in my head that I'm not going to seem weak, for both my mother and my father. I'm pretty much the only part of my father my mother has left. It seems like I was walking for ages, but eventually I make my way up the steps and center stage.

"Well, let's here it for this years, district four, tributes!" The announcer says. All is silent at first, but soon the loudest applause I've ever heard brakes out and some how I manage to smile at the death that I can only assume awaits me. The applause eventually stops and the two of us are herded in to the justice building, where we will begin our adventure towards death.