The 71st Hunger Games: Purity

Chapter Three - Johanna

As usual, I wake up to a dutiful Maria shaking my body, telling me about how we're gonna be late if I don't get out of bed. This was commonplace in our little home, especially because the sound of a thousand geese flying through the house wouldn't be able to wake me up. Most of the days, Maria was my personal alarm clock, shaking me and warning me of how my bad sleeping habits were going to come and bite me in the ass.

After a grumbly "good morning" and a few death glares in Maria's direction, I manage to pull myself out of bed and get myself ready for the reaping. We both knew this wasn't reaping day worries; it was pure procrastination and unwillingness to get up.

I pulled the grey reaping dress over my head and looked down as it fell over my thin yet curvy body. I had never been one to waste my time thinking of guys or girls and the future I could have—for I knew it would be dull—but one thing I do know is that I have a killer body. Married men in the fields look at me as I walk by, and I know that if I can find someone willing to handle my sass, they'll love me for my body, and I guess that would be enough.

Maria, with her hair in neatly pleated dutch braids down her back, looks at me as I get ready. "You know, you'd be so much more of a catch if you could learn to shut up.

I roll my eyes as I pull on my last combat boot, jeering her as I walk out of the door. "Smart-ass" I sneer, my voice taunting, waiting for her response. She does not disappoint:

"Jerk" she replies, her hands on her hips.

I smile and wink over my shoulder at her, and I can audibly hear Emilia huff from the front of the house. "Let's go guys, we're gonna be late!" She commands, her voice trying—and failing—to sound like a mother rounding her children up for school. Maria and I quickly head to the front of the house, talking about what we could do with our day off of school and work once the reaping is over with.

As we approach the town square, a feeling of dread fills the air. This dread fits nicely with the grey clouds boom of thunder, followed by a drizzle of rain.

"Gee. Buzzkill much? You're gonna ruin the fun of the games!" Maria jokes as she holds out her hands into the rain, allowing the rain to wash away some of the grime that had built up on her skin. I do the same, allowing the water to rinse off some of the dirt from yesterday that I didn't get to.

Some parent in front of us turns around, casting a hard, cold look in our direction. She holds her child closer, as if protecting them from our sarcastic jokes aimed at the sky. I shrug, an obviously unapologetic "Sorry," floating out of my mouth.

I hardly wince as they prick my finger and point me in the direction of the seventeen year old girls, whereas Maria nervously holds her breath as the blood is sucked from her finger. She was small. Cute, hilarious, full of questions and curiosities, but small. We wave goodbye as we part directions, and I even blow a kiss in Emilia's direction as she goes off to stand with the parents and the other nineteen-plus year olds.

Our district escort, Joven Wordsworth, takes the stage. He didn't have a cane in hand, but I could sense the uncertainty in his steps as he walked across the stage. Joven was practically as old as Snow himself, I don't know how he's still an escort here and hasn't been replaced by some new, fresh thing. Like magic—some corrupt, disgusting, sadistic magic—the reaping video starts to play in the background, flashing behind Joven's white skin and even whiter hair.

At the commencement of the video, he turns to the audience with a dull, thin smile. "Now, to start the reaping," he sighs, hobbling over to the bowl of tributes that contained the names of thousands of unlucky children—some more than others. I know for a fact the odds were stacked against us: we had put both Maria and I's names in there as many times as the district would let us, because we needed the extra money. Now that Emilia was nineteen, she couldn't enter her name any more and bring in extra, so me and Maria really had to pick up the slack.