Glimmer's Story

The Reaping

                                                                      Chapter One - Reaping

The bright sun shone in tiny, delicate streaks of light and danced across my pillow, warming my sleeping face. The comfortable matress beneath me groaned as I say up, the light pink duna slipping off the bed. With two of my fingers I enclose a sparkling pink sequin which has been sewn onto the duna, and close my eyes once more.

Today is reaping day. I felt both nervous and excited at the same time; because this was the day when everything changed.

Or was it?

I creep out of bed, using the early morning light to guide myself to the wardrobe that sits beside my bedroom door. The rest of my family probably won't be awake yet, so I make sure I take quiet steps and get dressed quickly.

My reaping outfit is something my sister Cashmere wore two years ago. It is knee high, and covered in tiny, shimmering butterfly patterns, which practically light up in the sun. Every movement makes the dress seem as if the butterflies printed upon it are real and moving. Light frills elegantly snake down from my thighs to the top of my knees, and a beautiful string of pearls will be placed around my neck. Cashmere volunteered when she was sixteen, out of pride and commitment. Against all odds, she won The Hunger Games, but out of sheer luck.

The game-makers that year had some pretty crazy things in the arena. My sister was up against the boy from District 2 in the finals. While other tributes were eaten and attacked by monsturous muttations such as monkeys that froze people in a statue of stone or wasps that could cause hallucinations, my sister battled ferociously against the boy from 2. She won by sticking her arm down his throat and killing him, and returned to our district with praise.

Now my family expected me to do the same. Only I've sort of delayed my time in the games; I'm eighteen. But I have to do this, it would mean humiliation for my family if I didn't.

Besides, I love the thrill. It's sort of like a huge shock of electricity running through you, a jolt of adrenalin. Just to run, to kill or be killed, brings a smile on my lips.

I twist my hair into something that resembles a loose french twist and walked downstairs into the kitchen, and take a dry cracker from the tin. Even in District 1 our rations of food easily get low.

Today my name was either going to be read out by our presentor or I will volunteer. I should be able  to win - No, I will win. And when I do I will live in the Victors Villiage and live a happy life, unlike the other tributes I will kill in the arena.

I wonder what weapons I will use for my first kill. A spear, a knife? I'm alright at using a bow and arrows, but I think using a knife will be much more fun to use. For my first kill, I could outline my victims' lips and cut out their eyes... either way, at least one kill will have to be slow and torturous.

I do like using axes. They can be very useful as well. Of course, this will almost always mean a quick death, unless I cut off their limbs as well as their tongues.

I think about this for a while as I slip on a pair of floral flats for my feet, and feel my heart rate quicken. I feel like a child on christmas morning, I feel so excited.

I dull thump comes from behind me, and I spin around, my hair flying, only to see my younger sister, Shimmer.

"Hi," she says, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She's still in her bed clothes, but I will help her change into her reaping outfit later.

"Hey. Have a good sleep?" I ask, pouring her a glass of milk.

"Yeah," she says, a white mustache appearing over her top lip from the drink. My sister wipes it off with the back of her sleeve.