The boy with the bread: The back story to Peeta Mellark

Chapter 12

It's quiet. . . almost too quiet. Silence roams around the district, so that even the smallest of birds living in the meadow are heard chirping their way through morning. So quiet that the men stomping their way to the mines are louder than usual.

It's not a good quiet. It's not the quiet that shows peace and love between people in agreement. It's the kind that reflects fear, because very citizen that is part of a family has butterflies or knots in their stomachs. Knots that won't go away until after the damage is done and over with until next year.

Peeta likes silence. Living in a household that barely understands the meaning of quiet, it's not often that he is able to hear nothing but baby birds waking up in the morning. However, this kind of silence at the moment is killing him. Laying on his back on the old mattress they call a bed, no one is awake but him. Well at least until a girls haunting scream fills the silence for a brief moment. He wonders why it's so loud, but remembers what day is it . . . the poor girl is probably scared for her life. Literally. 

It's hard to calm yourself down when you know whats to come. In an hour or so, people will start getting themselves ready. Mothers will dress their children in the finest, cleanest clothes they own, only to send them to not an occasion celebrating happiness, but to an occasion that celebrates death. 

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Today is the reaping.

His mother is silent as she dresses herself and her husband. They wear a face that shows sadness, even if only two out of three of their sons are attending. Peeta is already wearing a button up shirt and his blond hair is combed back into a slick look he almost never wears. 

One of his brothers does the same, but leaves his darker hair lose and somewhat messy, even though their mother kept pushing them to look half decent. They will be on television in front of the Capitol anyway.

Today marks the beginning of the 74th Hunger Games. 

Streets begin to fill up as the time slowly arrives. Children from ages twelve to eighteen take their spot with the proper age group and Peeta separates from his family and walks off with his brother. They are the last two Mellark boys to enter the reaping, while his oldest brother sits with his parents. He walks behind him as the line for blood DNA test moves. A woman grabs his index finger and pricks it with a thin needle, sending a shock of pain through his body. He keeps walking. 

Effie Trinket's heels make their way onto the stage. With the familiar 'click' noise. 

He sees Katniss. She's consoling Prim, who's crying and holding her sister tight. Poor Prim, he thinks, it's her first time. 

Peeta walks into his place in the crowd of sixteen year old boys, with fear built up inside their bodies, aching to break lose and run for the hills. But no one can do that . . . not now, not ever. 

The Capitol is probably cheering right about now. They cheer their favourite districts name and have bets that include money. Automatically Peeta swears that he'll never think their way, never turn into the people they are  . . . right at the moment Effie's voice echoes from the microphone. 

"Welcome, welcome, Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Her pink wig and Capitol clothes fills Peeta with disgust. He pushes the thought away and listens as she continues talking about a video from the Capitol, which is shown every year. It plays and like usual, everyone is silent once again, listening to the tape speak words that are meaningless to Peeta. It's not an accomplishment to win. There are no winners, but how would he know . . . he's never been through it.