Prim in the games

Chapter two; The tributes

I am still in shock. I sit on the red velvet couch in the justice building and all that I can think is that I am going to die. I touch the cushion beneath me, thinking of Katniss's velvety ribbon. I cannot believe that she did not volunteer to go for me. I know that it is incredibly selfish for me to even think, but I cannot help it. I will die in the arena. She at least can shoot a bow. She would at least have a chance. The door to the room I am in creaks open and my mother and Katniss walk through. My mother has clearly been sobbing, and Katniss looks ready to do the same. She stands in the background, fiddling with the end of her long braid as my mother collapses upon me. She cries into my shoulder and I can feel the hot sting of tears but I must stay strong. I am already at a disadvantage. I must not let the other tributes mark me as both young and weak. The cameras at the train station with surely be trained on me, the youngest tribute that Panem has ever seen. My mother suddenly pulls her head away from me and grips my shoulders tightly.

"Prim, you must listen to me." She says, her breath hot on my cheeks, "You must be careful. You have to listen to everything that Haymitch tells you to do. You have to hunt to feed yourself. Prim, this is going to be difficult. You are going to have to kill both animals and people to survive. You have to come back. I need my baby back. Do you promise? Promise me Prim. Promise me!" She shakes me violently and her crying resumes. I cannot help it any longer. The tears drip down my cheeks and fall to the floor.

"I promise." I choke out, "I promise."

Now it is Katniss's turn to speak to me. My mother moves to the side and before I can say anything her arm are wrapped around me.

"Prim." She whispers, and I lean forward to hear what she is saying. "Prim you have to go to the edible plants section. You need to use that memory of yours and you need to learn what you can eat and what you can't. You also have to learn to set traps and snares. Prim, the games are a terrible, terrible place and you have to learn to do things that you would never do otherwise. You need to climb, okay. You're one of the best climbers I have ever seen. Stick to the trees. There are almost always trees and where there are trees there are birds. You have to learn how to do something though Prim. Knifes, bows, spears, I don't care. Just learn how to do something and push the part of you that knows that this is wrong so deep down in yourself that you wont even think about it. Prim, you have to promise to come back. I need you to come back." Now she too is crying, and I can barely hear her last words. 'I'm so sorry that I didn't volunteer for you Prim. I let you down. I'm so, so sorry. I love you Prim." Now they are being called out of the room and Katniss only has time to move in toward me before they are whisked out.

"Tuck your tail in little duck." She says as she sticks the back of my shirt into my skirt and then she is gone, and I am alone once more.

My next visitor is unexpected. Rory Hawthorne pushes open the door and steps in gingerly. He looks down at his feet as he walks toward me, and suddenly he is throwing his arms around my shoulders and hugging me tightly. When he pulls away he is holding a golden bracelet in his hands. I look at it, dumbfounded. I had only seen the bracelet once before. It had been in Rory's mothers room, in her jewellery cabinet. She had told up not to touch it, for it had been her grandmothers.

"Rory I-" I say, but he places a finger on my lips and slips the bracelet onto my wrist. It clamps tightly shut, insuring that it will not fall off.

"Keep it." He says in a husky voice, "To remember me by."

This means that he, like I, believe that I will not be coming back alive from the arena.

"Ok." I whisper, and he continues.

"You're allowed to take one token from home. Will you take this?"

I look down at the thin golden cuff strapped to my wrist.

"Of course I will." I murmur, and then he too is being pulled from the room the door is slammed closed, sealing me off forever with the only people I love.

I get no more visitors, and I am hastily pulled from the room and into the bustling train station. I was right about the cameras, but suddenly I do not care that the entire country sees the tears staining my cheeks. Though I now realise that Katniss was wrong about letting me down, I know that she was right about one thing. I can climb. We used to have a towering elm tree in the yard and any chance I got I would be scaling the branches, my little stature and weight meaning that I could climb to the highest branches without any trouble. And people have a hard time killing what they can't reach. I look to the cameras, making sure that they see my tear stained cheeks, and seeing that I am not ashamed of them. I want them to see that I am Primrose Everdeen, the youngest tribute of the 74th hunger games, and I am not afraid. I am sad, but I am not afraid.

Once I am on the train I am led to a compartment by none other than Effie Trinket. I am amazed by the sheer size of the compartment, the amount of clothes in the cupboards, the softness of the sheets. I collapse, stripping down to my underclothes and pulling on the soft night-clothes that they have lain out for me. I pull a night gown on over it all and slip my feet into the sheepskin slippers at the foot of my bed. I then pad to the dining car and sit down at the long mahogany table. Peeta sits to my right, looking imposing and intimidating in his reaping day clothes. Haymitch sits at the other side of the table, his front covered in dried vomit. I know vaguely remember him at the reaping falling off of the stage, but I had been too involved in my own thoughts to really notice. He is slumped over a large bottle which I think is filled with wine, but I cannot be sure. His long hair hangs around his face in a greasy curtain of knots and tangles and he seems to be refusing to eat. I do not know what to eat either, for the table is so laden with food that it would be impossible to try everything. Peeta pushes a steaming mug of something brown in front of me and look at is apprehensively.

"It's good." He mumbles and I raise the cup to my nose and sniff it cautiously. "They call it hot chocolate." He continues and I sip is. It is hot, and my tongue stings, but it is delicious and I find myself drinking more despite the heat.

"Mmh." I say and place my cup down on the table. "It is good."

Effie suddenly bursts into the room, orange hair bouncing cheerfully. "Alright everybody. I hope that you're eating up. It's time to watch the replay of the reapings. Prim, have you eaten yet?" I shake my head and she looks nearly distraught as she gasps and pushes a plate of some sort of meat and rice in front of me.

"Well dear, then you need to eat while we're watching. They're playing the recap now."

I look up to the large screen hung above the doorway before me. Suddenly the seal of Panem appears and Caesar Flickerman appears on the screen. He introduces himself and, starting at district one, he introduces the tributes. They flicker by too quickly for me to really comprehend, but I pick up a few names that stick out in particular. A boy named Cato from district two, a girl named Finch from district five, but I immediately dub her foxy, because her face is sleek and pointed, like the animal I have named her for, and a girl from district eleven who looks to be around my age named Ru. Then it is my own face on the screen, the silence which follows after my name has been called, then Peeta, and then a black screen. Switching back to Caesar, he talks a little longer about the games before he says goodnight and the screen goes dark. I look down and realise that I have eaten my entire plate of food. I look back up and see the others staring at me. Effie's face is laced with disgust, and I realise with a pang of guilt that I have eaten the entire meal with my hands. I clear my throat and stand from the table, pushing my chair back and rushing from the table and into my dining cart. Sitting on my bed, I think about how I was so wrapped up in the reapings that I didn't even realise that my manners had completely gone out of the window. I pull the sheets back from the mattress and settle down on the pillow. I try to think of that nights events, but I'm so stuffed full of meat and rice that I drift right off into a sleep plagued by silent crowds and tearful goodbyes

A/N: This is chapter two of Prim in the games. If you want to know how she fares in the terrible world of the hunger games arena make sure to check out Chapter three!