The first hunger games- Abandoned

Chapter fourteen: the reaping

I watch as our escort pulls a name from the female's bowl, she opens her mouth and reads the name of Lillie Say to the crowd and I begin to walk up to the stage in utter shock. Suddenly I'm now in the arena and I'm lying on the ground. I try to get up but I'm stuck, I look down and notice that my leg is bleeding. Heavily. I watch as a boy walks up to me with a sword in his hand and a grin on his face, I try to yell for help but nothing comes out. The boy plunges his sword through my heart. I wake up screaming with sweat dripping down my forehead and continue to scream until I realize where I am. I'm at home, in my bed, but that doesn't calm me down. Today's the day everybody's been dreading, the reaping. I've been having nightmares the past three days of what horror could be placed upon me but last nights was the worst so far. I get out of bed and notice my mother is already up, I walk into the kitchen and see that she has sliced half a loaf of bread and spread goat cheese across it, she also put what looks like a barley leaf on top and has made some mint leaf tea as well. "I heard you screaming" she says sitting down on the chair, "then why didn't you come?" I ask lifting the bread to my mouth. As I eat she tells me that I've been screaming myself awake for the past couple of nights so she stopped coming, she came for the first two nights but didn't today because she was making breakfast. Nice mom, (notice the sarcasm). "Well, thanks for breakfast and the tea" I say "well, I thought that since its the reaping it could possibly be your last... Oh, uh, I just thought it would be nice to have a good meal." She says with a depressed look, "so wheres your dress?" She asks trying to lighten the mood, although we're still talking about the reaping so she didn't lighten it to much, but I'm actually exited about getting a dress! I've only ever had one other dress in my life, and that was when I first got adopted. "Emeralds mom is making them for us, Emeralds bringing it over soon." I say with excitement in my voice, and with that there's a knock on the door. As I open the door I can see the excitement in her eyes as well, although there is still a hint of depression, but who isn't feeling depressed today? "I ran the whole way here! Don't worry I didn't look at them yet, I wanted to pull them out together!" Emerald almost squeals the entire sentence and walks through the door, in her hand I see a paper bag, both dress's in the one bag because her mom probably doesn't own a lot of extra bags. She hands me the bag and we both walk to my room, I shut the door and pull out the dress's and they're beautiful! Even better then I could have imagined, how her mom got the money for the fabric I will never know. Emerald squeals taking the dark purple dress from my hand. "This one is mine and that one is yours, my mom said that mine was dark purple and yours was coral" she says feeling the fabric of her dress between her fingers, "what's coral? It's a beautiful dress and so is the colour but what is it?" I say also feeling the fabric, I've never felt anything like this before. "My mom said that the store owner told her that District eight just started manufacturing the colour, he said it was a pinkish reddish plant that grew in the ocean" she says very matter-a-factly. "Well I love it!" "My mom knew you would" she says with a smile, "the style is so cool!" I say with a little giggle, "then try it on! You stay here and I'll go into the bathroom, yell when you're ready" she says walking out of my room and closing the door. I slip off my moms shirt that I use as pyjamas and an old pare of two sizes too small and one size too big pants and slip on my dress, it feels like I'm a princess or a citizen of the Capitol, the dress just skims my knees and has a really nice flowy skirt, it has this really cool top, the straps are fat tank straps sort of in the shape of an upside down triangle and they hang off of my shoulders just the perfect amount, and the neck line looks like the top half of a heart but it doesn't go very deep. It's so pretty that as soon as I put it on my jaw dropped, I can't believe I have such a pretty dress on or that Emeralds mom could afford to make them or that her mom can sew so well! Everything about this day is unbelievable, whether its in a good way or a bad. "YOU CAN COME IN NOW!" I yell to Emerald through the door, I can't wait to see hers! As soon as she walks in both of our jaws drop and after a few seconds we start to giggle and both our faces are takin up by a huge grin. "You look so pretty" we say in unison, "Lillie! Your dress is so pretty!" She says stepping closer "I know! And so is yours" I say twirling around. Emeralds dress is a little like mine in ways, her dress also goes down to just above her knees and is flowy, just not as flowy as mine, but the top is different. The top of her dress is one shouldered, the one thick strap off to the left shoulder and the neck line is on a slope because it goes from her armpit on her right arm to her shoulder on her left. She walks right up to me and we lock hands and start spinning in circles and giggling. After around ten minuets of that my mom calls us over. When she sees our dresses her jaw drops as well and her eyes light up in joy. "Emerald, the reapings in an hour so you should head home" my mom says as she has me turn around to see the back of the dress. "Alright, bye Lillie I'll see you in an hour" she says walking out the door and shutting it. "Go take that off and get in the tub, I already heated the water for you" she says turning towards the tub in the kitchen. "Ok" I say heading into my room.
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"Lillie, time to leave!" My mom yells as I finish brushing my hair. As I arrive in the living room my mom is also dressed in a long dress that she kept from before the Dark Days and is holding a pair of black sandals that have a small heel. "They're for you" she says holding out the shoes. "Really? Thank you!" I say right before I practically steal them from her hands. "I thought you'd like them, now put them on quickly we have to get going" she says. Once I finish putting on the shoes I stand up and instantly feel a year older. I've never worn heels before so I'm glad they're short or else I would defiantly fall. "You look magnificent! My baby's growing up" mom says opening the door to go outside.
As we get closer and closer to the square the more my excitement over my new outfit lessons and the more nervous I get. "Mom, I'm scared, what would happen if I got picked? I know nothing about the games!" I say playing with the hem of my dress. "Don't worry Lillie, you're not going to get picked. There are 500 other girls that have more slips in that bowl than you do. You didn't take tesserae, and you're names only in there twice." As we reach the square I'm blown away, practically everyone in the district is here and there is a really weird dressed lady on the platform. She's obviously from the Capitol, probably the escort. There's a line up of people and a peacekeeper is telling me that I need to get in line. I give my mom a hug and she hugs me back, whispering in my ear "I love you. Be brave and everything will be alright" and I whisper back "thanks, I love you too" and with that I'm in a line to do or get who knows what.
After a couple minuets of waiting it turns out that I was in line to get pricked for blood, and after that I was sent to stand with the rest of the thirteen year old girls in a roped off section near the back of the square. Finally I find Emerald through the sea of terrified teenagers. "Hey" I say at almost a whisper, a very raspy one I might add, "hi" she says back but with a little more power than my own voice. Suddenly tears start to spill out of my eyes and Emerald is embracing me in a hug. We stay in that hug for a little while longer letting my tears run slowly down my cheeks and telling each other how scared we are. After a few minuets the weird lady starts to speak and we break free and stand there with our hands intertwined. She introduces herself as Grenadene and shows us a video about the war and talks about stupid stuff that I just tune out. I tune back in though when she announces "it is now time to select one courages young man and women for the honour of representing District 6 in the first annual Hunger Games, lady's first!" I turn to Emerald and she turns to me and i just keep repeating what my mom said to me before i got in line and for a moment everything is in slow motion and the only sound is of Grenadenes heels as she makes her way to the reaping bowl. She pulls out the first slip she sees and walks back. By this time my heart is bursting out of my chest and I feel like vomiting and I'm so nervous that I don't hear who's name she pulled the first time she read it. Then I hear it, "Lillie Say" and I wish that I hadn't because its the most terrifying thing in the world at the moment. Emerald bursts into tears and I look way over and my mom is in the same state. Although unlike them I don't cry, because I have to be strong and brave and everything will be alright and if I want to look like someone who can win I have to follow those words and not cry in front of the whole of Panem. The rest of the group of girls makes way for me as I step out of the roped area and I walk towards the stage. As I walk towards the steps I'm trying not to cry and I'm repeating that one sentence that my mom whispered to me and I'm trying to remember to breath. Once I'm on the stage Grenadene grabs hold of me and pulls me to where I have to stand. She then announces that the boys are next or something like that and starts to walk over to the boys reaping bowl. As I'm standing up on the stage I tune out all sounds but my own thoughts. It feels like everything is a dream, I look around the crowd and try not to burst out crying. Be brave and everything will be alright, be brave and everything will be alright I keep repeating over and over. I turn my head and I see my mom being comforted by Emeralds mom as she bawls. She looks up at me and we lock eyes and she stops crying for a few seconds before she starts up again. By this time there's a boy around seventeen walking up the stairs looking just as terrified as I am . I look towards the boy and then over to Emerald who's standing right where I left her in a daze just like me. There's a few tears running down her cheeks and she looks up at me, then the boy, then Grenedene, then me. I'm confused until Grenedene taps my shoulder and I brake from my daze, "shake hands" she hisses at me. Oh... Right, the boy puts out his hand and I shake it, or more like try to shake it, because my hand is shaking uncontrollably and I can barely grab his hand. Although, he shakes mine calmly and firmly and I feel calmer and less scared, like he's my older brother. Two peacekeepers come between our hands and start to escort us into the building and I look back into Emeralds perfect eyes shimmering in the light and before the doors close behind me we flash a small smile at each other and she twirls around. Then the doors close but my smile is still there. She can make me smile in even the worst situations, but as soon as the peacekeeper orders me into the room for goodbyes my smile fades and I'm finally alone.
A/N: hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, the one you've all been waiting for! I know, it's really long and it's been awhile since I updated before this but hopefully chapter fifteen will be published within the next week.