Warriors

Friendly Fire

Warriors
Friendly Fire (Chpt. 1)

Katniss rolls over in her bed to look at Prim. When she turns over the and bed is empty.

She must of had a nightmare last night and crawled in with mother, Katniss thinks to herself.

She looks over and sure enough Prim is snuggled in with their mother.

Of course she had a nightmare today is the day of the reaping, Katniss thought as she made her way to the kitchen.

On the kitchen table was a small chunk of goat cheese. Prim had left some cheese as a present to Katniss.

Every morning Katniss goes out and hunts so that she can feed her family.

Katniss took over this role when her father died in a mining accident.

Katniss slipped on her large leather jacket and her tall black boots.

She carefully wrapped the goat cheese and placed it in her pocket. She made her way to the door being careful not to step on Buttercup.

Buttercup is Prim's cat. As soon as Buttercup saw Katniss and Katniss saw Buttercup they hated each other.

The only thing Buttercup likes about Katniss is that she gives him the scraps from the animals she kills.

Katniss quietly shuts the door behind her and makes her way to the fence.

There is a large electric fence at the edge of town separating the village from the wild animals.

Crossing this fence can result in punishment and even death. Katniss walked up to the fence and bent over placing her ear right next to one of the wires.

She listened for the hum of electricity. The wires laid silent so she carefully crawled underneath.

After walking a ways Katniss looked around for Gale. No sign of him. Instead of just sitting around for Gale, Katniss decided to hunt.

Katniss looked around for the sight of anything to shoot. She heard a small branch snap and turned towards the sound.

Then she saw it. Standing right on the other side of the stream was a doe. First doe of the year! Katniss thought to herself.

She slowly pulled her bow string back. Right as she was about to release leaves started crunching behind her. With the sudden noise the doe ran. Katniss turned around to see what was causing all of the noise.

"Gale! That was the first doe of the year!" Katniss shouted at her friend. He had ran up to scare her and ended up scaring the doe instead.

"It's okay Catnip. We will see it again now that we know it is in the area," Gale said while walking across the fallen log.

Ever since they pair was in kindergarten Gale had called her Catnip. It was only something Gale could call her and no one else.

Ever since Katniss' dad died her and Gale have gone hunting together and split their findings between the two families. Gale's dad died in the same mining accident.

Katniss and Gale sat at the top of the hill. Gale pulled out a small loaf of bread from the bakery.

"Awesome!" Katniss said reaching for the bread. It was very rare that they got bread. Katniss pulled out her small chunk of goat cheese while Gale divided up the bread.

As the two of them sat there eating and talking the town was slowly starting to wake up. On the day of the reaping there was no work or school. Attending the reaping was mandatory. If you were caught staying at home they would whip you in the town square.

***

"It will be okay Prim," Katniss said reassuring her little sister. This was the first year that Prim could be in the reaping.

The reaping is where they draw two names. One boy and one girl. Together out of all of the districts there is 12 girls and 12 boys. The elected kids will go through training and then at the end of the month they will get put into an arena to fight for their lives.

Today Katniss' mother had picked out a beautiful blue dress for Katniss to wear. Prim however was wearing a white top with a dark blue skirt.

"Tuck in your tail little duck!" Katniss said giggling to Prim. Whenever Prim forgot to tuck in the back of her shirt Katniss would call her little duck.

"What is the reaping like?" Prim asked. Katniss glanced at her mom then back at Prim.

"Imagine this. Everyone has a friendly little fire in them. At the reaping that friendly fire gets blown out," Katniss said softly.

Prim nodded. Katniss knew Prim wouldn't understand now but later she would.

"Friendly little fire" Prim repeated.

A/N
Thanks for reading this chapter. The chapters in this book will probably vary in length.