𝐔𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐎𝐝𝐝𝐬¹

I. The Reaping

°•°•[The Reaping]•°•°

JULIA BROWN was sitting on the grass in District 3. She was watching birds in the distance, and her blue eyes were fixated on them. She always liked doing that, even when she was younger, though she loved the sea more then. Julia would always sit on the beach or on the meadow in the little free time she had, in between her school, working in a factory and taking care of everyone.

Tomorrow will be her last reaping, and after that, she'll be too old to enter it. In normal circumstances, her name, Julia Brown, should be in the bowl only seven times, one for each reaping she participated in. But her name is in forty-seven times because she is taking tesserae so she could feed some orphans in District 3. Her and a few more older kids were doing that to get some extra food. 

There were a lot of orphans in the technology district. The District 3 was second in Panem, after District 8, and not all of orphans stuck together. Tesserae wasn't too high in Three, though. Peacekeepers would not let the kids prepare themselves for the Games a bit, fight between each other and things like that, but they let them get away with stealing if they weren'tunder the radar. Victors of the District bought them food, too. Every child in Three started working at the age of 12, so they earned some of their own money before they even became teens.

Julia and her friends lived together in a big abandoned house on the edge of the District and helped each other in every way possible. Other orphans lived in groups around the district, in similar places, and all of them often fought around food or living place. They were all like little bands, and most of them knew how to cook or fight in one on one combat. Some of them even knew how to use weapons, Julia included. Each band stuck together, but after some time, children grew into adults and they fell apart, every one of them moving on with their own life. They earned enough money to start their own life's, but someone always stayed.

All of them were treated equally as the children that had parents, mostly at least. They got they intelligence measured when ten, and it was expected for everyone to get above 105, but almost everyone had more. After they turned twelve, they started working at factories along going to school. Their jobs in factories were based on their intelligence and ideas. But the main job for everyone who worked in factories was to make high - tech products for Capitol that somebody else came up with or that Capitol needed, perhaps for the Games. If anyone has occurred by new idea, he or she are required to report it to their boss and work on it. 

"What are you doing?" Julia's little sister, Amber, sat down next to Julia. She took a blade of grass in her fingers and spun in between her fingers. The sun still hasn't set completely, and it lit up Amber's face, making it look more orange. Her flaming red hair shone in the light.

"Thinking," Julia answered, her blue eyes still fixed in the distance. Amber was still eleven. She didn't have to worry about being reaped as Julia did. But as soon as Julia got away from it, Amber would be old enough to be reaped.

"About what?" 

"Nothing special. You don't have to worry about anything, Amber." 

Amber licked her lips. A short silence felt before the younger sister spoke up again. "Io says dinner is ready."

Julia got up. "Let's go, then." 

Two of them started walking towards their houseAmber interlocked her fingers with Julia's. Their walk wasn't very long, and they were there soon. In the house, there were a few dozens of kids sitting on the floor and eating soup from the bowls. Much of stuff they had had been stolen or given to them by victors from their District, Beetee Latier, Wirress, and Xavier Prescott.