Innocent Girl - A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 1: The Reaping

The spark of rebellion has been extinguished. Hundreds are dead. And the Hunger Games continue...

"The Dark Days. The Second Rebellion. Theses are what started the Hunger Games. These events are what will bring us to tommorow. The Reaping," Mrs Holland states. When she speaks about the Hunger Games, everyone can hear the slight anger in her voice. Which is why we all listen, unlike last year when our old teacher droned on about it for an hour. Because we all understand why. Nobody can blame her.

"Now, listen children. Tommorow will be, for most of you, your first reaping. You all understand that you each have at least one slip. It is unlikely that any of you will be called, but..." she trails off, " anything can happen. Now in the history of the Hinger Games, there have been three Quarter Quells. It is likely that most of you will have to participate in the reaping for the 4th." For another 15 minutes, Mrs Holland continues talking about the Hunger Games. After each sentence you can hear her sigh of sadness. But nobody comments. She lost both her children to the Hunger Games. Her son just last year. And her son was our age. 12. And yet, the Capitol still makes her, and every other teacher teach us about the history of the Hunger Games the day before the reaping. Every single year.

"Class, dissmissed. Oh, and children?" Everyone stops what they are doing. "Good luck."

As usual, I go home with Willow. We both live in the Seam, we both have an older brother and we are both starving. As we pass her house (if you can even call any house in the Seam that), we say our goodbyes and promise find eachother for the reaping tommorow. I trudge home to my own house closer to the fence, and as usual, nobody greets me. I have to wait for another half hour for Julien to come home, so I try to figure out what I could possibly wear to the Reaping tommorow. But I have nothing.

"Girl?'

I turn around, startled. I am even more surprised when I realise it is my mother speaking to me. She never speaks to me, only when she beats us. I shiver as I remember last night, when she hit Julien and I harder than usual. My wrists bled the whole night, and my back still ached today. What had I done today to get me another beating?

"A dress. For the Reaping." She hands me a dress, not even trying to hide her reluctance to give it to me. But this is the most attenition and kindness she has given to me in months, maybe even years, so I don't comment on it.

"Thank you," I whisper. My mother makes a sound which is between a snort and sound of disgust.

"Don't ruin it. It was my sister's." With that, she turns around and closes the door with a thud. I sit back down on my bed. The dress is a light purple, nothing too much, but what catches my attention is the baby blue butterfly hair pin. It is very detailed, and must have cost a lot. I vaguely remember I need to take care of it, because this was my aunts, who, from what I remember, was reaped at twelve years old. Wearing this will feel almost like a curse, bu what other choice to I have? They punish us if we don't treat the reaping like a special, happy event, and if you don't wear your best they punish you and your family. If you don't get reaped that is.

"Almond?" I look up, and see Julien at the door of our bedroom. "What's that?"

"Mother gave it to me. For the Reaping." For some reason, he doesn't seem as surprised as I thought he would, but I don't ponder on it too much.

"Good. We're going to get... some food." I know what this means. There is always a chance peacekeepers could be listening, so we don't directly say we are going to the forest. When our father was still alive, every year, the day before the Reaping we would go out and hunt. After the Reaping at two, we would visit the families of the children who were reaped and give them the meat, so they wouldn't have to worry about starving as well as mopurning. We stopped doing this a little after our father died, because we were too young, but picked it back up the year before Julien's first Reaping. I grab the game bag, and we head out the door.