ᴛʜᴇ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ ɢᴀᴍᴇꜱ

1-The Reaping: Maeve

I awake in a cold sweat, shooting straight up and nearly knocking my younger sister, Leta, out of our shared bed in the process.

“Mae,” she groans, stretching the syllable out far longer than it's meant.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “Nightmare. Go back to sleep.”

I slip out of bed and pull the sheets back into place at the twelve-year old’s chin. Leta casts me a drowsy glare and grabs my pillow with the intention of wacking me with it, but I know her too well and duck out of the way before she can. Too sleepy to make any more effort in fighting, Leta simply wriggles deeper into the cocoon of blankets and closes her eyes again.

With an eye roll, I traverse the narrow aisle between the queen bed Leta and I share and the cot my other sister, Farrah Lyn, is curled up in. Seeing as we only have two bedrooms in our apartment, all the girls share one while the boys share the other. I stub my toe on the overstuffed dresser as I stumble blindly to the door, guided only by the sliver of light peeking through the crack underneath the door.

My hand meets the icy bite of the doorknob at long last and I sneak out of my bedroom into the hall. Immediately across from me, the boys’ door is ajar, signifying that Penn is already up and on the water. Why he’d ever willingly get up at such an hour is beyond me, but that’s Penn for you. My twin is rather keen on making his life more miserable than it already is. He is good at what he does, though, especially considering his competitors in the field have much more experience. My mouth waters at the thought of fresh salmon. If he’s right about being the first one on the water, Penn should return with the best catch of the day, but our luck has run dry recently and forced us to resort to applying for tesserae.

I blow out a breath and try to fill my mind with thoughts of anything except the Reaping, but no matter what I try to distract myself with, it always loops back around to the forefront of my mind. Though we tried to balance the amount of tesserae we applied for, between the two of us, at fifteen, Penn and I each must have at least ten, maybe eleven entries by now which is much more than anyone else in our district. Everyone else in District Four doesn't need the Capitol's help to survive. Though none of us are as well off as those in the Capitol, my District is among the wealthiest. My family, however, is not. With so many mouths to feed, a year’s worth supply of food for one person lasts roughly two months for us and the tesserae disappear in no time.

Shuddering, I push myself off the wall where I’d slumped and make a pit stop at the bathroom before setting up the ironing board in the living room. One by one, I iron the creases out of Penn’s Reaping shirt and then do the same to my skirt. I grimace as I pull my old Reaping dress, now Leta’s, off its hanger. This year is the first that she’s been old enough to participate in the Games, but even the thought of her wearing the sage green dress makes me nauseous.

My nightmare slips through the unguarded cracks in my mind; Penn being Reaped while the little flock watches in horror, Leta’s wide eyes as she enters the arena, my younger siblings starving with no one to feed them, and me… taking the life of another tribute.

“You’re burning a hole straight through that.”

With how much I jumped, I just about burned a hole straight through my hand as well as the dress I’m meant to be ironing. I hiss in pain, shaking my hand out as though it will get rid of the sting of the burn. “Penn! I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Really?” My twin says, sarcasm lacing his words. “Could’ve fooled me.”

He shuts the door and empties the contents of the cooler he holds into the icebox. Then, Penn hangs his net on the broken fishing hook we stabbed through the drywall. Running a hand through his golden blond hair, he tugs off his t-shirt and uses it to wipe sweat from his face.