Panem's Favourite Fairytale

1.1- Theo

46 ADD. Reaping Day.

Mum had given me my older brother Jason's old Reaping outfit. It was too big. The sleeves covered my hands and the trousers dragged in the dirt. She had said she would alter it. But then things had started to get more expensive and she'd had to work more so she hadn't had time. Now she was telling me I'd grow into it.
But I wouldn't if I was reaped today.
"You look so handsome," she said, entering the bedroom I shared with Jason, "But those sleeves really are too long." She studied them for a minute, then nodded and left the room. She was back within a minute with her sewing kit.
Mum knelt down beside me and tenderly folded up the sleeve so that my hand was visible. Then she pulled a safety pin out and clipped the sleeve at that length. She repeated it with the other one.
"There," she smiled, pulling away as she rose to her feet. I grabbed for her hand, something I hadn't done in years,
"What if they pull out my name?" I asked. She took my hand,
"You don't even need to think about it," she said, and then she smiled, "You know, I like holding your hand. I think I'll keep it a while."
"Mum!" I groaned, trying to wriggle my hand out of her grip. She planted a kiss on my forehead before relinquishing her hold on me.
"I love you, Theo," she said, "Please remember that. I won't let anyone hurt you." I nodded, but 12 years of living in Panem had taught me that even my mother's love couldn't stop them killing me if my name was drawn from that bowl.

"Jason!" Mum yelled, "We need to go!"
"Coming," Jason said, rushing from his room to the door. His reaping suit didn't fit him perfectly either, but it would. If he wasn't reaped today.
We didn't live far from the Justice Building, so the walk was no more than five minutes. I wished it could've been longer. But there was a lot of people; so Jason and I were forced to leave Mum and join the queue to get registered.
"Harry came to the reaping and never left," Jason whispered morbidly.
"That's not true!" I protested.
"Same difference," Jason replied.
He had a point: our older brother Harry (named after Dad) had been reaped the year before I was born. He had only been 13. Already Jason had outlived him. By next year, I would've too.
That had been the last Reaping Dad had been to: the peacekeepers often took pity on the parents of the dead tributes. Especially the ones that had died as brutally as Harry had.
They never replayed his games. Apparently they were even too violent for a population of people used to watching children battle to the death for entertainment.
No-one talked about Harry, if they could help it. I wished they would. At least so he would be remembered and not just another faceless tribute.
All they ever talked about was how he ended: skinned alive by the victor the Capitol called 'The Butcher.' 

As we reached the front of the line, the peacekeeper told me to prick my finger and press it to the page. The pinprick hurt. But not as much as a knife to the stomach would if I was chosen today.
Jason took me to stand with the other 12 year olds before going off to the 14 year old's' section. I couldn't see Ari yet. She wasn't a very punctual person, but I had thought today would be different. Apparently not. Her dad- the mayor- was already getting up on the stage to make the speech like he did every year when she made it into the girls' pen. I couldn't help but notice that she had arrived alone.
Did her step-mother really care so little about her that she wouldn't even walk her to her first Reaping.
Apparently so: her step-mother Florence was already standing at the side of the stage waiting for her husband with her two daughters: Delara and Ana.
Mayor O'Sullivan's speech ended and the District 8 escort- Amalia Trinket- walked up to the microphone.
"I just love that, don't you?" she simpered with a disgusting smile, "Now, it's time to select our brave tributes to represent us in the 46th Annual Hunger Games." She walked over to the girls' bowl. As she reached in, pulling out a death sentence for one girl. With the paper slip in hand, Amalia walked walked over to the microphone and peeled off the tape,
"Hope Desair." Over the aisle, almost immediately in line with me, a little girl screamed. Then began to walk out into the aisle. She was a tiny, trembling girl, who fiddled with one of her pigtails as she walked. She was in my year at school; she sat a couple rows infront of me. Who would take her seat now that she wouldn't be returning. The only way she would return to District 8 now would be in a tiny coffin.
When Hope had reached the stage, she stood beside Viola, dwarfed by the woman's six inch heels.
"How old are you?" Amalia asked,
""Twelve," Hope squeaked, nearly inaudibly. She looked at the ground, probably to hide the tears racing to her eyes. Satisfied, Amalia turned and walked over to the boys bowl.
My bowl.
In that bowl, my name was written on one of the hundreds of slips. One out of hundreds. They weren't going to pick me.
But Hope had had the same odds and she had been reaped anyway.
Amalia rummaged about in the bowl for nearly a minute, seemingly savouring the suspense she was creating. She pulled out a slip. If my name was on it, I was dead.
She fiddled with the tape on the slip before peeling it away and unfolding the card. She opened her mouth to speak. With 2 words, she could bring about my death.
"Blaise Ferrara."
It wasn't me.
I breathed out a sigh of relief as Blaise walked out from the 15 year old section, head bowed. From behind us, his parents cried out, just like Hope's had. I had pitied her, why couldn't I do the same for him? Was this what the Hunger Games did to you? Made you hope for the deaths of others? I tried to tell myself that Blaise was older; he had more of a chance.
That didn't change the fact that he died in the bloodbath.

When we went home that evening, I wouldn't speak to Mum. She tried to coax me out of my shell, but I didn't want to talk to her. She said that I wouldn't be reaped because I was only 12. Well, a 12 year old had been reaped. I had known her.
"You lied," was all I said to her before I went to bed. I wasn't in the mood to eat the meal she had prepared to celebrate another year that Jason and I weren't in the Hunger Games.
But unlike Blaise, Hope made it far. She hid and avoided the other tributes. I think the gamemakers might've forgotten she existed because they did nothing to get her out of the cave she hid in. They even did the final 8 interviews when there were still 9 people left. That was when I began to hope. Maybe she could survive. Maybe she would come home and her seat in class wouldn't be empty and her family wouldn't have to grieve and_
But she died anyway.
In the finale, she was finally forced out of her cave by an earthquake. It was just her and the boy from 2. He didn't even hesitate to cut her head from her shoulders. Apparently it was the most disappointing finale in the history of the Hunger Games.
I agreed: the last day of the 46th Hunger Games was the day hope died. Both literally and figuratively.