Survival...

Themes and Customs (Melody Rein)

Paralysed, I sit down on the indigo rug, my wide, rather childish eyes focused on the screen. Today is the day, I tell myself, shivering. Where I find out what they will force us to do for the first Quell in history. I remember organising some bets with my friends, and my bet was positively on District Seven tributes. The most common vote was Double Tributes, only a few more votes than Animals. 

I see the screen's poor mechanics, just enough for me to see the picture, a distorted girl with golden hair and hazel eyes around eight or nine waving at the screen with what appears to be bright-red nail polish.

She is carrying an envelope which reads 1 and I shudder. I doubt this little girl in a whitish-blue dress knows what danger that one envelope could be carrying. My eyes go up to the president, who is wearing a horrible white tuxedo, which I hear a few stifled giggles at among the cakes, which I am too frightened to eat.

"For the 1st Quarter Quell, tributes will be voted by their friends and family." I feel my heart stop. I will choose another boy and girl to enter the arena, their fists cold and their temper warm all because of me. It feels oddly like a paper cut, I think as the icy wind blows through my brown strands of hair. I can barely feel eyes on me.

Of course. It registers in my mind. Innocent, vulnerable Melody. Thirteen-year-old, young, insecure Melody. Who will she vote for? Herself? Somebody else? Who will she shun? I do not even know myself, so it takes new refreshments to scurry the group away, leaving me to deal with my thoughts on my own.

Just like I want it.