VIII - Stephen Harris
"And there!" I exclaimed as I finalized the stitches on the little girl's dress. "Good as new!"
"Wow," she gasped, holding up the fabric with her two tiny hands. "It even looks better than before!" She looked from the dress back to me, her youthful pearly smile bleeding its joy onto me. "Thanks again, Stephen!" she added. "What would I do without you?"
"I'm not really sure," I began. "You'd probably get really smart and do it yourself, right? Now why don't you head home and get changed? I bet your mom's expecting you now, isn't she?"
She nodded and took off for her home, some streets down from my family's home. Afterwards, I pulled out dark jacket from a drawer-unfinished with one of the sleeves missing-and continued working on my next project. For about ten minutes, I was able to work on the clothing in peace but my mother barged in, not seeming fancied by my unwillingness to prepare myself for the upcoming reaping.
"Stephen, put that thing down already," she scolded. "You can finish that after today."
I let the fabric fall from my hands back to the table I was working at.
"Okay, you're right" I responded, letting my tone fall at the end of the phrase.
"I just don't want you to be late, son," she added, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder. I looked up to her, her lovely mother face prompting me to get up from the chair and force myself to dress in fancier clothing.
At the reaping ceremony, the crowd of us tribute nominees waited in silence as the sun beat down on us heavy, for sure noticeably tanning my skin that day. Soon enough, the escort showed her face. She seemed too delighted to randomly select people to die.
"Welcome, District 8, to your annual reaping, where we will select two of you to fight for glory in The Hunger Games!" Without even mentioning the phrase "ladies first," she hobbled over to the girls' bowl and swiped up a card from the mixture. "Our District 8 female tribute, is Mikaela Liezer." The girl walked up to the stage not looking to anybody as if embarrassed. "And how old are you, Mikaela?"
"Eighteen."
"Wonderful, and now our male tribute!" She proceeded with the ceremony and grabbed up a slip of paper with the boy's name on it. "And now, our male tribute." She began. "Stephen Harris." Dammit! And of course, no volunteer, but I wasn't going to expect one. I began my trip to the stage to join Mikaela where I announced my age and the escort announced the tributes.
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The 122nd Annual Hunger Games: The Anti-Careers
FanfictionAlthough the Careers usually dominate The Hunger Games, the tributes from some of the poorer districts decide it's time to put an end to this and create a few alliances of their own deemed the "Anti-Careers" by the Careers themselves, thus forcing t...
