The Hunger Games | Rilaya

The Reaping

So I said I wasn't going to write another story anytime soon but this idea just popped in my head so here I am once again.

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. I blink in confusion, craning my neck to look for my sister, Prim. I finally deduced that she must have had a bad dream and climbed in with our mom. Well, more like half a mom. She's always working to put food on the table but it's still not enough, meaning I have to take matters into my own hands.

I swing my legs off the bed and put on my hunting boots. The part of District 12 I live in, nicknamed the Seam, is usually filled with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a few gates to reach the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the woods is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire loops.

It supposedly was electrocuted, but my experience with it told me that it wasn't. District 12 barely had any electricity to power it anyways. I quickly hop over the fence, making my way into the woods.

As soon as I'm in the trees, I grab my bow and arrow I had hidden in there. In the woods, already waiting for me, was Lucas. The sight of him waiting makes a small smile spread on my face. Lucas had once said that I never smile except for when I'm in the woods.

"Hey Shortstack." Lucas greets, making me scowl.

"I told you not to call me that." I snap, thinking back to how I got that nickname.

When I had first met him, I wasn't exactly the nicest person to him. It was supposedly yet another normal hunting day for me, that is, until I bumped into Lucas. After we both established the fact that we weren't going to turn each other in for poaching, I was about to go. But, Lucas kept following me, bugging me for my name. Since I wouldn't tell him it, he ended up coming up with a nickname.

"Look at what I shot." Lucas says, holding up a loaf of bread with an arrow in it, making me laugh. It was quality bread, the kind that you would get from the bakery, not the flat, dense loaves I get from our rations.

I greedily grab it out of his hands and pull out the arrow. Lucas must've been at the bakery early in the morning to trade game for it. "What did it cost?" I ask.

"Just a squirrel. The baker's daughter was working and she must've been feeling sentimental. Even wished me luck." Lucas answers.

My stomach churns at the mention of Riley. I owed her my life and I hate that. I didn't want to owe anyone anything.

"Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" I say.

Lucas chuckles and suddenly falls into a Capitol accent. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds-"

"-be ever in your favor!" I finish for him in an equally phony accent.

We could only do two things about the games, joke about it or be scared to death. And even though I don't smile much, laughing about the Capitol is the only thing that keeps me grounded. Besides, the Capitol accent is so stupid that anything would sound funny in it.

Lucas pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother, we certainly act like it. The insults, the nicknames, the attitude.

Lucas passes half of the bread to me and I quickly take a large bite into it, savoring the warm bread. Today would be considered a perfect day to me, if it meant walking around the woods with Lucas. But, we had to be standing in the square in a couple hours, waiting for the two unlucky tributes to be reaped.

"We could do it, you know." Lucas says, his voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.

"What?" I ask.