The 100th Annual Hunger Games

Chapter 2

My heart drops to my stomach and my limbs freeze up. No. This can’t be happening. I feel the need to try to do something, anything. Run, cry, scream, tear my hair out, hit someone. But I can’t. I'm trapped. I would have nowhere to escape to, no-one to trust. I'm alone.

 I’m ushered up to the stage and I stand next to the ball. I feel numb, dead. Asea doesn’t ask me anything, she has to pick the other tributes and finish it quickly. I don’t pay much attention, I just find my family in the crowd and stare. My mother and Marina are crying, while my father just stares back at me, speechless. Asea picks the other two girls and I vaguely recognise them when she reads out the names. Roslyn Vine and Drina Scale. I don’t hear the boy’s names but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. In the arena there will be seventy-two of us. The chances of us seeing each other are extremely small. I don't want to recognise them if I might end up sticking a knife in their chest. 

After Asea speaks to the crowd the six of us are led into the Justice Building. I’m sent into a room by myself and sit on a little stool. The room is dark and dusty and I get up to pace around for a few minutes. The door opens and my family rush in. We hug while Marina and my mother cry everywhere. After a minute or so we break apart.

"Don’t make a big deal of yourself. If you don’t seem like a threat then you will have a better chance of being left alone." My father says. I nod.

"Find shelter and water as soon as you can. Don’t go into the Cornucopia. Always be on your guard, every single minute." He adds. I nod again.

Suddenly it bursts out. If I’m never going to see them again, I need to know.

"How did Alexia die?" I stammer.

My parents sigh sadly. My mother hugs me while my father talks.

"She was killed in the Hunger Games. We don’t have much time so I won’t give details but find a copy of the 89th Hunger Games and watch it." he says. 

I nod and the four of us curl into a ball on the couch, crying and hugging. I try not to think about what is actually happening as Marina bawls her eyes out on my shoulder, begging me to run away.

After a few minutes some Peacekeepers barge in and I know my precious time is over. I hug them all hard before I am ripped away and pushed onto the couch. I let out a yelp and my father turns to see if I'm okay but the door is slammed in his face and then they're gone. I wrap my arms around myself and close my eyes.

Ten minutes later a Peacekeeper leads me out of the room. We walk in complete silence to the train and I sit in an immaculate carriage with the other tributes that is full of beautiful furniture and a buffet. One boy with greasy black hair runs over and starts stuffing everything he can get his hands on into his mouth. He looks as if he has not eaten in weeks.

The rest of us sit without a word. We are all shell-shocked. The silence in the room is deafening and I am desperate to break it but I am also too afraid to. However the boy with the greasy black hair does it for me when he starts puking all over the place.

Raul and Talia arrive. We sit in the chairs motionlessly (except for the boy who is still vomiting on the floor) while they scrutinise us. Most districts have a mentor for every tribute but District 12 has very few winners and only Raul and Talia are still alive. The main reason for this is deaths, but some of the more recent victors have run off into the wild, never to be seen again.

Raul and Talia won their Hunger Games five years apart about twenty years ago. Raul started a massive fire that killed nearly all of the tributes and Talia hid in the bushes until the rest of the tributes were gone.

Raul asks the boys questions while Talia makes the girls stand up and she walks around us.

"Sit" Talia says in a commanding voice.

I raise my eyebrows and return to my seat. Raul and Talia share a look and then face us.

"We cant help you." Raul says.

What?!

The tributes around me start to shout angrily but Raul waves them off with a bored expression.

"There are seventy-two tributes this year. The arena is massive. The statistics this year predict that one quarter will die at the Cornucopia, another quarter will be picked off and the rest will die of natural causes. None of you have a chance coming from District 12. Accept that and die with dignity."

This silences us. The way he cuts us off and announces how we will die is cruel but he barely blinks.

"Dont expect any gifts in the arena. We wont be sending you any." Talia says, and with that they leave the room.

I glance at the other tributes. They have lost all hope. I never had hope to lose and so I pick at my fingernails. We are sent to our carriages for the night.

My carriage is small but it is probably the nicest room I have ever seen. I peek in the wardrobe and find that it is full of more clothes than I could ever afford to buy in my lifetime. I dump the brown dress in the bin, yanking on a thin t-shirt and climbing into bed. It's almost midnight and I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my whole life. After an hour of tossing and turning, I finally doze off.