The 100th Hunger Games [currently being edited]

Reapings: Districts 10 & 11

(District 10)

Thalia Miracle's POV

I lie in a small room, the humid air overheating me. The stench of rotten bodies lingers in the air. I hunch up, curling myself into a ball. I close my eyes, wishing with all my might that I could be anywhere but here.

I am sat on my frail bed, staring up onto the ceiling. I jump as I hear the sound of crashing glass. I run to the stairs. I stop as I can't hear anything more. I am blown back in shock as I hear the sound of a gun. It is almost silent once again, I can only hear the sound of my faint breathing. I almost topple down the stairs as I hear a second gun fire. This time I dare to look what has happened. I tip-toe down the cold stairs. Lying dead on the floor are the bodies of my mother and father. I swallow my vomit and fall to the floor, head in my hands. I cry for what seems hours until it hear the door burst open. I snap my eyes open and crawl away. A peacekeeper emerges from the door, a gun held in his hands. He signs something to another peacekeeper behind him and then lifts me up and carries me out of the house. We go down some lanes I have never been down before and then the peacekeeper knocks hardly on the door of a large building. Is he just giving me to some random strangers? A tired looking woman, with a cream colored tunic on opens the door. She groans. "Not another?" She says. The peacekeeper nods and drops me, handing me to her. I try to go in, but she stops me. "Name, age?" She asks me. "Thalia Miracle, 12." I say, rasply. She snorts. "Not much of a miracle coming here." I knot my eyebrows together in confusion. Where am I? She drags me down a long corridor. She then gets out a large pack of keys. She picks one with 146 on it and unlocks a door. Inside is a tiny room, with cream walls and a hard tiled surface. She chucks me in and slams the door.

I shiver as I remember the events of last night. I have worked out that I am in district ten's orphanage. The orphans at my school used to come down this lane. It must be the orphanage. If I'm in the orphanage that must mean one thing and one thing only. I am an orphan. I don't dare say it out loud. It sounds surreal. I have nobody.

I wonder why my parents shot each other or committed suicide. The day before we were a happy family. I wonder where they are now. In heaven? In a coffin? Still pale and dead on the kitchen floor?

I sigh. I guess I'll never know. I roll over onto my side and fall asleep.

I jump up as I hear the sound of a bell ring. I get up and walk over to the door. It's normally locked. Anyway I pull on it. It swings open. I grin, have I been let free? My grin fades away as I see hundreds of children sprinting down the corridor towards me. The first lot push past me. The noise is unbearable. I stand in the doorway unsure of what to do.

All of a sudden a hand grabs me. I scream, but the hand covers it up. I turn to see who the hand belongs too. A small girl, about the same age as me, with thin, mousy brown hair and dark blue eyes smiles down at me. "Hey, I'm Imogen. What's your name?" She asks.

"Thalia," I reply, as I am lifted by the crowd and taken away. She still manages to stay with me.

"Don't worry, I've been here three years, you'll get used to it." She says. I smile gratefully at her.

The crowd takes Imogen and I to a large hall with a long table that stretches further than I can see. Imogen grabs my hand and leads me to a long queue of children. A plump lady, with bright red cheeks and a dirty apron hands out bowls of some sort liquid and a tiny slice of bread.

We reach the start of the queue and the lady shoves the bowl and bread into my hands. Imogen leads me to a space near the middle of the table. She sits down and I sit next to her. While I eat my bread and strange sauce, which Imogen says is 'gruel', Imogen talks about life in the orphanage.