Babies Of War

Chapter one: The Reaping

*Leslie's pov*

I woke up to the sound of hovercrafts coming over District 12, today is the Reaping. Oh joy. Before I get ahead of myself, my name is Leslie Lucalano Gravette. I'm 17 and have two parents which is really strange here in Panem. My mom is a baker and my dad is the mayor of 12. Now just because my dad is the mayor doesn't mean we're rich and famous but we do have the luxury of having food on the table every meal. Besides my parents I have an older brother, Matthias Garlano Gravette. I also have a best friend(that's basically a sister because we spend everyday with each other) Serenity Lively. Her dad died before she was born but her mom is the assistant mayor, that's how we met and how we're so close. Our parents are very close as well, literally we live right next to each other.
      Anyway today we have to go to the Justice Hall for the Reaping.  They're going to announce the new rules for the games because it's the fourth quarter quell. Then they'll show the video from the Capitol, that finally changed last year, and finally the part the horrifies me the most every year, the tribute picking! Before I have a panic attack, I'm going to be wearing a pastel yellow dress and Serenity will do my hair when I get to her house because she's way better at doing hair than I am.
       When we got to Serenity's house, they were all ready and I was the only one who wasn't. So Serenity had to quickly put my hair into a fishtail braid as we were walking to the Justice Hall. As soon as I started to see just the smallest bit of the crowd, my heart dropped. Obviously I'm going to be nervous(who isn't) but this year I had a really different feeling. It's almost as my hearts telling me to just run away because something really bad is going to happen. But I just put the urge to run away aside, acted like a tough girl, and kept walking.
      After we signed in,(they prick our fingers and take some blood to identify us) we got in line with the rest of the girls our age and waited for the nightmare to begin. The new rules are now being announced. The rules is that there will be 2 girl and 2 boy tributes representing each district, no volunteers, all tributes in the same district have to be allies, they'll stay 3 weeks in the Capitol and 1 year in the games, 1 new tribute will be chosen from each district and put into the games every month and finally the two sets of tributes from each district have to have a baby while in the games. WAIT WHAT?? HAVE A BABY? The only explanation that would cause this is that everybody in the districts must have slowed down on having kids to get back at the Capitol. I really have no clue what's happening with the games this year but yet again it is a quarter quell. I can remember stories about the third quarter quell, it was a disaster! I didn't even realize but i've been zoned out for that long just thinking about the new rules that Cassia(Effie's replacement) is already walking over to the girls bowl of names. Please don't pick my name, are the only words that fled my mind. Then Cassia began to speak, "The two girl tributes are Serenity Lively and Leslie Gravette." Wait what, my ears are still ringing with Serenity Lively, did I just hear my name too? Serenity looked at me with tears in her eyes and at that moment I knew surely enough, me and my best friend both got chosen.