Five's Before Finch

Chapter 1: Reaped

"Fraeah! Fraeah!" Finch called out for her sister hoping she or her brother, Firen would hear. "Fraeah! Where are you?"

She was standing in the field behind her home in District 5. Her and her siblings would come out here to play every Wednesday, when Feraeah and Firen got time off from their work, the family shop.

They loved playing hide and seek there. With the tall grass and weeds, they were all out of sight.

But that wasn't now, it was then. Then they could roam freely. Then their only worries were on one day, for each other especially for Fraeah and Firen.

Fraeah had dark red hair, green-grey eyes, barely any freckles and was 15 now. That meant her 2nd year of being put into the reaping bowl. Or as they called it, the death call.

She hadn't been reaped yet or Firen, who was 17.

Firen's hair was a blonde orange, his eyes were blue and more freckles than Fraeah. He has been used to the tension for some time now. But now, there were two more little siblings, a boy and girl, Ferris and Feebie, to take care of.

Ferris had brownish orange hair, no freckles and hazel eyes.

Feebie was a proper, polite 4 year old, with hair and eyes like Ferris, the two looked quite alike. Their father died a few weeks before Feebie was born in a power plant accident, their mother, a few weeks after Feebie's birth.

But the children worked and kept themselves fed and well.

Their game of hide and seek continued for the rest of the day, until meal time. They all sat silently at the table knowing what would come the next day, knowing that they didn't have a choice weather or not, to get raffled. Silently praying they wouldn't be called. But that was all luck, odds.

•Five years later•
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~The day of the reaping~

They lined up quiet and quick. Fingers pricked and crossed, in hope they'd be safe.

Fraeah stood still bext to Finch who looked around, at her brother who was across the asle, looking down.

She was clueless, yet knew. Clueless of who'd be called and where they'd go. But knew why.

Their announcer, a tall thin woman with black hair tied up in a braided bun formation on the top of her head, in a green wrapped dress pointy black leather shoes and a dark violet velvet scarf wrapped around her neck, went on to say why they were there, play the presentation and finally reap.

"Ladies first" as always

She reached her glove wrapped hand into the huge jar filled with hundreds, mabye thousands, of papers, each one contained the name of a vulnerable teen of District 5 on it. Finch thought they might be safe, as usual.

As her sly fingers plucked a folded slip from the jar, gently ripped the black peice of tape and unfolded to reveal the name.

As soon as she started to speak Finch's heart dropped.