Volunteers: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter 1: Districts 1 through 4

 It was inhumane. I stood in between stalks of corn, watching the scene unfold in the middle of town. I grit my teeth as the woman was whipped in front of her own children. Everyone in my district was hungry all the time. We rarely got to eat the food that we grew. What we grew was to be sent to the Capitol. The two boys and little girl stood sobbing, watching their mother get whipped by the peacekeepers. For them. She had only stolen cabbage. Most people don't like cabbage anyway. But then again, it was her own fault. You can't steal food. The peacekeepers always find out. There's nowhere to hide, not when The Capitol has control of every existing district- even district 13 which is no longer functional after being bombed for months by the Capitol during the dark days. I couldn't bare to watch this anymore. I turned around and went back to harvesting, trying my best to not pay attention to the screams of the woman and her three children. Most families don't even consist of that many children. The more children you have, the more your family starves. However with that being said, the more hands to work, the better. "Mila." Ifira's voice pulls me away from my train of thought. I looked over at her. "Your boyfriend is walking by." she says and I look across the field. I see Ben walking down one of the trails- I didn't know where it led.

"He's not my boyfriend, Ifira. And I don't wish that he was anymore either." I say, pulling my eyes away from him and his basket. I had a crush on Ben in school, but I never saw him anymore and he was too cool for me when I was in school. We were friends, but the girls always fell all over him. He was easy on the eyes and smart and kind. He was what everyone wanted. Even me. But not anymore. I had bigger things to worry about now.

"Mila, come inside. They're choosing the tributes from district four today." my father called from the house. I cut the last ear of corn off of the plant I was working on and carried the basket to the gate. A truck of peacekeepers would come by later to pick it up. If they don't need that much corn, they might leave an ear. A family would be lucky to have one left over. I walked in and shut the front door behind me. I sat down on the floor in front of my parents' chairs, watching the projector. The Capitol emblem appeared and then I saw the face of Augusta Stapleton. Unlike last year when her hair had been bright red and curly, it was now short, spiky and dark green. Quite the contrast from last year. The green was obviously meant to match the big emerald around her neck. The woman would never stop smiling, but it was clearly fake. Someone like me is able to notice that. No one from the Capitol would see what I see. Augusta tells the audience that the man and woman selected will have the honor to represent their district in 49th annual Hunger Games. Like there's honor in dying in front of millions. The millions that cheer at your death as they root on their own victors in the "game" that the Capitol created when the districts rebelled. "Now, we will choose one courageous young man and woman..." She moved across the stage to the glass bowl. "We'll start with the ladies," she says while picking one strip of paper out of the glass. The girl is only 13 and she has to walk from the very back of the crowd with all cameras focused on her.. But District 4 is a career district, so I know what's coming.

"I volunteer." A girl in the audience says confidently. The camera pans to her. She is tall and tan and slim. Her hair is light in comparison to her skin. She is very strong looking. She's 18. She's been training for this day since she was six years old. That's what Careers do. She takes the place of the little girl on stage and appears calm and collected even though she is about to enter an arena where she will fight to the death with 23 other tributes. They ask her for her name and age, even though everyone knows that she is 18.

"Now for the men," Augusta proclaims and sinks her hand not the other glass bowl. She calls a boy now. He is 17, but he is not a Career and doesn't appear to be prepared for the games. He is strong looking but he looks terrified. His whole body is trembling, like he doesn't know that a Career will volunteer for him. I suppose there have been instances of Careers backing out at the last second because of fear. However, that's only happened a few times and they were publicly shamed for the rest of their lives or even killed. They had trained for 12 years and then "let everyone down". I understood why they had chickened out, though. I would if I were in their position, but my district wasn't a Career district. Whoever got picked, participated.

"I volunteer." a voice said. The voice was softer than the girl's, but none less confident.

"Felix, don't!" the boy on the stage yell but the screen quickly cut away from him, probably trying to hide this. The camera panned to the boy that had volunteered. He was tall and slim like the girl but had much more muscle than she did. His eyes were bright green and stood out against his tan skin. District 4 is the fishing district. They spend hours on the water, under the sun. His stride was long as he made his way to the stage. It seemed liked he was flaunting, but I was getting mixed signals even through the television screen.

"What is your name?" Augusta asks him. He looks directly into the camera with a hard gaze, not a smile and his face is illuminated on the screen.

"Felix Antias." he answers, slowly.

"And I'll take it that you've been preparing for this day?" she asks with a bright smile plastered on her face. I'm surprised that she asks this. Capitol officials aren't supposed to talk about Careers. The people in charge aren't supposed to know about them. It's another way of the districts rebelling. Of trying to control the Capitol when they knew that it was supposed to be the other way around.

"I guess..." Felix says, staring out into the audience. His expression was almost totally blank. "But more importantly, that was my best friend up here. I wasn't about to let him die." I'm surprised when he says that the other boy is his best friend. I suppose the first few districts are better off and are able to focus more on friendships. District 11 was horribly impoverished, so we couldn't have very many friends. It was a distraction from the work that we had to do. I have one friend and she is the very best friend that I've ever had. Her name is Ifira. She's my age and we used to go to school together when we were younger. Now we work side by side in the fields every day as her family lives next store to mine. I don't have any siblings, but if I were to have a sibling, I would want it to be her. She is gorgeous and often wears brass that looks like the gold no one around here can afford. It compliments her skin tone that is very dark in comparison to mine. If I were to consider anyone my best friend, it would be her. We often laugh and joke in the fields. It makes the work seem much less dull. Sometimes, we even run away from work early and hide in the forest. We talk about everything there. We've even talked about running away or trying to start another revolution like before. But the dark days would come again and we both agreed that it wasn't worth it. I silently hope that Ifira doesn't get reaped this year. She's too good and too pure to die in such a horrible way. She is the sweetest soul that I've ever known. Ifira comes from a big family. She has two younger brothers and one older brother. She is the only girl besides her mother. Her older brother no longer lives in our district. He is an avox. He had his tongue cut out when he tried to stop a peacekeeper from beating his mother with a baton when they were unsatisfied with the amount of crops she had harvested that day. He now acts as a servant in the Capitol,

"That's very selfless of you." Augusta says to Felix like she knows anything about selflessness. I suppose I shouldn't judge her for it though, she was bred in The Capitol. She doesn't know any better. This must be the reason the first boy hadn't stopped shaking when Felix volunteered for him. He knew that his best friend was in trouble. The program ended with an overly enthusiastic "Happy Hunger Games!" Like anyone thought that the Hunger Games were happy. The Capitol emblem flashes again before the projector goes dark.

"Well, that's the end of the Career districts..." my mother said, flattening her pants against her lap. "This is when the reaping becomes really sad."

"They're all sad, Mom. Just because they're Careers doesn't mean they want to die." I said, standing up. The sun was down now so it was too late to go back to the fields. I laid down in bed and pulled the blanket all the way up to my chin. I thought about all the boys and girls that have been reaped so far. One of them will probably survive since they are the Careers, but all the others will be dead in the matter of a few weeks. Most people seemed to accept that, but it was very hard for me to think about. I thought about what it would be like if I were picked in exactly one week. One week and I would be standing out in the hot afternoon, surrounded by hundreds of other teenagers around my age. My name has been entered into that putrid glass bowl 14 times now. It would have been 5, but I've applied for tesserae three separate years and for each member of my family when we really needed food. With how small District 11 is, it's still a mystery to me that I haven't been chosen as a tribute yet.