Bloodbath (A "The Hunger Games" AU Fan-fiction)

➽ Chapter Two.

Chapter Two: Selection.

I try to stop the bile on my throat from coming out, but I realize that it’s no use stopping it, just like zoning out the reality that we are all stuck in. The probability of my name getting picked from that goddamn glass bowl is pretty high, with the forty-two entries with my name written on them because of the tesserae to feed my family, but I still hope that it isn’t going to be me. I can’t imagine leaving my family behind and then facing death. It is just downright cruel.

Let it not be me, I chant in my head over and over again, balling the hands at my sides into fists, so tight that my nails are digging into my palms. My palms start throbbing, but I try not to let my face scrunch up into pain, wanting to appear emotionless in front of everyone. I try looking around the crowd again to distract myself, finding some of my friends back in school standing with the other sixteen and seventeen-year-olds, and that’s when I finally spot Maverick. He seems to be crying, and I suddenly have the urge to cheer him up just like what I always do, but I know that because of the strict security in the Reaping, I can’t do anything for him to smile again and stop crying.

So, I decide to tear my gaze away from my little brother and glare at the Capitol’s symbol on the banner that is hanging above the temporary stage instead. Fuck you, Capitol.

“And now, the time has come for us to select our four tributes in honour of representing District 4 in the third Quarter Quell. Let’s begin, shall we?” Julienne says, smiling widely at us. “Ladies first, of course.” She then sashayed across the stage and heads for the bowl where the thousands of slips with the names of the girls from District 4 are written. She dips one hand inside the bowl, slowly mixes the slips of paper around for a few times as if she’s playing with some cake mix before she holds out two slips with a huge grin on her face.

Without any further ado, she goes back to stand on the podium. Julienne tucks some of the fake hair from her blood-red wig behind her ear before she unfolds the piece of paper, and with a clear on her throat, she reads the name of the first girl tribute out loud, “Aquamarine Mattox.”

The mayor’s daughter.

Chances of the children who belong to a rich family in our district are very slim, especially because they don’t need to sign up for the tesserae anymore since they have enough money to buy food and whatever they want to buy for themselves, which means that their entries in the Games are lesser than those who signed up for it, but when Julienne Covington announces that the first tribute is none other than the mayor’s only daughter, it only shows that, since we are those people who do not belong in the Capitol, the odds for each one of us are quite equal.

No one is safe from being part of the Hunger Games.

Mayor Mattox abruptly stands up from his seat onstage and is about to launch forward towards Julienne – due to paternal instincts or whatnot – but is swiftly stopped when his wife clutched his blazer sleeve tightly. The tears on his wife’s eyes are freely flowing down her cheeks as she seems to whisper something to calm the mayor down, and hesitantly, he followed whatever his wife told him. No one volunteers to take her place—and that really surprised me.

I then notice from the corner of my eye that some of the sixteen-year-old girls have moved sideways to make way for the blonde-haired young woman to step forward. The girl in the white dress, who I guess is Aquamarine Mattox, steadily advances to the stage with her hands slightly shaking at her sides, but I can see that she’s just trying not to show any sign of fear in her face. She looks too composed, and it amazes me how well she can handle and control her emotions.

The camera zooms to her face, which is then flashed to the large panel screens around the square. Truth be told, just like what most of the people had said, I have never seen any woman more striking– the kind that will be deeply imprinted in your memory – than the mayor’s daughter in our district, with those beautiful eyes of hers which seem to change colour every time the lights hits on them.