𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 ☘︎ 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐇𝐚𝐰𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐞

𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 ☘︎ 1

I wake up with a start. I had been dreaming of games and mutts and getting reaped and when I got up I had to remind myself that I wasn't going to get chosen. It wasn't going to be me, not me, not me, not me...

Knowing, however, that there was only one way to clear my mind, I got out of my rough canvas bed and changed. I put on my hunting jacket that belonged to my father and my tall, leather boots that I saved up for a year to buy. After I was done, I tried to tiptoe out the house without rousing anyone. But I knew that this was futile.

When I was just heading out, I saw my little brother, Rory, stir in his bed. He begins to writhe, struggle, and then he screams. "NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!"

I instantly ran to his side and woke him up.

"Rory, Rory. Rory? Rory!"

His eyes opened gradually and he saw his sister sitting by his side. "Willow, it was me! I- I had to- the games-"

"Rory," I said, but when he continued to ramble on, I was more stern. "Rory."

"What?"

"Listen, listen to me," He stopped talking. I sighed and said less forcefully. "It wasn't real, it wasn't you. You're name's only in there once, Rory, they're not gonna pick you."

"But..." He said, "I'm not just worried about me. I'm worried about-"

"Prim," I say gently, "It's her first year, Katniss never let her take out any tesserae, I promise that they won't hurt either of you."

But, deep down, I know that there's a two in a thousand chance that this promise will be broken.

As I head out the house, Rory's voice stops me. "Hunting are you?"

I sighed. "Thought I'd give Gale a break, but I've no doubt he'll follow me out here in a couple of minutes."

Rory chuckled and I open the door to greet the dawn air. The seam in District Twelve is quiet, which isn't normal, but then, nothing here is normal.

Least of all the hunger games.

The games was created seventy five years ago, to punish the Districts for the uprising. They took a long time to create, but the rules are simple. Twenty four kids between the ages of twelve and eighteen go in, a boy and a girl from each district, and one comes out. They're imprisoned in a large outdoor arena over the course of a fortnight sometimes longer, and in that time, they had to fight, literally, to the death.

It makes me sick. But that's it. And, to choose kids for the games, each district has to hold a reaping. This is the event that really drives everyone mad. When the children who have to go in are chosen.

Anyways, I slip through the seam, the coal mining village of District Twelve, and into the meadow. A stretch of grass that had the odd flower here and there. Then, once I'm sure that there's no eyes on me, I slip past the fence with the usual warnings about electricity, and into the woods.

I instantly feel better. Freer. District Twelve, for me, is a place of oppression and fear. But the woods are just not full of this.

I slip further into them and I'm suddenly among trees. I look at them all as I finally found the one with the hollow trunk. From it, I pull my axes, my weapon of choice.

Hunting is technically illegal in Twelve, but because I do it so often I've forgotten it is. I quietly walk around in search of game, across a fallen tree, over a waterfall. Then I finally see it.

A deer stands, half of its body obscured by a tree, but there. A deer. My mouth instantly floods with saliva at all that meat that my family and the Everdeen's would get to eat, let alone all the money it would bring.