THE 150th HUNGER GAMES

District 7 Reaping (12)

Twilight Tiers's (District 7) P.O.V:

Shock strikes me like lightning. I was just Reaped for the Hunger Games. How is this possible? My name is in there approximately... one time. My mom works in the mayor's office, so we've never needed tesserae, and it's my first year eligible for the Games. Yet I was still chosen.

Recovering from the initial strike of disbelief, I gracefully make my way through the sea of twelve year old girls toward the escort. I don't know her name, but I don't like her as much as the old one- Felicia Feathersfowl. I don't know what happened to her, but she's gone. Soon I will be gone, too. It's not like anybody knew me, though. Every face I pass by is unfamiliar. I've never been one for socializing, though, so what can I expect? My best friend was a squirrel, but it ran away and never came back. I think it's dead, because that was like, two years ago. It abandoned me. Just like Dad. I wonder what he would say or do if he was here right now. He might have tried to get me out of the District before the train came to whisk me away to the Capitol and Hunger Games. Or punch a Peacekeeper in his anger for the Capitol. He was always a little rebellious. I take that back. He was more than a little rebellious. It cost him his life, three years ago, when he tried to get away. He had said he was going to take me with him. Yet he abandoned me. He left me behind. Sometimes I wonder whether I would have preferred dying in the wild with him then, wishing he had taken me with him, even if it meant death, as my life has only gone downhill after his passing away. Sometimes I'm so grateful that in the end he decided to go without me. But mostly I just feel the pain of abandonment. After all that surviving-in-the-wild practice, he ended up not taking me along.

And now I can't help but wonder, now that the daughter of a troublemaker has come of age, if the Reaping was rigged. If I wasn't chosen completely by chance. If the Capitol purposely chose me.

I glance over at my District partner as he shuffles forward, dragging his feet and stirring up dust. The escort has called his name- Jyke Woods- while I was lost in my thoughts. He looks just as happy as I am to be here- which isn't happy at all. I wonder what's running through his mind right now, as he stands here as a tribute in the Hunger Games.

"Our District 7 tributes- Twilight Tiers and Jyke Woods!"