Chapter 1

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This year is the sixth quarter quell. I swing my old and rusty sword again. What are they going to do this time? My dad told me that the last time they did one they didn't seperate between girls and boys, in the end there were 15 boys and just 9 girls. The winner was, obviously, a career tribute. I don't remember much about this arena, but thats not surprising, considering I wasn't even alive back then.
Birds sing in the background but the machines a few houses away are louder, destroy the peaceful atmosphere that could have been.
The old piece of wood I had nailed to a tree in front of me broke, what a timing. I'm just trying to train a bit! But what else could I expect?
Distric 13, recycling. The only things we're allowed to keep are old and break easily. And they smell horrible.
The distric the Capiol hates the most, even district 12 is more popular! And they are the ones who started this damn rebellion back then!
I put my sword down and instead take some stolen kitchen knifes, once silver and new, now a dusty grey color.
The Peacekeepers are way stricter these days and the stuff you get for tesserea is nearly nothing.
The knife flies through the air and gets stuck when it hits the tree. A second knife follows.
"Vivus!", I hear my dad yell. "On my way!", I reply, grabbing the knifes and hiding them under a bag of trash. Atleast one good thing about training behind dumpsters.

"You're so slow",my dad complains as I enter our house, it's close to the edge of a big crater. The crater that destroyed district 13 and killed Katniss Everdeen and most of the rebels, ended the revolution.
He looks at me, then nods towards the television. It's small, the voices sound distant and weird. But it's all we can afford.
"It's broken!", he tells me, obviously angry. "Who did this?", I ask as I notice the big crack on it. I didn't, that's for sure.
"I don't know. But your mom and I were both at work, you were the only one here", he say. His voice is calm, like the sea before a storm.
He looks at me, dissapointed. "Still a coward, huh? Can't even stand up for himself. You're 17, my god!"
I stare at my feet, hoping he would calm down soon. I know that he would just get angry if I say something, just like the last times.
After a few moments that felt like for ever, he turns around and quickly leaves the small house we live in without saying another word.

Now I just stand there. He probably had stress with his boss again, like every week, maybe he drunk too much again.
We're all nervous and get aggressive easily, that's just how hungry people are.
Even if it might not look like it compared to people in other districts, we are part of the upper class. We still can't afford three meals a day but atleast we have a roof over our heads.
My mind wanders to last years winner, a guy from distric 11. The only reason he won was because he hid most of the time.
The arena was a jungle with many wild mutated animals. It wasn't very entertaining for the capitol since most tributes were too busy running away from the wildlife to kill each other.
The winners. They life a luxurious life, no worries.
If I'm honest, I'm jealous. Not of going to the arena of course! But always having enough food and clean water, yeah, that has to be great.

I look at the clock on the dirty wall, it's already 6:43pm. I'll have to hurry to get to Res in time!
As I walk through the streets I come across some people prepering things for the reaping tomorrow.
I'm a bit nervous, as everybody is. But even tho I take teressea for both my parents and Res I don't think I'm going to be picked, it didn't happen the last years so why schould it now?

"Vivus!", Res greets me as she hugs me, her eyes darker because of fear. "Hi", I say, happy to see her.
Her dark brown curly hair is tied back, the dark grey overall her boss gave her dirty and full of dust. She smells as bad as most others do who work directly inside the recycling complex.
Unlike most times, she is the one who ends the hug. "You did it again", she whispers.
I stare at her. My mom must have told her. "Yeah", I admit.
"I told you to not take them! Not for me!" Her head gets red, she's angry. Understandable, but that still doesn't stop me. It never did.
"You need them", I say and hear her sighn.
We both know that it's true. Everybody in this districs needs them, but her family is part of the lower class. That's also why she's so thin and fragile.
We hang out for like an hour but nothing really happens, we're both too nervous to have fun or say anything.

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Hi, so first of thanks for reading this! ^^
I haven't written in a while and this is my first story I'm writing in english! So if I made any mistakes please correct me
I would also love to get some feedback!
Is the chapter too short or too long?

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