You Think This Is Hard? - A Hunger Games/ Glee crossover fanfiction

Chapter 1: Nightmares

Peeta swallowed the Nightlock. Katniss died in the Quarter Quell. The rebellion never lived. Let the 98th Hunger Games begin, and may the odds be ever in your favour.

WARNING: This is a boyxboy story, meaning it is a romance between TWO GUYS. If you have a problem with this, then leave now. There will be nothing explicit in this story, but some people still hate the idea of two boys being in love. If you are one of those people, then you need to thoroughly investigate your morals. That is all.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Hunger Games or Glee both of which are too awesome for me. They belong to Suzanne Collins, Ryan Murphy and all others who rights are owed to. 

Oh, and this is my first attempt at a fanfiction- and a story of this length- so I'd really really appreciate some feedback. I will give you imaginary cake. ;D

Chapter 1: Nightmares

Kurt’s P.O.V.

I stand, fixed to the spot, as the district escort calls my name, over and over again. Sweat runs from my every pore and all eyes are turned toward me. Suddenly, my sweating increases, forming a river and with a flash, I am no longer at the reaping, but being hurtled down stream by a mass of white water. All around me, mockingjay’s harmonise an eerie melody, one that my jumbled brain connects to the song that was sung at my mother’s funeral years ago. The river ends and I am thrown into the air above a massive waterfall, but beneath me, there is no water to break my fall, only wire. Wire spreads in every direction as far as I can see. I recognise it as that that lines the fence separating our district from the surrounding woods. I fall; I can feel the wind tearing at my clothes.

Falling, falling, falling.

I close my eyes, readying my self for impact.

I can feel the ground drawing closer and with a rush…

I jolt upwards so fast, my head hits the low ceiling of my room. I quietly swear and run a hand through my sweat filled hair. For a moment I can not recall the details of my nightmare, but then it all comes rushing back to me. The reaping, the river, the singing, falling, the wire. All of these things bring back terrible memories for me.

For one, there was the tune that I had heard the mockingjay’s singing. It was, without mistake, the song that had been sung at my mother’s funeral. She died nine years ago, when I was eight, in a mining accident. Her team, and also two others, had all perished after a gas had leaked into their work space. Someone had then dropped an oil lamp and the whole sector had gone up in flames. They never recovered her body. At her funeral, I remember holding my fathers hand as the plain wooden box that should have contained her was lowered into the ground.

Before my mother went, I had loved music. She would take me, we would sit right by the district boundary and she would sing to the mockingjay’s, and they would replicate her tunes perfectly. Sometimes I would join in, and other times I would just lay with my head in her lap and listen. I have not sung since that black day nine years ago.

And then there is the river. Two years after my mother died, I had snuck under a hole in the fence and ventured into the woods. I had come across a shallow river with a sandy beach and a small island in the centre of it. I’d like to say that I tried to get to the island just because I was a kid, and kids seek adventure, but really it was for the flowers that I saw growing there. I have always been different like that.

I had walked into the water, planning to walk across to the island, but had misjudged its depth. When I got about half way across, I found that I could no longer touch the bottom. Panicking, I had tried to find somewhere where I could place my feet, or something to hang onto. The water swept me down stream and I probably would have drowned it not for a tree that was hanging over the river. I had grabbed a low hanging branch and using strength that was most likely summoned by the sheer adrenaline pulsing through me, pulled my self out of the river. I had lain on the bank gasping and shaking until the sun was low in the sky.

The wire and the falling were again, another story. For as long as I can remember, I have stood out. While other boys were playing with home-made wooden swords, I was helping the girls decorate their dolls with flowers from the meadow. Eventually even they deserted me because they realised that I was different.

Ever since I was about thirteen, the merchant boys had found it in their interests to grab me and hang me by my clothes to the wire atop the fence. Being so much bigger than me, this is not hard for them. Countless times, I have fallen from the top of the fence, spraining ankles and wrists. I just deem it lucky that I have not broken anything.

And then there is the reaping.

It is the soul fear in all twelve districts of Panem.

Every year, the Capitol chooses one boy and one girl to represent each district in the Hunger Games, a televised event where the 24 ‘tributes’ must fight to the death until one lone victor remains.

Everyone between the ages 12 and 18 has their name in the reaping ball. In your first year, your name is in once, and then in your second year, it is added twice more, so then you would have your name in three times. But this is only if you are lucky. Once your name enters the reaping, you are eligible to take out tesserae’s, which supply a grain and oil ration to each member of your family. 

Today is the day of the reaping. Today, there will be 33 slips of paper with the name ‘Kurt Hummel’ on them in the reaping bowl. Today, two families from each district will lose a child. Today, according to the Capitol, should be a day of celebration. Today, in District 12, it is a day of sorrow.