The Hunger Games: The Pawns

Chapter 8: The Tributes

~~Penn Cassidy~~

Nothing had changed. Penn wasn't sure what it had been before, but she had been told nothing had changed. There still stood a man before the teenagers of District One, wielding the names of each. The Reaping would continue.

She knew very little what these games meant, but the more and more she learned, the more Penn wished to take a part. She looked around at the Hall of Careers and knew that a few days ago, this was her home. They called her a Career.

Penn stood beside her father, Jomal, in a crowd of screaming and/or drunk kids. The lights in the chamber were suspended high above on the ceiling, and were dimmed far beyond the point of clear vision. The man standing on stage was smiling through the screams of excited teens and loud blaring music. And Penn knew, had she had her memories, she wouldn't have been anywhere else. The room was filled with excitement. The tributes were about to be chosen.

Yesterday, the projection of a short man appeared in the center of town. He told them that this year, instead of being picked at random in a giant glass bowl, the tributes would be chosen by the District itself. This was an easy problem for District One. Hundreds of kids were trained since birth to take up the position, and this year, they would pick the very best of them.

"This is something crazy, huh?!" a guy in front of her said, while wading through the masses. He was clearly on some sort of drug. He continued to float on by.

"C'mon, Penn. We have to get you to the front." Her father told her in a quiet voice, or at least relatively quiet. He seemed sort of emotionless as he said it. "You're going to be chosen."

"Greetings, District One Candidates!" Shouted the large man in the center of the room on the stage. The crowd cheered in response. He was huge and had very dark black hair. From what Penn had heard from the random mumblings of potential tributes, his name was Plexus, and he won the Fifth Annual Hunger Games. And now, twenty years later, he led the aspiring Careers in this facility. "Welcome to the first Quarter Quell. Or, as I like to call it, the chance to show Panem what the Careers are all about!"

It was technically illegal, in the eyes of the Capitol, to train children before the Games, yet it was something most Peacekeepers let slip by. She had been told by her father that she had been one of these Careers, and as Plexus stood above the crowd, she was confident she'd be the one chosen.

When she brushed past one drunk career after another, she realized they had turned this into some sort of huge party. She wondered, if her father wasn't here with her, if she wouldn't be drunk alongside the lot of them. She felt like she was wading through idiots, yet she knew not to tell them that to their faces. All were trained killers with shaky trigger fingers. Even though it was complete idiocy, Penn somehow found the whole thing somewhat entertaining... She thought dreamily of the honor it would bring her to stand up on the stage alongside Plexus and be chosen as tribute.

"You're smiling." Dad nudged her on the shoulder. "I see you still have some of your old spirit left."

She turned to her father, but didn't respond. This was where she felt at home, someplace where it was loud and noisy, and everyone was cheering in unison. It felt like the sound was enveloping her, and she enjoyed it.

Once the two of them fought to the front of the crowd, Penn found a familiar face smiling back at her. "Hey, Penn!" the guy said. He wore a sort of soft hat that rounded the top of his head and he had a bit of black stubble on his chin. It was her boyfriend, Dray. She met him a week ago when she woke up in prison. He wasn't the most attractive guy she'd ever seen, but he was nice, and he did the job.