Catoniss: Frozen Embers

Chapter 2: I'm in the games, what now?

ALL RIGHTS TO SUZANNE COLLINS!!! 😝😝😝

Katniss' POV

My head feels heavy as I try to remember to breath. Inhale, exhale, I try to tell myself, but my head begins to spin. No. This can't be happening. Prim had one slip of paper in thousands! Her chances of being chosen were so remote! Hadn't I done everything? Taken the tesserae, refused to let her do the same? One slip. One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favor. But it hadn't mattered. It never mattered in the games. Somewhere far away, I can hear the crowd murmuring unhappily as they always do when a twelve-year-old gets chosen because no one thinks this is fair. And to be honest, it's not. None of this is fair. NONE! And then I see her, the blood drained from her face, hands clenched in fists at her sides, walking with stiff, small steps up toward the stage, passing me, and I see the back of her blouse has become untucked and hangs out over her skirt. It's this detail, the untucked blouse forming a ducktail, that brings me back to myself. My little duck has been chosen to die. 

"Prim!" The strangled cry comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. "Prim!"  I try to reach her just as she is about to mount the steps, but 3 peacekeepers came at me holding me back by my arms. I try to hysterically fight them off, but I can't succeed. There was only one thing I could do. "I volunteer!" I yelled and in my scream yo could feel all of the madness, desperation and fear. The peacekeepers released me and I tried to calm myself. "I volunteer as tribute!" I repeated and I try to sound confident and not let myself cry. There's some confusion on the stage. District 12 has never had a volunteer or at least not in decades. The rule is that once a tribute's name has been pulled from the ball, another eligible boy, if a boy's name has been read, or girl, if a girl's name has been read, can step forward to take his or her place. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives and volunteer. Those people are usually the careers: kids from the wealthiest districts that have been training for the games since they could walk. But in District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers were extinct.

"Lovely!" says Effie Trinket. "District 12's first volunteer!" she shouts. Prim is screaming hysterically behind me. She's wrapped her skinny arms around me like a vice. 

"No, Katniss! No! You can't go!" she cries. 

"Prim, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction. "Let go!" I yelled again trying to hold my tears.

I can feel someone pulling her from my back. I turn and see that Gale has lifted Prim off the ground and she's thrashing in his arms. "Up you go, Catnip," he says, and I could feel that he's fighting to keep steady, and then he carries Prim off toward my mother while she's screaming and kicking. I steel myself and climb the steps.

"Well, bravo!" gushes Effie Trinket. "That's the spirit of the Games!" She's pleased to finally have a district with a little action going on in it. That's all that the people from the Capitol care about: action. They want it so much that each year they sit and watch 24 innocent children kill each other. It's all for the Capitol's entertainment. "What's your name?" she asks. I look at her in disgust and try not to sound venomous and so full of hatred.

 "Katniss Everdeen," I say. 

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" trills Effie Trinket.

No one claps though and for a moment I am grateful. Me and all those starving to death people from my district had something: mutual respect. Instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong. 

Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love. 

I am on the verge of tears when Effie continues. 

"What an exciting day!" she warbles as she attempts to straighten her wig, which has listed severely to the right. "But more excitement to come! It's time to choose our boy tribute!" Clearly hoping to contain her tenuous hair situation, she plants one hand on her head as she crosses to the ball that contains the boys' names and grabs the first slip she encounters. She zips back to the podium, and I don't even have time to wish for Gale's safety when she's reading the name. "Peeta Mellark."

This name sounds familiar.... where from though? And then I see him. Blonde hair, brown eyes, medium height, stocky build. I recognize him. No, not him! Not the boy with the bread! He was the baker's son. A few years ago he saved me from dying by giving me some of the bread risking getting beaten up. He's my fellow tribute, but only one of us can survive. I couldn't kill him! He saved me! I guess the odds were not in my favor today. But there was nothing that I could do. 

Well I am in the 74th hunger games, what now?

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Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter. This is only the 2nd chapter, so for now it still follows the book. If you don't like it, well sorry about that. and If you're not a fan of catoniss just don't read and don't hate.

💋I will try to update regularly! 💋

😻Thank you all for taking a bit of your time to read my second chapter!😻

🤩Comment what you think and how I can improve it! I'm open to your ideas!🤩 

🤭Happy 74th hunger games y'all🤭