60Here is what happened:
The Mogadorians attacked 60 years or so earlier...and the Nine young Garde attempted to leave, but they were stopped.
The Mogadorians decide it best to keep the Loric alive, since they are a powerful species and can be used for labor.
Lorien was divided into the Twelve districts and renamed 'Panem', with true-born Mogs living in luxury in the Capitol and the vat-born living as peacekeepers in the districts.
There was never any District Thirteen.
The Loric games began immediately after Setrakus Ra took power, to remind the Loric that the Mogadorians are in control.
The Loric still follow traditions like Garde living with Grandparents until a certain age then living with Cepan.
Garde are forbidden to use legacies, and most follow this rule because they are scared of the Mogadorians. This is punishable by DEATH!
The Great Expansion is still happening...most Mogs are on other worlds and the ones who can afford to live on Lorien, er Panem, do.
I hope you enjoy! Please give me any ideas on things I should change or things that will be in later chapters! Please review!
(Oh, and I didn't explain a lot of stuff because if you are reading this, it means you have read the Huger Games book, so that means that they don't need explanation)
I wake up feeling that something is off. Something is different about today. But of course.
Today is the day of the Reaping.
I sit up in bed and look across the room. My eyes lay on Adele, my Cepan. She is asleep on the only other bed in our humble little home. She sleeps calmly and looks a bit younger in her life less form.
I get out of bed and get ready for a half day of hunting. I braid my hair down my back and head out.
Things are quiet, as apposed to normal days here in the Seam. This is District Twelve, the last District in Panem. The seam is the poor part of our District, which is a good 75% of it.
I reach the meadow and find the weak part in the fence. I stop and listen for the hum that tells me the wired fence is on. It isn't, which is no surprise. It is hardly ever on. The fence is suppose to separate the District from the woods on the other side. In theory, its suppose to be charged round the clock, but since we are lucky enough to get a few hours of power in the evenings, its usually safe to touch.
I climb under the wire that has been loose for years and head out into the wilderness. I retrieve my bow and sheath of arrows from where they are hidden in a tree, wrapped in plastic to keep out water. I probably could hunt without it, but I like the feel of it.
I check all my snares and come up with two rabbits and a squirrel. Then I see off in the distance, a doe. It's the first sign of spring and I can only imagine how must it's meat alone would sell for. I place an arrow in my bow and prepare to shoot.
"What are you going to do with that?" I hear a familiar voice say. It scares off the deer. Damn it. I turn to face Blade, my best friend. He's pretty tall and handsome, with the same Seam features as me. Olive skin tone, gray eyes, and brown hair.
"Blade! That's the first deer I have seen in months! Do you know how much money I could have made off that?" I yell at him. I'm not actually that mad.
"Yes, Seven, but what? You're just going to haul a fifty pound deer into the District on a day it is crawling with Mog peacekeepers?" he says. My real name is Marina, at least that is what my Cepan named me. He knows how much I hate being called Seven, yet he does it anyway. I got the nickname from being one of the chosen Garde. We were suppose to leave Lorien years ago. I was very young. The elders had put some sort of charm on us, only allowing for us to be killed in order of our numbers. I was number Seven out of the nine of us. But we never made it off the planet, and the charm was broken. Few people even know that I am, or was, a number, but tales of them float around the Districts. Some believe that Lorien will rise again with the power of the Numbers. I just want to be left alone. And that is why I don't tell people about me.
I give Blade a disapproving look and he just frowns.
"You can't run away from who you are," He says. Blade is one of those people who believes in the Numbers rising to power and restoring Lorien.
"Watch me," I say.
He ignores the comment and holds up a roll with an arrow through it, "Look what I shot," he jokes. It's real bakery bread, not the kind made from the rough terse grain. My smile widens. I pull the bread off the arrow and hold it too my mouth.
"uuum, still warm," I comment. "How much did it cost?"
"Only a squirrel. I think the old man was feeling sentimental today. Even wished me luck."
"Well don't we all feel a little closer today?" I say. Then remembering the cheese, I pull it out and show Blade, "Prim gave me this."
Blade brightens up even more, "Well thank you Prim."
Prim is my little sister. She lives with her own Cepan and I visit her often. This is her first year being in the Reaping, she just turned twelve a few months ago, the age that your name starts going into the Reaping. I'm worried for her. Though it is a sliver of a chance that she gets Reaped, I'm more worried for her state of mind. Prim has been scared about this nonstop.
Me and Blade strip a bush of all it's blueberries and spread the goat cheese from Prim on the roll. It's a feast compared to our normal intake.
"Oh, almost forgot," Blade says, taking a berry and positioning it like he was going to throw. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds-"
He throws the berry to me and I catch it in my mouth, breaking the delicate skin. "-Be ever in your favor!" I finish. We try to make fun of the Reapings in any way we can. Mimicking the Up beat Mogadorian woman from the capitol, Effie Trinket, is our way of having fun.
Our conversation takes an unexpected turn.
"We could do it, you know," Blade says.
"Do what?" I question.
"Run off, leave the District." He tells me, "If we didn't have so many kids." he adds.
They're not our kids of course. There's Prim, my sister, and then Blade has two younger brothers and a younger sister. You might as well throw in my Cepan and his mother as well because they couldn't survive without us.
"I never want to have kids," I state.
"I might. If I didn't live here." Blade says.
"But you do." I counter.
"Never mind." He says harshly. Where did this conversation even come from? Why would we leave when there are so many people dependent on us putting food on the table? And kids? If Blade wants kids, he would have no problem finding a wife. Just about ever girl in school has a crush on Blade. But I don't really want him to go off and marry someone and have kids. I'm not jealous, it's just hard to find a good hunting partner.
"So what do you want to do?" Blade says, referring to weather we hunt, fish, or gather. We decide to fish, leaving the fishing poles in the water, and then go gather.
When we finish, we have a quart of strawberries, greens, medical herbs for Adele, fourteen fish and a varied selection of other animals.
We go to trade at the Hob, sort of like the black market of District Twelve. We easily trade some fish for some salt and Greasy Sae, the old woman who works a meal stand at the Hob, takes some of the greens off our hands in exchange for paraffin. We trade a few other stuff and then go to the back door of the Mayor's house to sell strawberries.
The door opens and there stands Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter. You would think with her being the Mayor's daughter that she would be a spoiled brat, but she's all right. She doesn't really have a group of friends, like me, and we seem to end up doing activities together a lot. Sitting together at lunch, pairing up of sports activities, sitting by each other at school assembles.
Madge is wearing a beautiful white dress with a gold pin and has her hair pulled up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes.
"Pretty dress," Blade says. Madge shoots him a look to see if he was being sarcastic. He wasn't though. It is a pretty dress.
We sell her some of the strawberries and as we are about to walk away, Madge says, "Good luck, Marina."
"You too, Madge," I reply.
Me and Blade evenly divide what we have and then go our separate ways.
"See you in the square," I say. The square is where the Reaping happens, at Two o'clock.
"Yeah," Blade says flatly, "Wear something pretty."
Before going home, I stop by at Prim's and drop off some of the supplies. She seems to be doing okay, so I go home to get ready.
Adele has laid out a pretty, light blue dress out for me. I know it is one of the dresses she had from her life before, so it must be special. I wash up before putting on the dress. By then, Prim and Laila, her Cepan, have arrived for lunch before the Reaping.
"You look beautiful," Prim compliments as Adele braids my long brown hair down my back.
"And nothing like myself," I add, looking at my reflection in our cracked mirror.
"I wish I looked like you," Prim says. She has a button down blouse and a light gray skirt, with the shirt tucked in. But the back of her blouse had become un-tucked and sticks out, forming what looks like a little duck tail.
"No, I wish I looked like you, little duck," I say, pulling away from Adele and bending down to re-tuck Prim's blouse. She giggles at her new nickname.
We sit down to eat, but none of us have much of an appetite. So we just drink some milk that Prim brought from her goat, Lady.
At 1:30, we head out to the square. Me and Prim sign in, like we're suppose to, then we must go to the sections that are roped off by gender and age. I tell Prim not to worry as she goes to where the twelve-year-olds stand.
I huddle with a group of sixteen-year-olds from the Seam and we all give each other respective nods.
And then it begins. Mayor Undersee gets up to the podium and says a few words of his speech before Haymitch, the only District Twelve Victor, comes stumbling onstage. He plops himself into the seat that was meant for him and the Mayor continues his speech. Haymitch is definitely drunk.
When the Mayor is finished, he takes a seat, and up comes Effie Trinket, the only person in the whole of District Twelve right now that seems happy. She isn't though. She is just trying to get herself bumped up to a better District.
"Welcome, welcome," She greets us all, "to the 74th annual Hunger Games Reaping. Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor! As always, ladies first!" She takes her time to cross the stage and then dips her hand into the female Reaping bowl. She pulls out one single slip of paper and then crosses back to the podium. Effie smooths out the paper and then waits a long pause before reading the name.
I keeping hoping, wishing, that it's not me, that it's not me, that it's not Marina Everdeen.
And it isn't.
It's Primrose Everdeen.
Was this good? Is the idea at least good? Don't forget to leave reviews! :)
Also: Yes, Blade is totally made up to replace Gale...I just like that name :)...And Blade is a Cepan not a Garde