I wake up with a start. I had been dreaming of games and mutts and getting reaped and when I got up I had to remind myself that I wasn't going to get chosen. It wasn't going to be me, not me, not me, not me...

Knowing, however, that there was only one way to clear my mind, I got out of my rough canvas bed and changed. I put on my hunting jacket that belonged to my father and my tall, leather boots that I saved up for a year to buy. After I was done, I tried to tiptoe out the house without rousing anyone. But I knew that this was futile.

When I was just heading out, I saw my little brother, Rory, stir in his bed. He begins to writhe, struggle, and then he screams. "NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!"

I instantly ran to his side and woke him up.

"Rory, Rory. Rory? Rory!"

His eyes opened gradually and he saw his sister sitting by his side. "Willow, it was me! I- I had to- the games-"

"Rory," I said, but when he continued to ramble on, I was more stern. "Rory."

"What?"

"Listen, listen to me," He stopped talking. I sighed and said less forcefully. "It wasn't real, it wasn't you. You're name's only in there once, Rory, they're not gonna pick you."

"But..." He said, "I'm not just worried about me. I'm worried about-"

"Prim," I say gently, "It's her first year, Katniss never let her take out any tesserae, I promise that they won't hurt either of you."

But, deep down, I know that there's a two in a thousand chance that this promise will be broken.

As I head out the house, Rory's voice stops me. "Hunting are you?"

I sighed. "Thought I'd give Gale a break, but I've no doubt he'll follow me out here in a couple of minutes."

Rory chuckled and I open the door to greet the dawn air. The seam in District Twelve is quiet, which isn't normal, but then, nothing here is normal.

Least of all the hunger games.

The games was created seventy five years ago, to punish the Districts for the uprising. They took a long time to create, but the rules are simple. Twenty four kids between the ages of twelve and eighteen go in, a boy and a girl from each district, and one comes out. They're imprisoned in a large outdoor arena over the course of a fortnight sometimes longer, and in that time, they had to fight, literally, to the death.

It makes me sick. But that's it. And, to choose kids for the games, each district has to hold a reaping. This is the event that really drives everyone mad. When the children who have to go in are chosen.

Anyways, I slip through the seam, the coal mining village of District Twelve, and into the meadow. A stretch of grass that had the odd flower here and there. Then, once I'm sure that there's no eyes on me, I slip past the fence with the usual warnings about electricity, and into the woods.

I instantly feel better. Freer. District Twelve, for me, is a place of oppression and fear. But the woods are just not full of this.

I slip further into them and I'm suddenly among trees. I look at them all as I finally found the one with the hollow trunk. From it, I pull my axes, my weapon of choice.

Hunting is technically illegal in Twelve, but because I do it so often I've forgotten it is. I quietly walk around in search of game, across a fallen tree, over a waterfall. Then I finally see it.

A deer stands, half of its body obscured by a tree, but there. A deer. My mouth instantly floods with saliva at all that meat that my family and the Everdeen's would get to eat, let alone all the money it would bring.

I raise my axe, hoping to get a clean slice in between the eyes, so that the best meat wouldn't be harmed. I aim, and go to throw, but the deer moves.

I internally curse the deer, but I'm going to find it. I pick up a handful of brown, leaves from the ground and crush them in my hand to see the way the wind is blowing.

Once I know, I run and I try to see where it would be. Picking up a stone from the ground, I throw it accurately and it hits a tree, making a noise. That scared it, making it run out. I raise my axe once more.

"What're you gonna do with that when you kill it?"

That voice put me off. The deer ran and I chucked the axe so that it lodged in a tree. I turned round and saw my brother, laughing.

"You're an idiot, Gale!" I yelled to him angrily.

"What're you gonna do with the hundred pound deer, Willow?" He continues laughing.

I sighed. This was my brother, Gale Hawthorne. My name is Willow Hawthorne, and behind Gale I see his best friend, Katniss Everdeen.

The Everdeens also lived in the seam, and our families were close because Katniss and Gale were hunting partners. I have, along with Gale and Rory, two other siblings, called Vick and Posy. Both of them are too young, though, to be reaped. They're both spared for another year.

Katniss also has a little sister. Primrose. She and I are very close, but this is also her first year in the reaping. I'm so worried for Prim and Rory that I can't even think of them.

Gale pulls me out of my daze by saying. "It's reaping day and the place is crawling with peacekeepers." He takes my axe out my hand.

I snatch it back, for a second tempted to throw it at him. "Yeah, well, if you can comprehend this in your tiny mind, maybe I was gonna sell it, to some of those peacekeepers!"

"Course you were," My brother really is an idiot, I think.

"Oh like you don't sell to peacekeepers," I say sarcastically.

"No! Not today!" Gale says. "You have a lot to learn-"

I roll my eyes. "That was the first deer I've seen in a year. Now I have nothing."

"Oh really?" Gale picks up a stone and throws it at a known bird's nest. They fly out simultaneously and I set my eyes on one, throwing another axe at it. I take it down and the three of us laughed.

My euphoria doesn't last long, however, when there's a sound from the sky, I look up, and a hovercraft appears above us. Katniss, Gale and I run and hide. We can't be found here.

We hide until it passes, and then, when Katniss and Gale head for their old rendezvous place, I come with them.

We sit down on the grass and Gale starts to rant.

"What if, one year, everyone just stopped watching?" He's talking about the games.

"They won't, Gale," Katniss says.

"What if they did? What if- what if we did?"

"Won't happen," I put in.

"You root for your favourites, you cry when they get killed, it's sick," Gale says.

"Gale," Katniss looks at him, a smile on her face.

"If no one watches, then they don't have a game. Simple as that," He looked at us. "What?"

"Nothing," Katniss said, though there's a laugh in her voice.

"Fine. Laugh at me," Gale looks down.

"We're not laughing," I said, but we are.

Gale looks down, completely changing the subject. "We could do it you know."

We looked at him, not knowing what he meant. He explained. "Take off. Live in the woods. It's what what we do anyway."

"They'd catch us," I said immediately, Gale says something, but I don't listen. "Torture us, cut out our tongues. Come on, Gale, I know I said you were an idiot but... you're smart enough to know that we wouldn't make it five miles."

"No, I'd get five miles," Gale said. "I'd go that way," he pointed to the unknown section of the woods down from the ones we hunt in.

Katniss then pointed out another flaw. "I have Prim and you have Posy, Vick and Rory."

"They can come too," Gale said, though he hadn't thought that through.

"Prim in the woods?" Katniss asked.

"Maybe not," Gale laughed.

"I'm never having kids," Katniss said, looking straight ahead. I know why she says this, as, because we provide for our families, we call our siblings and mothers our 'kids'.

We have no fathers. Again, this is a sore topic, but they were our providers; the people who brought us food. However, they both died in a mine explosion years ago, when I was ten. Now I am fifteen.

I'm still picking up the pieces from it now, being broken when it happened.

Thinking about that, I'd missed the argument Katniss and Gale had had about kids. It seemed to be resolved now, however, as Gale was speaking civilly again. "Oh, I forgot."

From his backpack he pulled a small loaf of bakery bread. "Oh my god! Is this real?" Katniss exclaimed.

"Better be, cost me a squirrel," Gale told her.

I shrug. "He must've been feeling sentimental then. Normally costs me at least double that."

Gale nods. "He even wished me good luck."

I smile slightly.

Katniss split the roll in three, mimicking Effie Trinket, the high voiced Capitol lady that comes to read the names out at the reaping.

"Happy Hunger Games-"

"And may the odds-"

"Be ever in your favour!"

The feasted on the bread, only thinking about how good it was at that moment before Katniss broke the silence. "How many times is your name in today?"

"Forty two," Gale said. "I guess the odds aren't exactly in my favour."

"And you, Willow?"

"I can't remember," I said honestly. "Mother handles all of my grain rations."

The reason our names are in so many times is because of the tempting but unfair rules of the reaping. You can take out tesserae, which is extra grain and oil, in exchange for putting your name in more times. In total, my family has eight packs of grain and oil coming each month, as Gale took out five and I three.

This meant that on my first reaping, my name was entered four times. Once because I had to, and three times for the tesserae I hoped to receive. When I was thirteen, however, I had my name in five times, because as I was one year older, I had to have my name entered twice.

And it goes on and on. When I was fourteen, my name was entered six times. Now I'm fifteen, it's in the reaping bowl seven. However, all this adds up, which causes my name to be in there a disproportionate amount of times.

On the way back from the woods, we go by the Hob, the black market where we trade all our game.

While Katniss and Gale were trying to get a good price for the game we had hunted, I stopped at Greasy Sae's stall. She makes soups and broths, but she also had a side business going on that trades random objects and nick nacks.

Whilst I was trying to get a broth, a bright gold glint caught my eye. I reached into the box and pulled out a golden pin with a bird on it. "What's this?"

"That's a mockingjay," Greasy Sae answered.

"How much?" I asked.

She closed my palm around the pin. "You keep it."

With my golden pin in hand and a small (but not entirely worthless) amount of money in my pocket, I headed home with Gale.

When I got inside I saw Rory, sitting in the kitchen with a smart shirt on. Reaping clothes. My memory jolts back to when I was little and it was Gale's first reaping. He wore the exact same clothes.

"I have something laid out for you," Hazelle told her oldest daughter.

After a cold bath in which I rubbed off all the dirt and sweat from the woods and washed my hair, I saw the dress which my mother had laid out for me.

It was a beautiful dark blue number, with lace and ribbon added. I changed into it and then my mother did my hair in an elegant selection of plaits and braids.

"Wiwwo!" Posy, my little four year old sister, yells, jumping up and down. "Wiwwo you wook beautiful!"

I smile, lifting her up and resting her on my hip. "You're beautiful as well, Posy."

Her face lights up and she smiles. I chuckle slightly. She has no idea what world she's been born into. No idea that she'll have to face the reaping when she's older.

I meet up with Rory and Gale at the front of the house and said to my mother. "Prim asked me if I could go to the Everdeens today, just because it's her first reaping, you know."

She nodded. "Okay, I'll meet you at the square."

I nodded and started the small walk to the Everdeen's house. They lived in the Seam as well, and our houses were relatively close.

I got there and walked through the front door, seeing Katniss and her mother in the kitchen. "She's through there," Katniss said quietly. She was wearing a blue dress not unlike my own, and her hair was done in one plait.

I walked through into their bedroom and saw Prim. "Willow," she quietly whispered, coming over to hug me.

Prim was a very beautiful young girl who was twelve. She had blonde hair that was braided back into two paits, beautiful royal blue eyes and her reaping clothes consisted of a white lacy blouse and a skirt.

"You look beautiful," Prim told me.

"Oh no, you do," I tell her. "But you need to tuck in that tail, little duck."

Her blouse is untucking at the back, which is what I refer to as a "tail".

Prim smiles slightly as the siren that told everyone to "get moving" sounded. Prim looked so scared that when I spoke again I spoke gentler. "Hey, d'you wanna see what I got you today?"

I hold out the gold pin and hand it to her. "It's a mockingjay pin, and as long as you wear it, nothing bad will ever happen to you, okay?"

She nodded.

I stood up, taking her smaller hand in mine. "Come on."

Come on to see two innocent kids get sentenced to death.