Anise's POV

When I was 5 years old I remember falling off a tree after I tried to runaway from a wild dog. I remember crying and screaming and begging for someone to help me and save me. But no one came and I fell off the tree and the impact knocked every air in my body and I remember laying there in pain trying to breathe in and out but failing.

That's how I feel right now. My mind was racing with thoughts. Prim was my best friend. She was younger than me. What did she ever do to anyone? She's only 12 years old. She doesn't know how to protect herself. What about her family? What about Katniss? Gale? Her mother? Why? Why did it have to be Prim? She was my first friend.

I couldn't remember how to breathe or speak. I almost fainted my legs were numb. I was going to fall. But I couldn't fall again. I couldn't allow Prim to feel like I did when I was trapped in that tree. Danger on every corner. A chance of death. No one coming to rescue me. Being alone and unable to do anything. Feeling attacked and almost dying.

Then in the distance, somewhere far away. The crowd was muttering unhappily like they always do for 12 year olds. No one ever thinks this is fair and I look at Prim. Her blood was drained from her face, hands clenched in fists by her side, walking stiff, small steps. She was passing me and her blouse was untucked and was hanging out of her. She was going to pass me. I looked at Katniss and she was in the same shape as I am. I had to do it. Before she did.

"Prim!" I yelled at her and I didn't feel numb and my legs didn't feel like lead. I shoved pass all the people in the crowd. I had to get to her before Katniss did. Prim was almost to the steps and I ran up and stood up tall and moved her off the stairs.

"I volunteer!" I gasped. "I volunteer as tribute!"

There was confusion everywhere. District 12 never have volunteers in decades. Protocol was rusty and one another name was pulled. An eligible boy and the name was read. Girl or boy a person could step forward and take his or her place and in some districts, winning the reaping was an honor and people were very eager to risk their lives, so volunteering is complicated. But in District 12, when the word tribute was a synonymous with the word corpse and all volunteering was extinct.

I looked back at Rue and Katniss. They were shocked and regret and guilt were in their eyes. I was different than Katniss. I had a smaller chance of surviving out of anyone. I was the skinniest, smallest, one of the weakest in physical strength and unable to hold large weapons. I knew that the odds were not in my favor. I looked at the crowd and saw confusion but also relief. None of them wanted me here.

"Lovely!" Effie Trinket says. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um.." She then trails off and sounds unsure of herself.

"What does it matter?" The mayor says and he was looking at me with pain. He knew me before other people and he knew things about me. He knew what the district had said about me. He remembers me the 10 year old girl that was alone looking at the remains of her father and mother as the smoke erupted from the air and fire surrounded everything, and red. Red was the most memorable. "What does it matter?" He repeats this time gruffly. "Let her come forward."

Prim screamed hysterically and gave me a hug blocking my vision. She was like ice. "No! No! Anise, you can't! You can't go!"

"Prim it's okay." I told her and tried to get her off of me. This was live tv and I won't cry no matter what. "Let go!"

I told her and I felt someone grab her from me and looked at Gale who had lifted Prim off the ground as she trashed in his arms and Katniss right beside him. He looks at me deep in the eye. "Up you go." He said and his voice was fighting to become steady. I give him a smile, a true smile. He was one of the ones that cared about me here. I then look back and climb up the steps.

"Well, bravo!" Effie Trinket gushes but I could see something else in her eyes. "That's the spirit of the gams! What's your name"

I looked at her and gave a smile. "Anise Cadireed." I told her.

"I bet my buttons that she's your friend isn't she? Since she's not your sister! How old are you, dear?" She asked me.

"15." I tell her and she seemed to have a hesitation as she continued to speak, probably surprised.

"Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" She says trilled.

To the credit of the people of District 12, no one claps. Not one. Some of these people knew me slightly well. There wasn't any betting being done. People from the Hob sometimes notice me or knew my mother and father. So instead of the applause I stand there unmoving and they do something that surprises me. Silence. They did not agree. They did not condone. All is wrong.

They then do something that, I thought, that no one in this whole district would care about me. A shift did occur ever since I stood up for Prim and she started crying and hugging me, how Gale had to grab Prim and Katniss standing beside him. Maybe now they'll notice I wasn't as strange or as weird as they thought I was. It was at first only Katniss, Prim, Gale and Mrs. Everdeen but then one after another after another almost every member of the crowd had touched their three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and held it out to me. This was an old and rarely used gesture in our district, that was always seen in funerals. It means thank you, admiration and goodbye to someone you love.

I almost cry but I make sure not to blink a lot, and Haymitch looks at me and staggers across the stage to congratulate me. "Look at her. Look at this one!" He hollers and throws his long arm around my shoulder and was very strong even as he was still drunk. He was over a foot taller than me. "I like her!" He yelled and his breath smells like liquor and he also smelled like he hadn't taken a bath in a long time. "Lots of..." He couldn't think of it. "Pluck!" He says in a triumphant voice. "More than you!" He releases me and moves to the front of the stage. "More than you!" He says pointing at the camera. "How does it feel that a 12 year old-"

"15." I say.

"15 year old girl has more pluck than all of you?!" He yells and then opens his mouth and falls off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.

I was grateful to him and composed myself more. As the camera is so focused on Haymitch and look out at the distance.

I thought about Prim. The laughs we shared. Gale and how he was kind to me and strict at the same time. How Katniss helped me become better at different things and made me faster. Their mother and how she allowed me to sleep in their house during the winter. I then focus back.

Haymitch was taken away by a stretcher and Effie Trinket trying to get the attention of the audience and get everything back in control. "What an exciting day!" She says trying to straighten her wig. "But more excitement to come! It's time to chose our boy tribute!" She says hoping to contain her hair situation and places one hand on her head as she crosses to the ball that has the boys' names and grabs the first slip she sees and zips back to the podium, and she reads the name. "Peeta Mellark."

Peeta Mellark!

I knew him. He had helped me when I needed it the most.

The odds weren't in my favor. Why did it have to be a person I knew? He then walks over to the stage. He was around the same height as Haymitch. he had ashy blonde hair that fell in waves over his forehead, blue eyes with pale skin and a stocky build. He was a handsome boy and looked slightly better fit and built than everyone else. He looked over alarmed and climbed steady on the stage and took his place.

Then Effie Trinket asked for volunteers but no one stepped forward this time. Even though he has two older brothers that I've seen in the bakery, the eldest is too old and the other I know won't volunteer. It's how it works here. Family only goes so far for people on reaping day. That's why what I did was so amazing .

The mayor then started reading the long and dull Treaty of Treason that he does every year- why?- because it's required but I wasn't listening.

I was still asking why him? Though I wasn't on close terms with him he was a nice boy and was the same age as Katniss, 16. I don't know if he remembers what had happened.

After my mother and father had died it was the worst time for me. It was a bittersweet January that anyone remembered. There was blood everywhere from the aftermath of the explosion and they were gone. I was confused but at the same time not confused. I still remembered crying and yelling at everyone who passed or talked to me I even closed off Prim and Katniss.

I had to find a new place to live and I was hating my situation. I was hungry almost every day and game was scarce. I had to lay on the cold burnt floor every night and most of the day and 3 months had passed and I was breaking.

The district didn't give me anything large or even small for compensation. It was one little coin that wouldn't even last me a month. I had no one to be with me and I was close to dying. I would just sit in the house doing nothing. Though other kids were able to go to community homes I was unable to. They just didn't care much for a 10 year old girl. Even though Prim, who was seven, and Katniss, who was eleven were living there because of their mother's inability to take care of them. So I had to do everything by myself.

More circumstances came when I almost died. But I was somehow able to run and hide from the animals. Wheither it was freezing water, high above a tree feet up or below on the ground seeing their footsteps past me and wonder where I was and when they spot me to run and never look back. I had to learn the hard way how to survive without anyone and that made me close everything out. But, then it was a day when I was unable to anything.

I was thinking about signing up for a tesserae or thinking of asking Katniss to help me out but they had enough on their hands. Then I started starving to death. I knew that I had a long way to go until I was able to go and sign up for a tesserae and I knew that they weren't going to give me anything because there's only me and I have no one to take care out. It was hard and unbearable.

Since starvation was never an uncommon way for someone to go they didn't do much about it. Rather it was children from a family with too many to feed, if you're injured in the mines, straggling through the streets or an orphan. But it was the same as the rest. You would sit motionless, unable to move, back against a wall or lying down in the Meadow. Sometime Peacekeepers would come and think I was dead and try to take me away but I would always move.

I didn't understand why I felt like I had a reason to live. I had no one but then everything changed.

It was raining and I had turned 11 a few months ago. The icy sheets were awful and I was looking for different clothes because I couldn't wear it anymore, but I was shot down. No matter what I gave them. I was going to go the Hob but I was too afraid of going to that place. I was too frightened to do anything without my parents. My clothes were soaked with rain, I had hollow cheeks and dry, cracked lips. My skin was deadly pale and my feet didn't want to move. I couldn't do anything. I felt as though I was going to die.

I wasn't able to seal. If you stole you would be punished by death and sometimes I thought about it and all the bins were empty. Then I passed by the baker, the smell of fresh bread was drawing me in and I sat down and started drifting away.

But then there was yelling and screaming and I looked up and saw the baker's wife yelling at me telling me to move and go and I did. I didn't know how but I was still able to move. No matter how stiff my body had become. She was yelling at me with ugly words and I didn't bother trying to defend myself because I would lose more energy and I looked up because I had heard the sound, and saw a boy with blond hair, looking out behind his mother's back. I had seen him before. He was a year older than me and I didn't know his name. He was always with kids from the town so there was no way for me to know him. I then moved away from their sight by the pens with the bigs. Against a large, old apple tree. The feeling of no hope and no reason to live hit me and I slid down. I was too sick, too weak, and too tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and drift off.

But then there was a clattering sound in the bakery and the woman started screaming and a blow was heard. There was a thought that made me wonder what was going on as the door opened in the back. I thought it was her but it wasn't. It was her son and in his arms he was carrying two loaves of bread that had fallen in the fire because the crust was scorched black.

His mother then started yelling and I flenched. "Feed it to the ig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!" She screamed.

He then tore off chunks of bread and tossed them. He glanced at me twice and his mother went to the front of the bakery and he ran over to me. He had a red weal that had stood out on his cheekbone. What did she hit him with?

My parents have gotten mad at me but they never hit me. I couldn't even imagine how that must have felt for him. He then looked at me and passed me a lot of bread and I looked at him. He gave me a pained smile and ran away.

I then stared at the loaves of bread and they were perfect and fine besides the burned parts. I then thought about his mother and tucked the bread under my stomach and ran as the heat burned my skin and I taught about how good it felt and I was so relieved that I wasn't going to die. I ran over to Katniss's house not caring about the pain and put a lot of bread on the steps and knocked on the door and ran away.

I then ran to my home and sat on the wet floor and ate small pieces of the bread. I was going to let this last as long as I could and I went into a deep sleep and dreamed about the boy who was older than me I saw. I couldn't help but wonder why and the next morning I was awaken by a knock on my door and saw Katniss and Prim. They gave me a deep hug and I cried in their arms. I was tired of being alone and shutting people out.

When then went to school and I saw that boy. His cheek had swelled up and he had a black eye. He was with his friends but he told them something and walked over to me and asked me to follow him and we talked behind the school.

"T-Thank you." I told him and heat rushed to my face and he smiled at me and he gave me something and ran away. I looked down and saw it was the Anise plant. I smiled and I couldn't help but thinking about that boy for months. Then I never spoke to him again. He said one thing to me that day and that was.

"Smile."

I was then back in the present and the mayor was finished with the boring Treaty of Treason and motioned for us to shake hands. I looked down at his hand and noticed it was solid and warm like the loaves of bread. While mine were hard and cold like a knife. We then look at each other right in the eye and gives my hand a squeeze. I return it back and flash him a smile for a second.

We turned back to face the crowd and the anthem of Panem played.

There are 24 of us. I hope that the odds are in my favor so I don't have to kill him, or worse him kill me.

But of course, the odds haven't been dependable at all.