Creative Writing: The Hunger Games

Submitted By liamkelly747
Words: 1837
Pages: 8

I don't know how long that ray of sunlight had been peeking through the open window before it found its way onto my face. Nor do I know how long it took me to become aware of it. I fought to ignore that errant sunbeam, to get back to my dream, but the moment had passed. I rub my knuckles into my eyes to drive away the sleep and try to remember what I had planned for today, the reaping. I have to wash and get dressed up in my best clothes for the reaping, why? Because the Capitol wants me to. The Capitol organise The Hunger Games, an annual event where a boy and a girl are ‘reaped’ from each district and put into an arena to fight to the death. The arena isn’t one like the colosseum. It’s a simulated natural environment that is different every year. Last year it was set in a jungle and the year before that it was a snowy terrain. I know it won’t be that again because the Capitol didn’t get much enjoyment out of it, seeing as most of the people froze to death. This year it will be new and much more exciting. Well, for the Capitol, at least. I don’t like the games. It’s just an excuse for the Capitol to assert their power. I’m dressed and we are just about to go to the reaping. My mother and I, that is. My father died in an explosion in the mines. I don’t really like to talk about it. The reaping isn’t much. There’s this weird lady up on stage who has wavy pale pink hair that looks like a wig but I’m not entirely sure it is. Haymitch is there too, drunk as always, stumbling around the stage. When it comes time to the actual reaping, everyone snaps to attention and listens to the lady with the pink hair on stage. She says “Ladies first,” and walks over to a large glass bowl filled with little scraps of paper. She carefully picks one, unfolds it and reads the name: “Primrose Everdeen.” This tiny girl walks up to the stage and, as she walks past me, I see a girl running through the town square after her. She is obstructed by the Peacekeepers which are our ‘police’. She utters the words I’ve never heard said at a reaping: “I volunteer as tribute.” She then grabs the little girl and orders her to go find her mother before walking straight up onto the stage, and standing next to the Mayor. The reaper picks a name from the other bowl. She reads out the name “Peeta Mellark”. This boy walks up on stage. He has his head hung, feeling the eyes of the audience on him. He is quite muscular looking and more developed than some but still no match for the Careers. The Careers are well-fed and highly trained volunteers from districts 1, 2 and 4. The two tributes are then taken to the justice building and allowed to say their goodbyes before they’re taken to the Capitol where they will be groomed for the interviews. The interviews are broadcast all over Panem. They each run for two minutes, starting off with the district 1 girl and ending with the district 12 boy. I watch attentively on our small old dusty shoe box of a television. Peeta Mellark, the boy from our district is up and he announces that he has a major crush on the girl from our district, Katniss.
I woke up this morning forty five minutes before the start of the games. As they started I didn’t want to watch but I did anyway. I was completely focused on the district twelve tributes. Katniss ran to a backpack about ten metres from her podium and wrestled with a boy over it. He was suddenly struck in the back with a knife and crumpled to the ground, coughing up blood as he did. Katniss seized the backpack, slung it over her shoulder and headed for the woods. A throwing knife was then flung in her direction it hit the backpack with tremendous force, nearly knocking her over. She stumbled a bit but regained steady footing and continued for the woods. The knife thrower lost interest and headed back for the Cornucopia. Peeta ran straight into the midst of the battle for the ‘prizes’ at the Cornucopia. He threw a boy to the ground, who was then pierced in the chest by a spear thrown by