I never in a million years wanted my name to be drawn. When it was, reality hit me... with a train.
"Stephen Leigh!" The booming voice over the microphone exclaimed.
That was my name, but why was I being called during the Reaping? I walked towards the stage slowly trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I was 17 years old but I had only signed up for 2 tesserae. My brother who would be 19 now, always signed up for the tesserae for our family. He had signed up for 10-15 before his name was drawn 7 years ago to go into the Hunger Games. He died near the end against the remaining pack of career's.
I slowly made my way up the stairs when Cloud, the District 8 Drawing Director, pulled my arm towards him and the other girl that was chosen just a few moments ago. I had forgotten her name already having to deal with this myself. She was pretty, and I thought I had seen her around once or twice at school.
They made us shake hands and hurried us into the Justice Building. The Justice building is a place you visit your friends and family for the possibly last time before you went into the Games. This hour will most likely be the last I got to spend with my family.
I saw them push the other girl into a similar room to the left of mine. I walked in and took a seat on the silky sofa embroidered on the side with different jewels. Wow. I wished I had a sofa with jewels on the side. It was hard not to stare at the posh and magnificent looking decoration in the room until my older sister ran in. 22 year old Ashlea had always been there for me and she was again then. She attacked my body and latched on to me, 10 minutes later Edith, my younger sister who's only 11, ran in as well and also latched onto me. For another 5 minutes we sat in silence until they both stepped away. I think they understood my situation in not being able to do anything but they told me to keep my chin up and that I could do anything if I really tried. This, in a way angered me because I know I couldn't win, but they were just trying to make me feel better. The peacekeepers dressed in all white motioned for the girls to leave, I told them both that I love them very much and that it will be a lot easier with one less mouth to feed around the house. I had one more visitor before my time was up and that was a teacher from school.
"Mrs. Alicea, what are you doing here?" I asked quickly, afraid I'm in trouble or that she might of given me homework to do in the Hunger Games. She raced up to me and said,
"Stephen, I want you to take th-" The peacekeepers told her it's time to go and she handed me a small little leathery box. On her way out she looked behind her, at myself, smiled, and whispered,
"I know you'll love it. Good luck. I hope you win." The door closed behind her and I was left to my thoughts. What's inside this small box, it must be a token of some sort, but I never had any items too meaningful to me... I'm not sure whether to open it up quite yet or not so I slipped it into my pocket and wait for another time before the games to find out what this small object is.
I ran my hands through my golden hair and walked over to a mirror adjacent to myself and I looked for something. Will I get sponsors? Do I have that pizazz? After a few moments, the peacekeepers escorted me onto a train. The trains in Panem are so fancy but I've only been able to ride on them a handful of times, mostly when I was younger but I still remember them vividly. I stepped on and my mentor, Woof, showed me to my room.
"Another one dead, another one dead." He repeated as he walked down the hall. Was he talking about me? I hope not, mentors are very important to their tributes, if Woof didn't believe I could do it then I would die for sure. I'm told by Cloud that dinner is in an hour and that there were clothes at my liking in the drawers. I finally took in the room when he left, and it's beautiful. The walls are a pale orange and the floors are a very light grey. The bed was huge: I don't think I've ever seen a bed as big but I immediately jumped onto it and took in it's coziness. I then realized that I was starving so I put on some clothes, a light blue tee shirt and a pair of khakis and I hoped that I can find a little food before dinner began. I walked out of the room and saw a couple Avox's setting the table. I asked if they have a small snack to hold me off for dinner and one handed me a very fine roll. The roll was the most delicious food I had ever eaten and I craved more but I told myself I could wait a bit for dinner.
The next five days go by in a haze, Woof didn't speak to me, and my opposing tribute, Anna, only made small talk. Either she knew she wasn't going to make it too far or she wanted to kill me first. Whichever it was, it made my life a hell of a lot easier, we had interviews, training, and training scores (which I scored a 2 on by trying to throws knives at a target but I missed every time).
The next morning I opened my small red box to find a bird whistle on the inside. At school I always used it when we were outdoors, it was always my favorite part of school when I would be able to use the bird whistles because all of the bird in the area would amazingly circle around in the sky. I thanked Mrs. Alicea silently to myself for such a great token and after I got dressed in my District 8 uniform, I stuffed it into my pocket. I'm whisked away by peacekeepers into a hovercraft and they injected a needle into my arm, it hurt but I dealt with it. It was just the tracking device. They took us underneath the arena to each districts small compartment and I paced back and forth for the possibly last remaining hour safe in my life. They called all the tributes and told us it was time. I stepped onto my platfrom and a glass container closed down on me. We were slowly brought up into the arena.
Tiara
We were on a beach, that's all I could see ahead of me, an ocean. I looked to my left and there's a ginormous crater, and to my right a tropical jungle. 60, 59, 58... The countdown started. I looked over to the other tributes and I saw them all focusing where they wanted to go and working out a plan as quickly as possible except for one. I saw one of them, the boy from District 8 I believe shoved his hand into his pocket. What was he doing? I then saw him pull out a small bird whistle, but it never reached his mouth. Instead the poor kid was shaking so badly it fumbled out of his hands. BOOM!The first cannon fires.
"Stephen Leigh!" The booming voice over the microphone exclaimed.
That was my name, but why was I being called during the Reaping? I walked towards the stage slowly trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I was 17 years old but I had only signed up for 2 tesserae. My brother who would be 19 now, always signed up for the tesserae for our family. He had signed up for 10-15 before his name was drawn 7 years ago to go into the Hunger Games. He died near the end against the remaining pack of career's.
I slowly made my way up the stairs when Cloud, the District 8 Drawing Director, pulled my arm towards him and the other girl that was chosen just a few moments ago. I had forgotten her name already having to deal with this myself. She was pretty, and I thought I had seen her around once or twice at school.
They made us shake hands and hurried us into the Justice Building. The Justice building is a place you visit your friends and family for the possibly last time before you went into the Games. This hour will most likely be the last I got to spend with my family.
I saw them push the other girl into a similar room to the left of mine. I walked in and took a seat on the silky sofa embroidered on the side with different jewels. Wow. I wished I had a sofa with jewels on the side. It was hard not to stare at the posh and magnificent looking decoration in the room until my older sister ran in. 22 year old Ashlea had always been there for me and she was again then. She attacked my body and latched on to me, 10 minutes later Edith, my younger sister who's only 11, ran in as well and also latched onto me. For another 5 minutes we sat in silence until they both stepped away. I think they understood my situation in not being able to do anything but they told me to keep my chin up and that I could do anything if I really tried. This, in a way angered me because I know I couldn't win, but they were just trying to make me feel better. The peacekeepers dressed in all white motioned for the girls to leave, I told them both that I love them very much and that it will be a lot easier with one less mouth to feed around the house. I had one more visitor before my time was up and that was a teacher from school.
"Mrs. Alicea, what are you doing here?" I asked quickly, afraid I'm in trouble or that she might of given me homework to do in the Hunger Games. She raced up to me and said,
"Stephen, I want you to take th-" The peacekeepers told her it's time to go and she handed me a small little leathery box. On her way out she looked behind her, at myself, smiled, and whispered,
"I know you'll love it. Good luck. I hope you win." The door closed behind her and I was left to my thoughts. What's inside this small box, it must be a token of some sort, but I never had any items too meaningful to me... I'm not sure whether to open it up quite yet or not so I slipped it into my pocket and wait for another time before the games to find out what this small object is.
I ran my hands through my golden hair and walked over to a mirror adjacent to myself and I looked for something. Will I get sponsors? Do I have that pizazz? After a few moments, the peacekeepers escorted me onto a train. The trains in Panem are so fancy but I've only been able to ride on them a handful of times, mostly when I was younger but I still remember them vividly. I stepped on and my mentor, Woof, showed me to my room.
"Another one dead, another one dead." He repeated as he walked down the hall. Was he talking about me? I hope not, mentors are very important to their tributes, if Woof didn't believe I could do it then I would die for sure. I'm told by Cloud that dinner is in an hour and that there were clothes at my liking in the drawers. I finally took in the room when he left, and it's beautiful. The walls are a pale orange and the floors are a very light grey. The bed was huge: I don't think I've ever seen a bed as big but I immediately jumped onto it and took in it's coziness. I then realized that I was starving so I put on some clothes, a light blue tee shirt and a pair of khakis and I hoped that I can find a little food before dinner began. I walked out of the room and saw a couple Avox's setting the table. I asked if they have a small snack to hold me off for dinner and one handed me a very fine roll. The roll was the most delicious food I had ever eaten and I craved more but I told myself I could wait a bit for dinner.
The next five days go by in a haze, Woof didn't speak to me, and my opposing tribute, Anna, only made small talk. Either she knew she wasn't going to make it too far or she wanted to kill me first. Whichever it was, it made my life a hell of a lot easier, we had interviews, training, and training scores (which I scored a 2 on by trying to throws knives at a target but I missed every time).
The next morning I opened my small red box to find a bird whistle on the inside. At school I always used it when we were outdoors, it was always my favorite part of school when I would be able to use the bird whistles because all of the bird in the area would amazingly circle around in the sky. I thanked Mrs. Alicea silently to myself for such a great token and after I got dressed in my District 8 uniform, I stuffed it into my pocket. I'm whisked away by peacekeepers into a hovercraft and they injected a needle into my arm, it hurt but I dealt with it. It was just the tracking device. They took us underneath the arena to each districts small compartment and I paced back and forth for the possibly last remaining hour safe in my life. They called all the tributes and told us it was time. I stepped onto my platfrom and a glass container closed down on me. We were slowly brought up into the arena.
Tiara
We were on a beach, that's all I could see ahead of me, an ocean. I looked to my left and there's a ginormous crater, and to my right a tropical jungle. 60, 59, 58... The countdown started. I looked over to the other tributes and I saw them all focusing where they wanted to go and working out a plan as quickly as possible except for one. I saw one of them, the boy from District 8 I believe shoved his hand into his pocket. What was he doing? I then saw him pull out a small bird whistle, but it never reached his mouth. Instead the poor kid was shaking so badly it fumbled out of his hands. BOOM!The first cannon fires.
The extremely talented Golden Globe Award nominated actor Amanda Plummer has officially joined the cast of the upcoming Hunger Games sequel "Catching Fire". Plummer will play the role of Wiress, an older tribute from District 3 who is said to be "exceptionally smart" and adept at working with electronics. In addition to her 1993 Golden Globe Award nomination for the NBC movie "Miss Rose White", Plummer has won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Sister Agnes in the play "Agnes of God", and has won three Primetime Emmy Awards. Numerous roles are still up for grabs in "Catching Fire".
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