There is beauty in complete silence. It is bliss to have only your thoughts to hear and the quiet of your surroundings. The silence of the forest around me is almost tangible, so tangible that you can feel the beauty up close. It is understandable to savor such a peace, to enjoy it, even.

But not for me.

This peace is only beautiful if you need it.

I definitely do not need it.

You certainly don't need quiet when you're hunting. Only hunters seem to not be able to afford the silence, after all.

Because too quiet means an inconvenient lack of life. No prey, no food for your family, maybe even starvation.

And when it comes full-circle, starvation means stress.

This is a day where I need for there to be an absolute absence of stress. A hunt is meant to be an activity to take some of the strain out of life for me, even if the Capitol does not allow it.

My father says that though the Capitol bans hunting for food, there are and always have been people who spend their free hours outside of the mines or the plantations or the factories hunting to feed their families.

So that is what I do in my free time.

I hunt.

I hunt for food only, but sometimes there's also the benefit of, yes- warding off anxiety and tension.

Today this plan has failed miserably. Frustrated, I rub off the pine needle and mud concoction on my skin that kept me disguised in the pine tree I have been sitting in all morning, and sling my hunting bow under my arm, preparing to go back home.

I swing down noiselessly from my post in the pine tree. Before I leave, I turn and whistle a loud bird call. A long low note, followed by a short high note and a long middle note.

Two seconds later, I hear the light sound of boots on pine needles, and then I see my brother appear from behind a young pine shrub.

"Did you catch anything?" I whisper when he catches up to me.

"Ah, sadly, no." Eli shakes his head. He holds up a couple of small homemade traps for emphasis. There is no trace of blood or fur caught on them.

I sigh. No breakfast.

"We need to get back, anyway," Eli says. "We're gonna be late for the Reaping if we don't go home soon." He rests his leather grip-clad hand on my shoulder and smiles grimly.

I smile grimly back.

Neither of us wants to go to the Reaping.

No one does.

But we have to anyway. It was a tradition established by the Capitol, and we will probably be shot if we don't go.

Every year, as punishment for the rebellion against the Capitol that cost the twelve districts their freedom and destroyed the thirteenth, each district has to send a boy and a girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to fight to the death in an arena on live TV.

Every year, we go to the Reaping to see which ones of the community will be reaped and chosen.

But every year, without fail, the districts enter their children's names on tiny slips of paper for tessera grain, and waited for someone else's children to get reaped that year. So their children will be spared.

We begin to trot as quietly as we can to the edge of the forest; the part that faces the large collection of buildings we call home. After about a mile, Eli and I are in view of the edge of the forest, where we can see a few shacks through the thick foliage.

He goes and buries his traps, wrapped in cloth so they will not rust, in a pile of dead needles and plant material under some huge pine roots. I slip my bow and quiver of arrows into a large square of waterproof plastic in the deep hollow of a tree that is too rotten to use for lumber, but still sturdy enough to protect my bow from rain, mold, and nosy people.

Then, as soon as we know there were no Peacekeepers hanging around the forest, we weave through a couple of alleys until we reach our home, a tiny wooden house with no windows and a boring-looking wooden door. I lightly shake the doorknob, just hard enough to tell if it's locked. It is.

Of course it is.

Eli sighs and then knocks on the door.

Merely a couple heartbeats later, a pale hand reaches through the door, yanks us both into the house, and swiftly but silently shuts and locks the door.

The person whose hand has pulled us inside is standing in front of us, hands on hips. Long black hair, piercing green eyes; an authoritative figure whose short stature stands at attention. It is our fairly disheveled and quite furious mother.

"What are you doing out hunting?! Today is not the day! You two are going to cost each other your lives one day if you're caught, I swear it."

Mom looks us over, shaking her head with disbelief. "You need to at least wash your faces; you don't even have time to wash up fully." She grabs my arm with a firm but more gentle grip. Her face softens just a tad. "And please take off those rags, all right? You need to look your best today."

I suspect that she probably wants to add on, "Even if we don't want to", but Mom is careful about what she says. She knows well the consequences of being caught saying something even somewhat against the Capitol. And even in our District Seven, a district supposedly wealthier than most, one can never guarantee the prevention of a close neighbor listening in through thin wooden walls. 

Mom hands me a soft bundle of cloth. When I unfold it, I see that it is a simple green dress that appears knee-length, with black buttons down the back and a simple collar. Once I have taken off my usual work clothes, Mom helps me slip on the dress and button the back. I take off my leather hunting boots and exchange them for a pair of girlish black boots.

Then, my father calls me into the kitchen and motions towards a large wooden tub of water. I hand him the leather grips I wore in the forest and kneel down over the water. I scrub my face and arms with my hands to get as much grit and pine sap off of them as I can. When I open my eyes, a girl with a clean but tense face stares back at me from the tub.

My father slaps me on the back while I wipe my face with a rag and leads me to our scuffed kitchen table with Eli. "Cassia, Elijah, you both need to eat before you go. You wouldn't want to starve at the Reaping, would you?" He chuckles mildly, though the look on his face doesn't mirror the previous humor in the statement. Any other day, any of us could have made that joke and laughed freely; but today, no one wants to be caught joking about being chosen for the slaughter. 

But nonetheless, my father is known for being a joker. Attempts at making people laugh are his way of releasing his anxiety.

Dad gestures for Eli and I to sit before setting a couple of plates of bread before us. He sits across the table from us, and soon after my mother, carrying our little sister, Ivy, sits down as well. We all say a quick blessing after we get our bread, and begin to eat it in silence, no one wanting to even mention what is to happen in the next hour.

I look quietly around the scuffed, worn table at my family. It's hard not to look at us; a bunch that has just as many similarities as differences.

Dad is tall and thin, with thick black hair and brown hands, his palms rough from working with wood his entire life. Though he is strong enough to be a lumberjack, his family trade lay in carpentering. His job in the district is hard on him, but my father always finds time to smile. That's just him.

Mom, on the other hand, is short and pale, and as serious as our father is not. When Eli and I cannot bring back any meat from the forest, Mom is the one who works every day to keep food on the table. She is very protective of us; but for some reason unknown to me, she lets Eli and I hunt illegally without batting an eye.

Staring quietly around the table as well and nibbling his bread is Eli. He and I are twins. Though we are not identical, we certainly look very alike. He and I both have looks from both Mom and Dad- we get our long limbs and dark olive skin from Dad; and our wavy black hair and small size from Mom. Our eyes are a mix of the two- an unusual murky green. We are both fourteen, but if we are not reaped, then we will get to celebrate our fifteenth birthday in a couple of weeks.

Our sister, Ivy, sits in a lone chair at the end of the table. She is a tiny eight-year-old girl with wide dark eyes and thick black hair that she has in a long braid down her back. In other words, a carbon copy of my father; if he was about half his height . For whatever reason she has always been very mature for her age. Since always and despite my mother's protests, she has wanted to know why we had to be reaped.

But today, Ivy mostly wants to know if we'll actually be reaped.

 "Are you sure you won't be reaped?" she asks me after breakfast, her eyes hungrily searching mine for an answer. I have been anticipating this question today, but I cannot answer her. Dread glues my lips shut. But I am forced to give her as real of a smile as I can muster, and hopefully, as realistic a response.

"We won't, Ivy, I promise," I say, looking her straight in the eye, even though I know from past Games that anyone can be chosen to be sent into the arena.

As predicted, Ivy still doesn't look convinced. Instead, she looks more worried; and personally, I don't  blame her.

"Please don't get reaped," she begs Eli as I finish my bread. It is the rough kind made of tessera grain. It is the only kind the poorest of the district ever get. My father always promised, though, that when we got enough money, he would get us a loaf of wheat bread, the kind that was soft and wholesome and delicious. Each loaf allows us all a slice for breakfast for two days; two days to try the finest food in the world, save Capitol gourmet.  He would eventually get us some to taste, Dad had said, because he knew how delicious it was, having eaten it only once before.

"I can't promise, but I highly doubt I'll get reaped, Ivy," Eli reassures our younger sister with a bright smile that could only come from Eli himself. Ivy cheers up, but only a tad more. There is not always a way to convince that child, but Eli's always been much better at making people happy than I am. Yet I can clearly see that as he hugs Ivy, he looks just a tad scared of what is about to happen.

I put my plate in the wooden tub, still filled with water, and Eli and Ivy do the same.

"We have to go," my mother says briskly, urging us out the door. "You know what happens if we're late."

Eli and I walk out the door first, followed by my parents and Ivy. Eli grabs my hand, and nods to each Peacekeeper we pass as we make our way into the Square. Why he makes such gestures, I have no idea, but he seems to know what he's doing. As always. I don't try to bring it up with him.

My family makes its way into the Square, which is in the center of the district. Simple yet beautiful cobblestone make up the intricate pattern forming the Square, but no one ever pays attention to its interweaving patterns. The only time anyone is ever required to be in the Square is once a year. During the Reaping. When no one pays attention to the ground underneath them and only on the fate of their children, or siblings, or grandchildren.

The Square lies in front of our Justice Building. The Justice building is a large and impressive stone and log building with heavy pillars that are not marble, but giant pine logs holding up the entrance. There is a podium in front of it made of stone bricks, where the mayor, Roman Percival, makes most of his speeches; with wide stone steps leading up to the entrance. I have heard that inside, large pine supports crisscross the ceiling and log pillars like the ones at the entrance stretch from floor to ceiling.

In the past it impressed me when I looked at its beauty; but now, with a large crowd gathering in the Square, everyone expressionless and still, the building just appears formidable and unwelcoming.

In front of the podium, two giant glass balls are held up by metal stands, full of countless little paper slips. One is for the boys, the other for the girls. Each year, my name is placed in the ball more than the year before. The normal twelve-year-old in my district has their name on only one slip of paper. When I was twelve, my name was on two slips of paper. Now, even though I am not fifteen yet, at least eight slips of paper have my name, to provide rations of tessera grain and oil for my family. And though this increases my chances of entering the Games, having Eli and I both place tesserae ensures that we both have less chance of being chosen.

The common sense of tesserae makes me sick.

As soon as we get to the crowd of people, my family separates; Eli going to the left side of the crowd where the boys stand, and I to the opposite side. My family stands with the other families in the back of the crowd. As soon as we get in our places, the crowd averts their attention to the podium.

This year, the new escort of District Seven's tributes is a tall woman from the Capitol named Petra Gem. She is simply dressed compared with most of the ridiculous fashions of other people from the Capitol, but her outfit clearly shows off her wealth. Gem's deep blue lipstick matches her hard eyes, and she wears a frilly but elegant ice blue gown. Her feet are squashed into ridiculously high heels that are made of a glass or crystal of some kind, and make her at least six inches taller. Gem's auburn hair is almost perfectly piled high on her head, a few curly strands of hair escaping from the arrangement.

Gem taps the microphone placed in front of her, and it gives off some feedback. She looks over the crowd with an expression of calm, a poorly-hidden trace of disgust the only mark on her annoyingly pristine face. A few seconds later, her lips pull into an obviously fake smile, and she begins.

"Welcome, District Seven, to the 55th Hunger Games!" She says this with a gusto that dies before it even gets past her tongue. My district meets her dead enthusiasm and cold stare with our own expressionless faces.

Gem's expression never changes as she continues with the annual ten-minute history of Panem, our glorious nation; and of the Hunger Games, the only just consequence for the districts' rebellion. Finally, she finishes with a snide, "May the odds be ever in your favor." At least three other girls besides me shoot her a glare, because the expression, besides being incredibly overused by people of the Capitol; is also coming from a woman who has never had to suffer because of the Games.  She ignores the angry expressions, of course, and walks over to the girls' Reaping ball as if she is walking to the market to buy food. As if she does this on a normal basis.

"And, as always. . ." Gem pauses for dramatic effect before she delivers one of two death sentences. "Ladies first."

I know for sure now that I hate this woman, both for being from the Capitol and for being District Seven's cold, uncaring escort.

The next moments almost felt cut off from one another as the girls' ball began to turn, flipping and churning all of the names in and out of reach; as the entire district holds its breath and waits. All of the girls around me stiffen, their faces ashen with fear and anticipation.

The next thing I know, the ball has stopped its rotation, and Petra Gem is reaching into the fluttering pile of slips.

She carefully selects one from the ball, and all of the girls in the crowd gasp in a breath as she opens the paper slip and reads the name inside.

"Cassia Leviticus."

I hear the other girls let out a sigh of relief, but as I prepare to do so as well, I feel the stares of at least a hundred girls turn to me, and I almost lose my breakfast.

I was just reaped. She just read my name from the card.

I begin to make my slow walk to the front without realizing it, my brain shot clean of thought, numbed to the strongest degree. I hear a woman wail from the back of the crowd, and turn to see my mother collapse into my father, sobbing. I look to the side, and I see Eli. On his face is pure panic. It looks worst on him, because he's always so sure of everything. We always get each other out of trouble, but this time he can do nothing to get me out of this. My throat closes up around the realization as I slowly climb to the podium.

I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

I am on the podium now, staring at the crowd. Some look as panicked as Eli. I assume this is because they depend on me for fresh meat as well as my family.

But that is the only reason it would matter to them. The only reason they would care.

Because I know that none of them would volunteer for me. No one cares that much. I know with a bitter confirmation that no one would try to get me out of this position, this heavy burden that can only be carried by a tribute of the Hunger Games.

I am going to die.

-   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

Hey, guys!

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter to my first book! Please comment reactions and feedback, and don't forget to vote!