Games

3

Three days later, the Reaping did come. Everyone was to dress in their best clothes and march up to the City Hall. Capitol-people will take the blood of aspiring tributes to make sure they actually attend, and then you wait.
I was woken at sunrise by my rising anxiety. My window was open and I inhaled the scent of the sea. It calmed me a great amount, but it still wasn't enough. I rolled onto my side and pulled myself up into fetal position. I closed my eyes amd tried to lull myself back to sleep by rocking, which usually helped, but it didn't work.
I finally sat up and let out a large gust of air. I hung my head back and stared up at my ceiling, trying to empty my mind.
It didn't work.
I couldn't sit still anymore.
I switched into a top and bottoms for swimming, and snuck out of the house, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind me. I was lucky my house was right off of the beach, so I didn't have to pull the attention of Peacekeepers to my early rising. I walked slowly through the sand, feeling it between my toes and under my feet. It was just starting to warm up from the sun rising; there's nothing like the feeling of hot sand under your feet.
When I reached the shoreline, I sat. And for a while, I just stared out into the sea. I forgot who I was and what was going to happen in a few hours. Without consciously telling myself to move, I started swimming. And I kept swimming.
I swam above and below the water, seeing how long I could hold my breath, sinking as low as I could go. I swam all the way to the gates, and then I remembered again.
At a certain point, there was a gate that stopped us from going any farther. You couldn't climb over it, couldn't swim under it. It was the fence that kept us within our District. And with that, I looked up at the sun, which told me it was time to get back to the house and get ready.
I swam through the water, a quick swimmer for even the other people in my district, making it back to the shore in record time. I took a light jog back to the house. I opened the door quietly, but it didn't matter because my family was already awake and sturring. My mother looked up from the kitchen, which is visible from the front door, and her face fell immediately.
She got up and trudged towards me, the look on her face was one I had rarely seen.
"How long have you been gone?" she asked briskly.
I ran my hand through my hair to give myself something to do. "Not long."
"How long?"
"Sunrise," I mumbled.
She shook her head and glared at me.
I stood there awkwardly, staring at my hands. Our curfew in District 4 was: don't be out before sunrise or after sundown. The sun needed to be well in the sky for people to be out. But no one had ever said anything to me, so I never felt the need to follow those guidelines strictly.
But my parents, especially my mom, took the law very seriously, and I never knew why. I could never figure out why I always felt the need to avoid the law, either.
"The sun was out, alright," I said, to break the building silence.
She looked at me a bit more, then shook her head and walked away.
"Go get dressed," she said over her shoulder.
I walked into the bathroom at the end of the hall and closed the door. I took my swimming clothes off, let them plop to the floor, and turned the water on for a shower. Cold water was always what we had for bathing, unless we heated it up and poured it into the bath.
I was used to it by now; the water in the ocean was just as cold, sometimes colder. I washed my hair, face, and body with ferocity. I got out and dried myself, applying moisturizer to my body and to my hair. The salt water can really dry it out.
I dried my hair and straightened it, with devices we had bought from the outdoor market, and applied light make up: mascara and pink lip gloss. When I looked in my closet, I couldn't decide what to wear. This was going to be televised for all the districts and the Capitol to see, so I might as well represent District 4.
I pulled on a loose blue skirt that fell all the way down to my ankles, black sandals, and a white tank top which I tucked into my skirt. I turned around three-sixty in my mirror to examen how I looked, and I found that I looked good. My eyes swept from my feet up to my face, and as soon as I saw the smile there, it disappeared.
I was dressing up for a lottery to go fight to the death. There should be no happiness in that.
And then, I really didn't care how I looked anymore. I stalked out of my room, and saw my family was sitting together in the living room, not talking. It was nearly time to go.
My father and brother were wearing similar clothes, dress pants and a nice shirt. My mother had put on a basic beige dress and dress shoes, her hair twisted up in a knot on top of her head.
Just like every year, I sat with them and we all held hands, basking in each other's company. You never knew what was going to happen, and when you'd see the people you loved for the last time