Over and Over: The 32nd Hunger Games SYOT

Chapter 12

Barley Sturridge POV

Everyone around me was shaking and crying. I had some idea what happened to people who went to the Games, but it was vague and unreal. When we were all required to watch the Games as they aired live, Dad always sent me to grab something from another room at certain moments. The sounds I heard must have been staged. Nobody would want to hear children making those noises. Sorghum never answered when I asked him what I missed. He was a few rows ahead of me, looking ahead like he was trying to seem mature.

I always liked seeing Chimera. He seemed so happy to be with us. I'd have liked to meet him up close if it wasn't for the Reaping. Maybe someday he'd do a between Games appearance.

"Let's mix things up this year and have the boys first!" Chimera said. Somehow he made it sound much grander than it really was. I was almost excited when he drew a slip.

"Barley Sturridge!" he called. My heart flopped as I thought of the things other boys had whispered in the Center over the years. They talked about what happened to the losers, and I knew they never came back. It didn't seem believable that kids could be as cruel as they said, though. They must have been scared and gotten carried away. In any case, I'd get to meet Chimera after all. I waited nervously for my District partner. When Dominique Rindelle joined me I almost laughed. She came from the fourteen-year-old line, so she was a year older than me, but I was almost two feet taller than she was. We must have looked terribly silly.

"Hey, I'm Barley," I said as Chimera said some final words.

"Yeah, I heard," she said. She smiled a teeny bit.

Everyone seemed really scared when they came to visit me. Ma kissed me about a hundred times and passed me the wooden ball she made for me forever ago.

"Thanks, it's my favorite," I said. Ma started crying and turned away.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Pa put his hand on my shoulder.

"Barley... it's not going to be how you think. We never wanted you to know this, but now you have to. They don't send the losers off to get better or let them find a new home. They die," he said.

"Yeah, I guess I knew," I said.

"No, you need to understand. They will hunt you and if they find you, they will kill you. Don't let them find you," Pa said. His voice started to crack and his hand trembled. "Please don't let them."

I looked from him to Ma and Sorghum. I expected them to smile like it was just a joke, but they all looked horribly serious. They looked like I was already dead, but nobody would kill a child. They had to be wrong, right?

Dominique Ridley POV

I left early for the Reaping so I could run the fear away. The officials were still setting up when I got there. There were some empty tables waiting for papers and fingerprinting pads, and I used them as hurdles. I tried to imagine myself running so far I got to a place where there were no Reapings and I didn't have to always be afraid. I tried to get my breathing so labored I didn't have the wind to cry.

It's hard to think about anything else when death becomes a possibility. Every year was a minefield until I was nineteen. Two people went every year, except two years ago when Tillo won. That made it seem even more hopeless. We'd probably only win every twelve years or so. It was too much to hope for two victories in three years. The time came for the Reaping to start, and I was crowded in with the other girls my age.

"This isn't right," I said to the girl next to me as the Anthem played. She didn't respond. She was looking at the ground and rocking back and forth. I turned to my other neighbor.

"We shouldn't have to be so scared," I said. The girl looked behind her like someone was watching and turned away from me.

Chimera called the boy first, and he picked Barley Sturridge. He was oddly calm for someone almost certainly about to die, and he was wearing scuffed up boots. I wanted to yell for them to stop and let us go home, but I knew what that would mean. I bottled up the fear inside, something I wasn't used to doing. I only ever did it once a year. Chimera held up the last name.

"Dominique Rindelle!" he cried. Speech left me as my body locked up and habit took over. I walked to the stage without meaning to and tried to sort through a thousand thoughts.

I never got to graduate. I never got to start my own family. I wanted to make friends. I wanted to giggle and gossip with the other girls. I wanted to spend the night at a friend's house and talk about boys. I'm never going to do any of those things.

"Hi, I'm Barley," Barley interrupted me. He said it so plainly and honestly it made me feel a little better. He wasn't a girl, but maybe he'd do. I realized I still had a chance to make friends, even if it was just for a little bit. There were eleven other girls heading to the Capitol with me. Surely at least one needed a friend.

Most of what my family said didn't stick with me. There was a lot of crying and pleading with the Peacekeepers. What I most remembered later was when Mom gave me my token. It was one of my old baby shoes, a peach-colored slipper. I loved shoes and all, but it was a pretty weird token.

"Never be afraid to run away from anything," Mom explained. It was about the only thing I was good at when it came to the Games, so it was good advice. I hoped I was faster than the Careers.

I would have put this in the Twelve Reaping, but this is the last one I ended up writing:

I'd like to assure you all that how your Tributes react in these chapters does not reflect their performance in the Games. Strong Tributes may scream or panic, but that's because these are very emotional moments. They'll act in accordance with their submitted personalities when the Games start, but anything can happen when a kid just found out he or she is probably going to die.

By the way, Myrtle is in Haber's alliance.