Hello all!!
My apologies for the huge break without any posts. I have no excuses. Or explanations. Or what-have-you.
But I'm back now!! Back, and participating in Kate's writing prompt, along with my cowriter, Alexa!! We decided to take the characters from our book, Becoming Brave, and put them in the world of Hunger Games. Because why not?
It's going to have several parts, and the next will be on Alexa's blog. Thank you for looking here, and I hope you enjoy the story that we have dubbed "Becoming Hungry!"
~Rebecca
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Vil
It’s hard to protect the only one who matters to you when the entire world seems dead set against it.
It was the morning of the Reaping. I hadn’t slept at all the night before, and Cec had only dozed off around three in the morning.
I tried to convince myself that it was impossible; my worries were completely unfounded. If anyone was going to get Reaped, it would be me, considering how many times I’d put my name in the bowl. But the problem with that was, who would protect Cecil if I wasn’t there?
Probably nobody.
Well then, I guess neither of you should get picked.
Thanks, brain. Wonder why I didn’t think of that.
I went ahead and got up with the sun, since we had to be in the square in a couple of hours and there really was no point in pretending to sleep any longer. As I started breakfast with the leftovers from last night, I was glad I’d gone hunting the day before; Cecil had woken up while I was gone a few other times, and I had a feeling that if I wasn’t here when he woke up today, his freezing fits would be even worse than normal.
Which was saying something.
He woke up while the venison was still sizzling and shuffled into the kitchen only to collapse at the table. I smiled over at him, but was too exhausted--physically and mentally--to tease him like I normally did. It was nice to see, though, that, whatever else was going on, some things just didn’t change. My brother being the worst of bad morning people for instance.
“Cecil,” I called his name with a hint of annoying singsong.
“Mmf.”
“Cec, come on,” a laugh entered my voice as I went over with the pan and poked his temple with my finger. “You have to eat breakfast.”
He turned his head away from me. “Don’t have to.”
“Cec,” I let the chuckle out because what the heck? Might as well enjoy the beginning of the day. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get going.”
“Please stop talking, Vil.”
“Fine.” I shrugged, setting the pan down on the table. “Starve, if you like. I’m going to get dressed.”
“You have fun with that.”
I snorted as I left to shower. The only time my brother could muster up sarcasm: when he was still half-asleep.
By the time I’d gotten dressed, though, he’d woken up and sobered up. I knew because he was staring straight ahead, fingers clenched around his fork, the only movement a slight trembling in his shoulders. I sighed. So he’d thought of the Games and frozen, just like that.
God, my brother could not get picked. He’d quite literally die out there.
“Cec.” I touched his shoulder, and he jumped out of his lock-up.
“Vil.” His heart thumped against mine as I hugged him. “Vil, what if I get--”
“Hush. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
What both of us knew and neither of us mentioned? The fact that I wouldn’t.
At the Reaping, we mostly kept to ourselves. I nodded at the people I knew, but no one seemed interested in even normal human small talk. What was happening today was way too big for that.
After our fingers were pricked and we’d checked in, Cecil went to the fifteen-year-old’s section, and I went to the seventeen’s to wait for the names to be drawn. It wasn’t long before the Capitol’s representative walked out onto the platform set up in the square.
The representative looked somewhat old for a Capitol person. It went beyond the wrinkles that he had attempted to smooth out. There was a fractured light in his eyes, like, from his padded chair somewhere in the Capitol, he’d managed to see almost as much as every kid standing around me.
“Welcome, to the fiftieth Hunger Games,” he said, then launched through the same spiel we got every year: the war, why we needed the Games, all that crap no one cared to hear. I tuned him out, keeping my eyes on Cecil to make sure he was okay; it wasn’t until the representative, Mr. Colbur, mentioned the Quarter Quell again that my mind was shocked back into the present.
“This Quarter Quell,” he continued wearily, “the President has decreed that twice as many tributes be chosen from each district. Two boys and two girls.” He paused, his lips, pursing together, like there was something he wanted to say but he knew better than to release the words. When he finally opened his mouth, only the standard words came out: “We’ll begin with the ladies.”
Two minutes later, Shana McPhail and Carla Don were more or less sentenced to death. Pity. They’d always seemed like nice g--
“And now for the boys.”
All thoughts of Shana and Carla vanished, even though the fifteen-year-old girls were weeping loudly not twenty feet away from me. I watched as Mr. Colbur patted each girl on the shoulder, then took one, two, three, four slow steps over to the boys’ jar. In the seconds before he dropped his hand in, it was like all the scraps inside the bowl went into super sharp focus, and I could’ve sworn that every one had my name on it.
Viliam Pembroke
Viliam Pembroke
Viliam Pembroke.
It took me a moment to realize that he was speaking those words out loud.
Suddenly, there was a wide space around me; everyone stepped away as if being reaped was a childhood illness that could spread like mumps in kindergarten. Not that I blamed them, I wanted to step away from me.
But that wasn’t really an option.
So I took a step forward, straightened my shoulders, sucked down my feelings, and summoned my dignity to cover them. By the time, I’d taken the third step, it was easier. I could fake it; I could detach, I could pretend that none of this mattered.
By the time I made it to the stage, it was like a part of me wasn’t even there.
Then I met Cecil’s eyes in the crowd and that part snapped back into place.
Oh god.
What would Cec do? He couldn’t take care of himself? How would he survive without me?
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. I’d tried to teach him how, but Cec just wasn’t the type to learn.
There was only one option then: I’d have to win the Games and make it back to him.
“And our second male contestant... Cecil Pembroke.”
I think I died right then and there.
