Welcome to the new and improved version of my story! Horray!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins does though. (I'm jealous of her)

The sun beats down unapologetically. My muscles cry with exhaustion, but I keep running. Sweat coats my face, makes my shirt plastered to my back, but I'm not worried about how I look. A boy from district 4 runs after me, brandishing his trident, a wretched grin on his perfect face. I know I can defeat him easily, but that will result in a sure, quick death anyways.

As I glance back one last time, his trident is moving forward and is surely going to pierce my back in a few seconds. I spin around quickly, using my last, probably still fatal, resort. I watch his face grow surprised as I shoot out my hands and a purple, glowing, sphere surrounds me. I chuckle slightly as I watch Finnick Odair hurtle away, through the sky above the endless corn fields before the metal hands of a hovercraft surround me, to kill me.

"Maina! Maina wake up!" My little sister, Julietta begins shaking my shoulders to rouse me.

"Ah ah stop." I grumble still half asleep. My eyes flutter open as she finally lets me go. I look out the window and see it's a pearl grey color outside, the sun has not yet risen. I feel bad for Julietta, who is forced to wake me every time I have a nightmare, because the forcefields I unintentionally create while I sleep threaten to pull apart the house. I can see that the metal frame of her bed sports another dent from where it hit.

"I'm sorry Julietta." I say sincerely. She sits on her bed with he knees pulled in under her chin and her arms wrapped over her shins. We both know sleep is impossible now, because it's reaping day. We were lucky to have even fallen asleep last night, but of course I have to spoil it like always with my sporadic energy blasts.

I get out of bed and dress in an old, faded blue dress that only goes to my knees now. I tiptoe past my parents' bedroom and down a flight of creaky old stairs. I kick my way through the scattered spools of thread that coat the floor of our clothing store. As I step into my boots and reach down to lace them, I see a dark figure standing in the doorway. I stand all the way up and squint in the darkness.

"Hey Kiddo." My father says as he steps into a shaft of pale light that's streaming in through the dusty storefront window. He walks forward a few more steps and surrounds me in a hug. I inhale the scent of fire from his jacket. I love that smell, I don't know why, I just do. "What're you doing up so early?" He asks me. He doesn't have to ask. He knows it was a nightmare that woke me. I always have nightmares on reaping day, usually they're about Finnick Odair, a handsome boy who won the games at fourteen almost ten years ago. Just as I can create forcefields, I also have premonitions, and I can feel the bad seeping from his pores.

I can't help but wallow in my own horror as the dream overcomes me again. If I were ever in the Hunger Games, I don't know if I could retain myself. I would surely blow my family's well kept secret for good...

My great-grandfather was the one who started it. When he was just a few years older than I am, he began to work in the mines. It was only his first day when there was some sort of mine explosion. Nearly everybody was thought to be dead, but he was the only lucky survivor. Something within the mine had changed him forever though, and changed our whole family forever. He didn't even know it himself, but when he married and had children, all of them were born with extraordinary abilities that we kept a secret from the Capitol for generations...

"I better get going." My father says as he slings his pick over his shoulder. "The mines have to close early today for the reaping, so if I'm late, I'll be in big dodo." He tells me. I shake my head, grinning. I don't know why he bothers to say that he's going to work, everyone knows that all work is canceled on such an important "holiday" as today is. I can tell that he's going to pick something up, like cookies from the bakery or new fabric for dresses. I pick up my basket from the cupboard in the room behind my mother's little shop, and step out the back door, taking the rusty key from ribbon around my neck and locking it.

The sun begins to peek over the horizon, turning the sky a dull orange color, marking a new day. I walk over to the edge of a small field, under a green leafy tree and look out above the tree line at the glowing red orb before turning down the path to the well. I fill a small basin with water, set down my basket, and begin to wash the clothes I've brought out. I rub them until every trace of dirt is out, then hang them on the clothes line next to all the rags and tatters of fabric that my mother uses to construct new clothing for the less wealthy people of district 12.

I stroll through the alleyway between my house and the bakery and into the square. People are milling around, washing clothes and polishing their shop windows before the townspeople come to shop for their daily necessities. I walk to the butchers shop for our reaping day lamb and spot my best friend Eleanor sweeping coal dust from the front steps.

"Hey Maina!" she cries as I approach her. "Happy reaping day!"

"Why thank you!" I reply sarcastically.

"Come for your reaping day lamb?" she asks. After sixteen years, she knows what my family purchases every year.

"You bet." I reply. I open the door and the little bells around the doorknob chime. Eleanor's mother is exactly what you would expect a butcher to look like, stout, and angry looking, but she likes me enough and gets me my lamb and I pay her and we carry on with our lives.

My next stop is for coal, which district 12 is abundant with. I get a new gear for my mother's malfunctioning sowing machine and another packet of tomato seeds for the poor tomatoes that Julietta can't seem to grow.

I head back across the square to my last stop, the bakery. I walk up the storefront window and can't help marveling at the cookies and cakes the are decorated so wonderfully. I open the door and the jingle-bells tinkle like soft rain on a metal rooftop. I am immediately intoxicated by the wonderful fumes of baking bread. It is very warm inside and I can see fires crackling in the wide brick ovens towards the back of the shop. I can also see him.

Peeta has a determined, focused, look on his face as he draws the last swirl of frosting onto his tiger lily sugar cookie. Satisfaction colors his features and he leans back to admire his masterpiece.

"Pretty cookie." I tell him. He glances up, his eyes lighting, and gives me a beautiful smile.

"Thank you." he replies. I step up to the counter and he rises and comes over to stand across from me.

"Two loaves of the pine nut and thyme bread and one of those cheese buns please." I say with a smile.

"Sure." He replies and gets me the two warm loaves of bread that he'd just pulled out of the oven and the bun. I lay out a checkered cloth and and swath the bread in it to keep it warm.

"Thanks." I say and slide an array of coins from my little bag of change across the table.

"You want the cookie too? No charge." He says politely and smiles again. I stare into his gorgeous blue eyes for a moment and watch as the light reveals his long golden lashes.

"Sure, thank you." I say. He places the cookie in my hand and my heart leaps when our skins touches. "See you later." I say as I turn.

"See you." He replies when I step out the door.

As I nibble on my cookie, I think about how I can't help but love Peeta. It's really not something I can control. He's so charismatic and polite and handsome and smart and talented... but I know he doesn't think of me the same way. He's as hopelessly in love with Katniss Everdeen as I am with him. I don't blame him though. She's strong and smart and beautiful and when she sings, the whole world seems to stop to listen.

I envy Katniss greatly, but not in a hateful way, more like an admiring way. It's strange to be jealous of someone such as her because my life is heaven compared to hers. Her father died in a huge mine explosion and every day her family is threatened by hunger. But I know her secret, thanks to Julietta's uncanny ability to read minds. She hunts in the forests outside of district 12, an area that is out of bounds (clearly marked by an electric fence that's hardly ever running), a felony that is punishable by death.

I walk through the back door of the house and unload the things from my basket onto our cramped kitchen table. I bounce up the stairs to my bedroom and sit on my bed by Julietta to stitch the holes closed in some old dresses. I look out across town through the dusty window by my bedside and see Katniss Everdeen across the block, heading home, with her game bag slung over her shoulder.