It wasn't long before the woman who'd stepped out after their District's leaders was speaking to the silent crowd before her. Kolton couldn't help but scrunch his nose at the outfit she was wearing, and immediately looked through the rows of girls to find Silver. She had to have been thinking the same thing about the atrocious wardrobe the Capitol people thought was fashionable these days. He finally laid eyes on his friend and chuckled softly to himself when she mouthed
'Freak!' while gesturing to the woman, shaking his head as he looked back up at the front of the stage to listen to what she had to say. It
was the same thing
every year, almost to a 'T'.
"Greetings citizens of District 12! Lets listen to a message from the Capitol," the spokeswoman said rather dully into the mic.
The video that followed was just as dull, and held no interest with Kolton, or any of the District anyway. A few of the younger kids, especially the first years, seemed to be the only ones captivated by the whole thing. Once it was over, Kolton glanced back over at Silver who must have just turned back from looking at him. The small smile that was on his lips slowly faded away as he forced himself to look back up to the stage, the woman in front beginning to speak again.
"Now, let's see the Tributes of this year's 74th Annual Hunger Games. As always, the ladies first!" It was only moments that it took for the woman to turn and begin digging through the many papers with names of the girls from 12 written on them. Quite a few being from Silver, he knew too well. Kolton hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath till the next words left the woman's lips and echoed out through the courtyard.
"This year's female Tribute is... Silver Galloway!" An invisible force suddenly struck Kolton directly in his gut and knocked the wind right out of him. Slack-jawed and unable to either breathe or speak, he hurriedly searched for her again and found her as a few peacekeepers led her to the stage. He watched as she climbed the steps and turned to face the rest of the district, all eyes were on her. Kolton swallowed hard and grit his teeth firmly, never taking his eyes off of his only friend.
'How can this be happening?' he thought to himself, shaking away the emotions that wanted to flood in on him like a wave washing over the shore.
Without hesitation and before the spokeswoman could begin speaking again, Kolton dove through the crowd of young men and stood in the middle of the isle. Peacekeepers rushed on him to apprehend him, but Kolton's cry out had them letting him go and standing him up onto his feet again.
"I'm sorry young man, what did you say?" the woman looked down at him from the stage, as well as all of District 12 who seemed to have quite a bit of shock plastered to their faces. Kolton dusted off his pants and straightened up before looking around, then back up into the eyes of the woman. Taking a shaky breath, Kolton repeated what he'd said so that she and the rest of his district could hear.
"I'd like to volunteer, ma'am. As tribute." Part of himself couldn't even believe the words that had come out of his mouth, but there was a lot going through his head that wasn't about to keep him from doing what he'd just done.
There was no going back now. A few feet away, Kolton found the eyes of his younger brother who seemed to be dead where he stood. Kol's heart dropped, but the feeling wasn't there long. A peacekeeper prodded Kol from behind and forced him forward. As he went to pass his brother, he gave him a half-hearted smile and told him to take care of their mother and watch out for their father.
Through the white noise going on in his head, Kolton managed to pick up the words 'District 12' and 'volunteer'. It dawned on him that he was, without a doubt, the first volunteer to have stepped up as tribute from their home district. Most volunteers came from the Career districts, and it was a very unheard of thing to get volunteers from the outlying districts. As Kolton took the steps leading up to the stage, he looked back out into the crowd but out towards where his parents stood. His mother was broken down into tears with her face in her hands, his father with his arms wrapped around her as he stared up at Kol as if asking 'why'. Honestly, Kol hadn't the slightest reason why except the fact that he was going to give his friend one less enemy to worry about killing her in-game. He was going to help make sure she'd make it home if nothing else.
As Kol made it up to the stage and stood in the spot opposite of the spokeswoman from Silver, he looked over at her and gave a half-hearted smile and mouthed a simple
'Hey'. He hoped she'd know without having to ask why he'd done what he did, because it was hard enough standing there looking at her knowing himself that sooner than later they'd both be facing 22 other tributes in a deathmatch. Kol would die. He would die protecting her, and that's all that mattered.
