The faint hum of the fridge indicates that the electricity has begun. It is early morning at the time, probably 5:00 am. I toss and turn in my bed, annoyed with the noise disrupting my peaceful rest. I hear Savanna yell.

"Chia! Up and at 'em girl! The milk boy gave us waffles today for free and I found some syrup and berries in the cupboard!"

I moan to myself, sighing and sitting up. I stretch for a minute, then getting up and walking barefoot to the other end of my room.

We live in an apartment, which means that I get a tiny room. Probably the size of a medium walk in closet. No joke. But I don't complain. It's private and cozy; all I need.

It consists of a small, long bed with white sheets wedged up in a corner and a white pillow.

I have closets in front of me next to a dresser, and a desk leaning against the wall. The nightstand holds a small photo of the family.

My room is the only one with an attached bathroom. Lucky me. I walk over to the bathroom, trying to make no noise, but the creaking floorboards seem to ignore my wish. The cold tiles in the bathroom sting my feet as I sloppily brush my teeth and take a shower.

I walk over to the closet and ruffle through my clothes. I don't have much, I prefer to keep it simple. I grab the collared white sleeveless short dress with a cute thick black bow wrapping around the waist. It was mom's. She always looked fabulous with it on. She gave it to me on my 12th birthday, telling me how pretty I looked in it. I was huge at the time, so I didn't wear it. She told me she wanted me to wear it during my 5th reaping. I was excited. Now, here we are. I looked different in the dress, like a doll, but I wore it anyways. I walked over to the dresser and applied some of Savanna's old gel into my hair. She gave me her beauty products that she doesn't use and I like it. I never really use gel, but I saw it and decided, "why not?". I slowly dutch braid the hair until it is perfect. Beautiful. I'm not a master of makeup though. I've only done it about 6 times in my life. I try my best to match it with my dress. It looks a bit crooked, but my eye color takes the tension away from the heavy eye shadow. I frown and use a makeup wipe to remove the bad makeup. About 15 minutes later, I fixed it up. It looks much better. I try not to worry too much about the reaping. After all, we all have to die eventually. It's life. But I know for a fact that my name will be pulled out of that bowl, if you think about the chances. We are an "unfortunate" family in District 2. I often put my name in the Games extra times for food, but we definitely are not considered poor. We are rich, compared to the other districts. Savanna always says I have no right to call ourselves poor or complain because we are millionaires to the other districts.

I slam the door shut behind me and slide my small feet into my new white flats, making my way down the hall. I knock on my brother, Max's, door. He shuffles to me and slowly cracks open the door. I can see the bags under the 13 year old's eyes. He yawns and mutters something, slamming the door in my face. My mouth hangs in shock as I yell for him to hurry up. I then continue to make my way down the stairs. At the bottom waits Savanna hurriedly making a mess, trying so hard to warm up the food without it exploding. I snicker as I hear a short bang from the microwave, and then Savanna groaning with a annoyed face, trudging over to the explosion. I toss Teagen, our corgi, a small piece of my toast. She catches it midair, gobbling it up and laying her face on the cushion next to me for more. I chuckle and end up giving her my entire toast piece. She grabs it and runs to a corner, munching on it. Savanna then serves a dish of milk and waffles to me. I try to control myself and eat it slowly. Most days, the neighborhood milk boy gave us a pack of biscuits and crackers for breakfast. He's a good fella; Donn's his name. On special occasions like this one, he would provide us with his family's fresh baked cinnamon buns or pancakes. They always liked to add extra cinnamon for some reason, but I won't complain. Donn's a good kid. He's only 15; a year younger than me, trying to make a living.

Savanna had just made enough money to buy me a late birthday present. I told her we should use it toward bills and rent, but she refused.

I finish up eating my food and hug Savanna tightly.

The hum ends and the lights flicker out.

"Ugh! The food's going to get spoiled if we don't get electricity soon. Hey Chia, call Rye while your down there, okay? And also make sure to pay what you owe to that poor woman Jackie. She's practically paying for your snacks." Savanna says, annoyed.

Rye is the electrician. Most of the time, he doesn't know what he's doing, but once in a while he gets the lights and heat to start running up again. The rest of the staff at this apartment building are decent to awesome at their jobs. Jackie is a middle aged woman with jet black hair and sleek eyebrows that works at the front desk. Lately, she's been paying for most of my morning tea. I feel real bad, but she's really nice to us. On our birthdays, she gives us free chocolate and chips.

Robin is the manager. The apartment is called "Robin Resort" even though we are an apartment building, not a fancy hotel. Robin had pale skin and red hair, with crystal blue eyes. In her 30's, I would say. Robin has a huge manager room thing on the 5th floor, accompanied by a bunch of entertainment things. We live on the 6th. I don't really understand why they put the string of public places right smack in the middle of the building. But maybe it's a tactic; who knows?

Anyways, the Diner, Arcade, yoga classes, Cassie's Clothing, and the Blues Buffet are located down there. No one really uses the yoga classes cause there is a high quality Yoga Palace down the block, so they are going to close it down and open an indoor petting zoo. Really weird.

Cassie is a beautiful woman with dark skin and curly black hair. She's so nice to me; when Ant is fixing the apartment or Savanna invites people over, she lets me sit in the back room of her clothing store to do my homework. Most of our wardrobe is from there. And once, Savanna was sick and Max and I were at school, she made us rice and beans and casseroles for days. Plus, are we going to talk about her fashion sense? Incredible! I picked up most of my fashion tips from her, believe it or not.

Then, there's Ant. Ant is the janitor. He cleans decently, and sometimes, he leaves a towel folded like a cat on my bed and a note with the word "ANT" on it. Once, he left a small pile of money and a few coins on Savanna's workspace. She had accidentally left her jar of money out on the dresser. It's transparent, so Ant saw how little money we had. He left us his tips from the past day.

Finally, we have Daisy. She's a waitress at the Diner. Whenever we eat there, Daisy puts on a show for us; she tosses flaming knives in the air and screams while flipping them on a table. When you first look at her, she doesn't strike you as a daredevil; more like a fragile old woman trying to pay her bills.

I reach out for my watch and slap it on in the dark. I say goodbye to Savanna and face the door.

If this is my last day seeing that subway station, I have to make it count.