Anything we didn't create, we don't own. We want to improve our work so constructive criticism is appreciated. We got the name Adric from Doctor Who, just in case anyone recognises it.

Chapter One: The beginning

"Aria Smith." That's the female tribute of District 9 for the 74th Annual Hunger Games. It's also my name, obviously. If it wasn't me then there really wouldn't be much story, I'm the only one in my family who has to go to these reapings and I don't have a lot of friends so it's not like there's anyone to stick my hand up and volunteer for. I do have a brother, Leonis, but he's nineteen so he doesn't come to the reapings. I'm going to be a tribute in the Hunger Games, I'm probably going to die. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic.

"Come on dear, come up here!" Pansy Mills, the peppy escort of District 9 said as the crowd of 15-year-old girls moved apart, destroying my ingenious plan of hiding. I made my way up to the stage, I was trembling. Pansy grabbed my hand and dragged me up as I reached the top of the stairs, I kind of zoned out the only words really registering being the name of the male tribute, 'Austin Shaw', I didn't know him but he was 18 with longish brown hair and honey coloured eyes. He looked relatively strong, not career strong but still. I walked robotically to the Justice building and sat staring at nothing in particular as my dad and Leo burst into the room. They swept me into a bone-crushing hug, one I was not expecting. I wasn't big on hugs.

"I'm sorry." I muttered hugging them back

"What? What for?" asked Leo pulling back slightly

"For loosing my temper with you so often, for yelling."

"Ssh, it's okay baby, we love you, we always have and always will." Dad said, kissing my forehead

"Look, you're fast and from the amount of times you've thrown things at me I'd say your aim's not too bad either. You can win this, you just have to try." Leo said, a look of realization passed over dad's face and he reached into his pocket and pulled a necklace out. It was gold and the pendant was a mockingjay.

"This belonged to your mother and I was going to give you it on your 18th birthday but I think now is as good a time as any to give you your Mockingjay." I couldn't help but hear it as 'you might not make it to 18' but he still smiled slightly, placing the necklace around my neck.

"Thank you." I said, there were tears in my eyes but I refused to cry. I haven't cried since I was three years old and I was not about to get back into the habit again. Peacekeepers came bursting in at that moment and I was left alone, the necklace was the first thing I'd ever had of my mom's. I got on the train after returning to my zombie-like state, I was desperate to learn as much as I could about winning this. If I could find my mentor I could quiz him about everything and get a head start on Austin. District 9 only has one victor, he won two years ago at 14. Adric Petrelli was a red-headed wonder, he had chocolate-brown eyes, was insanely smart and obsessed with technology. You'd think he was from district 3. The only problem with my plan was my reluctance to talk to him. Pansy led us into the dining room where Adric was sitting with a cup of some kind of tea.

"Ah, here we are. Adric has been waiting for you so that he can instruct both of you on how to proceed during your days of training." Pansy chirped upon entering. He almost choked on the tea.

"I'm gonna do what now?"

"You're going to do what I tell for once." Pansy placed her hands on her hips, a stern expression on her face. Adric snorted.

"So how do I win this thing?" asked Austin, sitting down across from him

"You don't die." Adric answered,

"Adric!" Pansy took on a scolding tone, one so often used by the mother's in district 9 "We've been over this, you have to try! Honestly Adric, this is ridiculous! That drunk from 12 is a better mentor than you!" Adric rolled his eyes and pushed his plate away.

"I don't have to, you want me to. Technicalities." He replied, going back to what I assume is his room, taking his tea with him.

Before Adric we hadn't had a victor since the 10th Hunger Games so I doubted we'd ever have another one and haven't really bothered watching the games. I knew the basics of what went on but I've never paid attention to how people won their games or anything else that went on during them, I just read a book or something. I'm beginning to think that was a bad idea.

"Shouldn't you try to stop him?" Austin questioned,

"Honestly, if you spend enough time with him you tend to just go with it." Pansy said. The train ride passed slowly, Adric didn't come out of his room. Too busy sulking over... something.

Eventually we arrived at the Capitol after the extremely uneventful ride. Austin and I were immediately taken to somewhere Pansy called a 'Remake Center', I was introduced to a man with purple hair, purple eyes and lilac skin clad in purple clothes. Guess he liked the colour purple.

"Hello, my name is Crysabin Honeyman. I'm going to be your stylist and I'm going to make you look fabulous!" He waved his arms around excitedly "Now you're young so we'll work on your cuteness level! Tilia has already decided that your partner will go for the macho look. And I was thinking silver! Such a wonderful colour silver, nothing on purple of course but still pretty wonderful right?"

"What does silver have to do with grain?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not about grain darling, it's about fashion!"

"But it's supposed to represent our district."

"Listen, I'm just here to make sure people remember you! Goodness knows we don't want a repeat of the last few years! District 9 looked absolutely terrible especially last year and the year before that!" If theirs was worse, I wonder what they had to wear.

I was dressed in a flowy silver sun dress with an abnormally large silver bow in my hair, my hair was curled into small ringlets and put into bunches. Adorable was the word Pansy had the misfortune of using in my presence. I glared at her until I left in the chariot with Austin. He was in a silver suit with his hair combed and looking all smartish. My eyes met a sea of people, flashing lights and cheering at us. Austin was waving at the smiling, I didn't know what to do, I had never seen so many people. I looked around at the strange painted faces, with their horrid wigs, do I wave? Everybody else seems to be, so very shyly I waved my hand. This was met with another cheer, so I was doing the right thing! I looked to see my face a the big screen, well my face was on the screen until district 12 came out, fire following them. Honeyman is not going to be happy. They clasped hands and held them in the air, the crowd went nuts, cheering and throwing flowers and things at them, I am royally screwed in my odds of winning already, why do they have to make it smaller! We reached to end of the road, Snow stood up to address us. He welcomed us and to be perfectly honest with you I zoned out. I'm pretty good at that. The chariots were taken away, and we arrived at the Training Centre, were we would stay for the rest of the games.

We went to the ninth floor and I immediately went to my room, it was large and the window was amazing, I let it stay on the image of the forest. Most of the other images had water in them, I hated water. I changed into a top and trousers before walking out for dinner.

Adric was late, which didn't really surprise me, he has a tendency to do that. Austin and I sat down at the table and started eating, Pansy sat and complained about Adric and his lateness and often wondered out loud what was taking him so long or where he was. About halfway through the dinner Adric wandered in and flopped into a chair and started eating a small slice of whatever it was that was on the table. He began to chew it slowly as Pansy scolded him, I was beginning to see a pattern. Austin coughed loudly and we turned to look at him, he flashed a smiled and I rolled my eyes.

"So Adric..." Austin was older than Adric age wise, somehow he thought that entitled him to talk to Adric like he was two, "How do you find shelter?" I looked at Adric, he rolled his eyes.

"Any idiot can find a place to sleep." He said, this clearly wasn't the answer Austin was wanting,

"How do we stay warm?" He tried again, Adric snorted,

"You don't, freezing comes with the games."

"But I can light a fire." Austin looked irritated, it amused me.

"Well that's an easy way to get killed, you wouldn't last the first hour." Adric stood up and left, at least he'd given us some information. Pansy went on a long rant about how rude he was, so eventually he just stood up and left.

"Bye Adric! See you later!" I called across the room, Adric paid no attention whatsoever and just continued walking to his room. "Fine jerk," I muttered, "Don't say goodbye. See if I care."

The next day Pansy took us to the lift, we went down to the Training Center. This is where we would train for three days, the sponsors watching us carefully. I bit my lip, looking at everyone, the careers looked too full of themselves for my liking. We listened to a woman talking to us about training and things but I wasn't really listening. I decided to go to the survival station, I stayed quiet and tried to keep out-of-the-way. The highlight of the morning was when the district 11 girl, Rue I think her name was, stole the district 2 boy's knife and causing a small fight scene between him and the district 6 boy.

I went to lunch and continued to stick to myself, that is until I was joined at my lunch table by the district 11 guy. He seemed to be quiet like me so I thought nothing of it. We got on, Thresh and I, we didn't need words because we were both happy to just sit in silence. For the rest of the afternoon I stuck to the edible plants bit, it would come in handy. Dinner went by with Adric turning up late and Austin asking him about what to do in the games and Adric answering in his annoying way. Adric had left before I'd managed to eat half my plate and I was growing increasingly angry with him. He was impossible, this was my life on the line here! I stood up and followed him back to his room, his room was pretty much the same as mine but his window was on a picture of a grain field. Adric was sitting on his bed with a book in his hand.

"What do you want?" he asked not moving his eyes away from the book.

"Just to talk to you." I said, sitting next to him

"About what?"

"A few things, first off do you want us to die? Why won't you help us?"

"I didn't get a proper mentor and I still won." Adric said, turning the page.

"But we do and we want your help! You could at least pretend to care about us!"

"The games aren't about whether your mentor helps or not, it's about how many people like you! If you're not a very likeable person then you're screwed, angel." He said

"Don't call me that!" I snapped, I hated pet names, especially when the person using it is not on my friend list.

"What's that matter? Would you prefer darling? Maybe sweetheart suits you better?" He put on a taunting tone. It took all my self control not to lunge at him.

"Shut. Up." I snarled "Would it kill you to help us?"

"And as I've already explained to you, I. Can't. Help. You."

"Yes you can! You can tell us how to survive in the early stages, how to impress the gamemakers, how to get people to like us, you can get us sponsors!" I shrieked waving my arms around to emphasize my point.

"Look, all you have to do is get people to like you out here and don't do anything stupid in there, it's as simple as that." he said rolling his eyes

"Fine then, what if I ask you what you'd do in a situation and you answer, will that work?"

"Why don't you tell me."

"Okay then, if you're freezing to death how do you keep yourself alive?"

"If sponsors like you then maybe your mentor will be nice enough to send you something."

"Fine! Since all your answers seem to revolve around sponsors and being liked tell me how, how do you make people like you?" I was loosing my temper but Adric was really getting on my nerves.

"I wouldn't know, I've never been any good at making people like me. Perhaps you should try to copy Austin or ask Pansy what she'd do."

"But... If you're not good at making people like you then how did you get sponsors?"

"I didn't."

"But-"

"Look, I'm not going to talk about my games so don't bother mentioning what happened in my games."

"I never watched your games, any of the games." I said quietly

"Then pretend mine never happened."