Chapter 1

I don't remember much about the Dark Days; I was seven when they ended. However, I do remember every Hunger Games after that, from the reluctantly-started but viciously-ended first Games to the latest, the tenth Games. There are rumours that the tributes from District Two have trained for the Games for the past five years. They're the most prepared anyway, I guess, what with all that stone mining.

Life in my district, District Ten, is hard, so most people take out tesserae, including me. At seventeen, my friends and I all discussed how we would try to win is we got reaped and I remember every detail of the conversation; I have a plan.

Now that I'm eighteen, that plan is coming in handy.

As the youngest of five, I didn't take tesserae until I was sixteen; one of my older siblings always took it for me before then. When they stopped, though, I suddenly had six extra Reaping slips a year with my name on to deal with from my three older sisters, an older brother and my parents. This year, I had a total of eighteen slips with my name on. Not too bad for a girl my age - when my oldest sister, Aimee, was eighteen, she had thirty-seven – but obviously too many.

I mean, here I am, on a metal plate with forty-five seconds to go before the eleventh annual Hunger Games begin.

Yeah, I'm a tribute. Save the congratulations for my Victory parade.

Ha, yeah right. Funeral more like.

Focus, Frances.

Oh yeah. I'm meant to be looking for stuff to get from the Cornucopia.

My eyes wander to the mouth, where the pile is. There's nothing on the outskirts this year, only at the very centre.

And it's pretty weird stuff. It looks as though someone emptied a load of random junk into the golden horn and said "that'll do," before walking off to watch the Reap-ings. I hardly even recognise half the stuff. For example, I can see a huge metal hoop with spikes on it. What's that meant to be? A death hula-hoop? And evil harness? Not that there are any horses around…

Focus!

I glance around. We're on an island, quite low to the water, with a bridge on one side leading to another island, slightly taller than this one. That island is connected to another, which is connected to another. I count twelve in all, including this one. They form a sort of spiral starting where we are now and each island is slightly thinner than the last.

Uh oh, ten seconds left.

Nine, eight, seven, six, five…

I get ready to run into the centre.

…Three, two, one…

Bong!

At the sound of the gong, I sprint forwards as fast as I can. Around me, other tributes do the same. Well, some. I see a few running off across the bridge. Let's see, there's the District Three pair – a brother and sister for first time ever, by the names of Talor and Alek – crossing the bridge with a few supplies, and that's-

I duck as an arrow flies over my head, missing the boy in front of me by inches and hitting the boy behind me square in the chest. The thrower – Rachel of District Two – steps back, cursing to herself. Why? She hit someone, didn't she? Maybe she was aiming for the boy in front. Strange if she was; he's from her district.

Frances! Cornucopia!

Oh yeah, I need supplies.

Quickly, I look through the piled things. Our arena outfits come with a backpack (Which is good, because I don't see one here) so I start shoving anything useful-looking into it: a bladed fan (I don't intend to kill anyone yet, but just in case...), an unlabeled metal pot with a slight leak in one corner, a jar of transparent liquid with a cloth over the top (It reminds me of the stuff we use at home on the farm to knock out cows before we kill them. What was it called? Chloroform!), another metal pot (With dried fruit in), a tin with no label, and a sachet of red liquid.

My fingers are just reaching for another tin when the cannons go off. Eight shots.

"Hey!" calls a voice. Carefully, I turn around. The tributes from One, Two and Four stand together. This happened last year as well; there seems to be some connection between those districts, possibly previous victors getting to know each other a bit. Most tributes from my District tend to avoid this alliance – like I said, District Two are said to have trained their tributes, despite it being illegal.

The girl from One leans on her district partner's shoulder, drawling, "well, Tad, can I kill her?"

Tad shakes her off and squares his muscular shoulders. "Yeah, ok," he mutters.

Her malicious eyes shine and she pulls a whip from her belt. "Thanks, Hun'." She tosses her red dreadlocks over her shoulder and steps forward.

"Wait!" I cry. Don't sound desperate, sound confident. I lower my pitch. "I want to ally with you."

"What?!" asks the boy from Two. "You are kidding, right?"

Tad steps forward and pushes the redhead girl aside. "Rachel, Robert," he says, "search the Cornucopia for any good stuff." At this, the pair from Two moves away. "Riana, Drew, you too. Alexx, stay with me."

As the tributes from Four join those from Two looking through the piles, Tad does business with me. Alexx, the redhead from his district, paces around me, cracking her whip.

"So," starts Tad, slowly. "You want to ally."

"Yes," I state, trying to sound like I know what I'm doing.

"Oh, Tad," whines Alexx. "Please can I just kill her? Please?"

"Shut up. Wait for us to talk, and then we'll see, won't we?" Tad turns back to me. "Do you have a name?"

"I'm Frances Grey of District Ten," I declare. Tad looks at me sceptically, eyeing my blue eyes, short blonde hair and horrible baby face. "And I'm eighteen." I add. He looks even more sceptical.

Alexx pokes her head between mine and Tad's. "Eighteen? Seriously?"

"Yeah, we're all eighteen this year," I say.

"Really? I never noticed."

"We are."

"Oh." She goes back to her pacing.

Tad opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but is interrupted by the boom of a cannon. A boy's scream echoes through the air, making the entire group look up.

"Second isle," I mutter. "Bet it's the pair from Three."

"How do you know?" asks Tad.

"That's where the sound came from." In Ten, we have to know where the sound is so we can find and see to the animal.

"Ok, let's go!" yells Tad. "My kill!"

"No, mine!" hisses Alexx, running after him.

Rachel of Two stands next to me. "Eager, isn't she?" she says, watching Alexx stumble on the bridge. "Too eager."

I look at her. She looks at me and tightens her blonde ponytail. "I'm Rachel," she says, offering her hand.

"Frances," I say, offering mine.

"You coming?"

"Ok…"

But she doesn't hear me; she's too busy running over to the rope bridge. So I follow.

The second island is a forest of pine trees. In the centre, Tad is ordering the rest of the group about, setting up a camp. The girl from four is missing – Riana, I think her name was.

Boom!

Riana appears a moment later. "Got him." She smirks. "The little wimp. His sister was already dead."

"Riana? Go grab some wood!" yells Tad from the other end of the camp, and she walks off again.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to me: what if his sister wasn't dead? I tell Rachel what I'm doing – checking the bodies – and run off.

As soon as I see them, I know the brother and sister from District Three are dead. Talor – the sister – because her eyes are staring at nothing in the creepiest way imaginable, and Alek because he has a huge hole in his chest. Talor has red liquid coating her lips, not dry yet, and a sachet of the stuff in each hand. I have one just like it in my bag. I take her unopened one and stash it in the same place.

But what is it? Did it kill her? There are no wounds on her apart from a scratch down one cheek and a bruise or two on her arms, so it must've done. The red liquid is a poison.

Snap!

I jump at the sound. Reaching for the serrated fan-like object in my belt, I pivot slowly on my heels, looking for an attacker. Nothing presents itself.

Time to go back to camp, I think and head off, thinking nothing more of the noise. Behind me, I can just make out a setting red sun – dusk is falling fast.

When I get back, the anthem plays and the faces are shown. The pair from Three is first, smiling down at us from the sky.

"I got that one!" Alexx calls as the face of the boy from five, Trevor, appears, and then again as the girl from Six's face is shown. Her name was Jalen, apparently. Although the Gamemakers show names this year, I think it will be the last time.

"Hang on," says Robert of Two as Bo Sun of Six is followed by males from Eight (Bryan) and Nine (Chris). "Didn't that boy from Five want to ally with us?"

"Yeah, but I killed him," boasts Alexx as the pair from District Eleven (Lizzie and Forrest) are shown. "I thought he would be too weak for our standards."

The girl from Twelve, Hannah Lusk, is shown, and then the anthem fades out.

"Did we kill all of them?" asks Rachel.

"I got two!" calls Alexx. "It was great."

"Ok, so that's Five male and Six female… Is anyone writing this down?" Tad asks.

"On it!" I call, and start writing out what they say in the dirt.

"Well?" asks Tad when we've finished. "Did we get them all?"

"Apart from Talor of Three, yeah."

"Good," Tad says, smugly, and we go off to get ready for sleep.

Robert (Of Two) and I are put on watch. For while we sit in silence until, when he's sure we're all alone, Robert comes closer to me and whispers, "do you trust Tad?"

I look at him suspiciously.

"Would you trust him with your life, I mean."

I shake my head.

"Well, Drew, Riana, Alexx and I were thinking we should get rid of him. He's taken over too much. This should be a democracy, not a band of Tad's followers. So, are you with me?"

I hesitate just long enough for him to pull out a deadly blade with no handle.

"I said," he hisses. "Are you with me?"

I look him in the eye. "Of course."

A/N: The first chapter of Leven's birthday fic/commission! Yay!

Two things: firstly, a massive "happy birthday!" to leven. Secondly, thank you so, so much for even reading this. You have no idea how grateful I am.

Oh, and thirdly, updates will hopefully be weekly, due to the length of the chapters. There will be 14 chapters in all, featuring all the characters found in the list on my profile.

I'll see you next week! :D