Lextra Diode (15), District Three

Victor of the 41st Hunger Games

Nobody was surprised when an average fifteen-year-old like me walked on stage. District Three's tributes were always ordinary, and I'm no exception. I'm decent at programming, but that's about it. I spend most of my time goofing off with Tegra around the district. My sister is a year older than me, but we sometimes feel like twins. Not that it matters now. She'll have to live the rest of her life without me.

"Go win," she says, "Please. I can't live without you."

The Games won't change me. I'll still goof off like I used to. I make friends with my district partner, and together we round up three other district pairs. The eight of us become good friends, and I begin to consider winning. We make up a third of the tributes. One of us is bound to come home. My district partner and I cry all night, unable to sleep just hours away from our impending doom.

November twenty-second is a scary day. David and I are brought to a hovercraft and thrown in our tubes. I imagine the whole district watching us. They're rooting for us to come home. Tegra needs me. I don't know if I can do it.

David and I rush forward in the bloodbath, grabbing some meager supplies and rushing out before anyone noticed us. Ten cannons sounded that day. Two of them were my allies. David and I found the other four. The pair from Eight had grabbed some food, while the pair from Five had nothing. We mourned the Twelves, but it was time to accept that they were gone.

We inevitably ran into the Careers on the third day. There were only three of them, but they put up a good fight. The Fives were killed almost instantly while David took out the boy from Two. The girl from One then took out the Eights while I stabbed the boy from Four. Then David and I fought the One girl and ended up victorious. We were both injured and decided to go our separate ways. It was the final five after all. One of us was going to die eventually.

I ran into the boy from Ten and took him out instinctively. He was barely thirteen years old. I felt a little shaken up, but thoughts of Tegra kept me going. The Sixes killed each other at the Feast, leaving me and David confused and sobbing. We refused to kill each other. We were friends and district partners. How could I possibly kill him?

The tiger mutt mauled us both, but I bled out the slowest. The trumpets sounded and the hovercraft descended, but I tried to tell them it was a mistake. I couldn't be the victor. David was supposed to win. They wouldn't listen to me, though. I was crowned and shipped back to District Three, where I was treated like a hero. Lextra Diode, a simple programmer, had won the Hunger Games.

I told jokes and ate candy with my sister to cope. David's face would never leave. It would haunt me forever.

Lextra was before Katniss' Games, but she's the only one. All other Victors in my universe are 76th and on.