Author's Note: I'm keeping these up here with a small description of the tributes. I'll put an "X" by their name once the tribute is killed.
District 1
-Thayo- Red hair, red face. Possible temper.
-Paya- Gold hair, blue eyes, tan skin, petite.
District 2
-Mage- Tall and muscular. Possibly smart, too.
-Ive- Pixie-cut hair. Petite.
District 3
-Polo- Huge abs. Huge arms.
-Neeah- Gigantic muscles.
District 4
-Turner- Nerdy through and through.
-Amandrea- Red braids and lots of freckles.
District 5
-Daniel- Black hair, blue eyes, tan skin, and bugling muscles.
-Sara- Straight brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin, tall and thin.
District 6
-Indigo- Weird eyes and nail-biting habit.
-Penelope- Curly black hair and smokey gray eyes. Pale skin.
District 7
-Johannes- So thin, he's almost to the bone. Skeleton-like.
-Olivia- Wavy dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Striking features.
District 8
-Peter- He has very broad shoulders and a big nose. Nice smile.
-Rosale- Plain black hair, plain smile, plain eyes… plain girl.
District 9
-Robert- Short-cropped hair, medium build, crooked teeth.
-Ferlise- Blonde, green eyes, yellow teeth, big feet.
District 10
-Joshua- Dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, white smile, good looks.
-Sammi- Wavy brown hair, blonde highlights, green eyes, petite.
District 11
-Paul- Scars on his face, hair in a ponytail, blood-shot eyes.
-Vivien- Chubby cheeks from baby fat, rosy complexion, big eyes.
District 12
-Gale- Shaggy black hair, lean muscle, tan skin, tall, smokey gray eyes.
-Katniss- Black braid, smokey gray eyes, long legs, thick eyelashes.
GALE'S POV
I'm standing on a gray concrete circle, with a glass cylinder around me. The other contestants were in containers, also, and we were all standing in a semi-circle. All of a sudden, all of our concrete circles slowly were raised up towards the ceiling. A circle opened above us, revealing blue sky.
The concrete platforms stopped, and we were on a huge grass hill. The Games were about to begin. Katniss was on my right, in her cylinder.
Then the cylinders sunk back into the ground, leaving open air. The countdown began. I looked at my surroundings. Just 50 meters or so away was the Cornucopia. Prizes were littered around it. And around the grass hill and Cornucopia was a small blue river, almost like a moat. Then there was a little more grass beyond the moat, but then there were different land features. A desert, a swamp, a forest, a jungle, a prairie, then back to the desert.
Time. The buzzer rang, and Katniss and I lauched off our platforms, sprinting for the Cornucopia with the Careers and other tributes. I grab the first thing I come to: a backpack. I quickly unzip it and start stuffing things into it: bread, knives, blankets, anything I come to. I take a spear off the ground and hold it to my side. When the bag is full, I run up to Katniss, who is bending over, collecting pieces of shale that had accidentally dumped out of a fire-starting kit.
"Katniss!" I shout through cannon fires, "I'll guard you; you just pick up anything valuable!" She nods and continues her rapid, twisted version of pick-up-sticks. A knife barrels through the air, straight towards Katniss. Looks like the Careers made it to the inside of the Cornucopia, where all the good weapons are. I jump, grab the knife out of the air, and stuff it in my belt loop.
But then Robert, from District 9, comes charging at Katniss. She stands up to attack, but I jump in front of her. Robert lunges at me with his spear, but I block it with my own. Shaking with effort, we're pressing the shafts of our spears together in the shape of an "X". But with a quick twist of my wrist, I drop my spear and grab his wrists. His eyes widen in shock, and he drops his spear too. I kick him in the stomach, and he flies backwards. I jump on him, and slice his throat with my knife. A cannon shot. My first kill.
The nerdy kid, Turner, from District 4, he comes and punches me in the jaw. What the hell? I stagger back, but I quickly regain my balance. Turner is holding a spear, which I knock out of his hands by tripping him. I jump on Turner and stab him in the chest. A cannon boom -- my second kill.
"Gale!" Katniss calls, "Let's get outta here!" I look around and see the area is clearing. Soon it would be just us and the Careers, and that would obviously lead to danger. So we grab our backpacks (and I grab me and Robert's spears), and run off into the forest, the landmark most closely-related to the features in District 12.
We run into the forest and run for 15 minutes or so until we start slowing down, panting. Katniss and I walk in silence, looking for shelter. Soon, we come across a huge tree with a trunk wider than my arm-span. I look at Katniss. She has a huge smile on her face.
"Want to sleep here tonight?" I ask her.
"Sure, but how will we get up?" Katniss asks. The first branches were at least ten feet up. I dig through my backpack to find some rope. Hmm. I tie the rope to my knife. Katniss is smiling, catching on.
I hand my contraption to her, and she throws the rope over the branch. The knife goes over the branch, and falls down. The knife lodges in the dirt, but Katniss hammers it in farther with a rock.
"Go ahead and climb up. I'll set up some traps laid out," I say. Katniss nods and climbs up the rope to the first branch. I search through my pack to find more rope. I stand up, check for other tributes in the brush, and make my first trap hanging from one of the branches of our tree. Then I make several more traps around our tree. Finally, I cover the knife with leaves and sticks so that our climbing rope looks like one of our traps.
In the tree, about 20 feet above the ground, Katniss has made a little shelf by wedging a square of plastic between branches. She had dumped the contents of her backpack on the square of plastic and sorted the items. Food: dried jerkey, dried fruit, crackers, small bag of some type of seasoning, 2 canisters of water; Weapons: 4 knives, my 2 spears; Shelter: a tightly-rolled-up thermal sleeping bag, a jacket, a couple more squares of plastic, a fire-starting kit.
"Want to dump out your backpack?" she asks, setting up another plastic shelf. I unzip it, and dump all the supplies out. 6 knives, a thermal blanket, a small camouflaged tent, a smaller backpack, a canteen, and a small sword.
"The blanket may come in handy," Katniss murmurs, feeling the material. I nod.
"Should we set up for the night?" I ask, watching the sun set. After all, we were released into the arena just in the late afternoon.
"I think we better," Katniss replies. Her eyes scan the supplies and she taps her bottom lip.
"To keep things organized, do you want to have the weapons, and I'll take the food? We can set up the shelter supplies now," Katniss proposes.
"Sure," I agree, and we prop up more shelves with the plastic squares.
"What should we do with the tent?" I ask, unfolding the tent. It's pretty big, and the whole thing is camouflaged.
"Well, are we going to make this tree our permanent shelter? It's a pretty big tree, so…" Katniss leaves off, looking at me.
"Yeah, I think it would be a good idea to set up a permanent shelter so we can set up traps and stuff," I say. Katniss nods.
"That's what I was thinking. So. Here's my idea: We rip the tent up to where it's not in the shape of a tent anymore, but just a long rectangle of camouflaged fabric. Then we can lay it out on a layer of branches, all around the tree, kind of like an umbrella. But we'll be above the fabric, and so if any Careers are looking up, they won't see us, just the camouflage stuff." I nod, and we rip up the tent until it's almost too dark to see.
"Katniss, should we finish in the morning?" I ask.
"That would be best," she whispers, rolls up the ripped-up tent, and stores it in her backpack. Then Katniss spreads out her thermal sleeping bag, and climbs in.
"Come on," Katniss whispers, patting the inside of the sleeping bag. I carefully climb over to her, and I climb in next to her. Kind of shaky, with both of us trying to lay on one branch. So I lift Katniss up, and lay her on top of me.
"Do you have a belt?" she whispers. I think of last year when she belted herself into the tree.
"Yeah," I whisper. Katniss gets off me for a minute while I take my belt off and wrap it around us. Then once we're secure, Katniss collapses on top of me, her head on my chest, and we watch the sky for the anthem.
The flag appears, and the anthem plays. Then 15 pictures show up. Wow, 15 dead tributes. That means only 9 tributes left. Once the flag disappears, Katniss and I fall asleep in the tree.
Author's Note: To Vamps-With-Wings: Yeah, I bet I could have Olivia be an ally of Gale and Katniss. I was already thinking of a tribute to become an ally, too, so that's good. Also, I bet they still had Converse. Well, since Panem is in the future, they either still have Converse, or they forgot all about Converse. Lol. Thanks for reviewing! Also, I will reveal who died in the next chapter.