Philan Visce, District 11

I hate all of this. The humiliation of being half-naked on national television, that I know the girl standing next to me, being in the Games in the first place.

I shouldn't be here. Under normal circumstances, I would not have been chosen. I'm already fifteen, and I may have been forced to take some tessarae for the orphanage, but among all the population of the district, my chances were slim enough.

Yes, the orphanage. A place I moved into a few months ago, like so many others in our area of the district, after the colossal brewery explosion. Such a disaster was completely unthought of, and the orphanage barely had room and board for most of us. A few dozen tessarae per person may have provided enough half-inedible food, but, no matter how much—or how little, as the case may be—money the place got from the government, they couldn't provide enough space.

So, they got together the last male and female to applicate for their care and gave us an ultimatum.

Volunteer for the Hunger Games, or we will cut you off. No food, no water, no clothing, no medicine, no chance of shelter.

I don't know whether that's legal or not, but they'd get away with it. Our applications for the orphanage would simply disappear; we'd be wiped from all existence on paper in the course of a few days.

So, really, my choice was die in a week of only-God-knows-what, or die a painstaking few months later of starvation or disease.

What else could I do? Nothing, that's what. Because the Capitol is too busy destroying their money with expensive costumes and garish makeup and fancy chariots and trained horses and hordes of cameras and gigantic television screens to have enough left to feed starving orphans. Because the Capitol doesn't care if we live—unless we land in the Hunger Games. Then they do care. They care enough to send their money for survival rations and tents and knives that the tributes, rather than the needier orphanages, receive. They care enough to spend money on astronomical television bills to watch their favourites day in and day out.

And they care enough that they might actually frown when their favourites die.

But that's rare. Usually they're too busy cheering for the murderer, because he made it an interesting fracas, something fun to watch.

And that's all the Hunger Games are. Something fun to watch. They couldn't possibly be something inhumane. Some sort of crime to humanity that butchers innocent children for crimes the Capitol itself committed.

Nothing like that.

"Hey, twinny." I know from the nickname my district partner whispered it.

We call each other twins: she's my "twin sister" and I'm her "twin brother". It's kind of true, since we were born on the exact same day, but we don't have the same parents. We don't look anything alike, either; I have short and ragged hair, light brown eyes, and a prominent nose, while she has shoulder-length and sleeker—though it's more well-brushed now than it usually is since she doesn't actually own a hairbrush—hair, blue-grey eyes, and a small nose that's always a little red at its very tip.

"What's eating you?" she continues, motioning inconspicuously at her smile.

Yeah. I'm supposed to smile, aren't I? For the sponsors. Because now that they get to watch my death like a bad movie, they'll provide me with what I need to survive.

It's all twisted and ridiculous.

But, fine. I'll smile, anyway.

Peyton Unbi, District 11

Philan's upset. I can tell, not only because of our amazing twin connection—okay, fine, maybe we don't actually have an amazing twin connection—but also because he has that distant, upset look in his eyes again. That look that says he's having a violent fulmination with a foe he can't argue with in reality.

I tell him to smile, indirectly, and he complies, but I know he's not feeling it.

Yes, we're in the most horrid position in probably all of human history, but... it's always nice to smile.

Okay, that admittedly didn't make much sense, but that's all I have to work with. And I kind of want a reason to smile.

Back home, before the... event... I would always keep myself happy, doing what I liked, like theatre with a small group of friends, or maybe sketching things on the cement with a piece of charcoal.

But... there's not going to be much to keep me happy here. Sure, the amazing dress I'm wearing—a little skimpy, but that's not too bad—the chariot ride, and the people calling my names are nice, but... It's all so... Facile. Plastic.

Fake.

But what's going on here, on the surface, is definitely better than what we all know is really happening. So... I'll focus on the former for now.

After all, I won't be able to much longer.

I turn my attention back to the crowd, flashing my pearly yellows—yes, I said "pearly yellows"—and waving enough to get my long sleeve settled in bunches on my shoulder. The entirety of the crowd is hollering, and I can't make out individual words most of the time. But I do hear a few calling my name, so I blow off kisses to whoever I know and/or think said it. Can't give me points for accuracy, but oh, well. Hopefully the sponsors aren't grading us on that.

Wouldn't mind if they graded on flowers, though. There are already enough at my feet for a respectable bouquet—if you could call a ramshackle cluster of different-coloured roses, lilies, and some weird, purple-and-yellow flowers, which I think are probably peaceful muttations, respectable—and I've even managed to catch one that was thrown high enough.

I've just realised the horses have stopped, and the chariots have stilled as well. The president, President Snow—who I think is in his thirties—is reading his annual speech, though I don't listen.

Not much for listening to boring things, myself. It's... well, boring.

So, instead, I watch one of the screens mounted at the side of the City Circle. It's cycling between the images of the tributes and that of the president.

Right now it's showing District 6, where the tributes are apparently some sort of hippie doctors. The District 7'ers are, predictably, dressed up as trees. District 8 is in some sort of old-timey costume with richly-textured cloth—and, oddly enough, the two tributes are holding hands. Well, the District 6'ers are, too, but the girl doesn't look so happy about it.

I watch, getting a bit impatient as the camera shot goes over Districts 9 and 10, and then I settle once it finally flickers over to us.

From the angle, you can't tell that much how skimpy our "fruit basket-weaved"—that's what the stylist called it—costumes are, and the pieces of fruit sewn in as decoration shine in the light of the television. My makeup looks surprisingly good, too. I guess the stylists, no matter how all-out weird they act, do know what they're doing.

Then the camera shoots over to District 12, decked in coal dust... and also holding hands.

How many districts are presenting their tributes together?

Despite how weird it probably looks, I crane my neck to look around the chariots.

The Careers from 1 and 2 stand by themselves, but the District 3'ers, while not holding hands, are standing quite close and don't seem hostile or uncaring to each other. The tributes from District 4 and 5 are separate, and the District 6 girl still doesn't look approving of her apparent connection. The boy from 7 has his arm over his district partner's shoulder, the District 8'ers are holding hands and leaning a bit on each other, and the two from 9 are holding hands. The 10'ers are separated, I know Philan and I are connected, and then the two from District 12 are holding hands as well.

...What is this? I've never seen anything like this in the Games before. Do this many tributes really know each other? Maybe from even before they were reaped?

This... This is... horrible. This means that almost everyone here is going to lose someone close in these Games.

And that...

That is nothing to smile about.