Avanna Welcher, 16, District 8


It was picture perfect. The light that fluttered through the window was that perfect warm golden color. It hit the jewels gently, with an almost motherly caress, before passing through their transparent surfaces, making them light up like fireflies. The little glowing gems reflected their silhouettes onto the floor, making a gorgeous crystal pattern that spun delicately every time somebody passed in front of the shop, interrupting the angle that the light flowed in.

The scene made her yearn for a pad and pencil, or maybe even a paint brush, but she knew better. Sometimes a scene like this wasn't ever meant to be captured on paper; it was simply meant to be soaked up and enjoyed. That was the source of true happiness after all.

With a deep satisfied sigh, Avanna rested her head on the counter, tilting it slightly as she watched the room with a feeling of extreme content. She loved mornings like these, when her parents left her in charge of their shop. It gave her some time to just sit back and relax, watching some of the most beautiful diamonds, rubies, and sapphires just soak up the sun. She didn't know what incredible strain of luck she had been riding when she was born, but she couldn't have been more grateful that her parents owned the only jewelry shop in District Eight. It was the perfect place for a young artistic mind like hers to cultivate.

"What 'cha looking at," a young voice nagged behind her. Avanna jumped slightly at the noise as she spun around to see who had come down from upstairs to join her in the shop. "Geez, I didn't mean to scare you." Avanna laughed lightly when she realized it was just her younger brother, Merik. He was still dressed in his green pajamas and was holding his purple teddy bear under one arm. His dark green eyes studied her quizzically, making him look more like he was fifty years old than six.

"Just the light, see, isn't it pretty?" Avanna explained, pointing at the floor of the shop. Merik walked over to the counter with a certain swagger that clearly showed he meant business, and hoisted himself upwards so that he could see out into the shop. With his little head just poking out over the surface, he surveyed the room critically, soaking in the sight.

"Yeah, I guess its kind of pretty," Merik agreed after a couple of moments.

"Kind of pretty?" Avanna said only half-astonished at the little boy's reaction. "I don't think you've ever seen anything so pretty."

Merik crossed his arms curtly and gave her 'the eye'. "Yes I have. Elea is upstairs getting ready for the reaping, and her hair is prettier than all that stuff, and your drawings are prettier too, and so is mommy. That's just light. Light can't be pretty, it's not real," he declared defensively. Avanna didn't really have a response to that, other than to laugh at the absurdity of his little six-year-old logic. But that was Merik. He always had that way of cheering everybody up around him, even if he didn't always mean to.

"It is too real," Avanna argued uselessly.

Merik just shook his head. "Mom said for me to tell you that I could watch over the shop so that you could get dressed. Elea finally got out of the bathroom," he said, changing the subject.

Avanna rolled her eyes as she got up from her seat behind the counter, looking wistfully out at the store one last time before turning back to Merik. "I'm sure Elea wasn't actually in there that long. You're just a boy so you don't understand. Anyways, are you sure mom is letting you watch the store again, even after last time?" she said.

"Yeah she is," he nodded eagerly. "Dad told her to let me."

"Alright, but I'm checking when I get up there to see if you're lying," she informed him.

"You do that," he waved her off. Avanna smirked. Nobody knew where he got that attitude from.

Running up the stairs, Avanna deposited the memory of the store in the back of her mind so that maybe she could draw it later. For the moment though, she had to become serious. Today was reaping day after all, and while she could try and forget about it during the lull of the morning, she couldn't ignore the uglier things in life forever.


Dice Bromton, 18, District 8


The ornate door creaked open at a painfully slow rate. A thin wiry woman with washed out hair stood behind it, peering out at him with sunken panicked eyes. With a frantic look around, she beckoned him inside, roughly handling him by his shoulder in the process. He endured it hatefully, only allowing it because he needed her money.

"Do you have my package," the woman asked in the dark din of her foyer. Her eyes searched him like a needy baby as he reached inside his jacket and gripped the carefully wrapped box he'd been carrying. He could only imagine what kind of nasty drugs he was handing over to this woman. If he had to guess, it was probably morphling. That was usually what he was carrying when that guy "Loot" hired him.

Without a word, he handed over her merchandise and watched as she clawed it open with no regard for his presence. She was one of his less cautious clients, allowing him to see what it was he was carrying because she was so desperate to see it herself. There were others that didn't like him touching their stuff, let alone looking at it. He working for them.

"My money ma'am," Dice prompted her impatiently. People like her usually needed to be reminded several times for payment. They were usually too busy trying to find their needles to remember that they owed him his tip.

"R-right," the woman stuttered, as if she just realized he was there. Quickly, she reached into the breast pocket on her robe and pulled out a wad of cash.

He smiled, somewhat sarcastically, and took it. "It was a pleasure doing business," he said gruffly.

The woman suddenly grabbed his arm, staring at his face intently. "Don't use the front door. The back, by the pool, go that way. He can't see. He'll know," she rambled urgently. Dice nodded, moving through her house brusquely without asking any further questions. He wanted to get back out into the open air so that he could meet up with his younger brother quickly before the reaping. Anyway, big mansions like this always smelled like expensive perfume and money. The aroma made him feel sick to his stomach.

He half-jogged, half-walked around the back of the house, stealthily making his way back to the road. Without the burden of a package on him, he allowed himself to relax and slow his pace a little. Even if the peacekeepers thought he looked out-of-place on the rich side of the District, they wouldn't be able to pin him for anything suspicious now.

Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the bills that the woman had given him, counting them in his head. Eight... nine... ten. Not bad for reaping day. Usually it was the slowest day of the year. People went crazy the week before hand, hiring his services as a currier left and right. Then on the actual reaping day, all the rich yuppies had all of their things in place, and didn't need him any more. The woman he was just delivering to probably didn't have any kids, or any relatives that were kids, or maybe she was just too addicted to care otherwise. He hated rich people.

It was about a half an hour walk to the East End of District Eight, where he lived, but he cut the time in half, as he took up a steady jog. A few clients waved hello to him as he went- he was rather popular currier. There were a lot of them in District Eight. Sometimes when somebody had a relatively unimportant package to deliver, they'd just pick a kid off the street and pay them a couple of bucks to carry it across the district. Then viola, there would be a new currier walking around, offering their services. The trick was finding a reliable currier though, because most random kids couldn't be trusted not to peak into packages or get distracted half way there and forget about the delivery. Dice prided himself on being the most reliable currier around. Not once had he ever opened a package without permission, or failed to get it to the correct destination, and more importantly, he'd never gotten caught by peacekeepers who did occasional random check ups to see what was circulating through the District. That made him a prime employee for some of the shadier citizens of Eight, people who couldn't afford for law enforcement to catch a waft of their business. Of course, that might have bothered some people, working for criminals, but Dice didn't really care. His job was not strictly illegal, and anyways, money was money.

When Dice made it back into his house, his brother was there waiting for him. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his eyes scanning a crumpled up newspaper intelligently. Dice smiled at the boy when he entered the room, stashing his cash in a shoebox he hid underneath their well-used book case. "'Sup Dixon. Read anything decent in there," he said lightly.

"Yeah, apparently there's been some stress in the Capitol pertaining to the current Gamemaker. The newspaper isn't sure whether she's insane or brilliant," Dixon joked, jumping to his feet.

Dice wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Why do you bring such disgusting crap into my house," he asked.

Dixon laughed lightly, elbowing his brother in the gut. "Because we haven't got anything better around to read," he answered easily.

Dice sighed, feeling guilty all of a sudden. Dixon was the only one in the family that could read, so books weren't exactly high on the shopping list. Dice had quit school a long time ago, knowing that there were better ways to climb to the top of the financial later than sitting in that hell hole every day for his entire childhood. He wasn't any good at the stuff anyways. Dixon though, he was a genius, and nothing made Dice more furious. His brother was too good for this crap life. He was the one who deserved to be sitting in those luxurious mansions, putting his noggin to good use. But no. They lived in the East End, and Dixon was probably already sentenced to a life of perpetual manual labor and underemployment. He was so much better than all of them.

"I got a big payment in today. Maybe we can stop by the bookstore and buy you something that isn't so stupid after the reaping," Dice said quietly.

Dixon grinned, looking genuinely touched by his brother's gesture. "Aw, see? He does have a heart," he joked. "We shouldn't though. You promised mom a good dinner remember? After all, today's your big day. It's your last reaping! We're supposed to be buying you presents."

"I'm just overwhelmed with excitement," Dice said, his voice lined with bitter sarcasm. His negativity was completely justified of course. Celebrating surviving the reaping was like jumping for joy and yelling 'Hey, look at me! I'm alive! They decided to slaughter that kid instead! Whoopee!"

"There's that winning smile," Dixon rolled his eyes. "Now come on, if you don't hurry we're going to be late."


Avanna Welcher, 16, District 8


Avanna stood on her tippy toes, gazing through the rows of dull faced children. The scene in the town square was a complete one-eighty from the spectacle the light was making in her parent's shop earlier that morning. There was nothing mysterious or beautiful about the reaping. It was nothing but a culmination of a year's worth of hardships, manifesting in this awful cattle line up.

Of course, there were some similarities between the shop and the reaping. Both were just asking to become paintings; although, somebody else would have to paint this nightmare. Sometimes, fear and horror translated better onto a canvas than serene happiness. Avanna wasn't any good at former sort of painting though. She had tried many times to capture the right sort of sorrow that the reapings created, but her various efforts never worked right. She was missing something, though she had no idea what.

Just then, by the entrance of the square, Avanna spotted a young lanky man with a mop of greased back brown hair. She smiled and waved to him, and he waved back. With a crooked smile, he nodded and turned away, elbowing somebody beside him. Avanna smiled, this was what she'd hoped for.

A few moments later, a skinny girl with short white blonde hair appeared through the mass of bodies, a grim smile on her lips. "Hey, what's up?" Lacey asked.

Avanna shrugged, a knowing smile on her lips. "Nothing much. How's Melton doing?"

"Oh, you know how he is. It's reaping day and he's off joking about how Lea Paylor used to be sexy," her friend replied, rolling her eyes. Avanna snorted at the girl's annoyance. Lacey and Melton, the boy she had seen over the crowd just a moment ago, had been Avanna's best friends since before she could remember. The three were almost inseparable.

It was about six months ago when Avanna had noticed the difference between her freinds' demeanors when they were each with her individually and when they were with each other. Specifically, she had been drawing Melton laughing with Lacey, but she couldn't get his eyes right. Then she realized that he didn't look at her the way he looked at other people. When Melton was with Lacey, his eyes took up a particular sparkle, like the kind her father's eyes had when he looked at her mother. Avanna was quite convinced now that her two best friends were meant for each other.

She was just waiting for Lacey to notice it herself. She was a smart girl though. Avanna had no doubt that they'd be together eventually.

"He just likes reminding you that he's a guy occasionally," Avanna said. Lacey smiled because she knew her friend was right.

"I guess so," she shrugged. "But you'd think that he would be able to refrain from doing it like twenty times a day."

Suddenly the microphone on the stage let out a loud whine as the mayor roughly handled it. Within the next couple of minutes, their escort, Persephone, was standing at the reaping bowl reaching into the pool of names. Avanna held her breath, like she did every year, and reached out to grip Lacey's hand. With all of her might, she willed that this year's tribute wouldn't be her or her best friend. By the time Persephone had unfolded the paper, her face was just about blue.

"Avanna Welcher"

Fear. Horrible unavoidable fear. That quick. That was how fast a life could be ruined. Some kind of squeal escaped her lips as she felt Lacey's hand drop from her own. This couldn't be happening. Somebody screamed her name from one of the older sections. Her sister. Elea. The agonizing howls of her parents quickly followed. She felt the hot burning of tears in her eyes. No. She had to hold them back. She had to look brave. She had always been brave right? She wasn't sure. What was it to be brave again? She didn't know, and she would never know.

She was going to die.


Dice Bromton, 18, District 8


Dice watched the girl get dragged to the stage, a look of anguish on her face. He recognized her, of course. She was the jeweler's daughter, a rich girl. Naturally, he felt no pity. For once, one of those stuck up money snobs was finally getting a taste of real fear. Then when she died, her family would know grief too. Maybe then he wouldn't hate them as much. Of course, that was just wistful thinking because even once this girl died, her parents would still be rich, and her siblings would still be ridiculously privileged. They could all die and they still wouldn't know the pain that he and his family had gone through.

"Onto the boys," Persephone drawled dully.

Dice braced himself for the worst, glancing over his shoulder and finding Dixon watching the stage with a sad but worried glint in his eye. Maybe there'd be another rich brat reaped, then he wouldn't have to mourn anybody that night.

"Dice Bromton."

His eyes flashed up to the woman, an expression of absolute fury burning on his face. An anger that had been festering for eighteen years suddenly erupted in his gut as he glared at the stage. Finally, he'd been making headway with his life. A few more months and he would've been able to move his family out of the East End to the downtown area. His mother had just quit her job a month ago. Dixon hadn't had to miss a day of school to go to the factories in a couple of weeks. Of course now he'd get reaped. That's what the Capitol did after all. It waited until you got that taste of sweet victory, then it ripped down all of your hopes and dreams, crushing them until you had nothing and you were nothing.

He felt a hand gently graze his shoulder as the peacekeepers showed up, ready to guide him to the stage. Well, he didn't want their guidance. With one mighty heave, he growled as he threw his fist into the man's chin, hitting the one spot that wasn't protected by his helmet. Seconds later, District Eight's entire law enforcement crew was in motion. Troops were covering every exit, so that he couldn't run. He knew that he'd never escape though. He was furious, not stupid. No, he planned on taking his stand right there in the middle of the square.

Three more punches later, he felt a painful sting hit his shoulder as a dart punctured his skin.

And just like that, the entire world went black.


A/N Hiya. So there's a small chance that I might have D9 to you within the next day or two. If not, then expect a long wait for the next update. Just an fyi, I'll be computerless on and off for basically the entire summer. That means chapters are probably going to come in waves. There might be four or five chapters that all show with in days of each other, then there might be nothing for two weeks. You all know how it is though this time of the year. The schedule can be a bit erratic. Just know that even if its been forever since an update, I'm still here. I might just be busy for the time being.