Okay, so I am writing again today, and needed to point something out. Due to the complication in my last story...Sylvia is no longer runner up, but Victor of her original game. However, if you read the chapter it will make sense.

I'm sorry for the confusion.

Our little world,

Is all it's meant to be.

Our little world.

Is everything a world outta be.

Baptiste L'Acroix

Reawakened Tribute #10

Iris's Group

I can't breathe. It's cold in here, and I have no idea where I'm at. This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I wanted to be at all. I thought I died? I thought I was finally free of it all. I thought that, for once, I was able to be free.

"Baptiste?"

"NO!" I scream. "LEAVE ME ALONE, PLEASE!"

The woman's voice seems soothing, but so was hers.

"It's okay boy. We are only playing a game."

I didn't want to. I didn't want to play that game, but she didn't listen to me. I said no. I screamed. I tried to fight her off, and finally she held a gun to my head. It was game over. I knew I had lost. I wasn't ready for what was about to happen, but at 14 years old, I was raped.

"Baptiste, please calm down. We are going to have to sedate you if you don't let us-"

"NO, LET ME G-"

The needle enters my arm and everything starts to go fuzzy. Things are getting blurry, and suddenly, I'm out cold.

10 Years after Reawakening

Baptiste L'Acroix, 10

Iris' Group

District 8 Male

It's doing it again.

I stare at the mirror as it doesn't all the way move with me. It's about 2 seconds behind me. Why does it keep doing this? Is it stalking me? Do I need to tell mom?

I stare closer, and as I get closer to the glassy surface, so does the other face in the reflection. Then it winks at me.

I did not wink.

I back up against the wall, and the reflection follows suit, copying me. He's taunting me with a smirk as he follows my hand down into my pocket, and pull out the stone that Sashen gave me so long ago. I keep it because it really does calm me down.

"Baptiste, honey," mom says from outside the bathroom door. "Your time is up in the bathroom. It's time for your sister to go in."

"Yeah, Bap. Let's go!" says Ellie. I can already picture her shaking her head as she stands at the door.

I try to cross for the door, but the reflection is giving me a scary face. I can't bring myself to do it. I just can't.

"Mom… he's back, and he's doing it again."

"Oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to do my hair." says Ellie with a whine.

"Bap, it's just a reflection. You'll be okay."

I stand in fear against the bathroom wall still unable to move. It's been about 20 minutes, and we usually leave for school in about 15 minutes. Ellie's continuous knocks on the door remind me that not only am I holding up the line, but I am still the scaredy cat of the group.

"Do you think he knows?" asked Katarina as she and Ellie are talking in the hallway.

"Knows about what?" asked Ellie, confused.

"The mole people. They live in the drain, and they come out every morning around this time. One time I was peeing, and they tried to take me, but I punched him in the face and he ran away."

"Bap, did you hear about the mole people?" asked Ellie loudly.

The mole people?!

I run to the door and throw the lock open. Ellie and Katarina are staring at me with a smile on their faces. It dawns on me now that there probably weren't any mole people to begin with, and everything they were talking about was just a lie.

"Th-that was really mean." I say, staring at them both.

Ellie shrugs and walks by me to get to the bathroom. She grabs her brush and begins to run the brush through her long brown hair with it. Mom is sitting on the couch when I walk out of the bedroom hallway, and motions for me to come and talk to her.

"Bap, we really need to talk about why you're so scared."

"M-m-mom. It's not fair. They all make fun of me. They try to scare me, and i-i-it's not fair."

"You're right." she says.

She turns to face me on the couch, and grabs my hands in hers. I look down at the couch cushion and frown. This is it. She always gives me this lecture. She always tells me it's in my head, and that I can fix it if I want. I have the power to do so, but I don't. I don't know why I'm this way. I don't know why I'm so...broken. Is that the word?

"Bap-" starts mom.

"Mom, I'm broken. There isn't any use…"

She stops me and brings me into a hug. I initially tense up at the first impact of the hug. I don't like it when girls touch me. Not that I like it when boys touch me either, but especially when girls touch me, I just feel really uncomfortable.

"You might not be a Dupree by blood." she says as she pulls apart from me. "However, you're my child. I don't raise broken. We all have our problems. We all need to work out a few of our kinks, however, as long as you're moving forward you're unstoppable. Moving forward is actually the opposite of broken, Bap."

I'm still broken. There isn't any amount of pep talks in the world that could make me think otherwise. We've talked about this so many times, and she says the same thing every time. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for Mom. However, it's like...well. It's like I can never have a bad day because having a bad day is "unDupree like".

"Okay, mom." I say.

"Good. Kids, we are loading up!"

We are having Aunt Macks game today. I'm excited to know what is going to happen, but at the same time, I'm not a fan of surprises. So this should be interesting in itself all together. One by one my siblings start to enter the living room with their backpacks. The girls, who usually wear dresses, are all in sports clothes. Their tennis shoes are brand new looking, due to the fact that most of them always wear sandals.

"Alright." says mom. "Roll call."

Mom makes us do a roll call every time we leave the house, because when Katarina was 4, we left her at the museum.

"Ellie!"

"Kat!"

"Keanu!"

"Nick."

"Amandus."

"Hazel!"

"Bap." I say quietly.

"Great. Let's get to stepping." says mom as we walk out of the house.

Leading you down into my core, where I've become so numb.

Without a soul, my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold,

Until you find me there and lead it back

Hazel Patch

Iris Group

Reawakened Tribute #11

"Bernie, look!" says a female voice I've yet to hear. "This one is weird!"

I hear the man, whom I suppose is Bernie, chuckle and then hear paper begin to turn. I suppose I should be feeling fear right now, but I can't. I can't really feel anything honestly, I'm just… here? I guess, it doesn't exactly bother me.

"Alexithymia! That's new!"

I'll translate. I don't feel emotions. You should feel shocked for me, because when I found out, I sure didn't.

My eyes open, and suddenly I'm staring up at a bright white ceiling. The room surrounding me is bright green.

"Hello, Stella."

"Creepy old man, noisy nurse." I say with a head nod.

"I bet you're freaking out right now, aren't you, sweetie?"

"No. Not really." I say.

"We are just going to put this watch on you, and press some buttons."

"Eh." I say.

10 Years after Reawakening

Hazel Patch, 10

Iris' Group

District 8 Female

"The game is simple." says Aunt Mack.

The group continues to talk over her. We are outside in a field. There is a bunch of trees on the outskirts of the field, and there are cones around the trees. The group continues to talk as Aunt Mack continues to get more and more frustrated, and then Aunt Chanel steps up.

"HEY YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE MONSTERS! LISTEN THE HECK UP!"

The whole group stops and we all stare at each other. The camera crew is walking around us, and we are waiting for the further instructions as to what we are doing in the hot sun. Aunt Chanel steps down from the position that she was standing in, and allows Aunt Mack to take over.

"We will be participating in a mock Hunger Games." she says. "Except no one will actually die." she takes a stabbing look at Honora and Ares who roll their eyes. "During this game you will have a partner. You and your partner will each have a belt with a ribbon attached to it. Your goal as the game progresses is to be the last team with at least one of the ribbons. We have marked off an area in the woods that will allow you to be skillfully hidden like you've learned in Huck's class, as well as confined to an area."

We all roll our eyes. This is the farthest thing from exciting that we thought. Honestly though, I'm not exactly sure what excitement would feel like. I can just tell that the others aren't so I should look like it too.

"We have your paired off on this list. Come look at the clipboard." says mom as she holds it up.

I watch as everyone is crowded around the list. There is some excitement, and then some not so exciting faces. When the line finally clears up, I walk over to the board and see who I'm paired with.

Caius and Honora

Orion and Katarina

Ares and Sylvia

Wyatt and Sashen

Vera and Jayanti

Baptiste and Carmen

Joseph and Ava

Jinx and Keanu

Nickle and Tycho

Shawn and Julian

Edith and Amandus

Artemis and Ellie

Hazel and Jade

If I was able to feel what excitement felt like, I doubt that I would feel it now. Jade is not the kind of person someone like me gets along with. She's bubbly, and princessy, and quick to anger. I just really don't appreciate it.

"Oh my gosh, I'm with the freaking weirdo!" screams Jade in anger.

Sylvia touches her shoulder and squeezes it. "It's okay, girl. Let's just promise not to kill each other in this."

"Deal."

I was not part of that deal. If we are playing how we are going to be playing in the arena, Ares and Sylvia are both people at the top of my target list. Sylvia because she's loud, and Ares because he's an actual threat.

Jade walks over to me, and rolls her eyes. She doesn't say anything as she breathes a heavy sigh and then looks at me. Anger, or whatever she's feeling, runs through her and she stomps her foot on the ground.

"I'm not pleased." she says. "This is not what I had in mind. I had no intention of spending my day with stupid weirdo."

"This isn't my idea of exciting either, Jade." I say.

"Now tributes, follow us into the forest, where the game will begin."

They lead us down a dirt path that is filled with various hiding spots. Aunt Mack is going on about how we need to pick the strategy that we are going for in the course of this game. Are we going to be the hiders? Are we going to be the aggressors? Are we going to be the ones that are quiet, and slip through the cracks? We definitely won't be the quiet ones with little Miss. Mad-at-the-world.

"Take your positions on our mock pedestals." which is really just hoola hoops.

We walk towards a random hoola hoop, and Sylvia and Ares are quick to join the one next to us. They nod and smile at us, as they are preparing to run for the trees and motion for us to follow.

Oh, we will definitely follow.

They hand us a remote looking device with all of our names on it. Currently all 26 of our names are lit up on the remote, but if you press a name, the name disappears on the light.

"Those remotes will let us know who is still in the game. Once you and your partner lose the game, you HAVE to come back and find us. If not you'll have five extra questions on a test. No cheating either. We have cameras." says Chanel with a smile.

The countdown ends and we all begin running for the trees. The first thing I do is reach for Ares' ribbon, which yanks off with ease. He turns around in honest shock, as I reach for Sylvia's and yank hers off. She looks at me with anger and then pushes me.

"Have you lost your mind?!" she screamed.

"No." I say. "This is a game, and you were the best team. You needed to be taken out."

"I can't believe you!" says Ares as tears are welling up in his eyes. He looks to be very frustrated. Seeing him like that makes me glad that I don't know what it feels like to be that way.

Jade stares at me in shock, and then grabs my hand. "Come on, we need to keep moving." she says as she presses the buttons for both Sylvia and Ares.

It takes about an hour for more lights to start dwindling down. When we finally get to the point where there are five teams left, I'm not surprised because what is that emotion, but I can't believe that Jade and I are still in the game.

"So we just need to beat Caius, Joseph and Ava, Artemis, and Wyatt." says Jade as she is staring at the remote. "Wait, Artemis is down."

We are walking around the forest when we hear awful loud voices coming from the other side of a clearing.

"We are so close to winning!" says Honora as she is dancing around the trees.

"This is troublesome." says Caius. "I didn't want it to take this long."

I hold up a finger indicating to Jade to make sure she is quiet. We are creeping up behind them when all of a sudden Caius turns around.

"Ugh, this is like the 6th team we've ran into."

"Stand back and let me handle them." says Honora.

"Yeah, we saw how well that worked out for you." says Caius pointing to her ribbon, or lack of her ribbon.

She looks at him in hurt and anger, and that's when I reach out and yank Caius' ribbon. He turns and looks at me with anger and shock, and then starts to jump up and down in a heat of anger.

"ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME? NO. NO. NO. NO. NO!"

I don't bother to stop and stare at him. Jade is suppressing laughter as she skips away in glee clicking Caius' name off of the remote.

"Who's left?" I ask.

"Wyatt, and Joseph and Ava." she says. "Wait. Actually, just Wyatt."

We travel around the forest looking for Wyatt. We don't hear anything, and after wandering around the forest for 20 more minutes we make our way back to the original starting point. We see Wyatt and Sashen there, Aunt Mack is standing in the center smiling as me and Jade approach the circle they have in place.

"Tributes, begin!" she says running out of the way.

Wyatt springs into action and slams himself into Jade. Mom jumps at the sight of another child hurting another, but then Chanel grabs ahold of her and calms her down. She was going to have to face this one day soon, anyway.

I join in the fight as he is trying to get on top of Jade, but she is kicking and screaming.

"I'm sorry, but this is wildly inappropriate!" screams Jade as she knees him in the groin. He goes down, and we both run towards him to pull his ribbon when there is a tug on Jade's. We all forgot that Sashen was even here. Now I see how their group was so effective.

Jade turns around and launches herself at Sashen, who runs in the opposite direction and screams. While I reach down and grab Wyatt's ribbon. Before I get the chance to pull, he has mine in his hand to.

"Looks like we are in a stand still." he says.

"Not really." I shrug as I yank on his ribbon and it falls to the ground.

He stares at me in shock and then looks up at Aunt Mack.

"Tributes, I give you the winners of the mock games! Jade VanBelle and Hazel Patch!"

Well that was the second group from Iris! I apologies for the late update. I got hooked on a TV show called the Fosters? Anyways, let me know what you think.

Keep it classy,

Caleb