District 9, which brings us to the night and morning before training! I'm eager to get this chapter out as I'm excited to work on mixed POVs for training instead of character introductions for once. Plus, I want you to see some of the plans I have in mind, with alliances and such...and there's a surprising twist to anticipate as well. :)

Also, on another note, as this is the last POV before training, there will be a second SYOT posted as a follow up tonight accompanying this chapter. I will not accept tributes until Infectious reaches the games, but submit if you are interested. More details will be in the story and the form will be going up on my profile tonight as well. Also, the mentors some of you have sent to me WILL be used in this next story as well. So thank you, to those of you whom have sent me mentors. Special words to roses are white whose mentor Edison Locke will be featured in the prologue.

District 9 belongs to SkinOfInk (Jek Therrin) and Vaan Levy (Lacuna Winters). Mentor, briefly shown, is courtesy of Infamouskal420 (Poppy Carraway). For those of you who have sent me mentors, the brief mentions are not in vain. When we get into the games, there will be a chapter dedicated specifically to the mentors after the bloodbath.

District 9: Loneliness and Solitude

Lacuna (Luna) Winters, District 9 female

I've been made to talk to them since getting on the train, but it's obvious that I can't. I think they've finally started to see that at this point. I'm more quiet than a mouse. Sometimes I'd even wish I was a mouse. A mouse wouldn't get reaped, would they? It tore any life I may have had away from me before it's even begun. I can't go out into the sun, of course, but there is much to do in the night. I was coined the nickname 'Luna', like the moon, due to the special connection I have with the time of day I am currently privy to. There isn't much to say about it, other than the fact that the darkness, only illuminated by lights far down on the streets below, calms me to a certain degree. I could almost imagine it was District Nine...if the beds weren't so soft and the floor so warm and the furniture so ritzy.

But in the end, I'm not in Nine. I'm here, with an impossibly long- or impossibly short- journey laid out in front of me. I'm waiting for tomorrow, but in the long run, I'm waiting for that day, five days from now, that will decide my fate for good. I'm waiting for that final breath that will shake me before I set my foot into the harsh world of the arena...

It's been easier so far, out of touch, out of reach, nobody to talk to and no worries until Reaping Day. On the train is was not all that different, either, I suppose. I sat in my room, silent, for a time, and paused my thoughts only on requests of Jek and our mentor to bring me out for dinner or watching the reapings. I could ignore the rest of their words that feel on deaf ears. Even now, if I close my eyes, it is easy...easy not to imagine the fall.

When I die, should it be easier to keep my mind occupied, to feel serene instead of recognizing my imminent fate? Or should I simply focus on the inevitable pain, in the end?

Perhaps, like my friend the mouse, and my friend the moon, I will go unnoticed, overlooked, yet watchful of the others as I have been my whole life.

In the darkness, I still do not sleep. In this darkness, the darkness of the Capitol, I passed a few hours yet I still cannot remember the time passing. I feel my head ache and my heart seems about to burst, but it will not; after all, there's really nobody for me to come home to. That shy, pale thing, lacking beauty or personality, without a friend in the world except her mother. My mother...

Mom.

I love my mother more than I love this world, though that isn't saying much. It's really as though she has been the only positive influence in my life. And I do miss her. If I think about her, there is a familiar ache in my chest, like when kids would belittle or push me at school, but stronger. Much, much stronger. It isn't loneliness, it's despair. I'm a victim of these cruel games, just as I was a victim at school all those years ago, a victim to my twin brothers, who loved to tease me.

It's not a surprise I'm so quiet, not when there was nobody to talk to and nothing to be said.

I reach my hand out to the table next to the bed, a glass filled with water still sitting there, untouched. I don't quite recall bringing it in- and then I notice the door is slightly ajar.

I stand, hair falling into my face as I do so. There are no blankets to move, nothing to say. I stand and I walk toward the door and I exit.

I feel surprised that I hadn't realized there was a way up to the rooftop before. I sit there now, staring out at the beautiful lights of a dead city. My mind goes in a hundred directions at once and all I can do is sigh softly as I look up at the clouds. My ears ring slightly, the pressure of the air hitting them, but I ignore. I ignore everything.

I could stay here, in this spot, forever. The tranquility before a slaughter, it would seem.

I sit, tugging my knees to my chest and looking down, feeling the evening breeze ruffling my hair and clothing. There are still smudges of the paint from the Chariots on my hands, and I rub at it, to no avail.

I stand only when the dawn begins to show and I return to the rooms of District Nine- for the time being.

Jek Therrin, District 9 male

I slam my fist against the wall for what must be the thousandth time in the span of a morning. The escort has called to me, babbling about breakfast, but she couldn't care less because she has that pretty little girl Luna in there with her. Our mentor even came, tried to say something, but Poppy is an airhead. And everyone here- no, nobody here matters. Everyone in this space should just die already.

Including me.

Sometimes, before, I had always wished I would be here, reaped. I've thought too many times about how easy it would be to smash something under my own hands, something that would thrash and bleed. Like my father. That curiosity I had felt upon looking at those two bloodied, gutted bodies that day, the care my father and I had taken moving them into the house, unnoticed...

Nothing could take my father from me, I thought. Even at a young age, I had insured it.

But now something had. And maybe it was destiny, who knows? Who cares? Destiny and fate are the same thing. And my fate was to end up like my father. And one day, I will be my father.

I slam my blood-coated knuckles into the wall once more, uncaring of the pressure placed on my hand, the broken nails digging into my palms. They all want to kill me, right? They always have, just like my father said. So I kill them first. Nothing to it.

I take my place across from the escort at the table, ignoring the chatter she has already unleased with Poppy. Luna sits there, halfway spun into a day dream. My fingers press into the table as I grasp it so tightly my hands begin to go white. Still, nobody notices.

Luna is weak. She can't kill me, even though I know she probably dreams of it. Everyone does. One look at my face and they're telling me that I'm dead. The whispers in my ears, the shouts of my father mix with them and drown my paranoia in red rivers.

Bloody rivers.

I stand almost as quickly as I had sat and stalk out of the room. It is only half a surprise to me that nobody has followed, though whenever I turn my back, the footsteps can be heard, creeping up on me.

Soon there will be a knife accompanying them.

Nothing can get to me. I am iron, like the blade.

But inside, I am still a desperate, ugly creature some call 'human'.

My head aches again as we move down the floors, and I hear hushed murmurs at all sides. I'm sure it is the other tributes. I want nothing to do with them- any of them. Relationships will only allow pain to blossom, a sword through my back, then through my head. Vulnerability...that's all these alliances are. Something to be exploited and then turned, horribly turned, onto each other until there is naught but one standing.

I immediately assess my competition upon stepping into the room, boots echoing against the cold, hard cement floor. My eyes shift wildly. I can pick out the threats- the boys from Two and Four, both tributes for Six, the boy from Seven- although his crying at the reaping may prove him different- the girl from Eleven and, most surprisingly, the girl from Twelve. Her footsteps are shifty, that of a thief, and I can only pray that she never speaks to me. If she does, my hands may find her throat before they are supposed to.

I shift my weight from foot to foot, staring down at the ground as the trainer approaches. If I play like I'm not a threat, stay out of everyone's way and don't call forth unnecessary attention, then I shouldn't have anything to worry about. And the games are a free for all. I have plenty of time to take out my rage on the tributes rather than the dummies.

My eyes come to focus on the feet of one tribute as the trainer's words of 'wisdom' begin. They don't even reach my ears. I am almost fixed on those feet, clad in ugly black shoes, but it's what appears to still stick to the side of the left foot that catches my eye. A red, smeared fluid, now dried and old. My eyes travel upwards to fall on the gaze of District Two's Jupiter Cass.

He smiles at me, coldly, and I feel a rush of something- not fear, perhaps adrenaline- race up my spine as I smirk, meeting his stare evenly, without backing down. I shake my head once and he raises an eyebrow, curious and not quite sated, it seems. I return to my former position, head facing downwards as the trainer continues the rules of what we are and aren't allowed to do in the Training Center.

But that doesn't mean I can't think about it.

I have competition and weaklings surrounding me, but they are truly all competition. I could fall, but the same goes for them. I won't let them knock me down, won't let them kill me, won't let them take my crown or draw their blade over my neck, won't let them do anything until I become what my father has and massacre the lot of them. I won't be dead. Ever.

And for now, I will remember each of them. And kill them all.

"Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone, but solitude expresses the glory in being alone."