I do not own the Hunger Games. The tributes belong to their respective submitters.

Tristan Vorassi, District Six

Saying that he woke before dawn would have been inaccurate, since he hadn't actually slept at all. He'd tried, but every time he came close to drifting off, he remembered how close the Game was, and the resulting adrenaline spike would return him to the realm of insomnia.

Somewhere around four in the morning, he simply gave up, threw the covers off in frustration, and hopped out of bed, unable to stay still any longer. He knew it was part of the fight-or-flight response, but that didn't lessen his irritation. He just wanted to get some sleep, because sleep deprivation wouldn't help his chances of surviving the bloodbath, but his brain just wouldn't shut up. Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many regrets.

It was like his mind had chosen this night to make him relive every source of shame, everything that he had absolutely no ability to fix, like not being there for his father when he died and leaving Layton on bad terms. How was he supposed to know they'd never have a chance to make up?

He pulled the curtains aside and looked out at the district that had all but ordered his death, streetlamps and highrises glowing bright in the darkness before dawn. Sitting back down on the bed covers, he drew a heavy sigh, momentarily overcome by the sheer ugliness of his situation. He missed his mom. He missed his sister. He missed his boyfriend. Tristan missed everything about his life back in Six, and even though he knew he shouldn't waste his time thinking about everything he could lose, he thought about it anyways. He couldn't help it.

His vision blurred. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he leaned over and let the tears fall, the ones that he'd denied himself until this very moment. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want anyone else to die for this stupid Game, either. It was wrong, it was unfair, it was too much. He hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye, which probably hurt his loved ones as much as it hurt him. Maybe even more, because at least he knew the fate of Tristan Vorassi. Everyone else was in the dark, and for all they knew, he could have simply run away. When they saw his face on the screen during launch, would they be surprised? Or would it confirm their fears?

He stood vigil over the city as a pinkish glow seeped into the eastern horizon, bleeding upwards as morning drew closer. A few more cars appeared on the roadways, and a couple minutes before five thirty in the morning, the streetlamps started shutting off, city block by city block. He felt every grain of sand as it slipped through the hourglass, like air being sucked from his lungs. Pretty soon, he wouldn't be able to breathe at all.

Across the hotel, the other tributes and their mentors were starting to stir. A lot of them were waking up for the last time.

Dragging the curtains back into place, he paused and drew a breath. He had to make it through. It was the only option.

After wrestling on a faded T-shirt and jeans, he ghosted into the kitchen, trying to not to wake up the mentors or his district partner, but was surprised to find Ryder already sitting at the kitchen table. In the dark. She plucked a strawberry from the bowl of fruit set in front of her and raised it to her mouth, smiling at Tristan.

"You couldn't sleep, either?"

He smiled, but there was something cold in the gesture that caused Ryder's own smile to falter. "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

The humor fell flat and it showed on Ryder's face, but he made no attempt to apologize. He didn't have enough time for dumb pleasantries anymore.

Darian Kesslar, District Seven

Much to his own surprise, despite the constant adrenaline coursing through his system, Darian slept for a solid eight hours and woke up well-rested on the morning of launch. Things almost felt normal, like any other day back in District Seven, until he remembered where he was and why he was there. The vise of fear clamped back down and he pulled the covers over his head. He didn't want the face the day, especially when it could have been his last.

Sunlight filtered in through the filmy white curtains, gentle and comforting, as if it were mocking him. He jumped when something shattered in the kitchen. Margery's muffled apology drifted down the hall.

He pushed the covers back, but promptly lost all motivation to move. Contemplating the ceiling, he let his breathing slow, feeling his heart beat and the air cycling through his lungs. He liked his body. More accurately, he liked having a body. Getting killed would deprive him of that privilege, and send him on his not-so-merry way to wherever people went when they died.

Darian had to win. He had to live. The alternative was too heavy to even think about.

He slapped on some clothes, hurried out of his room, and found Margery picking up the pieces of a broken cup off of the kitchen floor. She looked up and smiled. "Good morning."

"'Morning." He took some toast from the breakfast platter that Cedar had prepared, crumbs falling everywhere. "Who do you think is gonna die today?"

"I'd rather not talk about stuff like that."

"Oh, please. Just because the thought of it upsets you doesn't mean everyone will live."

"I know that, but I'd rather spend my last hours of freedom thinking about happy things."

Darian scoffed and swiped an apple. "Like what?"

She drew her eyebrows together and gave him a chiding frown, like something his mother would do, which only served to irritate him. "Like my family. Like my friends. Like all of the reasons why I want to go home."

He bit into the apple, which gave a satisfying crunch, and wiped away the juice running down his chin. With a full mouth, he said, "Newsflash: you'll have to think about the bad things in order to even have a chance of going home. Anything else, and you're just deluding yourself. On that note: I've got places to go, allies to see, people to kill. Catch you later." He half-turned, then added, "Or maybe not."

Before his mentor could yell at him for being a jerk to Margery, he slipped out of the front door and into the hallway. He'd barely decided to go to Adara's room before he saw her walking down the hall, shoulders squared and gait practically oozing confidence. She seemed surprised to see him, but it only showed for a moment.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said. "I was actually about to go looking for you."

"Good to see we're on the same page. I figured we could talk strategy before the Game. Or just hang out. Anything, really." She laughed, but it was a sad, strained little sound. "I could use the distraction."

Darian almost lied and said that he didn't need a distraction, because he wasn't afraid. But something in her voice disarmed him. Probably the sincerity. So far, she'd seemed pretty closed-off, not necessarily rude, but not entirely honest. Her walls were pretty high, and it was nice to see a glimpse of her true self.

He nodded slowly, swinging his entire upper-body with the movement. "I could use one, too."

"Let's go find Emery. I'm sure he'd feel left-out if he knew we were meeting without him."

"Oh yeah, because he's missing so much." Darian had meant it to sound sarcastic, but his voice carried no sharpness. He'd have to save his fighting edge for the bloodbath. "Yeah, okay. Let's go find him."

Owen Blackwood, District Four

Owen had awoken that morning feeling rather ill. Fear of death apparently gave him a sour stomach, which in turn made him try to avoid human interaction more than usual.

Unfortunately, almost immediately after entering the training center lobby, he'd been wrangled into a "group talk" with his allies. As much as he liked them, he sure as hell didn't want to talk to them, at least not right this second. He just wanted some time to get his head straight, but Brand and Enoch wanted to discuss bloodbath strategy before the Game started, so he put up with it. They really did need a plan.

Enoch leaned forward in his chair, fingers laced. "So if we can't find each other or get split up at the cornucopia - assuming there even is a cornucopia - we'll have to meet somewhere else. But we don't know what the landscape will be like, so we'll have to stick around the launch area until we're all together."

"Unless someone else is trying to kill us," Brand said. "I hope we're allowed to run away if someone's coming after us with a knife."

Enoch gave her a dead-eyed glare. "Yes, Brand. You should run if someone's trying to kill you. All I'm saying is that we should stick in the same general area, so that we can find each other more easily."

"Makes sense," Owen said, trying to ignore a headache that was creeping up from the base of his skull. It was doing nothing to improve his sunny demeanor. "Survival first, find each other second."

"Exactly."

Enoch and Brand continued talking, but Owen couldn't force himself to pay attention. He kept having visions of the bloodbath, images of gore and the sound of dying kids dredged up from previous years. Like the year his brother died.

A flame of resentment flickered in his gut, something he'd tried to pretend wasn't there. Clark had volunteered for the Ninety-Sixth Game, and because the gamemakers had a tendency to rig the reapings, he was almost certainly the reason why Owen had been reaped into the One-Hundredth. His brother had made it to the final three, only to be killed by Ivory Bellefonte. Seeing him make it so far, only to be slaughtered minutes before the end of the Game, hurt so much more than if he'd died first, because his family had started to hope. The eldest Blackwood son had a real chance. But he'd died anyways.

Clark's death had almost broken their family, and even though they'd managed to pull themselves back from the brink after that first terrible year, things were never the same. Now, here Owen was. Dead man walking.

He felt bad for his sister and his parents. Two brothers, two sons, caught up in the same stupid Game. One dead, and one whose fate hung in the balance.

At least Clark had a chance to say goodbye.

They'd just stolen Owen off of the street like a stray dog. Maybe that's all he was to them. Either way, it pissed him off. Not only had they dragged him into a death match, they hadn't even let him say goodbye to his loved ones, a right that had been granted to every other tribute for the past ninety-nine years. It wasn't fair.

Then again, nothing was fair. Otherwise, the Hunger Games would have never been anything more than a wet dream for some sick bastard back in the Old Capitol.

"Owen?"

Someone waved their hand in front of his face, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Yeah?"

Brand re-crossed her arms. "Have a nice trip?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Just thinking about my impending mortality."

Nodding, Enoch said, "That's what this discussion is for. We need to get this stuff off of our chests now so it isn't weighing us down in the Game."

Owen narrowed his eyes. Enoch hadn't ever struck him as the touchy-feely type, at least not until today. But how much did he really know about his ally? They'd only met each other three days ago, so it was probably fair to say that Owen knew virtually nothing about Enoch, which meant he was placing his survival in the hands of a stranger.

That thought did not comfort him.

"Sorry," Owen said. "I'm not in the mood to contribute."

Enoch pursed his lips, but it wasn't really a frown. "Fair enough. If you ever feel like it, though, feel free."

Owen nodded and gave a half-smile. He wasn't going to take them up on the offer.

Tullus Marl, District Two

Tributes milled around the lobby, talking in groups or wandering aimlessly, and some of them, like Armand, even sleeping.

Tullus suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. The fact that the kid was asleep meant that he wasn't talking, or harassing anyone, which was a blessing in and of itself. Ace had already tried to wake the boy from Eleven, but Polly had stopped him. They wanted to enjoy the peace for as long as possible.

Ace and Armand had come as a package deal, and kinda just showed up and invited themselves into the alliance. As nice as Polly was, her inability to tell people off wasn't one of her more appealing traits. Of course, she'd also brought in Niko, who almost made up for Armand. Almost. That kid had a talent for making himself the most annoying person in any given situation.

That didn't mean Tullus wanted to see Armand come to harm. In fact, quite the opposite. He wanted Armand to live a fulfilled and productive life, just so long as Tullus never had to interact with him ever again. But Armand had to die. That's how this whole system worked. Or failed, depending on the perspective.

Tullus had nominally accepted the necessity of his allies' deaths. The fact existed, no denying it. But he hadn't really accepted it. Loss of human life was something he'd encountered only once before, and he'd done his damnedest to never return to that gnarled scar in his mind. Dealing with the deaths of four other people, most of whom bordered on being his friends, required him to pry that ugly little crevice wide open, and while he didn't want to stare into that abyss, he definitely didn't want that abyss staring back into him. It was too dark. Black as sin.

"When do you think they'll call us in for preparation?" Polly asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "I'm getting antsy just sitting here."

"Soon enough." Tullus absentmindedly gnawed on a fingernail. "Don't tell me you're anxious for the Game to start."

"Of course not. But it's better to do something rather than nothing. I just want the bloodbath to be over with, so long as I'm still alive afterwards." She wrapped her hands around her elbows and looked down at the ground. "I want all of us to still be alive."

Tullus nodded. Even Armand. None of them deserved this.

Except maybe Tullus himself.

He chased the thought away as soon as it appeared. No use dwelling on the past, at least not now. He didn't have enough energy to waste it all on things he couldn't change.

"I'm worried that the sponsors won't sent much our way," Niko said, head hanging low.

Tullus agreed. Without the interviews, the tributes hadn't had a chance to give the sponsors any insight into their personalities, non-combat capabilities, or alliances. Everyone else was running solely on training scores, and once the Game started and the tributes' faces were broadcast to every home in Panem, physical appearance would play a large part, as well.

Even so, he'd still rather forego the interview. The stress-to-payout ratio wasn't worth it.

"I think that, when the sponsors see the size of our alliance and how capable we are, they'll definitely send us some gifts," Polly said, ever the optimist.

With a smile that was mostly genuine, Tullus said, "I hope you're right."

Like every other alliance, they needed all the help they could get.

Medea Torell, District Two

Evelyn didn't volunteer much in the way of conversation, which made Medea the slightest bit uncomfortable. She respected the need for silence, but she couldn't tell if the total absence of words indicated some sort of dissatisfaction on the part of her ally, or perhaps irritation. Maybe Evelyn already regretted her decision to ally with Medea? Or maybe she was just nervous?

Or maybe Medea was over thinking everything, as per usual.

"So," she started, but faltered when Evelyn shot her a cold glower. "Do you want to talk about strategy? Anything, really?"

"If you want to."

"So, for the bloodbath, how do you want to handle that?"

"Meet up. Take some supplies. Get out alive. Kill anyone that gets in the way of those objectives."

"Concise. I like it."

Evelyn refused to make eye-contact. "Uh huh."

Medea leaned against the marble pillar, rolling a few words around in her mind, unwilling to say them out loud until she was absolutely sure they would at the very least engage her ally. Even if the silence was just a defense mechanism, it made Medea wonder if she was doing something wrong.

"What if we have to kill someone stronger than ourselves?"

"You got a 9 in training. I think we'll be fine. And if we aren't, there isn't much we can do other than run or fight and hope for the best."

Medea considered this. "So I'm the fighter, then?"

"Seeing as I got a 5, I thought that was pretty obvious. I'll do what I can, of course, but I'm not trained like you are."

With a nod, Medea sat down beside her ally, though not too close. "Fair enough."

At the other end of the room, a burly man with bright blue hair entered through the double-doors, accompanied by two peacekeepers. Medea recognized him as one of the trainers, but he looked entirely different in his formal attire than he had in his training gear. Judging by the way he carried himself, he meant business.

"Tributes!" he cried, his words rendered tinny and rough by his megaphone, "you have been summoned by your stylists. It is time to prep for launch. Please form an orderly single-file line by district, Zero in front, Thirteen in back. Girls first, boys second. Chop chop!"

Medea cast a final glance at Evelyn. "Good luck."

Something very close to warmth played at the corners of Evelyn's mouth. "You too."

Happy that she'd made a bit of progress with her ally, Medea wove her way through the crowd of disorganized tributes, and wedged herself between Florian and Tullus.

Someone tapped on her shoulder, and she turned around to face her district partner.

With an ironic grin, he said, "May the odds be ever in your favor, Medea."

Cocking her head to the side, she tapped her finger against the side of her mouth. "Do I detect sarcasm?"

He held his thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart. "Just a bit. But the sentiment is the same." With a softer smile, he said, "Really, though. I hope you do well."

She felt herself smile a bit too wide, maybe from nerves, maybe out of joy that another person would wish her well in such a dark time. It was nice to have people who cared. "I hope you do well, too."

The unspoken caveat being, But I still hope I do better.

That part didn't need saying.

Benjamin Stavros, District Ten

Benjamin stood in the empty room for at least five minutes before a bizarre, colorful man swept through the door, accompanied by three other equally strange assistants. "Good morning, young Benjamin Stavros. I do apologize for my tardiness, but better fashionably late than completely absent, right?" Resting a hand on his chest, he said. "My name is Xavier, and I'll be your stylist for today. These lovely people are Petunia, Iago, and Herodia. They're your prep team."

He gestured to the man and two women accompanying him. They'd each tweaked their clothes and hairstyles to look a bit more like butterflies, which Benjamin found oddly endearing. It looked like they had a team theme.

"If you have any complaints, just let us know, but in all honesty we'll probably tell you to suck it up. Now, clothes off," the stylist said, pointing a bright red fingernail at Benjamin's chest.

His face grew warm. "All of them?"

The stylist rolled his eyes. "Unless you plan on going into the arena with wet underwear."

Benjamin considered this, and promptly decided to get over it. It's not like these people hadn't seen a bunch of other naked tributes before. He'd have to deal with far worse things if he intended on making it home in anything other than a pine box.

Reluctantly, he stripped down to bare flesh, goose bumps prickling up along his arms and legs. He stood, shivering in the cold room, as the stylist eyed him up and down, nodding in approval at Benjamin's physique. "Not bad. Not bad at all." Snapping his fingers at the prep team, he said, "But you still need a lot of work. Hair removal, mostly, but some exfoliation would do you good. Go lie down on the table."

Benjamin did as he was told, and the prep team descended upon him like a swarm of locusts, scrubbing his skin raw and plucking every "unnecessary" hair, which apparently meant all of them.

"Okay," Xavier finally said, after Benjamin had convinced himself they'd torn his skin off. "That's enough of that. Stand up and turn around. I need to make sure we didn't miss anything."

"Are you always this demanding?"

"Not usually, no." Xavier sighed, and there was no mistaking the nostalgia in his voice. "But since it's the last Game, I'll never get to be a stylist again. I have to cram years of styling into this one day, and you're just the tribute unfortunate enough to get the brunt of it. I'm only here to help you, though, so do as I say."

"Fine."

Arms out, Benjamin turned around, more self-conscious than ever, and the fact that he was this guy's last tribute didn't help. In the scheme of things it was no big deal, but it was one more thing on top of the shit pile he'd been buried under. As much as he wanted to troop through this, he was about three straws away from breaking the camel's back.

"You look good." Xavier took a step back, hand outstretched, and Petunia gave him a pile of folded clothes. He took it and held it out to Benjamin. "Put these on. I have something I need to attend to, but I'll be back in ten minutes to make some final adjustments."

They left him standing naked in the middle of the room, alone with his uniform and ten minutes of anticipation. He almost wished they'd stayed.

Ace Wilder, District Twelve

His eyebrows still stung from where the prep team had seemingly plucked half of them away. At least the clothes were comfortable, but that hardly made up for the abuse he'd suffered so far. They'd scraped off the entire first layer of his skin and covered him head-to-toe in moisturizers that were apparently made of alcohol and lemon juice. This "beautification" stuff was bullshit.

"Alright, Mr. Wilder, just one last thing." The stylist grabbed his forearm, a syringe clutched in one hand, and gave him something that was supposed to be a smile. "This will only hurt a little bit."

He flinched as the needle pricked the inside of his elbow and forced a torrent of cold liquid through his veins. When the stylist let go of his arm, he drew it back, glaring at her. "What was that for?"

"Well, it's for a lot of things. It stops hair growth for the next few weeks, since we like our tributes clean-shaven, and it also has something in it that's supposed to stop your face from turning too red in the cold. It's mostly so you'll look good on camera."

"So, the arena is going to be cold?"

"Presumably, but I don't know anything for sure. You'll just have to wait and see like everyone else."

He fell silent, mulling over her answer. He didn't like cold places. He also didn't like killing fields, but that was another matter entirely.

"Well, Ace, I'll see you at the launch bay. In the meantime, try not to get into too much trouble, okay?" She winked, but Ace didn't feel like winking back.

She ushered him out of the room, and two waiting peacekeepers escorted him down the hall and up the stairs to the roof access. They opened the door, and a whirl of warm air surged through the hallway, kicked up by a huge hovercraft sitting on the middle of the training center's roof. He was the first tribute to arrive, but the others weren't too far behind.

Brand Coil and Niko Sundita approached from another corner of the roof, and Ace waved at his ally. Niko waved back, but judging by his sullen expression, it was more out of habit than anything else. Ace didn't resent him for it. Everyone was sullen here, even if they chose not to show it. He just figured that he might as well be as nice to his friend as possible, maybe bring a smile to his face, though it hadn't worked.

The peacekeepers instructed them to board the craft, and they filed into the hovercraft's hull district by district. Ace sat across from Adara, who acknowledged his existence with a flash of a smile, then went back to ignoring him. He frowned. He'd already apologized for the vase thing. What more could he do?

It probably didn't matter, anyways. They were in different alliances, and in a place where everyone was out to kill you, that meant he shouldn't interact with her anymore.

So he didn't.

A woman in a white lab coat walked down the aisle, a huge silver needle clasped in one hand, and her assistant carried a tray with little glowing contraptions. He gulped. According to his mentor, the implantation of the chip really hurt.

The woman eventually stopped in front of him, eyebrows raised with an implied demand.

Slowly, he held out his arm, and she clamped onto it with surprising force, digging her nails into the soft flesh of his elbow. The needle bit deep, and he had to bite his tongue as the little chip dug itself a cavity under his skin.

"You're ready to go," the woman said, patting his shoulder.

Funny. 'Ready' seemed to be the only thing he didn't feel.

Damian Ridge, District Five

"Well," his stylist said, circling around him as if he were a statue in a museum, "the uniform does say a bit about the arena." She reached out and pinched his jacket, rubbing the padded material between her fingers. "I'd say you're in for some cold weather, but there isn't a wind-breaking layer, so there probably won't be any gale-force winds." Glancing down at his boots, she added, "Those won't give you much traction, so I doubt you'll be hiking up any mountains."

He nodded, playing with the edges of his sleeves. Somewhere cold and flat. That's probably where the gamemakers were sending him. Tundra? Possibly. He couldn't remember if there had been an arena like that before. The adrenaline was doing weird things to his memory.

Over the intercom, a soft voice said, "Two minutes to launch."

His gut clenched, and the stylist patted his upper arm. "You're all set."

Damian nodded, but said nothing as he stepped into the launch tube. The mounting fear had stolen all of his words.

He took a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut as the clear tube sunk down around him. He had allies. Florian knew how to fight, and Danique was smart. They could do this. They could survive the bloodbath, would survive the bloodbath, and for now, that was the most important thing. They'd deal with everything else afterwards.

The pedestal began to rise, and his heart skipped a beat. Eyes flying open, he braced himself against the sides of the tube, and his stylist gave him a bright smile and a thumbs-up. He tried to smile in turn, but it felt more like a grimace.

Above him, a circular panel slid back, exposing a slate-gray ceiling and letting in a flood of bluish half-light and frigid air. His breath floated away in a cloud of white, and a few snowflakes drifted down and landed on his jacket, contrasting sharply against the sheer black fabric. One landed on his eyelashes, and he wiped it away.

As his head rose above the ground, his eyebrows drew together in confusion. Bars. He was looking at a grid of iron bars. Beyond the bars was a wide space, then another room, also blocked off by bars. Inside, the girl from Eleven rose, and the plates jostled them in unison as they clicked into place. The pieces fit together even before Damian saw the stacked cots and barred windows.

It was a jail cell.

On the wall beside him, the number 60 appeared, projected onto the concrete by a tiny black apparatus embedded in the ceiling.

59.

58.

57.

Small piles of snow had swept themselves into the corners of the room, and a number of stray flakes littered the floor. A shiver ran up his spine, not entirely due to the cold.

He wondered if his mother was watching. If anything, she had at least one holo-screen turned to the Hunger Games since it was required by law, but whether or not she was actually paying attention depended on how much she still hated him.

26.

25.

24.

Who was he kidding? She'd never not hate him. He'd forsaken the empire that his parents built, turned his back on their legacy and all the time and effort they'd invested. She had every right to hate him, and though he couldn't blame her, he didn't regret his decision.

3.

2.

1.

It's time.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the One Hundredth Annual Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor!"

And that concludes the pre-game chapters. Faster update than last time, huh? Next up: the bloodbath.

Tributes start dying next chapter. It's an inevitable part of every SYOT, and I apologize if yours is among them.

On a tangentially related note, I've noticed a pretty sharp drop-off in reviews over the past few chapters. It probably has a lot to do with the sporadic time periods between updates, but it does hurt my motivation. Please let me know if I'm handling the overall story in a unsatisfactory way. That being said, I really appreciate the people who are still reviewing! You guys are lovely.

Now that the first round of deaths is close, I have a few questions for everyone.

-Who do you think will die in the bloodbath?

-Who do you want to die?

As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!