Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Vermillion Shorelines, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair. I can't believe that I'm actually posting another reaping chapter in the correct frame of time that isn't a month! *shocker* Thanks again to those that are staying around and reading and reviewing despite my awfulness at updating, because I'm such a tease, I know. Today we're going to see our District 11 tributes, who I've never gotten to write before in other pieces of mine because of my dedication issues, but now we're actually going to get to hear from them. We've got Mr. Aaron Rovelle and Miss Jem Lockehardt with us today, and they're quite the doozy. The first quarter of my senior year finished on Friday, and so as a reminder, the yoke of college is getting tighter and tighter, but I'm gonna make sure to actually stick to deadlines as close as I possibly can - I can only hope, right? - so thank you again for always being on time. Enjoy the District 11 reaping, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair.

Aaron Rovelle: District 11 Male P.O.V (14)

Hard work and no play, it's all my life is for apparently.

Fourteen year-old Aaron Rovelle understands that people generally do not have that thought following them everywhere they go, but he's different and thinks that twenty-four seven. He sits in the fields, picking oranges and cutting down high tree limbs to reach the apples that his fingers are longing for, only to then become filled to the brim with disgust at the other workers around him. There are those who recognize the threat of not actively participating on the job and making asses of themselves by horseplay until the Peacekeepers intervene - Aaron wants to make friends out of those people, they're his kind of folk - and there are those who dawdle even when the cold, muted barrel of a gun is placed to their head. He rolls his eyes at those who still find themselves living a dream and that they'll eventually wake up from some sort of nightmare.

"There is no escaping this place," he'll say to himself under the starry night sky - Aaron doesn't like sleeping in beds, it feels too manufactured, where the sheets smell of Capitol lust and glamour and grossness - with nothing but grass acting as his blanket. "I'm a teenager in the Hunger Games and I must do what I can to survive."

He's eleven years old, a young and scrawny, pale little thing with flesh hanging off of his arms when he asks his parents if he can start training for the Hunger Games. His mother and father naturally eye him with fear reflecting in their expressions, but grant him permission in an awkward sort of way that transforms, now at his current age of fourteen, to full fledged support. His father manages to buy a scythe so Aaron can practice swinging a real vicious weapon and not look silly parading in the dirt with a stick. His mother helps identify poisonous fruits and plants and animals that he skips over in daily training... he's an outlier district tribute training to be a Career.

Aaron Rovelle is the epitome of one who dreams too greatly for his own good. He, with his youthful age, believes he's the ever lasting greatest thing to ever walk the cobblestone streets of District 11 - and in Panem, if he wanted to take a stab at it - but practical suspension of belief is for the adults in his life to tell him that he's working hard and they've never been more proud of him before.

Currently the fourteen year-old is training in the back of the fields by his house, all the twelve to eighteen year-old boys and girls of the district given the day off to become mentally prepared for the reaping. A scythe is in his hand, and as Aaron swings and duels against an invisible opponent, the high blades of grass litter about him like an early winter snow, or glitter and confetti from when his father gave his mother a surprise birthday party.

Under the glare of the sun, his diamond blue eyes flash like spheres of filtered water, sweat streaming steadily down his forehead. He's training with more ferocity than usual, and for a good reason. At fourteen, with only three years of training, Aaron is ready to volunteer for the 200th Hunger Games. In his head, with it being a Quarter Quell, and a Quarter Quell that so far has had none of its itineraries or twists explained, he thinks it is the perfect scenario to go in and wreck people up with his newly 'gained' skills.

He mimes ducking under another tribute's arm, doing an expert somersault to 'slice' the person's throat. Aaron lets out a satisfying gasp, smiling to himself. The boy wipes off his brow, disliking how hot and miserable it is currently outside. He needs to be in an optimal training facility like those in One, Two, and Four. "Those have air conditioning! And practice dummies! And more weapons than these stupid scythes. All of District 11 uses these things. I want to use something else!"

If an outsider that is not from District 11, or truthfully any other District 11 citizen that knew or did not know Aaron Rovelle were to hear his plans, their mouths would hang open in a larger mount than the great entrance to the golden Cornucopia horn. Aaron finds the usage of blades to be irrelevant - they're overrated, and he is going to cause the ratings of the games to go up by becoming the greatest victor that'll ever live - and rather take to the task of using his fists. The perfect reason for complete disbelief of the claim is that Aaron Rovelle is a lanky, tall fourteen year-old with the palest skin of any child in District 11. He does not have the fairer, darker and more beautiful skin tone of the African American workers that he jokes with at school. He does not have the build that they do, with hulking muscles and a throwing arm that could toss a javelin across District lines. What Aaron Rovelle has to work with is a cocky, deluded mind, his puny fists that are to do all the talking, and his endurance according to stamina.

Aaron believes he's destined for greatness. He is given seven chances as a child to be routed and picked in the Hunger Games' dastard system of selecting its victims or volunteers depending on how one looks at it. If his chance is passed up, and he's suddenly nineteen years old having been skipped, Aaron deep down feels that there's wasted potential in him. He's not put in so much effort and time into his life to be suddenly tossed to the side like a ragdoll. There's more to him than some peasant farmer who will toil the fields under a harsh sun and toil their troubles back at home to then lather, rinse, and repeat. He's no machine when it comes to the daily routine of District 11. He works in the fields like he's told to under the threat of punishment and death if he doesn't.

On the side, however, and deep down in his heart, Aaron is aspiring for greatness - a greatness that only the Hunger Games can give him if he's lucky, and lucky he is trying to become - to shoot higher than anyone who has ever gone before him. He scoffs at the past few years of District 11's track record in the Games. The boy to be selected for the 199th soils his pants, back and front, before the Cornucopia timer even ends, and in the boy's terror, the District 1 female victor spears him in the side. The eighteen year-old before him, for the 198th year, gets cocky climbing a tree. A branch is snapped, the boy falls, and soon his neck receives the same treatment as that dastard tree branch.

Aaron bothers only caring about the Hunger Games when he's eleven, having realized that there's more than being scared of the Games and then living past them to a boring, old ripe age. He doesn't remember who won or died that year, except that District 11 is wiped out during the Cornucopia bloodbath, and that gets a fire burning under his skin. He is not going to sit by and let his district be dragged in the dirt for their insolence, not if he has anything to say about it, and Aaron Rovelle has a whole lot to mouth off about where the district can go.

He tosses the scythe into the dirt, having tired himself out from training since the crack of dawn. While the other potential victims of the district his age either stay home and cry into their beds, or go into town to have a possible last happy memory, he leaves the rickety wooden porch of his house and runs amok. Through the fields, up the hills, down to the valleys and past the rivers... Aaron is to train and get in as much preparedness as he can. President Jade Dermure will not even know what hit her at this rate.

The fourteen year-old covers his eyes from the sun, knowing not to stare into it directly. His heart saddens somewhat when looking at his skin. Throughout his youthful adolescence that seems to only make his superstitious ego grow, Aaron's always known that there is something slightly different about him from everyone else in the district. He's bullied at school - a little nine year-old Aaron with freckles and not quite as tall standing in the doorway - one day, and as he's crying in his teacher's lap after the hours after over, he hears a word that he's never quite heard before.

The entire conversation replays in his head.

"Mother... father..." he asks timidly from the doorway to his house. The sun is streaming through around his petite, wiry frame, causing his lithe body to drown in shadows and elongated patches of darkness.

His father looks at him from across the kitchen table, a rickety old wooden thing that is sure to fall apart at any moment. "Yes, Aaron?"

"What is it?" his mother questions, joining her husband by the table.

Aaron looks down at his feet ruefully, twisting his shoe into the wooden floor. He's unable to look into his parent's eyes, afraid of the emotional response he'll get in return. "What is walbanism?"

His father stutters out a nervous laugh, placing his glasses on the table. "I'm sorry Aaron, I didn't quite catch that..."

His mother looks at her hands, chewing on the inside of her lip. "Did you mean, albinism, Aaron?"

"Yeah..." Aaron's gaze goes to one of the corners.

Both of his parents look each other in the eyes, nodding sorrowfully. They walk over to him, both hugging him, and that's all that happens for the conversation. Aaron cries in his parent's arms, sobbing into his father's shirt, and pulling at his mother's hair as they explain to him the reasoning behind why he's so much paler than all of the other Caucasian boys and girls that he plays with, to why he is unable to get a tan when running outside for hours and hours... and the boy is so broken that he does not understand if he's cursed or if he's gifted by such an affliction.

Aaron bites down on his tongue with force to stop thinking about his nine year-old self. Even with his parents giving him the most straightforward answer that they could've given, he's still, well into becoming a teenager, confused. He frowns at times when he catches himself thinking about it, wondering if he asked the right person in the right scenario if it could be irreversible. He thinks that there's a higher up reason for him, being the wonderful fighter that he is and all of that jazz, and having a skin condition that separates him from the pack puzzles him more than anything else in the entire world.

There is a lot in Panem that does not make sense, but out of everything, that is the cincher.

He's never been one for reading, or books, or to stretch that far, knowledge. Knowledge is not going to save him when there's an arrow heading at thirty miles an hour for his liver. It'll be the fight or flight response, and Aaron has to have the common sense to simply roll out of the way and then retaliate with the force of a Peacekeeper truck. His fists will help when his arm falls short, his mouth will rescue him when his body tires. His dreams and aspirations will cause him to rise above when the day is done, when the ground is covered in vermillion and Aaron's laughing as everyone's doubted him and he's still managed to come out on top as the victor.

The word is sweet on his tongue, like a delectable honey that he'll be reminded about for years and years to come.

"A victor..." he repeats, laughing to himself. "I can become a victor..."

At eleven, Aaron thought that this dream of achieving status beyond the norm felt very far off - it is there in the back of his head, resting, quietly, but there all the same - to where it is almost on the same level as finding the elusive Fountain of Youth, a tale where one who drinks from its waters will be granted an appearance of beauty everlasting. With three years of dedication and hard work under his belt, the dream is in reach. It is a shimmering gem in the middle of a field, a ruby waiting to be unearthed, a miniature Fountain of Youth that is just, oh just out of reach.

Aaron sees it. He is going to take it. A golden, gleaming cup resting on a mantelpiece, a piece of glass in his hand as he strikes downwards, downwards, downwards. Blood splattering his clothes, an uproar as he wins, as he's hurdled over a mountain that everyone said he couldn't beat. Nothing is greater than achieving your dreams, and Aaron's dream is here. It's ready for him.

The fruit of victory has never tasted sweeter, a final meal before the judgment day approaches, before the hour of Aaron Rovelle's life is decided.

Nothing is going to get in his way.

Nothing is going to stop him.

Jem Lockehardt: District 11 Female P.O.V (17)

"Surprise!" shouts Tyler Juno, the current boyfriend to seventeen year-old Jem Lockehardt, revealing a basket he had hidden behind his arms. Jem giggles at the downright adorableness of her love of her life, then gasping outright at what he had gotten her.

"Are these real?" she asks, like a child who cannot believe their eyes. Tyler simply grins as she throws her arms around him in a hug, before grabbing the basket filled to the brim with strawberries, placing them on the ground by her side.

Tyler laughs, his voice full of mirth and brightness, and everything that makes him the ball of sunshine that he is to Jem. The two lovebirds were in the District's town square, waiting for the reaping to begin by having a merry picnic. Jem knows that on a day with such impertinence as this, you can either cry about it back home, or go and enjoy the morning before high noon is to roll around and plague your heart with darkness.

She basks in the sun, enjoying her boyfriend's company as he feeds her one strawberry after the other, juice and seeds spilling down both of their fronts as she nearly swallows one whole. Jem tucks a lock of long, auburn hair behind her ear, hiding her mouth as she nearly spits another strawberry out at a joke Tyler makes. Even though the impending hour is full of despair and sadness, she cannot help but laugh and merrily enjoy her morning. It reassures her in times of troubled thought that for the past two years she's had Tyler directly on stage to keep her comforted, to make sure everything is going according to plan.

She never has to worry, because her boyfriend, Tyler Juno, at eighteen years-old is the victor of the 195th Hunger Games, having been reaped and won at thirteen. With his elusive catlike brown eyes and tanned skin complexion, he and Jem pass off as brother and sister despite there being only a courting relationship between them. Jem remembers watching those particular Games, only twelve, with wide eyes behind her parent's couch. She had been forbidden to watch them, even though she's just survived her reaping and seen two unlucky thirteen year olds brought to the stage, kicking and screaming.

It is no secret that Tyler is the fan favorite that year, with appealing looks for someone of an outer district, nabbing a decent training score of a nine, and actually making Silver Castle, the arrogant prick that the Master of Ceremonies is, take interest in a tribute for once. When Tyler is declared the victor of the 195th year of the Hunger Games, Jem makes it her mission to get to know who he is, amazed by the fact that someone has come out of a horrible situation, made the best of their circumstances, and won.

Jem catches herself looking at Tyler, who is preoccupied in watching the Peacekeepers start to set up for the reaping. The lines are drawn with chalk, the ropes splayed out, the table for drawing blood put in place... little by little the bright atmosphere of the town square becomes heavier and heavier by each clunk of metal, or each order barked out in harsh Capitol accents.

Tyler shakes his head with disdain. "I've seen this four years in a row, and every single time I still get nervous about it."

"I'm sorry..." Jem looks at him with sorrow in her eyes. She's unable to imagine how her boyfriend must feel, having to go and constantly be in the eye of the Capitol and all of Panem. She's surprised that the president hasn't marched up to her door and demanded how she snagged the dreaming cattle of District 11. There's hushed whispers around the district that Jem simply has the victor under a spell - how could anyone love someone so hideous, a girl wonders with contempt lacerating her words, syllables doused in a venomous fire - and one day Tyler will be snapped awake and pluck her heart out for the gross beast of a woman that Jem apparently is.

Jem does not have a lot of confidence in herself on several things, looks being one of them. She feels that her drawn back eyes accentuate the fact she is not like everyone, with a hair color that does not match her skin tone, or that her voice is slightly higher and more of a whine than a typical drawl. Asking her parents about it over dinner, she learns that she is a mix of several old American nationalities, back before Panem turned around to become a physical entity.

A Korean father, and a mixed mother - Jem learns that this is someone who is black and white for their ethnicity - that gives her the unorthodox look in a district full of either white, pasty skin that is translucent, or a tone darker than the night that blackens under every long hour under the sun. For what is going in Jem's favor is everything she has control over. She's always loved working, and by that, in her regard is to work her way up a corporate latter with hard work and an ethic full of honor and responsibility. It makes her stand out from the crowd in a more positive light in comparison to where her appearance is concerned. She finds herself blessed in the regard that she's in love with a man who not only has won the Hunger Games, but takes her for who she is; a human being with a heart that beats blood and sees the world in more than black and white, but in colors.

Radiant colors that douse the streets purple and the walls fuchsia, where the sun is an obsolete ball of gray in an emerald clouded sky. Jem dreams in colors, she visualizes the world around her with an optimistic view, like Tyler, that is bright and alive to make better circumstances than their current ones. Water is not just a clear, crystalline blue, but a carnation pink that smells of warm roses and apples and an orchard that she can call home. Anger is a hogwash of bitter red and stunning black, engaging and monstrous, but beautiful all together.

She's caught up in her thoughts, Tyler nudging her out of a stupor when she has her gaze transfixed on the table for registration.

"What's the matter?"

Jem blinks, her face softening visibly. "Nothing," she answers. "I was just painting the world in a different light."

"Is that so?" Tyler crosses his arms over one another. "And what do I look like to you?"

"Purple."

"Any specific shade?"

"No," Jem shakes her head in dissent. "Just purple."

"Any meaning behind it?"

"Royalty."

Tyler's facial expression darkens, tanking the entire conversation before it is truthfully able to even begin. "I never asked to be royalty, you know."

"I know. But there's nothing you can do about it, can you?" Jem points out. "You're making the best of your situation, the best of your circumstances."

Her boyfriend opens his mouth to speak, but he's cut off by a loud burst of static. They both have their heads turn to the stage, where the escort for District 11 is tapping away at the microphone like an idiot. Jem's heart swells in her throat. That only means one thing; the reaping is about to begin. In no time at all she'll be separated from Tyler, for a little over a week, and she'll survive without him, but her heart longs to join him on stage in victory one day. To taste the fruit of success like he has, to become the dreamer she's always felt like she was in time's past.

"Right," Tyler nods. "It looks like they're about to start. Are you ready for another one?"

"I am."

"That's nice."

"Has there been any talk of volunteers this year?" Jem asks. District 11, although not a Career district by any stretch of means, sometimes has an odd man out that'll leap forward for short lived glory to only go down in a heap of flames.

Tyler chews on the inside of his cheek. "Yeah. One. The male tribute," he sighs loudly. "Some stupid fourteen year-old kid who actually believes he has a chance of winning this thing. Apparently his ego is almost as large as his deluded mind."

"What do you do on the train ride to the Capitol? After all of this is over?" she questions. "I can only imagine that those rides are never fun. Seeing you have to lecture and mentor. It must be awful."

Tyler runs a hand through his long locks of black hair. "I'm usually sleeping. I can't stand or bear the thought of looking at these sad, downturned faces that remind me of my own. I have been there before, and the memories only seem too real..." he stutters out a nervous laugh. "Normally my uneaten dinner is laying at my feet because I fall asleep in the dining car. Last year it was salmon and collard greens. The room stunk the rest of the ride."

Jem cracks a smile. "That's your usual evening? Have you ever felt hope before?"

He nods. "Sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes."

"I'd vouch for that."

"I hate it," Tyler admits. "Not being able to hope."

Jem shudders. "The life of a victor must be awful." Ironically, half of her wants to taste it. Taste the despair, the sweet success, the riches, and the sorrow.

Tyler is honest in his reply. "You don't know half of it, Jem," he helps her up, bunching the picnic blanket in his arms. Jem looks around to see that people are starting to file in for registration. Parents clinging onto their twelve year-old sons and daughters, kids who look like they've gone forever without a meal... Jem finds it all so incredibly disheartening. Tyler picks up the basket of strawberries. "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to take these with me and give them to the tributes on the train. A little respite of happiness in all of this sadness. Do you mind?"

"No," Jem shakes her head. She hugs Tyler tight. "I love you."

"I love you too," he whispers. "When this is all over, don't leave for home yet. I'll see if I can say goodbye to you while the tributes are saying goodbye. Okay?"

"Okay."

He presses a warm hand against her cheek, noticing how cold Jem's skin actually is. "See you on the other side, Lockehardt."

Jem closes her eyes at the close touch, his words still faint and fluttering against the nape of her neck. She watches as her boyfriend begins to head towards the stage, still unsure exactly how she's dating a victor in the midst of all this madness. Sighing, she dutifully merges into the line for registration, her eyes never leaving Tyler's body as he joins the stage to talk to the escort, mayor, and other victors gathered from District 11. Jem fears that if she loses sight of Tyler, then everything will crumble in her hands like a wet sandcastle that is unable to stay afloat after all this time.

She flinches inwardly at the sharp needle going into her skin, the smear of blood on clean, flawless white paper. The blood smear is a sickening, foul, brackish green like vomit, which causes Jem's stomach to twist and curdle. Jem files into the seventeen year-old female section on the left side, all the way over where she's unable to see Tyler. Even though she cannot see him, she knows and feels his presence. As long as her victorious boyfriend is near her, nothing will go wrong. She's untouchable.

The girl is all by herself as the rest of the district starts to file in. There's talk and murmuring in the crowd about some volunteer for the boys, which Jem remembers Tyler talking about. The sweetness of a bursting strawberry lingers on her tongue even after the buzz of the crowd has died down, and when it is time for the dastard, awful show to begin. Apparently there is a massive influx of female twelve year-olds this year for District 11, and Jem's heart warms at the fact that it might not be her who gets picked this year. She's striving to be seven for seven, with seven years of having her life at risk, and seven years of living through it.

For a split second, before doom is to fall on the agricultural district, she gets a glimpse of Tyler and the other victor who will be joining him in the honors of mentoring. As Tyler Juno is young and spry at eighteen years old, having won the 195th year, the female counterpart for him, Jenny Pratter is a catty, old bat. With luscious and glossy dark maroon colored skin, and large effusive chocolate brown eyes, she glares into the heart of everyone she disrespects. Having won the 171st year of the Hunger Games, until Tyler's win, she had been the newest victor for them in a twenty year grace period. After Tyler's victory, the male victor before him had died of a heart attack, leaving them two to be the sole ones for responsibility of carrying children on their backs.

Jem wants to keep her focus on her boyfriend - breathe normally Jem, the world is still in a normal color for you, she coaches herself silently, you're okay - but it is cut short by the escort stepping up to the plate. Jem rolls her eyes at the prim and perfect Delaney Court, who has apparently been the escort for District 11 since her parents started going, and that had to have been twenty plus years ago. In order for her to keep up with the latest Capitol trend of not showing your age, Delaney's hair is a sickening blonde that is too blonde, like butter that drips off of greasy fingers. A downright hideous shade of eye shadow swathes the older woman's face as she totes and lumbers up to the microphone. Her plump frame blocks Tyler from Jem's view, but there's a positive with it all.

"At least I don't look like her," she mutters to herself.

Delaney taps the microphone again, and like earlier, she thumps it too hard and almost tips the microphone stand off the stage. A disruption of static disturbs a few crows gathered on the ridge of the Justice Building, and Jem winces inwardly in pain, expecting Delaney's all too familiar, and way too peppy voice to turn everything into a mockery of things.

"Hullo District 11!" Delaney shouts, with far too much pep and energy for the event of sending two sheep off to a slaughter. Jem likes that extended metaphor - we're all sheep led to a slaughter, fattened up on the way, doused in a false chemical, and then our eye sockets are gouged out before we can say a word - and hums to herself about it, ignoring the escort's next few sentences. "I am so happy to be back for another year! We came close, didn't we? We came super close to another victor last year, and now it is a Quarter Quell of all years! That means it is a new dawn, a new place for us to achieve happiness! Let's get it District 11!"

"Will someone shut her up?" a voice shouts out from the eighteen year-old male section.

Delaney flushes a furious shade of amaranthine, pouting. "Fine! As usual then, ladies first!" she huffs pointedly. In a stamp of anger, the escort stomps over to the bowl holding all the female names for the reaping. Not even thinking, she dumps the entire bowl onto the stage, snatching a single one as it falls out. Jem wants to stutter a laugh, and she nearly does when she gets a glimpse of Tyler's face as he watches the chaos unfold. Delaney, like she did to the bowl, stomps back to the microphone, tearing off the black tape. "Jem Lockehardt!" her voice booms out over the district.

Both Tyler and Jem's facial expressions of amusement change faster than the turn of a new season.

Error.

Mind does not compute.

Jem is standing there in her little corral, all content as a cow, content as a sheep led to the slaughter with her world being painted in acrylic colors. Delaney Court, the old git that she is, is doused in childish shades of yellow and pink to make a mockery of her. Now, Jem can barely stand up straight. Everything is wrong. The ground turns to mud, the gravel shifting and the colors waning on the brink of overconsumption and over realism. The ground is a bleeding, furious red that screams anger and reeks of death.

Someone pushes her out of line, and she realizes with a somewhat sluggish mind that a Peacekeeper is dragging her up the steps. This cannot be happening. The sky is darkening by the second, until it is a gray that has hidden away the sun, and Jem wants to vomit. She's dropped to her knees, roughly on stage, and over the side of it she pukes out the strawberries she and Tyler had shared on their date.

She can barely hear his voice over her retching.

"Someone volunteer for her! Someone! PLEASE! Don't do this to my Jem!" Tyler screams out at the crowd, but no female lifts a finger.

Jem can hear them all now. She deserves it. She's an abomination. We're getting rid of the abomination, the shame of our loins.

Over the din of Tyler's agonized screaming that suddenly stops, Delaney shouts out a name for the boy tribute, someone else's voice breaking through. "I volunteer!"

She blacks out before she can fully see a wiry, pale boy take to the stage, declaring him as fourteen year-old, future winner of the 200th Hunger Games, Aaron Rovelle.

Jem's head hits concrete with one more retch, black ants boring into her skull.

She wants to taste the fruit of victory, her mind reminds her, she wants to live the life that Tyler lives and join him on the stage, hand in hand, for glory shall enshroud her every movement.

A bitterness fills her mouth.

She's tried the fruit of victory.

It is now known as the fruit of despair.

There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was the District 11 reaping, Chapter #10: Fruit of Despair. Man, that felt good, I got that out in two hours. So, we have our two tributes from the land of fruit of despair, Mr. Aaron Rovelle and Miss Jem Lockehardt. After the polarizing reaction to Pomona (who I actually like), I hope that maybe Jem is a little more appealing to some of you. I really enjoyed both of their points of view this chapter, as they really have a lot in common in terms of wanting a taste of something more, albeit different ways of already achieving it. I like working in the chapter titles, so I hope this one was engaging enough.

I extended the idea of a tribute dating a victor, and I think it turned out quite fortunate - lol, I hope! - so let me know what you thought of these two saps. Who, out of the gang we've met of the ten tributes out of twenty-four do you love, like, neutrally feel about, dislike, and hate? I'm curious to see where that'll go.

Sometime in the next two weeks I'll have the next reaping out for Chapter #11. After doing the RNG, the number I've gotten is District 5! I'm happy that it is a higher up number, but it isn't 1, 3, or 4 that I was really wanting to write. So, sometime in the next two weeks I'll have the District 5 reaping, Chapter #11: The Alchemist of Sorrow, out. Thank you all so much for reading! Please review and let me know what you thought of the chapter! Have an amazing day! Bye! Love you all!

~ Paradigm