Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Sheep Led to Slaughter, Chapter #10: Secrets Behind the Lies. Last chapter we met another three tributes, they being Annabellina Circuit (D5), Marcus Pharadane (D1), and Peri Florence (D7). You guys were awesome in your reviews, so thank you, and I am so glad you guys are liking - or mostly liking (cough Hero and Victoria cough) these tributes as I am really trying in 1.5k words to make them come alive. We have another train rides on our hand, and one more after this, but then we're off to the races with the rest of the actual Hunger Games, chapters I've never gotten to write for SYOTS. Enjoy Chapter #10: Secrets Behind the Lies.

Milor Drusus: District 2 Male P.O.V (18)

For the moment in time, all the while trying to keep the buzz of the morning off of his skin, eighteen year-old Career volunteer Milor Drusus looks over at his district partner wondering what in God's name she is doing, or rather trying to do, his fellow Career by his side, the other volunteer he has gotten to slightly know over the last year. His poor district partner is over at the buffet table, eyes searching over muffins and cakes and drinks and fruit platters, and whenever she reaches over for something, she bends down seductively, her breasts practically spilling into the cottage cheese.

Milor is trying his hardest not to laugh, trying his hardest also not to stare. The curve of her hips, the way she is popping out of her reaping outfit, and the also complete look of disappointment on her face as his district partner, Persephone Castor realizes that she is utterly failing at being sexual and succeeding, if their mentor Hale Cornerstone's raised eyebrow is any indicator at the abysmal attempt.

"Persephone, sweetie, what are you doing?" Hale asks, slightly perturbed.

Persephone stands up straighter than a needle, hands immediately going back to buttoning up the front of her dress, a scarlet blush faintly appearing on her cheeks. "I, uh... I'm sorry. My mom told me to try and seduce everyone else and-"

"Is your mother a Hunger Games victor?"

"No ma'am."

"Then I suggest you stop doing that. You aren't going to get Milor's attention doing that."

"The only thing you're arousing is the cottage cheese," Milor cracks at her, laughing even further with her glare, his eyes still trying to roam. He keeps looking back at her chest, all the while splashes of vomit and upheaval of the morning's breakfast hit the back of his throat. She's beautiful. I want her. You do not want her you stupid boy. She isn't beautiful to you, she's repulsive. You like men.

"No I don't," Milor hisses at himself through gritted teeth. As his face twists in upsetting movements, Persephone notices this, frowning, and simply going to peel a banana while Hale lectures her on what actual seduction looks like, giving Milor zero attention. He looks down at his knuckles, at the scars and the red welts from the ruler slapping them, the way the bruises at his father's hands will never fade from his side. There are fossil indentions that ring his neck, faint cerulean and black circles pressed deep into his clavicle, underneath the Adam's apple, and it is what is just the first bought this morning, let alone the last six years.

Milor doesn't want to win the Hunger Games and become victor all because he has some satisfying urge to murder little children and send them home to their mother's and father's with mutilated forms... he wants to win the Hunger Games so he has a legal excuse to snap his father's neck from behind and call it an accident as if his father fell from some sort of high place; as if that would ever go over now with his simple Career Academy status. He's nothing substantial until he wins.

His mind wanders over to his best friend, Frankie, with his muscular build, illuminating emerald eyes, and gentle hands that soothe the tension in his back. Milor shudders, mouth opening for a split second, until he opens his eyes - he hadn't even realized he had closed them - out of fright, afraid a noise might've escaped from his lips. Suddenly, he stands up, interrupting Hale who does not look very pleased about being interrupted. He rubs the back of his neck.

"I need to... will you excuse me?" he babbles over himself, all of a sudden losing the ability in speaking in coherent sentences.

He physically runs away from the rest of them, without even getting added permission, hightailing it to his cabin, Persephone's on the opposite end of the train, his closer to the back by the ending cars. Gray blurs together as he runs from car to car until he's in his own quarters, racing into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, he resting up against it on the other side. He puts a palm up to his face, the physical exertion causing him to be out of breath, sweat pouring down his face. His heart is hammering in his chest, shadows falling over his form, and his breath rate accelerates even quicker for a second, his skin tightening together. For a split second he thinks it is father, Darius, belt in hand, but it is only a passing by tree out on the other side of the train through the window.

Milor lets out a shaky breath, going to the sink, turning on the faucet, splashing water in his face. He looks at himself in the mirror, not recognizing the face of objectified terror staring back at him. His short chestnut colored hair, military Peacekeeper style reveals more of his tan forehead than he likes, accentuating his nearly black eyes, pits of remorse and pain and terror, fright, exultation, euphoria and more. He rests his hands on the side of the sink, letting the water drip off of his nose and into the porcelain basin. Thinking of what Frankie says, even with his chiseled arms and great forceps and thumbs and circling motions, he recalls when the two are training side by side and his best friend places his head against Milor's, placing a gentle hand against the side of his face, gentle enough that a chill runs through him.

"You're stronger than you think you are, Milor. You'll get through this just fine."

"Frankie, I don't think I can! I-" Milor starts to protest.

The sensuous way Frankie's lips linger on his leaves Milor speechless for a few minutes, all at the expense that Frankie needs Milor to be quiet and keep himself back on track, performed as a favor, and now Milor cannot go twenty minutes without revisiting the moment in his mind. Why didn't he refuse the demand from his father to volunteer and just run away with his best friend? Why?

All because Milor knows first hand what would happen.

When Milor is eight, he's caught by his father giving a hug to one of his friends at the time - the kid volunteers for the 97th Hunger Games and dies due to some sort of stomach sickness, so he's no longer to blame for Milor's abnormalities, as Darius will put it - and takes it way too far, sending Milor to some sort of makeshift academy for boys that are experiencing awkwardness in their brains that men are okay to be liked, and all it shows Milor is that this is who he is... and who he is, is someone Milor is sick to be, where he spends nights standing in front of the mirror showering insults at himself, that he's nothing more than a piece of worthless garbage who has been designed for one purpose; to win the Hunger Games, bring fame to District 2 and his family, to date a woman and marry her with a white picket fence house and two gorgeous children with a dog running around the yard. This is him.

This is what Milor Drusus feels like he should be, but this is not the man Milor Drusus wants to be.

His father's chaff hand on his face just a few hours ago leaves Milor shivering in places where he is unable to find them again.

"Do not mess this up," his father says, far more gentle than he's ever been - Frankie's always been gentler, even in his worst moments - and Milor is confused at what exactly this type of love entails. "The Drusus family is long seated in the Academy. If your mother wasn't so insistent on not having your sisters volunteer, then perhaps I wouldn't push you..." he presses his hand harder up against Milor's cheek. "And what are you going to do if any of the other guys up there try getting in your head?"

"I kill them. For trying to make me gay," Milor says resolutely, but in the back of his mind there is a burning rage, as it is Frankie he thinks about on long nights with his hand down low, or of the athletic trainer who leaves a hand resting on his hip trying to correct alignment in his sword stance. Milor hates himself in those few moments than he's ever had in his entire life, and there's a lot of these so called snapshots of this.

He turns off the water, the sound starting to become annoying now. Milor's breathing is still ragged, as he's too damn afraid to think what will happen if these bodily actions translate to other bodily actions that'll get him compromised. However, as he stands there and struggles with the inner mechanisms of his mind, his other half of the brain begins to wizen up. He does not have the time to mull over his thoughts right now, whether he likes it or not he has signed himself up pretty exclusively to volunteer for the 4th Quarter Quell, and he knows that it is indeed an honor to be selected by a place as large as District 2 to be here.

Milor stands up straight, trying to make a serious face, closing his eyes.

When he opens them, a sense of confidence runs through his veins.

There is no more time allotted for Milor Drusus to second guess himself.

He has to get ready.

There's a game he needs to win, and win it he shall, mark his words on Frankie's life.

Even mark it on his father's life.

There's a secret behind Milor's lies, a secret he is sure everyone in Panem can see.

Lowelle Sable: District 6 Female P.O.V (17)

She knows full and well that there are a many tributes riding to the Capitol in the very same orientation that she is who would be crying their eyes out, rocking back and forth in the corner. She knows full and well there are tributes sitting there numb to it all, stuck unmoving in some chair in the dining car staring out at the rolling hills and fauna outside. She knows full and well there will be the Career tributes celebrating their stupid decision to volunteer all because some higher-up told them to or that they don't want to dishonor their family and friends. She knows full and well that is like none of them, none of the tributes she described; she's something more.

Lowelle Sable, seventeen and sharp, is strategizing.

The girl is currently sitting on the bed in her own room, a piece of paper out underneath a book she finds up against the wall. Borrowing a pen from one of her victor mentors, a person in their own room with a needle up their arm, self-medicating and enjoying the beautiful wonders of morphine - personally Lowelle finds this stupid, as it seems like their mentors are not going to be able to help them win this Quarter Quell - she has been sitting on top of her bed for the last hour and a half, unmoving, bent over this piece of paper, writing and doodling and planning away.

Her mind wanders over the tributes she's described in her head, singling out first handedly the weaklings, the wimps. They'll be easy to coax to her side. There isn't often an outer district - yes, Lowelle knows she used her terminology incorrectly, but who cares honestly? - with a confident tribute, no matter the age. If they usually win, as Lowelle has spent the time to study it, they're either monsters hidden in plain sight, or have had some crazy dream to win the Hunger Games at a young age. The typical draw is that if you aren't a Career, you're scared out of your mind, reaped, and going to die. District 3, 5, 8, and 12 seem to be high on the list, Lowelle taps each of the districts she has written down in her planning. Take a terrified twelve year-old from the group, have them trust her, and she can kill them all in their sleep. Lowelle hates the idea of killing another innocent creature, but she wants to survive, right? She is able to do that with enough pushing aside of her morals. A quick draw of the blade across their throat doesn't sound too terrible... as long as it doesn't happen to her.

The second group filters by, the numb ones, the silent ones. These fit hand in hand with the tributes who seem to have mental issues or those who could win the Games, Lowelle rationalizes. Lowelle does not put herself in this category, because she isn't numb to it. She knows exactly what she's going through, what most likely unavoidable doom it spells, and that she's going to get through the best she can lest she wants to fall into a makeshift grave she creates for herself. Lowelle bits on the end of the pen, garnering her options. She's seen the reaping footage, and only one or two tributes fit the terrified toddler syndrome that she's thought of. The numbness is hard to see on camera, so Lowelle figures she'll just have to see it person. She'll find out later tonight and tomorrow, that easy enough. These are harder to discern from, because they might not be as trusting... as aloof. Lowelle grins to herself; it'll be fun trying to break them down.

She also knows herself and knows her skill set. Lowelle has never picked up a knife or a bow or an axe. A welding hammer isn't the same, but is a meager start. She is not scoring higher than a six with mad woman Lewlyn Davis at the helm, who seems to value strength over smarts like the idiot Head Gamemaker she is, and it is always the score that impresses the Careers, not the physicality of what they've done. She is going to be unable to break that group down in the manner that she'll want to, with paranoia and sudden disinterest in each other... maybe even hate.

Lowelle Sable is not delusional. She trying to rip the Career pack apart is akin to her getting a twelve via Lewlyn's grace, she might as well not try.

The girl taps the paper she has, moving on downwards to the Cornucopia design she's created. She truthfully has no idea what the arena is going to be, but since it is a Quarter Quell, nothing has to be cost-effective, it is all going to be extravagant, out of this world creative, and above all, deadly. The Cornucopia dimensions she has down, a place where the circle is at least the size of the Justice Building and its surrounding courtyard, maybe two thousand physical square feet, always oval in shape. The arena is another matter.

For the 25th Hunger Games it is a dense wood, where for miles and miles is just that, woods. The trees are packed so tightly together that you could hardly go running through them without tearing up your clothes or getting cut. The 50th, where that drunkard Haymitch Abernathy wins is a beautiful, bountiful paradise of lethality, from poisonous water and food to ravenous mutts that could eat Lowelle alive in seconds. The 75th, fresh in everyone's minds, a tropical world that is divided into twelve rings of death, twelve horrors that the tributes are subjected to... so what could the 100th have in store for her?

Lowelle just hopes it does not involve bugs. If it involves bugs, she might as well just throw in the towel. She's never told a soul about her innate fear that paralyzes her from the waist down, unable to move at all, but leave it to the Capitol to discover the skeletons in her closet. She mulls over what the last ten arenas had been, from when Lowelle remembers at the earliest watching them and screaming at the terrifying deaths. Lowelle is unable to hold the anger in her mind from unleashing into her veins at the rage she feels when their blasted escort pulls her name from the bowl earlier today, but she has to keep it under containment lest she full into the numb, mentally insane category.

She has the following arenas written down in chronological order; she smiles at the ordeal planning. She can bet her life that there is no one doing this right now. Again, either freaking out, sitting mellow and silent, or rejoicing... they can take their pick, Lowelle's picked hers. She is planning everyone else's deaths.

90th: Volcanic wasteland, where no trees grew, nowhere to hide. Half of the tributes died from monoxide poisoning of some kind. Highly unlikely to ever be repeated.

91st: An island that would sink day after day, where on the tenth day, the arena would only contain the Cornucopia and slightly surrounding trees. Three tributes died from drowning to the rising waters, another third of the rest dying on the tenth day when they were all pushed together in one last brawl at the Cornucopia. Could be revisited.

92nd: One of the Capitol's old landmarks, a massive house out in the middle of nowhere as house appliances came alive and targeted the tributes. Mutts killed eleven tributes, the Careers killed the rest. Never going to be used again, the Capitol likes tribute versus tribute violence.

93rd, 94th, and 95th: Variations of a forest with different climates, one freezing, one middle temperature where everything is rotten, and one fresh in bloom, all waiting to kill. No forest setting for a Quell, too plain.

96th and 97th: A skyscraper for the 96th that collapsed due to structural failure. The victor survives from only receiving a minor concussion. 97th is the ruins of old said arena with hiding places being burnt and destroyed buildings. Cannot be used again.

98th: An aquatic setting, something like a submarine with guns and artillery and weapons of mass destruction. Tributes used less primitive methods to kill everyone. Not going to be used again.

99th: A water park, with water slides and lagoon pools and places to swim. A more traditional Hunger Games. Idea can be slightly revisited.

100th: ?

Lowelle sits back, looking over at the choices. There is hardly any correlation to them. She has no idea why Lewlyn is so praised as a Head Gamemaker when her designs from the 93rd to the 97th year had little to no variety, but weren't necessarily the same exact arena. The one that pops out at her is the 99th year, in specific, Lowelle leaning in to read it again. She knows there are all of these monuments that the Capitol could use, old attractions and places from eras gone by, and all they have to do is build a dome over the massive area... that's it, and perhaps that is a sign of laziness, but she could care less at this point.

Someone knocks on the back of her door, a muffled voice, sounding like her poor district partner that Lowelle already forgot the name of. She's being signaled to dinner.

She quickly wraps up her piece of paper into a notebook found on the table next to her bed, shoving that underneath the covers just in case her district partner decides to go snooping.

Lowelle lands onto the carpet as gracefully as she can, pausing to look back at the book. No one can know about it, no about her plans or what she wants to do. She turns back to the door, setting her shoulders.

She can handle a dinner with her district partner, it is the Hunger Games she has to be worried about.

Caiden Grove: District 11 Male P.O.V (17)

He is honestly more horrified to see a mutation than another tribute in the Games at this point. Caiden Grove, sitting at the dinner table with his mentors and district partner is not focusing on the conversation at hand, one hand underneath his chin, but moreso focusing on what's ahead in his train of thought, at the thought of meeting some poor sheep ripped to shreds by a wild invalid, by a wild Gamemaker with no human heart or compassion. He physically shudders, enough to draw the attention of everyone at the table, though there isn't much tangible dialogue going on between them.

"Caiden?" asks the female victor sitting at the table, Melody Elder, victor of the 82nd year of the Games, burly and brawn, being a daughter with six other siblings, she's fought for her fair share of the pickings and prize, winning by using night vision goggles she stole from a Career at the Cornucopia to sneak up on opponents unsuspecting and backstab them. The years have been kind to her, as has her heart melted into a more motherly one. "What's wrong?"

A pink twinge appears on his cheeks, Caiden setting down his fork. "I, uh- I was just thinking about the mutts in the arena. What they would look like."

"Why?"

His district partner, Alexandra, quaint, pretty simplistic in looks, but appeasing enough, friendly enough, eats a few peas off of her plate. "Caiden loves animals. He hates seeing what the Gamemakers create."

Melody raises an eyebrow. "I thought the two of you didn't know each other?"

Alexandra goes for another bite. "My father buys some of the apples Caiden grows in his backyard."

All Caiden goes is shrug, not disagreeing. There is something comforting to him about being in the sun, where as most would be complaining about it and wanting to go home, whereas Caiden could stand out there all day on the ladders and stuck in the midst of branches and watch little hatchlings in their mother's nest chirp at him as he picks the apples above the birds' heads. At sixteen, the mandatory age when school is no longer a priority, and since he has such a love for the orchards, Caiden drops out to start working in the fields longer than any normal sixteen year-old probably ever would. With permission from the Mayor, he goes and plants four separate apple trees in the backyard of their house, although his family sure finds it strong.

He sometimes sees Alexandra through the crack of the open doorway to her house as Caiden sells her father a few of the best of the best he gets with the harvest, but he doesn't speak to her. As far as he can tell, she's plainly, and he doesn't need to waste his time with plainness, not when there is a world of beauty out there for him to explore. Sometimes he will stay out in the fields past the normal time, when the Peacekeepers have to come and nearly remove him off the property, all because Caiden is laying down on his back in the soil staring up at the night sky, amazed by the way the stars twinkle, how high the moon is in the sky, and that one day he wishes to see what is beyond there, beyond the veil of black.

The day, this entire day, is tainted black, a sour taste in his mouth. He looks down at his hands, frowning. Melody and Alexandra are back to conversing. There's no way these hands of his, as burly as they may look, will be able to kill. Caiden is tall for his age, at around 6'2, but he doesn't know where in the spectrum he lies anymore, as he's always in motion, never sedentary and in place for life to get a good reading on him. His dark skin shines in the sun, glistening pearls of sweet warmness by an even kinder heart.

If he has to settle on a weapon, Caiden suggests weakly to his family that perhaps he can use a machete, having swung it back and forth before while trying to get apples that the very tips of his fingers are unable to get, but even then, he suggests it weakly. It hasn't taken a foot hold in his heart yet to become a reality, but he also knows that if it comes down to a younger Career running at him to kill him, Caiden is swinging that machete blade and trying to take the kid's head clean off, to go and puke in the woods shortly thereafter.

He nibbles on a sweet roll, the taste succulent, almost as lovely as a juicy bite into a Golden apple, with halcyon skin, kissed by the sun in flavor.

Caiden wonders, even for a second, but a second is sometimes enough to determine a rational decision or curiosity, what blood tastes like? It surely is not going to be sweet of any kind, but he expects that. Is it messed up for him to even think like that?

He shrugs, finishing the rest of the roll.

He supposes he can find out for himself soon enough, right?

As he eats, he looks over at one of the platters containing a wild hog on it, caught and killed on the outskirts of District 11, and Caiden's sitting there at the table when the Avoxes bring it with the rest of the meal. The way its beady eye is positioned to stare at him causes shivers to run through Caiden's body, shivering to where he needs to go take a hot bath.

Nothing on his plate contains meat, he loves nature too much, and there's no way another animal should be food for him.

Apparently for the arena, he is going to go back to meat if he wants to survive. A man cannot live in the arena for as long as some victors have on roots, nuts, and foliage alone.

There's a time he can find that for himself soon enough, right?

Caiden shrugs again, for no reason.

"The lies I tell," he says with sadness, "Maybe they'll catch up in the arena to me. Who knows..."

While Caiden sits there, on the fringes of the conversation, his mind thinks about the horrors of the days before him. If only he decided to grow one last apple tree before embarking back to the arena... if he only watched which chemicals he added into the soil so the apples contained a hint more of flavor.

This is a God punishing a defiler for their sins... and Caiden is soon to face them, his secrets covered by lies, covered by his love for nature, and covered by that sweet smile of his as he holds the machete blade.

Caiden looks down at his hands again. Could these hands kill?

"Absolutely..." he says aloud.

Alrighty guys, another chapter down! This was Chapter #10: Secrets Behind the Lies, and oh my god ya'll, I've reached 2 MILLION WORDS written since I started my account in 2013... and damn I want to cry, like holy hell, but I digress.

Anyways, we've met another three vastly different tributes: Milor Drusus of District 2, Lowelle Sable of District 6, and Caiden Grove of District 11, and it seems like each of these people have reached a new form to this chapter title, something they're all hiding. Please let me know what you think of them, and give kudos to the other wonderful submitters who wrote these characters for me to make alive. I promise you that the everyday updates will stop soon enough. There is one more train rides chapter, #11, which I will be posting on Thursday, the 3rd, but then I'll probably only post chapters on the weekend as my next semester of college starts on Monday and I am moving to my dorm on Friday.

Please review, you guys, as I love your commentary! I will have Chapter #11: Formulaic Emotions, with the last three districts no one has a P.O.V from yet, Districts 3, 8, and 9. Thank you all so much for your support, that I am at 2 MILLION WORDS guys, and for everything else. Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!

~ Paradigm