Bran Miller

16 years old

District 9 Male

When Bran entered the room it was silent. He expected it to be full of conversation based on how much his fellow tributes liked to talk to each other. It seemed as though everyone was just as nervous as him about the private sessions.

Even those in alliances didn't seem to talk. Bran didn't want to ally with anyone and wanted to speak to as few people as possible. Either he or an ally or even both would die in these games so what was the point in trying to make friends. He also knew that the more he got to know a person the more likely he would be willing to sacrifice his life for them and he couldn't risk that. Bran had to get back to his parents so he could help them on the farm. So he could cook for them when they got older and more fragile.

Bran's mind kept going over the plan for his private session. He had to show off his strength. To do that Bran was going to throw heavy weights at moving dummies. However, he knew that in order to get a decent score he was going to have to do something more.

He had been practising hand to hand combat in training and wasn't terrible at it. So Bran decided that he was going to engage in hand to hand combat with a simulation and show the different ways he could kill someone with just brute force – squeezing a tribute's throat so hard he crushes their larynx or breaking a neck. The trainers had shown him how to properly break a neck and how to properly strangle a person.

Bran knew he wouldn't use weapons in his private session, instead he would just inform the gamemakers that his preferred weapon was a scythe. He'd used the weapons enough in training for the gamemakers to know he could use them properly. The boy from 9 was more concerned with showing his skill at identifying different plants and their properties.

Unfortunately, for Bran that was the extent of his survival skill knowledge. All of his time was spent at the shop or on the farm so he never had time to practise survival skills or even prepare for the Hunger Games. He tried to learn new survival skills in training but didn't have much luck. Bran just hoped he had learnt enough to do the basics.

He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice his district partner leave her allies to come and sit next to him. Bran didn't even know how much time had passed since there were no clocks and no windows, so he couldn't even use the sun as a guide to the time.

"Hey, Bran." Verity said quietly, still making him jump out of his skin. Bran raised his eyebrows in response.

"Have you noticed that we've been here an awful long time and not a single tribute has been called in?"

Obviously Bran hadn't noticed that. It was only as Verity mentioned it that he realised that the tributes from One were still there. A quick count revealed that all of the tributes were still there too so it wasn't like they were mixing up the order this year.

However, Bran wasn't going to admit that he hadn't been paying attention to his district partner. It wasn't that he didn't trust her; he surprised himself by finding he did actually trust her, she was an honest girl. It was that she was part of one of the biggest alliances and there was no way he trusted her allies. Verity could accidently slip up and reveal his lack of concentration as a weaknesses. Bran couldn't take the risk of the others exploiting that weakness.

"They locked the doors too."

Bran was really surprised at that. He had never known tributes to be locked in a room together without the presence of guards. How did they know the careers weren't going to go on an early killing spree?

"They did? Kasha and Jeb never mentioned anything about locked doors." Bran noted, starting to sweat.

"No they didn't. Something's going on."

Verity was right because as she finished her sentence a scream came from the other side of the small room.

Suddenly there was a harsh flow of water coming out of a pipe in the wall and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon.

Every tribute looked panicked in some sort of way, but some showed it more than others. Evanna and Orion seemed the most worked up and began pounding on the door, screaming for help. Verity left him then to try and calm her ally down whilst Evanna's two allies tried to help her to no avail.

"I swear if you don't open this door right now I'll slit your throats one by one."

Bran couldn't believe such words could come out of Evanna's mouth. She had seemed so nice and calm whenever he'd seen her.

The tributes from Four looked the least concerned and Bran could guess why. As a group the careers were trying to find a way to seal the pipe but nothing would hold – the water pressure was too great. The water level was rising very quickly and after what couldn't have been more than two minutes, the water was already at his ankles.

"If you morons don't want to drown I suggest you stop screaming and help us find a way to stop the water flow." Tangent, the girl from One screamed.

"Don't call people morons. Sorry guys she didn't mean that bit."

"Shut the fuck up, Extravagance."

Maybe the careers were panicking more than he'd thought. Or was Tangent just a typical bitch from One?

Tributes from every district began working together, not caring who it was they were working with. Evanna and Orion were petrified of the water and Bran couldn't blame them, it was already up to their knees. Lacey attempted to comfort them but they didn't seem to be listening and continued banging on the door.

Bran hadn't wanted to show his physical strength to any of the tributes so they didn't know his secret weapon. But this was becoming a matter of drowning or living so he had to do something.

He was able to swim and knew he could hold his breath if he needed to. So Bran waded through the water over to the pipe and found the object the other tributes were trying to jam the pipe with. He put it in and held it in place. The water didn't seem to come out and Bran was willing to hold it there until they managed to open a door.

Some tributes breathed a sigh of relief while others immediately began trying to get a door open. But they all recognised what Bran had done and some even thanked him. Extravagance stayed next to him though.

"Just in case you need a break."

Bran offered a small smile in response but felt extremely intimidated by the career. For all he knew this could be the person who kills him in a couple days' time.

Suddenly, the water pushed hard against Bran, beating the resistance of the object and sent the boy slamming into the opposite wall. He was grateful for the water then since it softened his impact with the wall.

He heard the cry of the other tributes get even louder. Bran didn't think he could be much help anymore so decided to just float around thinking of his parents. If he was going to die here he might as well be thinking about the people he loved as it happened.

But that was when Bran saw the small red box on the ceiling. It looked almost like a fire alarm. Had that always been there? And what idiot puts a fire alarm on the ceiling?

Bran remembered something from the safety briefing they'd had. He was sure they said pulling a fire alarm opened every door in the complex but there was no way for him to reach the ceiling.

"Of course, that's a brilliant idea!"

"Huh?"

He hadn't realised that he was speaking his thoughts aloud. And Bran hadn't realised he'd floated all the way over to where the girl from Eleven was trying to comfort her ally.

Lacey had a huge smile on her face and began to find grooves in the bricks of the wall and started to climb straight away. Despite it being slippery, the young girl was able to scale the wall pretty easy and quick.

Bran felt his heart stop when he saw Lacey jump. She managed to successfully hit the fire alarm and a blaring siren started.

But the siren stopped abruptly and the doors did not open. Instead the water began to drain out of the room through drains in the floor. Bran knew that they definitely had not been there before. Where did they come from?

It took a few minutes for the water to drain out completely and it left all of the tributes standing there utterly confused.

"What the hell was that?" Someone said.

"That was weird." Verity whispered to him. She'd made him jump again as he hadn't even seen his district partner approach. Bran agreed with her straight away.

Suddenly, the doors to the private session centre opened and a man stepped in the room. Everyone was silent, expecting an explanation of what just happened but all he said was,

"Lacey Leeman. It's time for your private session."

Crane Marcus-Hall

18 years old

District 12 Male

What the hell just happened? And why did they just call the girl from Eleven in? That wasn't the order it was supposed to go in. Did that mean Crane wouldn't be last? But he liked the fact he was going last, it meant he had more time to plan out what he was going to do.

Whilst the water was filling the room Crane and Jester had been trying to find a way to open the stupid doors. They were locked electronically so the two boys had been trying to override the system.

Jester was a pro at technology, he'd even won bloody awards for it. And Crane knew he was incredibly smart so together they should have been able to unlock the doors. They hadn't been able to and it bugged Crane that it was a fire alarm on the ceiling that had stopped the water.

"Are they seriously acting as if nothing happened?" The young boy from Seven exclaimed, furious.

Everyone seemed at a loss for words and the room plunged into silence yet again. It was the silence that was slowly killing Crane. Senna would never let there be a silent moment and he really missed her voice, even though he used to tell her he preferred it when she was silent.

Crane missed his best friend. He missed her waking him up at ridiculously early times just so they could walk to school together.

He had thought Perona would be able to fill that void, which was why he wanted her in the alliance. But the more he got to know the young girl, the more differences he noticed. She was nothing like Senna but she was still an amazing person that Crane felt a duty to protect.

As if things couldn't get any worse a piercing white noise filled the room, causing every tribute to clutch their heads in pain. The noise was excruciatingly loud and Crane could see tributes' mouths moving but couldn't hear the words coming out.

Crane couldn't even hear himself think. He saw a few tributes get up to try banging on the doors but even they seemed to know it was no use. The Gamemakers were doing this on purpose. But why?

He honestly thought his ears were going to start bleeding any moment. Every second felt like an hour and Crane knew he would start going crazy if he had to endure this much longer.

However, he noticed Aelia start moving towards the corner of the room where he and his allies were sitting. She was stumbling all over the place but got there eventually and said something that Crane couldn't make out.

Aelia stood on the bench and reached toward a box that now Crane had seen it, looked an awful lot like a speaker. The career punched the box which led to two batteries falling out and the noise suddenly stopping. Crane could swear he still heard the noise ringing in the back of his head but he was actually grateful for lack of noise now.

"I never want to hear another noise again." The girl from One moaned.

"You got that right, Sweetheart." Crane spoke, shocking some of the other tributes that he had dared to call a career Sweetheart. But Crane didn't really care, he called everyone that name and he wasn't going to make an exception just because she was a career. Aelia didn't seem to care either, but her district partner didn't look too happy – what was his deal?

The doors opened again and the same man stepped in. Crane could sense the anger everyone was directed towards the guy but he didn't seem phased at all.

"Aelia Stafford, the Gamemakers are ready for you."

Crane's brain hurt trying to figure out what was going on, he didn't think he'd be doing this until he was in the arena with its twists.

Beside him Jester was muttering something and Crane thought his ally was going mad from the noise but when he heard the words Jester was muttering everything made sense. Crane cursed himself for not figuring it out sooner.

"It's a test!" Jester shouted, making a few tributes recoil at the noise. "Whoever found the solution to the problem got called in for their private session."

"Yeah! Lacey pulled the fire alarm and Aelia smashed the speaker then they got called." Crane added.

"That could just be a coincidence."

"Maybe. But when are there ever coincidences in the Hunger Games?"

The other tributes slowly began agreeing with Crane and Jester, worried about what was coming next. And those tributes that were left at the end would have had to deal with a hell of a lot of trauma.

However, Crane couldn't understand why the Gamemakers would do this to them, it didn't make sense. And everything made sense to Crane. Perhaps they were bored and there were cameras in the room for their entertainment.

Crane didn't know if he was still going crazy from the noise but he could have sworn he saw the walls closing in on them. Other tributes starting swearing so Crane knew that it definitely wasn't his mind playing tricks on him.

All Crane knew was that he had to be the next one out of there. This was only the third challenge and they were about to be crushed, what would the other 21 going to be like? He couldn't even imagine how much worse they could make these challenges and he didn't want to find out.

As the tributes began to slowly edge to the centre of the room, Crane noticed that the benches were put together with thick, steel nails. If he could somehow get the nails out he knew he could stop the doors. He'd had to do something similar back at school when he needed to stop people entering a room he was using for an experiment.

Then Crane remembered that his ally was a frickin award winning inventor. Jester carried tools around all the time, hopefully he'd done the same now.

"Jester, do you have a screwdriver?"

"Only a slot one."

It wasn't the perfect match to the screws but he could make it work. Crane took the screwdriver and began unscrewing but it was taking more time than he thought it would. Time he didn't know if he had since one of the walls had just ripped a set of benches from the floor.

Finally, he'd managed to get the screws free and ran to the closest wall. Crane tried pushing the screw under the wall but his arms weren't strong enough. Maybe he should have lifted more weights with Senna. Crane tried kicking the screw and that seemed to be working but it would still take a bit of time to jam the wall.

"Chuck me the other screw and I'll try jamming the other wall." Hudson said, coming to get the other screw which Crane threw to him without hesitation.

Crane had managed to finally jam the wall so it wasn't moving anymore and soon Hudson had done his part and the walls began to recede.

The door opened again and the same man appeared. If looks could kill, the man would have been murdered a total of 22 times. He still looked unbothered at the angry tributes.

"Crane Marcus-Hall, it's time for your private session."

"Go Crane!" His allies called to him.

"You know I got this. Good luck with the rest of the challenges."

Crane was relieved that he'd passed that test, he wouldn't have been able to take much more. Then it suddenly hit him. He hadn't planned what he was going to do in his private session. He was going to plan after Perona went for her private session, he would have had 10 tributes after Perona and before him to decide.

As he walked into the room, Crane felt his heart rate increase and his palms get all clammy. Janus Megalos was sitting in the viewing gallery. The President of Panem. What was he doing here? Nothing was going as it was supposed to.

Walking to the centre of the room Crane made a quick decision on what he was going to show the Gamemakers and the President. He knew Perona would show off her amazing plant knowledge and various other survival skills. And he also knew that Jester would so off his abilities with technology and how he could manipulate electricity.

Crane had to show off another strength of his alliance and show just how flexible their strengths were.

Even though he was quite physically weak, Crane headed to the weapons area and picked up a knife. He was going to show that he could decently wield a knife and do some damage. If he had time he would show off some survival skills he had gained, ones he knew Perona wouldn't show off.

Crane bowed and smiled at the President, ready to show him what he could do.

"Whenever you're ready, Crane."

A.N: And that's another chapter done. I didn't want to make the private sessions boring and repetitive so I tried something different. Why do you think Janus and the Gamemakers set challenges in order for the tributes to complete their private sessions? Obviously they wouldn't let any tribute die or get seriously injured so if they couldn't complete a challenge they would keep giving them one until someone found a solution.

Also, just to clarify Janus won't have any say in the score decisions. He's just there to observe and see how well the tributes do.

On another note there's only 7 chapters left until the bloodbath. I know it seems like a lot but I've had some of these chapters planned since the story begun so I think it'll be a lot easier for me to write the chapters and take less time so maybe we'll have multiple updates some weeks :D

Anyways, QOTC: What are the three primary colours?