Big news! The District Nine female slot has REOPENED! I'd prefer to give it to someone with no submissions in this story yet so if you or anyone you know is interested let me know ASAP because it's first-come first-serve!

Scarlett Antonia- District Twelve female (16)

I'd wanted to hurt people before but I never had. Not until the day I killed Asher Hargreaves.

It wasn't entirely my fault. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't kept pestering Lotti. Lotti was my best friend. She saw past my rude moments and stuck with me through everything. She even knew I sometimes wanted to hurt people. When the dark thoughts came up she would tell me that wasn't who I wanted to be and that it wasn't bad to have bad thoughts, just bad to act on them. She probably would have told me not to do what I was about to do to Asher even though he always bullied her. That was the kind of person she was. But it wasn't the kind of person I was.

Any defense of this being a crime of sudden passion went out the window with how much planning I had to put into it. Asher was only out in the remote meadow because I lured him out, claiming to have found a dead body in the wounds. I'd always been good at telling lies. And this one wasn't entirely untrue.

"It's under there," I said, pointing to the tarp I'd laid over some dirt I piled up. Asher bent over in front of me to pick it up. That was when I took out the filleting knife I'd hidden in the deep pockets of my cargo shorts. I crouched and took hold of his leg to hold him steady. As he started to turn around to see what I was doing I pushed the knife into the back of his ankle and slashed. I'd done some research on where the Achilles' tendon was. It surprised me how I could feel it snapping like a rubber band. Asher looked at me in disbelief for a split second before it happened and then as he fell. His first scream pierced the air and I was glad I'd thought to choose such a remote location.

"What are you doing?" Asher wailed, his voice high and thin and wavering with sobs. He tried to get up, failed, and scuttled away from me backwards with one hand raised defensively. I slashed it. His palm took most of the damage but I left a thin trail of blood down his forearm. I slashed him again as he crossed his arms to protect his head.

"Why do you keep picking on Lottie?" I asked, raising my voice to compete with his high-pitched stream of warnings to stay away and not to hurt him.

"What are you even talking about? I like Lottie!" he half-screamed. His voice cracked on 'like'. He sounded like a little boy.

I might have said something after that. I didn't really remember. I'd never given in to my impulses before and when I did I just let go. I remembered blood and the knife sticking into his flesh and pulling out again and again. After a while he stopped screaming and then it was just me next to his unmoving form.

I left the body in the meadow. Later I felt kind of bad about it. I didn't feel bad that he was dead or that I killed him. I just felt vaguely bad because I knew it was wrong. But I couldn't really be blamed for giving in just once. It was just one worthless person. It wasn't like it was any great loss.

Gaius McClellan- District Twelve male (18)

In the beginning was the law. That was something I'd read in one of the books we found in a rebel's house, back before the Capitol outlawed that particular book entirely. I'd known that was true before I ever read the book. People can't govern themselves. All of history proves that true. Eventually a nation can reach a place where the people can have a greater say and live with less regulation, but first any nation must pass through a necessary totalitarianism to learn unity before it can learn freedom. It's like Rousseau said- an infant nation begins with a monarchy, develops into an oligarchy, and only in maturity can graduate to democracy. Until then there must be law. It was that law I was willing to lay down my life for.

It was always tragic when we had to open fire on rebels. I loved my country and all its people. It grieved me to see people that so wholeheartedly believed that what they were doing was helping Panem. I wished I could make them see why order was necessary and how we weren't doing this for power. We were doing it for the good of everyone. I always regarded it as a failure on our part in some degree when we were forced to escalate to violence. I did what I had to do against people who wouldn't be reasoned with. I only wished I could have reached them and ended the conflict with loyal citizens instead of body bags.

My fellow militia men and I walked along the corpse-riddled crowd, tending to the wounded and rounding up the remnants who tried to flee. I bent over a bloodstained corpse and flipped it over to check on the man underneath.

The man's arm flashed up and I realized too late he had a knife. I reeled back as the blade slid into my arm as I swung it up to cover my face. I swung my nightstick blindly as blood obscured my vision. I felt my hand vibrate as it bounced off his head. I kept hitting as I wiped the blood from my eyes. When I could see again it was clear the man was dead. My allies were already rushing to my aid.

"Are you all- oh…" Larkin said, interrupting himself when he pulled me up by my arm and saw my wound. "Medic!"

I didn't say anything as I sat in the medical tent getting my awm stitched up. The medic said it would scar. I said it was no big deal and I thought he believed me but it wasn't really true. I didn't care about the scar itself. It was just the first time one of the rebels had actually hurt me. And then I'd killed him. He had to have known I would do it. I kept going over it in my head, trying to think of another way it could have ended. I didn't even know the name of the man I'd killed. I only knew he was so devoted to what he thought was best for his country that he let his life end like this.

It was the right thing to do, I assured myself. A country needed law and order. There can't be any freedom without that basic structure. Otherwise it's not really a country at all, just a collection of disparate people with disparate goals. Sometimes it was hard what had to be done to preserve that, but it was worth it. It was so worth it I was willing to die for it. It was just eerie to think that the man I killed felt the same way.

Scarlett: She has straight, blonde hair to her waist, bright blue eyes and light skin

Gaius: short brown hair with light brown eyes. His face is sharp and he has wisps of facial hair. He is 6ft and a slim muscular build. He has a large scar on his arm from a raid on a group of rebels when one swung at him with a knife.

I started a new job working 12-hour shifts Friday-Sunday so I'll be writing less on the weekends.