Toddward "Todd" Howard III- District Nine male (16)

The Hunger Games were not like chess. I wished I could say they were, since I was really good at chess, but they were not. Chess was a slow-burning game of tiny movements that affected the future in miniscule ways and was often played out far before the final move. The Hunger Games frankly involved physicality as much as it did intellect. People liked to say that a crafty outlier could overpower a Career. Sometimes they did but far more often it mattered more who could fire a bow than who could plan eight steps ahead. You can't make that eight-step plan if the Career bashes you to death in the Bloodbath. No, the Games were more like Risk. There was strategy, sure, but there was also just a heaping amount of luck, no way to get around it. Or Ships Across the Ocean, perhaps. Speed and agility were important but it was partly luck who slipped through the minefield and who didn't.

I was never as scared of Reaping Day as some kids. I didn't want to go into the Games- I was terrified of the thought- but I guess I just knew the odds better than some kids. Statistics are weird. People are far more afraid of airplanes than cars even though cars are far more dangerous. I was a lot more likely to die in a workplace accident than I was to die in the Games. That or just get sick and die. Working in dirty fields without proper sanitation led to a lot of parasites or even waterborne illnesses in Nine. I had an easy time understanding that the Reaping was like playing a single round of Russian Roulette with a gun that had almost ten thousand chambers.

That didn't mean I wasn't nervous, though. I didn't dread the Reaping day as much as some people but I still got butterflies in my stomach as I took my place in a line of boys and wondered about the name on the slip of paper waiting to be picked. The dull smell of sweat and the sharp smell of fear packed the crowded air around me. Boys shifted on all sides of me, sometimes brushing against me, both of us flinching away like we were the ones to be afraid of.

I tried to block the thoughts and found it impossible. The best I could do was shout over them with other thoughts. I pulled up a mental plan for the game I was trying to develop. People knew me as the chess kid but my dream was to develop new games and sell them. I was putting together a game that combined the strategy and replay value of chess but added a role-playing element that would let in creativity and imagination. I was thinking of a medieval court setting with different modes of play: jostling for political power, pursuing a romance, building a fortune in business...

"Toddward Howard!"

The game had been chosen for me and it was the one game I didn't want. That's it, then. Nothing to be done. Play the game and win.

I took the stage like I'd wanted to get picked anyway and hadn't an ounce of fear. While I didn't have enough luck to avoid the stage I did have enough to have worn my leather jacket, which gave me a confident and carefree air. I took the microphone to leave the crowd with an impression.

"This will be the best Games yet!" I announced. "Sixteen times the action! Four times the killing!"

The crowd erupted at the same moment that I realized how stupid that was. Oh my gosh what does that even mean? There's not gonna be four times the killing! It's the same number of people! Well, gotta own it now. Fake it till you make it...

Veda Keate- District Nine female (16)

Addison had a lovely house. It had six rooms and she even had her own bedroom. Her family was always super nice to me. They were very hospitable and always acted like it was such a big deal I was there and they were so happy to have a guest over for dinner. I had nothing to complain about and shouldn't complain even if I did. It was just that I wondered if they were so happy to have someone over because their house was so empty. Addison only had one sibling and he was seven years older than she was. And both of them only had one mother.

I wasn't supposed to talk about it, but when I was littler I didn't live in Nine. I was born in a tiny commune out in the wilderness. I didn't even have electricity or indoor plumbing until I came to Nine. Back in my real house I lived with my dad and my mom and my dad's two other wives and all my ten siblings. The house was always bustling with activity and there was always someone to talk to. If I felt like my mom didn't understand something I could go to one of my bonus moms for advice. Everyone had a job and everything worked together so well.

The Capitol raided just two weeks after I married Gingham. At thirteen I was old enough to remember it all but just young enough not to be executed like most of the adults. I remembered hiding in a cupboard holding my baby sister Lin and how light burst in as a Peacekeeper threw the door open and dragged me out. Another one took Lin from me and I'd never seen her since. They took me to the schoolhouse with all the other kids and told us about how we were free now and would be placed in loving families. I was too afraid to say anything but I already had a loving family. Or I had, up until they came. I never heard from my parents again and I was pretty sure what that meant. No one I talked to knew what had happened to Gingham. I was an orphan and a widow all in one day.

I didn't like thinking about things like that. I took my tableware to the kitchen and started washing up.

"Don't worry, I'll get all that. You go play," Addison's mom said.

"It's the least I can do," I said, though really it was the most I could do. Addison's family always tried to say these things weren't my job. It just felt wrong to me not to stay busy and help tidy up. I didn't have parents or a husband to tend to anymore so I had to find someone else.

Addison came into the kitchen and put her own dishes in the sink. "You have to join us in the modern day sometime," she teased.

"I'm just trying to get into Heaven," I kind of teased back. Addison thought it was weird how I called it the "celestial kingdom". I could make some concessions for the non-believers, like calling it "Heaven" around them, but I still wanted to get in. That was something I had to stand by.

Todd: Slim, short, white male, wavy tawny-brown hair, blue-y-grey eyes

Veda: Lucille has light skin, large blue eyes, a thin nose and chestnut brown hair that hangs to her waist. She wears it in a traditional FLDS style. She is 5'6 and skinny.