Timorah "Timi" Atari, 14, District Three

He comes home with a split lip and slumped shoulders. It isn't his first time getting injured like this, but it's the first time he hasn't been able to hide it before he gets home. Which means a whole lot of things.

His mom is there as soon as he walks in the door, a rag in her hand as she rushes up to him. "Oh, Timi, baby, what in the world did you get into?" She dabs at his cut and purses her lips while she bends down to look him in the eye. "Yakon was part of this, wasn't he?"

"No!" he says exasperatedly. He starts to push away, but stops himself from doing that, and instead just slumps his shoulders and sighs. "He wasn't even there. He didn't come to school today, I think his little sister is sick and he has to take care of her."

"Then what happened?" She asks, her voice cooing with sympathy and sweetness that he knows is about to turn into scolding.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault," he murmurs. "It's just, it's just. . . these boys, Kyr, Miral, and Charty—"

"Oh, not this again!" She exclaims, stepping away from him for a moment as she puts her hands on her hips. "How many times have I got to tell you to keep away from them and let them be!"

"I'm sorry! They just make me so mad. They were hurting this little squirrel that wasn't hurtin' nobody. I just wanted them to leave it alone."

"If you spent less time worrying about some worthless little animals and playing with your little toys, and spent more time studying—"

"I know," he mumbles. They aren't worthless, he wants to say. They're Rube Goldberg Machines not toys, he wants to say. I do study, and I do plenty good at school, I just don't like it, he wants to say. But none of those words reach past his throat. Instead, he says, "I'm sorry."

Despite feeling, knowing, that what he did was right, he still can't get rid of the guilty feeling eating away at his gut and making his insides turn. He just wants to make her proud. So he turns her disappointment into his guilt. Just like he turns his anger and irritation into fake smiles that he tries to make real, until those feelings boil over and explode.

She scolds him a while longer after that, mostly going over the same few points again and again. How bad of a role model Yakon is, and how he should have better friends than a "street rat" (nevermind that nobody else wants to be his friend). How much he's wasting his smarts, how much harder he should be working in school, it's all the same but that never stops it from hurting.

Eventually she finishes cleaning his wound and leaves to go cook up dinner. Timi wonders for a moment if he should find his dad, and show him his lip and tell him what happened. Maybe he would be proud of him for standing up to those bullies and would tell him he did good. But Timi doesn't, because he knows that's all just a silly dream. His dad would just do what he always did. Nod his head and look right through him, like he wasn't even there.

The line at the reaping feels longer than usual. The sun cruises across the sky like it's on a mission to reach the other side as soon as possible. If only the day could go by so quickly when he was at school. He wouldn't have to spend hours and hours daydreaming up adventures and inventions and moving machines.

Yakon is by his side, his little siblings all beside him. Yukina and Aziba are each holding one of his hands, and Hibru stands with his arms crossed looking mad. Only Aziba is old enough for the reaping, but the other two didn't want to leave them alone until they get signed in. Timi thinks that's sweet, and wishes for not the first time that he had little siblings like Yakon does. Whenever he tells Yakon that he just laughs, and says that if he had siblings he'd be wishing for none of them, and goes on and on about how annoying they can be.

They get their fingers pricked, their blood checked, and Yukina and Hibru wave goodbye. Yakon leans in to Timi while Aziba is getting checked in and whispers that Hibru exploded earlier in the morning. He went on and on about how unfair the Hunger Games were, and how stupid it was, and how Yakon and Aziba shouldn't have to go. Timi just shrugs and says that he's right.

Yakon shrugs too. Yeah, he replies, but you don't say that out loud.

Timi knows that too, and doesn't respond. Aziba finishes up, and Yakon high fives her and says how well she did, and Timi silently prays that none of them get picked this year. He'd ask for them to never be picked, but that seems like too big of a wish. You have to keep them small, or else they'll never come true. Ask for the world to start turning the other direction and your dreams will never come true. Ask for a good meal and a fun day and at least some of the time it'll come true.

It's a new escort this year, but she's just as silly looking as all of them are. Big, puffy green hair is the main feature. Her lips are also a verdant green, and her outfit is a patchwork of bright greens with muted yellows and pinks. She looks like a forest, and Timi wonders if she was hoping that she would get placed in District Seven.

She certainly acts like it. She stomps up on stage right as the mayor finishes reading the last words of the Treaty of Treason, the long and boring speech that he reads year after year that just says the same thing. She steps in front of the stage and snaps out to the audience that her name is Foresta Verdanne. A couple younger kids laugh, and Yakon and Timi both giggle a little bit.

Foresta rolls her eyes and announces she'll be picking the first tribute. The laughs stop immediately, and Timi holds his breath while she takes the name, walks back to the microphone, and unrolls the slip of paper.

Not me, not Yakon, not even Kyr or Miral or Charty, please don't take anybody I know.

"And your first tribute for the 68th annual Hunger Games is. . . Yakon Cline!"

Everything turns to a blur. He isn't even sure where is for a moment. He turns to Yakon, and his face is set in stone. He's already pushing past Timi, tears in his eyes while his legs shake with each step. Aziba is crying and shouting his name nearby. It's hard to hear over the murmuring and the beating of his chest but he swears he can hear the cries of Yukina and Hibru too.

Yakon is going to die. His one friend, his only friend. The only person he cares about. Somebody who has other people who need him. He can't die. It isn't fair. His head is swirling, he can't focus on a thought for more than a second. Half of him wants to cry and the other half wants to scream about how unfair it is. But that wouldn't help. There's only one thing that could save Yakon.

"I volunteer!" The words flood from his mouth before he even thinks them. The crowd is stunned into silence, and he's just as shocked. What did he just do?

There's no more time for him to linger on that thought. Already the crowd is gently pushing him toward the stage, and his feet are taking each step automatically. Yakon gapes at him as he walks by, and neither of them can think of anything to say. For a moment, the only sound in District Three is Aziba, still crying.

"Well, now isn't that marvelous!" The escort says, and her mood suddenly seems bright, and she no longer acts like she'd rather be anywhere else. Her smile is wide as she ushers him up the stage and tightly squeezes on his shoulders. "And what's this dashing, brave young man's name?"

It takes him longer than it should have to realize she was asking that question to him. He can't remember anybody ever using those words to describe him before. For a moment, he isn't sure of how to answer, his brain is still so muddled and swirling and pounding. But he finds it. "Timorah Atari."

"Well, Timorah Atari, congratulations, you're our first representative for the 68th Hunger Games!"

Timi barely hears her speaking. His thoughts are louder, bouncing around in his head. What did I just do?

Ellie Callas, 16, District Five

Her day starts the same way most of her days start: with an argument. Her loud shouts and screams turn to frustrated grumbles as she slams the door shut and steps outside, needing to be anywhere else in the world. Her parents wouldn't follow, they knew better by now than to think they could ever change her mind. By now their arguments were nothing but constants in their routine.

Ellie is one of the lucky few. Her house stands with just a few others on the rich green hill that overlooks the slums of District Five below. She's never had the same worries most of the district had, wondering if any day might be your last. She gets to enjoy the luxury that comes with not having to worry about starvation, but she almost wishes she didn't. It's like there was a wall between her and the rest of the district. She doesn't fit in with the other snobby rich kids, and the normal kids all don't want anything to do with her either.

To one side she's the rich kid from the hill, the one who works their parents to the bone and pays them pennies in return. One of the ones who watch as they starve while they enjoy luxuries they don't even need.

But she couldn't fit in with the people around her either. They abused a broken system for their own benefit. They were the problem with Panem, why the whole thing was so screwed up. "Capitol lapdogs," "district traitors," "oppressors," she slung those insults at her parents a million times, and them, "ungrateful," "spoiled," and "unrealistic," in return.

She tried to not let it get to her, but it hurt. Maybe it wouldn't if there was somebody for her that was on her side, but it was just her. She was walled in on all sides with nowhere to turn. It wasn't even that she felt invisible, or unnoticed. That might feel nice. She was seen and heard plenty, but completely ignored.

The market is quiet, with the reaping only a few hours away, and Ellie keeps her head down as she walks through the streets. A few vendors recognize her nice clothes and well-kept hair and hassle her to buy something. The idealist part of her wants to dole out everything she has to them, but she's done that a few times already, and now her parents keep a strict allowance on the money they leave for her.

She finds a stall that's run by a quiet old lady, her skin pale and clinging to her bones. It's a rare thing to see someone so old, especially in this part of the district, and for her to still be holding on, Ellie decides that must mean she has a reason. Maybe there's someone she needs to take care of.

"Here," Ellie says. She gently places a bag of coins into her spotted hands. She wants to say something more, but feels too awkward to think of anything more to say.

The lady smiles a toothy grin, revealing a handful of yellowed teeth clinging to her bloody gums. "Bless you, my sweet darling. Whatever you're trying to buy, you'll need far less coin than this to buy it."

"It's the least I can do." She picks up a simple wooden pin with a painted red sun shining over a yellow desert. "This is really pretty."

She doesn't look the gift in the eye twice. "Oh, bless you!" She says, bowing her head. "Be safe today."

"Thanks," Ellie says. She smiles and waves, then tries to bury those words while she walks away. She doesn't want to spend any more time thinking about the Reaping or the Hunger Games than she has to. All they do is fill her up with anger, and not even the productive kind, where she can fire it off at somebody who's at fault. It's the kind of anger that just boils inside of her like acid, because there's nobody for her to be angry at.

Seeing other people in pain, being abused and hurt, it makes her mad. She's angry at the world and the system that's in place, and she wants nothing more than to tear it all down. The things she's mad about are out of her control though, and so there's nowhere for that anger to go. Nowhere good at least.

Then because of all that anger she constantly throws out, there's nobody that's really close to her anymore. It makes her feel empty and weightless, even if she doesn't let it show. She wants that personal connection and friendship and love that she sees so many other people have, but she just doesn't have any of that.

And a part of her wonders if she deserves it. She gets to live her life in the kind of comfort most kids in the district would kill for, and yet she still feels miserable and angry all the time. Where's the fairness in that?

The Reaping is at least anything but boring this year.

There's no way to add any excitement to the long wait in line and the long wait after that while everybody else gets checked in. It's hard for Ellie to even feel nervous with just how long she has to wait in glum silence. The mayor gives his speech, and Ellie rolls her eyes while he goes on and on about the glory of the Capitol and savagery of the districts. It's hard to take him seriously when she's seen him eat himself plump and drink so much wine his cheeks turn red.

He's a hypocrite, but then again so is everybody up on that stage. The escort is a woman, old by Capitol standards at least, with pink everything. Hair, eyes, clothes, even her skin is tinted a hot pink. She's named Rose or Rosette or something like that, and every year Ellie has to plug her ears while she calls the names in that shrill, high-pitched voice of hers.

But this year someone saves the district the pain by beating her to the punch. Right as she announces she's going to select the male tribute, a boy steps out from the fifteen-year-old section. He's tall and muscular (at least for District Five standards—most of the kids in the district didn't weigh 100 pounds soaking wet), with shaggy blonde hair and gleaming blue eyes that sparkle with confidence.

"I volunteer as tribute!" He shouts out. His voice is calm and sure, like he's rehearsed this a thousand times before. Nobody in the district seems to know how to react. Volunteers weren't totally unheard of. Sometimes a brother would volunteer for a brother, or a sister for a sister. But volunteering before the name is even called? Ellie can't remember it ever happening, and the mayor and escort can't seem to either.

"Um, can he do that?" The mayor asks.

"I—" she stutters, looking around for help.

"You can call out the name first if you want," the boy says, walking toward the stage nonchalantly. "Sorry if I was supposed to wait, I just got so excited!"

"Oh, um, it's fine!" the escort replies. She looks over to the mayor, who shrugs again. "Do you want to tell us your name, young man?"

"Solaar Pertison!" He says into the mic, giving an awkward wink to the camera that Ellie is barely able to stifle a laugh at.

"Well, Solaar, what ever made you decide to volunteer?"

He pumps a fist into the air. "For fame and glory!"

"Oh, my!" the escort squeals. She fans herself off. "I feel as if we're in District Two all of the sudden. I hope our second tribute can live up to your lofty example. Let's find who it will be, shall we?"

She struts over to select a name, and the mayor has to step up and quietly redirect her to the female bowl before she selects another boy. Ellie snorts. Nobody volunteers on her walk over, and the escort almost seems disappointed, looking longingly out into the crowd as her hand hovers over the bowl of names.

Eventually, she sighs, and defeatedly snatches the first name she finds. She marches back over to the mic and unravels the slip, then mumbles into the microphone.

"Mlicals."

The mayor coughs awkwardly. "Could you repeat that, please?"

The escort sighs. "Ellie Callas," she says tiredly.

Oh, Ellie thinks. That's me. All eyes are on her in an instant, and her head suddenly feels light. This doesn't feel possible. Thousands of slips, some kids with their names in there dozens and dozens of times, and her name only on a handful of slips. . . how did her's get chosen? But isn't that an awful thought? Why is it more awful that she gets chosen than someone else, just because they're poorer? And why is she having an argument with herself in her head while all of Panem is watching and waiting for her?

"Right," she whispers to herself, so quietly that she can't even hear it. She feels like she's walking on air as she slides through the crowd. A few kids flash her sneers and she even hears a couple of snickers, and she can't tell who it is that's making them.

Before she knows it she's on stage, and the escort is shoving a microphone in her face. Gosh, she thinks, she even smells pink.

"Congratulations on being selected as the second tribute to represent District Five! Is there anything you'd like to tell your district or the rest of Panem?"

"I'll. . . do my best to do good," she manages to say, and when the words fumble out of her mouth she isn't sure where they came from. She can hardly even remember her own name right now, everything's so blurry and hazy. The Hunger Games. Her. Reaped. It wasn't something she ever even imagined. She hates the Hunger Games, always has hated the Hunger Games, but they were something outside of her world, not within it. But now. . . .

"Well, don't be modest, sweetie, let's try and be great!"

"I didn't say great because I didn't mean great," she says. "I meant good."

The escort doesn't seem to understand what that means, and after a few seconds of computation decides to give up on trying and move on. "Okay! Well then, here you have it. District Five, you have two fantabulous tributes to represent you this year, so give it up for Solaar Pertison and Ellie Callas!"

She motions for the two of them to shake hands, and Solaar is still smiling a big, cocky grin as he reaches out his beefy hand. Ellie narrows her eyes at him, and looks him in his eyes, trying to go past the outside and see what's beneath. But it's like there's nothing there, just that dumb, confident grin.

As they shake hands, Ellie's other hand instinctively goes up to the wooden pin from earlier in the day, the red sun on a yellow desert. She runs her fingers along the edges and sucks in a deep breath.

She wonders if this is the universe paying her back. She was given all that comfort and privilege and never had an ounce of happiness to show for it. Is this the universe returning the favor? Or is it something else?

Cameras flash in her face. The escort speaks loudly into the microphone with that screeching voice. Solaar grips so tight on her hand that it feels like he's about to rip it right off. If this was anything other than some sort of punishment, Ellie was having a hard time seeing what it was.

Hi! Thank you so much Draph, Toasted-Bagel-With-Nutella, and David12341 (if anybody wants me to call them something other than their username, let me know and I'll switch to that!) for Timi, Solaar, and Ellie! I'm so lucky you all were kind enough to send me such great characters, and I hope I did well with them! If there's anything I can do better in the future, let me know!

I'm waiting on getting more characters before I can keep writing more of the story, but hopefully I can get them by tomorrow so I can keep on writing! Thank you to everybody who's reached out with kind reviews and messages, you're all the best!

See you next time!

-Avery