TW: Content of verbal abuse in 1st Intro, content of bullying and thoughts and experiences surrounding eating disorders in 2nd Intro.

Azalea 'Zalie' Sylventi, 15

District 11 Female

Two weeks before the Reaping

"Y'know, I noticed something really weird today while I was passing the pastry shop across from our bakery today." Zalie said casually, watching Fern with an intent gaze, but relaxed expression.

"Oh yeah? What was it?" Fern answered, preoccupied with tasting the frosting on the chocolate cake Zalie had made.

"I saw a cake on the window with the different kinds of food they make, but it was MY cake. Like the same style, same design, same everything! I've never told them about any of my recipes so I'm kinda baffled at how it ended up in their shop. That's crazy, right?"

Fern's pinkie twitched, something subtle and not noticeable to those who weren't observant. Zalie was not one of those people, she noticed it immediately, causing the eleven-year-old to frown. Something was up.

Fern shrugged and looked to Zalie with a face that seemed to not know the answer to what she was saying.

"Okay, what's up? I saw that twitch, plus if you didn't know something, you would have answered with more than just your shoulders." Zalie confronted Fern, an eyebrow raised at the girl who she considered her best friend.

Fern stayed silent for a minute, looking between the nearly complete cake and Zalie, as if debating something inside her mind. Eventually, she sighed and looked Zalie in the eye, crossing her arms.

"The shop across from here is owned by my family. The reason you saw your cake is because it's your recipe. We're using them from the time I borrowed them." Fern admitted.

This information hit her like a ton of bricks.

Recipes Zalie had lent to Fern. Recipes she now realized had never been returned to her. The longer she stewed on this, she began to realize this wasn't the first time she had seen something extremely similar to her recipes in that pastry shop. She never had thought much of it up until now, until she saw her signature style on that cake.

"But.. they're my recipes. I thought you just wanted to know how to make pies and stuff similar to mine! I thought you liked them!" Zalie protested, feeling an overwhelming wave of betrayal fill her chest.

"I do like them. Enough to put them to use, since clearly you weren't using them." The twelve-year-old girl told her bluntly.

"You have a gift, but you waste it on friends and on a mother who obviously doesn't care about you. We needed money, so I did what I had to." Fern shrugged again, her face cold and cruel.

"Life's not fair, Zalie. Get used to it."

That memory was as clear as day to her, something she found herself constantly going over, again and again. Those final words rung in her mind, bouncing off the walls of her skull.

"Everything okay there Zalie? You look a lil lost in your own world." Brynn Bell asked, a genuine look of care crossing his face.

Zalie blinked a few times and smiled politely, having completely gotten caught up in her memories as Fern walked by the window of the pastry shop a few minutes ago. The pastry shop that had been the reason her mother had lost her job at the bakery, the pastry shop that Zalie had no other choice but to work in.

"Perfectly fine, Mr. Bell. Just didn't sleep well last night." She said kindly, handing him over the box of doughnuts he had ordered.

"If you say so, I'm always free to listen if you're about after your shift though."

Brynn was a kind person, the closest thing to a friend Zalie now had after everything that had happened with Fern. They weren't what you would consider friends, usually Zalie would be working here and Brynn would come in and order some of the most expensive pastries, but he always made an effort to talk to her. However, she had fallen for the kind and welcoming act once before.

"You can drop the Mister by the way, I'm only a couple of years older than you!" Brynn said with a grin as he left, nodding at her before making his way about his life once more.

"Throw these out, they're leftovers from yesterday and be quick about it. I'm not paying you to sit and dawdle." Jericho Redding told her, Fern's father and her boss, shoving a box of different kinds of somewhat stale pastries into her arms.

"Yes sir."

It was evening when Zalie finished her shift, leaving the pastry shop tired and drained. She quickly glanced at the bakery across the road, seeing the little amount of cakes and staff they had through the window. It wouldn't be long before they shut their doors for good.

Despite feeling tired, she stopped by the grocery shop on her way back home with the bit of cash she had saved up over the week and bought supplies for baking. For her own personal baking, that she cooked for herself and her mother, even though her mother barely paid attention to her and had become a shell of a person she once used to be. It was hard to recall a time where her mother didn't neglect her or say cruel and nasty things to her only daughter. Only in her earliest memories could she think of a somewhat kinder and softer person, an actual mother.

She arrived back home with the goods she needed and went straight to the kitchen, laying out everything to bake some cupcakes. It was very simple, and Zalie was talented enough to bake far more complicated recipes, but there was an unexplained comfort in making something so small, something the poorer children of the district would appreciate. That was her dream after all, to have her name out in the world with everything she made, to be recognized as someone with something to give to the world. It always had been her dream, since the moment she realized how much she enjoyed making different kinds of food and recipes.

Silently but happily, Zalie created these cupcakes, whisking away her worries and problems. Then came the hardest but most exciting part of baking, putting it in the oven. It was difficult having to wait a while to see her creations finished, but it was mesmerizing watching them slowly change and shape into the little cupcakes she had hoped they would be.

She was just placing the tray of freshly baked goods onto the counter when she heard the front door slam shut, signaling that her mother was home. Zalie hoped she would just make her way upstairs and fall asleep, but that was sadly not the case as she heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. The door slammed open, causing Zalie to jump, and her mother entered the kitchen with an angry expression on her face, her breathing uneven and heavy. She was likely under the influence of some kind of drug, she had become an addict ever since she had lost her job at the bakery.

"Tell me why the hell you are wasting our money on- on this!" Her mother spat the words out angrily, gesturing towards the cupcakes.

"I just wanted to take my minds off things Mom, besides, I saved up my own money to b-" Zalie started, cut off by her mother, who was growing more furious with every moment that passed.

"So you're hiding money too? Do you not trust me, is that it?" She was almost screaming at this point. "This typical of you Azalea, typical! Wasting precious time and money and some stupid hobby, not trusting your own mother with the cash left around!"

Zalie looked down at the cupcakes and bit her tongue, indescribably hurt by her mother's words despite having heard them many times before. She was right, she didn't trust her with the money they managed to get from Zalie's job since her mother would usually go off and buy whatever drug she felt like taking, leaving just enough to buy supplies for a few days afterwards. But she wouldn't dare say that out loud, not in front of her mother of all people, especially when she was clearly high and agitated.

"I am sick of you looking down on me, just because you make money and I don't, rubbing it in my face with this idiotic baking!" Her mother reached forward, grabbing the burning hot tray with her bare hand, throwing it onto the ground and sending cupcakes all over the floor. She didn't even seem to notice the burns on her hand as she stormed out of the kitchen, swinging the door and slamming it shut with a loud bang, making her way upstairs.

Zalie stood still for a few moments, listening to her mother's pounding footsteps go upwards until she deemed it safe to move again and began to slowly pick up the cupcakes and the baking tray, with a towel, and inspected them to see if any were salvageable. Four out of the twelve she had baked had made it through being thrown with little to no damage to them, so she brushed them off and made sure they were clean before quietly wrapping them in napkins and putting them into her work bag, to give to some people who needed it on her way to work. The rest she threw out, which hurt almost just as much as her mother's words.

It hurt, living with someone like her mother who did nothing but hurl abuse at her, but despite all the negativity in her life, part of Zalie still hoped there would be brighter days for her in the future. When she was old enough to move out, had enough money to possibly set up her own bakery and make a name for herself around District Eleven.

Life wasn't pleasant at the moment, and it probably would continue to be unpleasant for another while yet, but she had hope and faith. That there would be better days to come, days where she would make true friends who cared for her, where she would have a found family who wanted the best for her, a life where her name would be in the spotlight because of her baking, for her talent and not for the source of gossip.

Zalie had hope and faith for a brighter future. It was all she could hold onto, all that got her through days like these.

Hope and faith.

Soren Knox, 14

District 3 Male

One week before the Reaping

"Freak!"

One of the many bullies yelled at Soren as he threw an old and well-worn book at him, hitting his face, and leaving a small cut in its wake. He let out a small cry of pain and brought a hand to his face, to which the bully and his friends burst out into laughter, leaving Soren to himself, but not before calling out the reminder he heard every day, from most of his class.

"You're useless, loser. You'd be better off dead!"

This was life for Soren. He had been bullied since he was around nine or ten but back then he had someone to call a friend and help stand up for him for when he was too passive to do so himself. Kaiden used to be his best friend, they were as close as two friends could be, but when they started in their new school when they were twelve, something within his friend had changed. Once, where he didn't care about the thoughts of others and their opinions, he had suddenly become caught up in a new crowd of friends, friends who judged harshly and didn't take a particular liking to Soren. So, his best friend began to spend less time with him and more with his new friends, until best friends became acquaintances who barely looked at one another in the hallways of their school. And like that, he had been left behind.

Soren blinked away tears furiously, refusing to let himself give his bullies another reason to taunt and mock him. He picked up the book they had thrown at him and placed it inside his bag to put away in the library later, and slung his bag over his shoulder, walking away from the hallway he had been harassed in and to somewhere quiet in the school, somewhere not many people walked by or bothered to visit. While walking towards his usual quiet spot, a voice, a part of him echoed through his mind, telling him what he had heard every day since the bullying had begun.

You're not walking quick enough. You need to burn off breakfast.

He had little control over many things in his life, like how people perceived him or when his parents would spend time with him, so he took control of what he could change. What he ate, how he ate it, when he ate it and how he looked. He thought that maybe if he was small enough, the bullies wouldn't notice him passing by and would leave him alone. It hadn't worked so far.

Soren finally arrived at this quiet, shaded area of the school that was on the opposite end of where his classmates would usually be, and sat down cross-legged, taking his bag off in the process and pulling out a notebook and his pencil case.

He flipped through the pages, finding himself at peace and taken away from reality and into a fantasy world through the drawings he created in this notebook. Some were the same world with the same characters, somewhere far away from District Three, some were of what he imagined the Capitol looked like and a life he imagined he would have had if he were born there instead.

Once he found a blank page, he began to draw, letting whatever thoughts and daydreams he had grab ahold of his mind and distract him from the burning ache on the side of his face. He let a world slowly create itself, with a party of ragtag adventurers fought dragons of all different colors, as well as all different kinds of monsters and got themselves into all different kinds of situations.

He was happy in this world, it helped him forget about all his problems for a short while, enough to escape the thoughts surrounding how he looked and why people in his class thought it was so fun to pick on him. Soren was so caught up in picturing this world, these characters living the life he wished he had that he didn't notice a girl approaching him until she spoke, stood in front of him.

"Are you Soren?"

He was launched out of his world and returned to reality, looking up at this girl cautiously.

"Yeah.."

"I heard some boys talking with you earlier. I'm sorry they were so nasty, I wish I could have stopped them."

He broke eye contact, looking down and nodding silently, unsure of why this girl had come up to him. Was this a trick his classmates were pulling on him? Was she trying to get something out of him, even if he had nothing to give?

"Um.. I'm Devi. I thought you looked like you needed some company so that's why I came over. Is it okay if I sit with you?"

"Oh.. um, sure."

Why did he have to be so awkward? He didn't talk to people often but he felt like an idiot for not knowing how else to respond.

"What are you drawing? It looks cool from where I am." Devi smiled at him, a sincere smile with genuine interest hinted in her voice.

Wow… she really wasn't trying to trick him or mock him. She was truly interested in what he was doing, something that felt foreign to Soren after all his years of torment.

"Oh, um... I'm drawing characters from a fantasy world I've made up. It sounds a little silly but it helps keep me calm." He said, laughing nervously afterwards.

"No way, that's awesome! I love fantasy books, all the different kinds of worlds and magic systems they have in them is amazing!"

Soren's eyes lit up with excitement, his nerves relaxing and slowly but steadily broke out of his shell.

"Same! I have a bunch of different worlds and things work differently in all of them, but these guys are my favorites! So –" The pair continued to excitedly chat about all things fantasy and the worlds Soren created. It was like a breath of fresh air, meeting and talking with someone who seemed to not care that he was not well liked within his class. It was amazing getting to learn new facts about someone that weren't just that they didn't like Soren or that they were particularly unkind. The fact that he had someone that wasn't nasty or wasn't his cat, Socks, it… it felt like someone had breathed new life into him.

Eventually their break came to an end and the two had to return to their respective classes, but both agreed to meet in the same spot the next day, and that they would bring their favorite books and sketches along with them to share with each other.

As he sat in his classroom, Soren had a twinkle in his eyes that no amount of bullying could take away, excited about the possibility of having a real friend, someone who he could talk to. Even if it was just about fantasy worlds.

He brushed off and didn't even acknowledge all the teasing and taunting about the mark the book had left on his face as he left his school, beginning his journey back home, his bag slung over his shoulders. After today, after how everything had gone, Soren had realized something incredible.

Yes, teenagers could be cruel, they could be hurtful beyond words, but they could also be kind and caring. It just took some time for the right people to find him, but they would, like they had today.

As he walked off into the bustling city center of District Three, he strode with pride and with glee, a massive grin spread across his face.

For the first time in a long, long time, the world looked a little brighter to Soren. He welcomed the feeling with open arms.

A/N: Heyo everyone! Here we are with the 5th intros, meaning there's only one more set of intros left before we move onto the proper pre-Games content, hell yeah! In this chapter we had two traumatized kids, in their own different ways but we still love and support em! 3

Thank you to AuroraMiri25 for Zalie, she was such a sweetheart to start writing, and Soren is my own kid (the last of my own)!

I want to say a thank you to all of yall who have stuck around through all my hiatus's and since the beginning of the SYOT, mental health doesn't take a break but knowing that yall have stuck around despite pretty big gaps means the absolute world to me, so thank you so so much 3

Soren's POV was a little shorter than Zalie's but I just felt Zalie deserved a bit more of the spotlight, especially now that my chapters are getting longer with each one I write!

Besides that, I don't think I have much more to say! I'm getting plans together properly now about all the different interactions and alliances, plus the arena! Exciting times lie ahead, I think! :D

That's all it seems, so I'll see yall in the next chapter for the final intros!