Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins.

Hey guys! I'm back with the first set of intros, I hope you like them!

X

Mystic Archeron, 16, District Eight Female, Three Years and Five Months Before the Reaping

The purple eyes… I see them. And there's a woman laughing. And I think the purple eyes belong to her. My mother. And she looks up at me with the brightest of smiles. The purple begins to turn colors, mixing and blending with red. And the red leaves her eyes, and it drips down her chest and… it's… I…

I wake up and I still can't breathe. My whole body is sweaty and clammy. The cave around me has never looked less imposing. I don't have Weft here comfort me anymore.

My throat is clenched, and my eyes are watering, and then suddenly I'm crying. I'm surprised, I thought all of the tears had come out by now, but no. I can't help it. I curl up into a ball on the cave floor and start bawling like a baby. For Weft. For Weave. For everything.

I cry and I cry, and then I cry some more. The silver knife I stole a few days ago lays a yard or so away from me. I take it and look into my face, using it as a mirror. My dark hair is everywhere, and I clear it away from my face and look into my tear-streaked and puffy face, into my violet eyes, and this brings about a new wave of tears because Weft had them too.

The knife in my hands glints. It's tempting to do it. When I found this place after Weave and Weft were killed I fully intended to die here.

And finally, and of the tears clear away.

I sit up. My body is still trembling. No tears fall. I clench the knife in my hand.

"Myst, come see us," says a soft and familiar voice.

I look up, searching for the speaker, and then I realize. It was Weft. "Yeah, Myst, come on." Weave, so innocent. So tempting to see them again.

"No." My voice comes out low and gravelly. I haven't spoken in days, and water has been scarce, and my throat burns and burns from the tears and the thirst.

"No."

I throw the knife to the other side of the room.

This is not going to be the end of me. It's not what Weave would have wanted. Or Weft. The real Weft and Weave, not the voices in my head.

They would have wanted me to stand up. They would have wanted for me to fight. They would have wanted me to fend for myself, and be the strong person they said I am.

They said my heart was made of wildfire. They said I was a free spirit. Weft always said I was kind and brave, and I had the best smile, and Weave said I was amazing, and the person he idolized the most. When I asked him why, he just said that I was me.

I will be me!

My heart of wildfire will burn them down! It will burn, it will burn, it will burn! It will never stop, and never stop burning! I am not going to stop! The Capital will fall down in flames! My father will fall down in flames!

My hatred invigorates me. I will avenge Weft and Weave.

I raise my hand up to the crevice in the cave wall. I pull myself up on trembling legs, tired from not walking much in the past few days.

The knife lays on the cave floor. I hobble over to pick it up. This knife will not be the end of me. It will be the end of the monster who was called my father, revenge for what he did to Weft, or the horrible goons who beat Weave to death while he was alone.

This… this doesn't seem like it's what Weft and Weave would want for me. But it is what is want for myself.

X

Three Months Later

The streets of District Eight have always been dangerous at night. Dangerous at any time of the day, really. I'm not scared.

These streets bring back memories. I'm only a few blocks away from passing the house I used to call home, the place where it all happened. Dad probably isn't there, more likely at his favorite tavern, where all of the Peacekeepers and overseers go. Dad is a part of the latter group.

My knuckles are white from how hard I am clutching the hilt of the knife in my hands. The metal flashes in the night, so it is stuffed into a coat I stole from a street rat who tried to mug me about a month ago. It's baggy, but it makes me even more inconspicuous, with my black hair shielding my face and blending in with the smoggy darkness. Being unremarkable is sort of a necessity around these parts.

Suspicious looking figures, obvious dealers and addicts, and homeless people crowding the sidewalks pay me no mind as I walk by. That will be good once the Peacekeepers are on to me.

I can feel a dark smile creeping on to my face. I have been lusting for this for a long time. Revenge. Originally it was for Weave, and I was targeting the killers that bludgeoned him to death, but then I realized my father was the real culprit. He killed Weft, after all, and I have a feeling Weave was attacked on the streets because he was recognized as the son of the cruelest overseer in Factory #071.

I make a turn, and I'm on my old block. I can see the house on the corner. This neighborhood houses many overseers and their families. Crime is sparser around here.

I look to where it happened. We had just ran away, Weft, Weave, and I. Dad was a homophobe, and I came out as bi. It was bad. Weft was to come back to the house and tell Dad she had overpowered me, and Weave had been killed in the brawl that had ensued. I was waiting some hedges… those, over there. I tear my eyes away. It is too painful to look at that house.

I steer my eyes away from it, and to the next side of the block. But that was where Weave was waiting. That's where he was killed. Is his body still there? Where did Dad hide Weft after he killed her? The picture of him scrubbing blood off of the floor enters my mind, and I remember watching it, watching Weft, my older sister, only fifteen, fall to the ground, a splash of blood in her wake. I picture Weave, when I ran back in tears, to find him bloody and beaten, as his killers ran away. He was only eleven.

A single tear leaves my eye. I continue on.

The bar is getting nearer. I can hear the shouts and bellows from inside. A brawl must be happening.

I'm back in the more dangerous area of District Eight, the one that takes up ninety percent of it.

There are alleyways on every street. I clench my knife, half in defense, half steeling myself to do the deed I've been ready to do for oh so long. I'm ready.

A yell is audible from the bar, a familiar sounding one, and a man stumbles out into the street, drunk. My father.

I run into a dark alley and toss a rock into a tin can a few yards away. My aim never misses. The loud noise of stone meeting metal reverberates around the close walls, and into the road.

I hear my father grumbling and stumbling, going to investigate the noise. There is a cratec near. I duck behind it as Dad walks into my vision. He strolls into the alleyway, sees the can, and grunts, turning to walk away.

I jump out from behind the crate, and my father stares at me.

"Well, hey, little lady," he slurs. "What're you doin' out in the dead o' night." He closes in on me. He doesn't recognize me, drunk as he is. He thinks I'm some easy prey of his, that I'm the one who's trapped.

I take out my knife and brandish it at him. His expression of relaxation changes to one of mock shock.

"Oooh," he slurs. "I got me a fighter."

"I take it you don't remember me," I say.

He doesn't respond.

Then I charge at him, all the rage and anger I've been feeling coming out in one stab. A sigh escapes my lips.

"How about now."

He looks into my eyes, my purple eyes, and Dad says, "You… bitch…" He weakly spits in my face, and then he's gone.

And it is so… satisfying.

I pull my now-bloody knife out of the man who used to be my father's chest and stand up to look at him. The Peacekeepers are bound to notice by morning. It doesn't seem any of them do now, though.

I walk out of the alley, and I see the tavern is emptying. I break out into a run. I expected a laugh to come out when I did it. But no laugh comes. But I don't feel sad either. Blood now stains my hands, but it needed to be done. I'm so happy that that man is gone from this world. I don't know what to think. A small smile creeps on to my face. Weft always said I had a smile brighter than a thousand suns. And I think of Weft, and what she and Weave would want. The grin leaves my face. They wouldn't be happy. I am not happy.

But I am free.

X

Scylla Frigard, 18, District Two Female, Three Years Before the Reaping

Burning… it's all burning. My house is consumed by the fire, tendrils reaching and lashing out at me, tendrils in shades of orange, clouding my vision, burning my eyes. And there is a beast in there, a beast that looks oddly familiar, and he is doing this, he is doing this. The smoke clouds my sight, and tears come to my eyes, because of pain or smoke I don't know. Yung and Calisto are here, whispering in their ominous tones, and I'm spiraling and spiraling, and the smoke swirls into my nose and my mouth, and…

I'm coughing, and I'm coughing, and I'm awake. This was the third time. It has to stop.

"This was our doing…" The whispering voice of a scared and younger-sounding man, his daunting words echoing through my head. Calisto.

"Your fault…" Yung, his twin, is here too.

"Oh, you," Orchid is talking, in my mother's voice. "She needs help."

Ichabod is silent. Good. I don't need him too.

"Be quiet, all of you," I say to myself, clenching my head. The voices, they always chime in at the worst times. I hate them all, except for Orchid.

The door opens, and Einar walks in. His wavy blonde hair is visible in the darkness, and he runs in to hold me, his jade green eyes staring into mine, and I let him hug me.

"Scylla! Are you okay," he asks. "I heard you coughing, and I thought it might be the dream…"

I nod. "It was."

"Oh, the poor girl." Orchid again. She always seems to be talking to someone else, someone only she can see. Nevertheless, she is sweet and only knows love. She's the only one I like.

Einar holds me tight. He's pushing the boundaries, but I need it. He would never go as far as the things I deem inappropriate with me, out of respect, and that's one of the reasons I love him, in that purely romantic sort of way. Einar is the strong one, my tether to the Earth, and without him, I don't know what I would do.

I stand up, and Einar follows, knowing what I need to do. I walk through the door to the bathroom adjoining my room with Victoria's. I stay in the training barracks during the week and suffer at my father's hands in the house I love but hate on the weekends.

I arrive at the mirror, and my reflection stares back at me. Tall for a girl, five foot six, and pale, really pale. A fading layer of pastel blue paint is on her face, starting above her eyebrows and ending below her nose. Her left arm is scabbed and reddish from all the times she has pinched it. Her pale blonde hair hangs limp and a pained expression is on her face. I hate her.

"You're not pretty," says Yung.

"Never will be," Calisto chimes in.

Einar appears at my side, his beautiful tan skin and green eyes making me look even worse.

"Him, he is a good one," says Orchid.

"No he isn't," Ichabod's loud and juvenile voice makes me cringe. "He views himself as a failure."

"He does," says Calisto.

"We are a failure," Yung says.

"And we always will be horrible, wretched, ugly, a failure."

Einar eyes the case of blue face paint residing on my side of the counter. Its only companions are the toothbrush and toothpaste set.

"Are you sure you don't need medicine?"

Yung and Calisto's voices join together, talking in fast and worried tones.

"No," I respond. "Yung and Calisto don't like the pills. The paint works best."

I unscrew the jar, and Einar watches as I lightly coat my face. The intertwining tones of the twins' voices fade slightly, Ichabod is silent once more, and Orchid is saying, "She really needs some help."

I do need help. Einar says I do, at least, and I agree with him. Father thinks I don't, though. He gaslights me, just like he gaslit Mother's darkness. He won't let me get help. He thinks I'm just acting out without Mother. Mother is here with me, though, as long as Orchid is here with me. It's a shame I have the dim her out too, but I need to stop Yung and Calisto from their horrible whispers, and Ichabod from his loud boasting. The blue face paint keeps them at bay.

I stare at myself. Ichabod is faintly saying "The pills! You are weak! Be strong! Overtake them!" Yung and Calisto are going on another one of their rants in the back of my head.

"Are you okay?"

I almost forgot Einar was here.

"Yes," I respond.

Einar doesn't know about the voices, all he knows is that I hear things, and that I have bad problems, and that the blue quells them.

"Okay," he says. "I'm going to go freshen up for training."

He leaves. I watch him go. Einar isn't a cadet anymore, he got second every year through the final one. Now, he works as a trainer.

My easel stands on the other side of my small room. There is an blank canvas on it. Maybe I'll paint some. Painting always calms me.

I sit down on my stool and lift up my palette. The paint box is near. I squirt out the different shades: Hot orange, fire, marmalade, charcoal, pewter, burnt sienna, marigold, crimson, and purple.

And I paint, and I paint, and I paint…

X

2 Years Later

The smoke fills my lungs, and the fiery tendrils of orange shades lunge for me, and Yung and Calisto whisper and whisper and scream and scream, and the beast is there, but it is Father now, it has morphed into him, and him as the Norse God Surt, blasts down thing after thing, and the fire and smoke consumes me…

I wake up gasping for breath. My arm is bleeding, and staining my sheets dark red, fiery orange fading to crimson. I gasp for breath again and again, but the grief consumes me like the fire, and there is no Einar this time to stop it.

Calisto and Yung don't whisper anymore, they howl and they scream, and Orchid is gone, and Ichabod is yelling "I told you he was weak!"

There is no Einar. They told us yesterday, they found him with the note and they gave it to me, and it said that he was sorry, sorry for being weak, sorry for not being able to take the pain he felt and disappointment his parents had in him, and how he couldn't be the strong one anymore.

Now all I have left is Father, the very person I ran from the day Einar found me and recruited me into the Academy, when I was ten and he was thirteen.

I get out of bed and look in the mirror. Orchid is dull, and the other voices are ear-poppingly loud, but I don't care. I cake the face paint on, change, and leave the room to board the elevator with some other girls. They stare at me. I don't know if it is because of the face paint or the fact that I was close with Einar. They know me as the quiet and reserved strong girl. Einar always said he could see through my cautious and reserved exterior to my kind and brave warrior heart. Mother used to say I had a warrior heart. But I don't have a warrior heart, or any of them to ask any more. I'm all alone.

Rowan Hunter, 14, District Seven Male, Two Years and Eight Months Before the Reaping

I can see him again. Standing by him, then kneeling by him, watching the life force drain out of him. Watching the blood drain out of him. Watching as he convulses on the floor, coughing and choking and spitting up blood.

"BANG!"

The loud noise of the gong wakes me up. I sit up and smack my head on the top bunkbed.

"OW!"

My head is throbbing, and all thoughts of Dad are driven from my mind. Above me, Ash pokes his head out from his bed and peeks down at me.

"You okay, Hunter?"

"Yeah," I say nodding and clutching my head. I can't let him see my pain.

"Good, 'cause if the gong didn't wake Aaron up, that sure did."

"I don't think anyone could avoid being woken up by the gong," I say to Ash.

"Believe me, Aaron has."

As he says it, Ash's identical twin Aaron sticks his head out from the wall separating his and Ash's beds, his fiery red hair ruffled, and his eyes focused on the spot beside me.

"Over here, eagle eyes."

Aaron squints to stare at me. He needs glasses, but they don't afford us lumberjacks who live in the barracks luxuries such as that, unless it affects our work of course. What are the problems of a District citizen to those of a Capitalite who didn't get their mahogany piano on time, three minutes late.

"Why do we always have to get up so early?" Aaron acts indignant as he fingers for the ladder down. The only noticeable difference between him and Ash is recent and yellowing scar on his left thumb from an accident at work.

"It's not early, it's almost midmorning," says Ash.

"6:00 AM is not midmorning."

"It technically is."

"Shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"Guys," I say to the twins. "Will you both shut up and get in your uniforms? You know what happens if you aren't on time."

They both do as I say. This is how a typical morning goes… Typical. It's typical for me now. I guess it has been long enough. Over half a year… Has it really been that long? I guess it's typical for me now to get up at 5:00 in the morning every day, chat with my friends, chop down trees for the entire day with meager breaks for meals. And I'm chatting with my friends right now. My best friends, now, I guess.

Ash and Aaron call me the only good Peacekeeper. I'm the one who coined the name. I'm the comedian and the one who moderates the fights. Ash is the smart one and the one who follows the rules. Aaron is the sometimes annoying but endearingly so one who talks about how he wants to be rich. He is also sort of delusional.

That's our dynamic. And this is our every morning now, getting up, getting dressed, going out to earn our share at dawn, riding our bikes through the woods at dusk. This has been their lives for much longer than me. They were orphans, and since they were boys they were dumped here at age nine. The girls were sent off to the mills to do machine work. It's still weird adjusting. For that I'm thankful for Ash and Aaron for taking me in.

We, along with the rest of the boys who stay in the barracks, walk out in our scratchy plaid uniforms, into the forest of tall and elderly trees. The pink sky is somewhat blocked by the tallest trees, black in the light. It's a pretty sight.

"Well this is new," I say, elbowing the twins as we walk over to the axe rack.

X

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

The tree has finally fallen to the ground, and tractors are coming to pick it up. Thank God, me and Lark can move on to the next one.

However, as I look over, I see that the tree is about 5 feet wide in diameter.

"Sir!" Lark shouts it over the chopping and sawing noises. He's already 6'3, and only two years older than me. I'm already short on my own, I don't need him making me look like a dwarf. "We need the tractors!"

As Lark and I begin cutting the wedge in the tree, I look over to my left where Ash and Aaron are working.

"Hey guys!"

The look over.

"How do you identify a dogwood tree?"

"Why, Hunter," Ash asks over the chaos. "It's an oak."

"It's a joke!"

"Sorry!"

"How do you identify a dogwood tree?"

"We don't know," Aaron says.

"By its bark."

Aaron chuckles, Ash snorts, and even Lark says, "Good one."

This is what I like about having friends. I can always cheer them up with laughter.

"Hey dudes," they look back over at me. "Let's see who can fell their tree faster!"

I go back to chopping, faster this time.

X

The bikes we rent to ride through the woods aren't exactly top caliber. One has a pebble stuck in a wheel, one is missing a few parts, and one emits earsplitting cranking noises when you first try to ride it and goes slower than the others. We take turns with the creaking bike.

Today, I get the one without a seat cushion, but the twins are arguing about who gets the pebble bike and who get Rusty, the name I coined for the bike, which is quite covered in its namesake.

"It's my turn."

"No, it's my turn."

"No, you rode it yesterday!"

"We didn't have time yesterday!"

"You know what I mean!"

"Damnit!" The twins turn to glare at me. "It's Aaron's turn to get the pebble bike." Aaron sticks his tongue out at Ash. Ash scowls at me and walks over to the pitiful and decrepit bike.

"I always have to be the mediator, don't I?"

In truth, I like being the mediator. It makes me feel useful, and I've never liked conflict. Except for when I start it. Then it's fair. And I do start it a lot. The twins say I have a big mouth. I also get to tell jokes. I like telling jokes. And that's what I do as me, Ash, and Aaron ride through the forest. We try to do this every day. Sometimes we don't have time, and sometimes the bikes have already been rented and we have to walk, but walking is boring and bike riding isn't. It's quite the opposite.

We stop in front of a shop on a merchant street bordering the forest. Ash and Aaron go in to buy us a snack, while I stay outside to guard the bikes. I heard a yell, then another, and then more, then a loud banging noise, and then a tiny little girl with jet black hair runs out of the shop clutching bread. And then Peacekeepers are here, and they run into the shop, and pull out Ash and Aaron by their necks.

"Hey boys," I yell out, running over to the Peacekeepers. "What's going on?" No one answers me. "Let go of them! You've got the wrong guys!"

One of the Peacekeeprs elbows me hard in the neck, and I fall down clutching my throat. I'm on the ground, and I can't breathe, and then someone helps me up and pats me on the back.

"We didn't steal anything!" One of the twins yells, before they're taken around the corner and out of sight.

I look over to see who helped me up. It's the girl from before, and she looks genuinely concerned, but I can see a bulge in her shirt, and I realize she stole the bread.

"You!"

She eeks and runs off. I can't spare any time to chase after her, I have to go find my friends. I turn to the direction the Peacekeepers went when they took them, but I don't know where they went after that. Then I hear it. An agonized scream, one that could only come out of a young boy. And I know where the twins are.

The square is crowded with people watching the whipping. Ash and Aaron are tied to opposite sides of a post shirtless, with blood trickling down their backs.

"No," I yell, but no one hears me over the crack of the whip as it comes down on Aaron.

"We didn't do it! We didn't steal!"

"Five more for being a liar!"

The Peacekeeper brings the whip down even harder on Aaron.

I watch them being beaten, on and on for an hour, before it's thirty minutes to curfew and Peacekeepers fire bullets into the air.

Later, in the barracks, I doze off. It must be 9:00 or so. I dream about black and red, and the agonized screams of my friends and the horrible chokes and gurgles my father made when he died from the disease echo and echo in my head.

The door swings open, and Ash and Aaron are dumped onto my bed. I gasp.

They're both semiconscious, and their backs are so bloody you can't see their skin. A boy named Maple, a year younger than us, says he can help. He takes off his nightshirt and bandages it around Ash and tells me to do the same for Aaron.

This goes on for about half an hour, with both of them faintly stirring and mumbling. It pains me to see my best friends like this. And there's nothing I can do about it.

"Ow." Ash is stirring again.

"Hey, dude," I say to him. "Um…" I try to think of a joke. "Why couldn't the tree answer the question?"

"Hmm?"

"It was stumped."

Ash laughs faintly. "Nice one," he says. And it makes me feel amazing, to be able to cheer him up when he is in pain. Because I know no one was able to cheer me up when I was in pain. The mask I wore told everyone that I was okay. But I'm not okay. Dad said I had to stop coping with emotions with humor. I miss Dad.

I'm not going to sleep tonight.

X

Hello readers! I'm back with another chapter, and I hope you like it. I should have had this thing out by a few days ago, but something came up, so here it is now! Please review and give your thoughts on all of these tributes. Big thanks to SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn, Paradigm of Writing, and Nautics for submitting Mystic, Scylla, and Rowan respectively! I hope you're all happy with how I wrote your tributes. And now, for the questions:

Which of the three POVs was the most moving, and which nightmare was the scariest? (Please tell me if I need to turn the gore down)

Which twin sleeps above Hunter?

Thank you for reading and hopefully reviewing! PS: If any of you were wondering Scylla is pronounced SII-luh

-Mills