Marley Astero, District Two female (17)

When I meditated I liked to think about things that brought me peace. For me it was dead people. Not killing people. I didn't really care about that part, which most of my classmates thought was weird. I just liked the after-they-were-dead part. Human bodies are just really cool. I loved all the different parts that came together to make a pile of matter into a living, moving being. It blew my mind every time I really thought about it. People were so beautiful and so intricate. I just thought the vessel was a lot cooler than the contents.

My classmates also thought it was silly I did yoga. They said it was far too slow and ponderous to really count as exercise. They were right, sort of. It wasn't really exercise as much as it was for rejuvenation and collecting myself when I wasn't doing harder training. It also helped me slow down and not be so impulsive, which I thought was one of my biggest problems. Most Careers were like that, honestly. A lot of them would have benefited by joining me.

Soon I'd be volunteering for the Games. Rumor had it the pool this year was pretty slim after a doping scandal disqualified a lot of the graduating class. I might even get sent a year early. It was crazy to think that if I'd been better at school I might have had a totally different life. I'd known I wanted to work around dead bodies for a long time, so the obvious answer was medicine or undertaking. Unfortunately I completely lacked the patience to study medicine. I was an undertaker's apprentice for a few weeks but I soon learned how disappointingly boring the job was. You weren't allowed to do anything cool with the bodies. You had to follow all the rules and do all the same things every time. I was my father's daughter- an artist through and through. I needed more creative freedom than that. I wasn't arrogant enough to be a serial killer so that left volunteering for the Games. It was the fairest way, if you asked me. Everyone else got the same chance to kill me as I got to kill them.

My father's sculptures decorated the room as I went through my poses. He had a realistic style that matched mine, or maybe inspired it. I liked to look forward to how I was going to add my own artworks to his once I went to the Games. Sometimes I got the feeling he didn't quite understand my style, but he was always supportive. He knew that art is its own end and sometimes people have to suffer for it. I'd keep the suffering to a minimum for my subjects, though. My goal was to make art, not hurt people.

I had to check myself as I started to rush through my yoga routine. I just got so excited thinking about all the things I was going to do in the Arena. So many canvases in there for me to finally let my creativity fly. The human body was already the prettiest and most intriguing subject for an artist. It was such a shame that it crumbled away so quickly after death. I'd studied for years to be able to solve that problem. A little bit of chemistry, a little bit of anatomy... not enough to preserve life but enough to preserve its image. The Egyptians had it right when they venerated the art of sealing a body into itself so it would last for millennia. I wouldn't be killing people when I made them into my sculptures. I would be letting them live forever.

Joseph Carpenter, District Two male (18)

Bella Cortez was the clear pick for this year's Hunger Games. She was smart and levelheaded. She wasn't one of those Careers who thinks this is all just a vacation and of course they'll easily win. She could shoot the cap off of a bottle at a hundred yards and she could throw someone twice her size. She knew nothing was guaranteed and always planned for things to go wrong. But there are some things you just can't plan for. I wasn't there when it happened. Late one night Bella went out to take a moonlight swim in her family's little pool. She started peeling the cover back and no one really knows what happened next. She must have fallen in somehow and by the narrowest freak chance the covering wrapped around her badly enough that she couldn't get free or even see which way was up. I remember thinking I'd had a stroke and misheard when her sister Maria told me. Things like that happened to... other people, I guess. Not to Bella. Not to me.

It seemed ironic how ill-prepared a Career was to cope with death. I'd heard about death, seen it on television, trained to deal in it. I hadn't experienced it. I hadn't known the inescapable reality of waking up every day and Bella was just gone. Never coming back. Never going to the Games. Just lying cold and moldering in a coffin. The only thing that kept me going was my belief that there was something more after death. But I couldn't talk about that with anyone. I couldn't even write it down in a private journal. That kind of talk would get me as dead as she was.

It was Mr. Grant who kept me in the Games. When Bella died I didn't go to the Academy for almost a month. When I finally showed up I went straight to the headmaster and said I was pulling out. Aside from a few halfhearted digs he didn't give me any trouble. No one could expect me to keep my focus after something like this. But Mr. Grant, who had been Bella's closest mentor since we joined the Academy eleven years earlier, followed me out of the building.

"We're losing both our volunteers?" he asked, trying to act casual.

"I can't," I said. "Find someone else."

"After all this time? For more than ten years you've worked toward this. You and Bella. Bella gave everything for this. After you left she used to stay on for half the night practicing overtime and trying to get better. Anything to give her a better chance at taking this home. That's gone now. Eleven years of one of the brightest, most brilliant students I've ever had, wasted. It's her legacy. Are you going to let it die?"

"Look, like you said, she was better than me anyway. I'm not our best chance," I said. Truth be told, I hadn't even been planning to volunteer after Bella and I had grown increasingly closer. We would never know what might have been- another knife that pierced my heart. All we had was a precious few dates I would always remember and the pain that proved how much I loved her. I'd only known that I couldn't imagine going into the Games with Bella and knowing my survival could only mean her death. Better for me to watch and worry from home.

"But now you have something worth fighting for. This was Bella's dream. Don't let it die with her."

The next week I returned to the Academy. The others noticed the change in me. Even cynical, boisterous Careers respected a fallen comrade enough to not comment on my new reticence and emotional distance. I never talked about Bella with them. I also rarely talked about my time away from the Academy. I never told Mr. Grant why I came back. I did want to win this for Bella. But if it didn't turn out this way, I wanted to be reunited with her.

Marley: 4'9 Long straight black hair to middle back, Narrow build with moderately petite hands, Pointy chin and Asian look

Joseph: Joseph is tall with cropped black hair and some stubble. he always wears a cross necklace and he is pretty buff