Frank Zhong's Pov:

My arm ached from pulling the bowstring back so many times, but I didn't care. I lined up the arrow shaft with the piece of my Grandmother's pottery. Mom was gone. Nothing else mattered.

"Fai?" I turned at the sound of my Grandmother's voice. I braced myself for the lecture, but it never came. Grandmother just shook her head and said, "Come inside. We have much to discuss." She turned and strode inside without looking to see if I would follow. I sighed and decided not to run from the inevitable lecture.

When I came into the living room, my Grandmother was gazing at a framed picture of my mom in her Peacekeeper uniform. "You're mother was so proud that day. She was only fifteen, but she fought like a tiger. That's how she came home from the Hunger Games. It's also how you will come home."

My heart throbbed when she talked about my mom. She was killed in action last week, and we didn't have time to properly mourn her because of the reaping today. Life in the Districts was anything but fair.

"I have a plan, but for this to work, you must do everything I tell you to. Can your thick head handle that?"

I blushed and said, "Yes Grandmother,"

"Good. Here is how the next several weeks is going to go,"

Zia' Rashid's Pov:

I woke up at the orphanage as usual. I'm 18, so you would think that I wouldn't be at the orphanage anymore, but you can only leave the orphanage after the reaping when you're 18. Today was my last day in this bed. Tomorrow, I would wake up in my newly assigned house, and not have to deal with dozens of other kids snoring in my ear.

The morning was fairly uneventful. I made it through inspection without any incident. I ate my sour porridge without gagging too much. I trudged back upstairs with the other 14 and up girls to put on our dresses for the reaping. Everything in the orphanage was hand me down, so my dress was too tight in the bodice, and several inches too long. That was ok though, because many girls didn't even have dresses to wear. They just wore whatever they could get their hands on.

We walked in a perfectly straight line to the town square. At that point, we split off into our assigned spots. We were the first ones there, so there was nothing to do other than stand and let my feet go numb. Some of the boys were messing around, and I longed to give each of them a slap in the face. Did they want to feel the switch on their backs later?

Finally, the spots around me started to fill up as kids with families arrived. The escort walked up onto the stage. This escort was different than the one last year. She wasn't dressed up, and she looked pretty normal. No skin dye, no random piercings, and no crazy body extensions. The escort walked up to the microphone, and said, "Well, lets get this over with,"

She walked to the girl's bowl and quickly chose a paper and read,

"Zia Rashid,"

The escort didn't even wait for me to get on the stage before she found the boy paper and read,

"Tom-"

"I volunteer!"

I think the voice was meant to sound brave, but instead it came out as a squeak. Everyone looked to see a boy lumbering out of the 16 year old section. He looked like a teddy bear turned human. Looks like he won't be much help getting out of the games alive. This will go great.

District 1 (luxury): Luke Castellan (18) and Clarisse La Rue (17)

District 2 (masonry and defense): Jason Grace (16) and Thalia Grace (15)

District 3 (technology): Leo Valdez (15) and Annabeth Chase (17)

District 4 (fishing):Percy Jackson (17) and Samirah Al-Abbas (16)

District 5 (power): Will Solace (18) and Hazel Levesque (13)

District 6 (transportation): Carter Kane (17) and Sadie Kane (15)

District 7 (lumber): Walt Stone (18) and Reyna Ramirez-Arellano (18)

District 8 (textiles): Calypso (15) and Magnus Chase (16)

District 9 (grain): Zia Rashid (18) and Frank Zhang (16)

District 10 (livestock): Grover Underwood (17) and Piper McLean (16)

District 11 (agriculture): Meg McCaffery (12) and Lester Papadopoulos (15)

District 12 (coal): Bianca Di-Angelo (16) and Nico Di-Angelo (14)

A/N: I do not own Rick Riordan's or Suzanne Collin's work. As I'm sure you can tell, I have a much easier time writing about some characters than others. It's not that I don't like the characters that take me longer. It's that their personalities are harder to catch in writing. Please like and comment!