Thanks to 20 for Glorian and TheNoobyBoy for Glitter!

District 2

Glorian Stafford

*five years prior*

"How did you do that?" the young kid asks, staring at the deck of cards in awe.

"A magician never reveals his secret," I wink, and slide the kid's card back into the deck. If I was answering his question honestly… sleight of hand and distractions. Every detail needs to be perfect, otherwise, it won't work. Luckily, years of performing magic on the streets have trained my hands into completing each precise pattern.

I hold out my hat expectantly. The kid looks frustrated and mumbles something unintelligible.

"Hey, you agreed! If I correctly guessed your card, you'd have to pay up!" I remind him. The kid grumbles, but fishing a few tarnished coins out of his pocket and tosses them into the hat. "Thanks!" I shout as the kid gallops away, but I doubt he heard me. He's probably too upset he lost his precious pocket money.

Well, deal with it kid. I need this for food.

"Hey, Glor." I turn around and see my friend, Gonzalo, standing behind me. His wavy blond hair is tied up in a ponytail and his deep, beautiful gray eyes… what was I saying?

"Hi, Gonzalo," I say. "How much money did you make today?"

"Um…" Gonzalo fishes around in his pockets and brings out a handful of coins. He quickly counts through them, and I see his brow furrow in concentration. "40 petals," he decides. I look at my own hand. "How much do you have?"

"10," I mumble, slightly embarrassed. Gonzalo laughs, but it doesn't seem to be at me.

"That's not bad," he assures me. I shake my head.

"That isn't even enough to buy the butcher's rotten meat!" I complain.

"Well, who wants that stuff, anyway?" Gonzalo asks. "We can just pool our money and split a loaf of bread or something."

"Really?" I ask, surprised.

"Of course," Gonzalo says. "We're practically…" he struggles to think of the next word. "Brothers." I wince, but he doesn't seem to notice. Brothers… even worse than the friend zone.

"Okay," I say, hoping he won't sense the obvious disappointment in my voice. He doesn't seem to. "We'll get the bread after meeting up with everyone else. I think they're in Town Square."

"Town Square," Gonzalo considers. "Very inconspicuous."

"Why should we be? We're not exactly breaking the law or anything."

"Technically, we're supposed to be in the orphanage. It's actually illegal for a group of child orphans to be living on the street."

"Well, that's a stupid rule," I say, confidently. "And one I was not aware of," I say under my breath. Gonzalo laughs.

"It is stupid. I don't think it's enforced, though, so none of us are getting sent to the orphanage any time soon."

As we walked toward Town Square, we chatted about a bunch of random stuff we only talked about because we had discussed everything else. That's what it seemed like to Gonzalo and me: we had known each other for so long, it felt like we had discussed any possible thing worth discussing… and several things not worth discussing. We knew each other from top to bottom, and were practically joined at the hip.

When I was just a baby, both of my parents died. I don't know how or who they are. Maybe they aren't actually dead and just hated me or didn't want the responsibility. Anyway, they dropped me off at the orphanage. I grew up there, knowing most of the boys I do, today. We were always a close group, often complaining about the poor living conditions of the orphanage.

When we were seven, we all ran away. We had plotted this great escape, but it turns out it wasn't necessary. Nobody seemed to care we were living. It was just a few less mouths to feed.

We couldn't exactly get jobs, so we began to practice magic on the street in exchange for money. At first, we were awful. With some perseverance and practice, though, we got much better. Now we come up with a considerable sum of money at the end of the day; it's not enough to get a house or nice things, but we are able to afford food and blankets and stuff like that, on occasion.

"There they are!" Gonzalo exclaims, and points to a circle of kids in the center of Town Square. Gonzalo and I both push past people to get to them, excitedly bumping into them. I hear a few people complain about "rowdy kids" but that's it.

We join the group, who are deep in conversation. There's seven of us total, and we've all gotten pretty close over the years.

"What are we talking about?" Gonzalo asks, sensing the aura of excitement in the group. Astor, who's sort of the leader of our little group, turns to us and begins to fill us in on the plan. His eyes are bright and scheming.

"We're going to rob a Victor's house!" he exclaims in a hushed voice. My jaw drops open. A Victor? A lot of us have stolen stuff before, but only pickpocketing people on the streets. We've never broken into a home, much less one owned by an important public figure.

"Really?" I ask. "That seems dangerous…"

"It'll be fine!" Astor insists. "I've thought this through! And afterwards, we'll have a lot of money."

"We'll be safe," Gonzalo assures me.

"I suppose," I say.

I wake up in a cold sweat. The memory of the moment still recurs constantly in my dreams.

I should never have agreed.

Less than twelve hours after agreeing to rob a Victor's house, all of my friends were dead and I was all alone.

District 2

Glitter Monique

We've lived in District 2 all of my life, and yet my parents still insist on acting like we live in District 1.

I have no idea why. As long as I can remember, my mom has always raved over the riches and perfection of the first District. She's always trying to convince us to move there, which we probably would have, if transferring Districts was way more common. Mom even tried to convince Dad to get a job as a Peacekeeper, just so that we might get transferred to one.

Luckily for me, Dad wasn't able to get a job. Mom finally convinced him to apply, and he was immediately turned down. They said he "lacked a fighting spirit", which I think was a fair analysis. Both Mom and Dad seem to be more focused on beauty than fighting. It's one of our largest differences, and we have a lot.

I also hate District 1. Something about having a District you don't even live in being shoved down your throat your entire life really makes you dislike it.

Even my name reflects my parents' love of District 1. Most people in my District scoff when we watch the Hunger Games and see a female tribute have a stupid name. But my Mom will always gush over it. We'll be watching the Hunger Games (my favorite part of the year) and a girl tribute will have a name like… Blush.

I scoff. The other tributes scoff. Everyone in our entire District scoffs. Mom goes, "Blush! What a lovely name!"

I roll my eyes at the memory of that one Game as the line slowly crawls forward. I tap my foot impatiently. I need to check in and get into this pen. I'm Volunteering today!

Of course, I came here at the time everyone else did. It's really unfortunate, because this means I have to wait in this super long line just for someone to stab me with a needle. I think it's a stupid process. Surely there's some other way to check us in rather than stabbing us?

I finally reach the front of the line. The Peacekeeper doesn't even ask for my hand, just waves me over. I sigh and reluctantly give her my hand. I wince as she pricks me, drawing a bead of blood to my fingertip. That was a tough process. I kind of have a phobia of needles, so I hate having to do this every year. Luckily, this will be my last. After I win, I won't have to attend another Reaping.

The Peacekeeper presses my bloody finger into a booklet and quick scans it.

"Glitter Monique," the machine states in a robotic voice. (Well, duh, it's a robot, Glitter). I swear, I think the Peacekeepers chuckled a bit after hearing my name.

"I didn't choose my name," I remind her, but she doesn't seem to care about anything I have to say. She waves me past. I sigh and brush past her, into the penned-in area. I squeeze through the many people crowding the aisle until I reach the seventeen-year-old section. There, I push my way in.

"Hey!" a girl shouts as I push past her in order to get to the middle of the section.

"I'm Volunteering, today," I tell her.

"I don't care," she mumbles, but she doesn't dare pick a fight with me. I smirk. Nobody's going to dare mess with the chosen Volunteer. That officially means I'm the most powerful female in the District. Maybe out of everyone, not just females. I don't know the male Volunteer, Glorian Stafford, well. He seems powerful, but I doubt there are any brains behind that brawny exterior.

I stand in place as I wait for our escort to take the stage. Elissa Wenthall was fired last year, which means we have a completely new escort. I heard it was previously the escort from District 5, but there's no way of knowing.

I can see her on stage, but I have no idea what the District 5 escort looked like last year. I guess I'll find out when she introduces herself, because new escorts always like to brag about how far they've come.

A few more people file in before we can finally begin. The escort pops over to the stage wearing an orange wig.

"Welcome to the District 2 Reaping for the 248th Annual Hunger Games! My name is Georgia Amalatic. Last year, I was the escorting for District 5, so this is a big step for me. I'm really excited to be escorting you guys." Yep, she's District 5's former escort. "I wish we could just get straight into finding out who the tributes will be, but first we have to watch the video and go over your previous winners."

I completely tune out as the escort (I already forgot her name) presents the video and lists all of our living Victors. We have a lot, I think the most out of every District. Next year, during the Reaping for the 249th Hunger Games we'll have one more: me.

Finally, Georgia finishes up with all of the tedious tasks no one cares about and announces that she'll now be drawing the names.

She must be used to whoever name she draws is the tribute, because she does the whole tactic of building suspense. She waves her hand over the bowl, and seems to be deep in thought when deciding on a slip of paper. In District 2, we all know that whoever's on that sheet won't end up being the tribute, so this only builds boredom.

She brings the slip of paper over to the microphone.

"Bellona Jasper," she reads.

"I Volunteer as tribute!" I shout and push my way to the front of the crowd. No one looks surprised, save for Georgia, who's clearly reveling in having a Volunteer for once.

"What's your name?" she asks me.

"Glitter Monique," I practically spit out. I hear some giggles in the crowd, and send a death glare in their direction.

"Excellent!" Georgia says. "Do you think you'll win?"

"100%." Georgia looks pleased, probably guessing that I have a high chance of winning. Which I do, but higher than she could possibly imagine.

"Now let's see who your District partner will be!" she says. She walks across the stage toward the male's bowl and doesn't waste any time when drawing a name. She returns to the microphone and reads out; "Nero Co -"

"I Volunteer as tribute!" Glorian Stafford shouts before Georgia can even finish reading the slip of paper. He struts over from the eighteen-year-old section. Since he was standing at the front, he barely needs to walk to get to the stage. He takes his place next to Georgia.

"What's your name?"

"Glorian Stafford?"

"Do you think you can win?"

"Would I have Volunteered if I didn't?" Georgia grins at his response, then turns back to the crowd.

"May I present your tributes for the 248th Annual Hunger Games: Glitter Monique and Glorian Stafford!" The crowd cheers, and I reluctantly shake Glorian's hand.

We're enemies, now. I don't want to have any contact with a guy I may have to kill in the arena.

Here's the District 2 Reaping! Sorry if this was crappy; I was tired when I wrote this, but wanted to write it anyway. I probably won't be able to do a lot of writing during the week, but luckily I did a lot this weekend. :)

QUESTIONS:

1. What did you think of Glorian?

2. What did you think of Glitter?

3. Who did you prefer?

4. Who do you think will do better?

5. What's your favorite book/series? (Mine has to be Harry Potter. It was such a big part of my childhood. And the Hunger Games, of course)

- Lilah