A/N: I'M SO TIRED OF WRITING REAPING SCENES AND INTRODUCING PLOT POINTS AND FORESHADOWING AND SETTING UP RELATIONSHIPS AND ALL THAT BUT I HAVE TO AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So here we have Teryn and Rodrick. Wheeeeeee. Also, warning: Rodrick is, uh, kinda triggering. Watch your step.

Teryn Gardner, District 9 Female, 16 years old

The hot sun sends rivers of sweat down my back as I work, my callused hands painstakingly pushing the hated plow. I track the movements of the sun with a flicker of anxiety in my belly, knowing that my time measurements may not be all that accurate. I don't want to be in the fields for any longer then I have to.

"Teryn!"

I turn to see my younger brother, Millard, waving energetically in my direction. "Shift's over!" He screeched happily. "It's my turn!" I laugh, abandon the god-forsaken plow, and pelt through the field, whipping scratchy golden stalks aside as my leg muscles flex and pull me forwards. I've always been a fast runner, but running through a wheat field is never enjoyable unless you're leaving it.

I come to a stop beside him, and ruffle his hair in an affectionate matter. "Why you're so interested in plowing the fields, I'll never know." I say playfully. He tosses his hands up, eyes gleaming. "Education! Enlightenment! Real-world skills!" I stick out my tongue. "You're thirteen years old, Millard. You don't really need to learn these 'real-world skills' yet. What time is it, anyways? Your shift can't interfere with the.. Reapings.." I trail off.

I swear I can feel a frigid breeze stir in the air, raising goosebumps on our arms. The playful light in Millard's eyes snuffs out, almost frighteningly fast. "I'm scared, Teryn." He whispers.

Usually, this would be the time where I would tell him to toughen up, to deal with it. I'm your standard antisocial tough-girl with a "heart of gold," (whoa, does that sound cheesy,) but it's impossible for me to be anything but nice on Reaping Day. My own special brand of fear is that when I'm scared, I ooze niceness like some kind of sweet-ass orphan child from that dumb play.

I wrap my arm around him, ignoring my instincts. "It'll be okay, Millard." I whisper to him, despite knowing that if any of the members of our family is reaped, it most certainly won't be okay.

Millard just sighs, his mouth pressed up against the cloth of my shirt.

Will it really be okay, in the end? For all of us? Certainly not. At least one child from the district has to die. But as long as it's not Millard, Fabia, or I..

Then I'll consider it to be okay.

I'm not minimizing the suffering and pain that the families of the doomed ones will go through, or the suffering and pain the doomed ones themselves will experience, because I know it outpaces any pain, both mental and physical, that I could ever possibly feel.

But I don't care about anyone in the world that isn't related to me. Millard, Fabia, Barrick, Mom, Dad, Grandpa Dmitri, hell, even Graham are the people I love most in the world. They're also the only people I love in the world.

If Millard, Fabia, and I are safe, then it will be okay.

Right?

Rodrick Olivier, District 9 Male, 18 years old

Red.

Red is the color of the blood that spills onto polished wood or tufty rug or scraggly grass when I finish me work.

Blue.

Blue like the thin arteries beneath paper-thin skin I prepare to rip.

Green.

Green like the eyes of my previous target, bloodshot emerald, rattling in their sockets as their owner played a little game of hide-and-seek with me, desperately dancing through her own house.

"Into the woods, it's time to go, I hate to leave, I have to though.."

What's wrong with me? Why am I so hopelessly empty? Why has the only emotion I've ever had in the last eight years been sadistic happiness? Why am I a hollow basin, only content to be filled up with blood and dying screams? why WHY why WHY why WHY why WhYyY-

Get up!

Useless street scum, rat.

God-for-nothing little..

Murderer…

"I volunteer as tribute!"

I crave blood and death. Lust for it. The stink blood fills my nose and I revel in the ankle-deep scarlet pools, the pale, overly stretched skin, the gaping eyes and glazed pupils. How many people have come home to see a demon standing over their loved one, clutching a knife like a lifeline?

They run, nearly all the time. I always catch them.

Only twice have those who came home to see my private therapy dared to attack me. The first was an old man who found me brutally mutilating his wife of forty years. His scream of rage and dying gurgles remain in my mind. The second was a fourteen year old girl, whose parents I had just murdered. Unlike the man, she didn't even have a weapon when she threw herself on me.

The death I wildly sow here in District 9 is painstakingly illegal. The risk of me being caught is too high to continue any longer. So I do what I must. I volunteer for the Hunger Games, and gain 23 new targets.

I lunge up to the stage and Peppercorn Welldinger, our escort (who I regularly dream of decapitating) goes impossibly white at the sight of me. I flash her a toothy smile, easily conveying my message- when I come back and win this thing, I will end you. She squeaks. My counterpart, Teryn something, is a muscular girl with freckles and a tan. She's staring at me with undisguised hatred. I daydream of ripping that tan skin off her bones.

Little brat, who does he think he is, tryna mug me? Do you know who I am, pipsqueak? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

Whoa, calm down Aaron. See how big this kid is? Don't you think he could be a potential recruit? I mean, after he gets beefed up, of course.

The little shit tried to steal from me! Are you seeing the same thing I am, Derek? Since when do we exhibit mercy?

I still think he could be a good recruit. We can do a little.. cleansing, first.

RedBlueGreenRedBlueGreenRedBlueGreenRedBlueGreenRedBlueGreen

"Into the woods…"

A/N: I'm afraid I don't have much experience with writing an insane person. If I get something wrong here, it's just because I don't really know much about insanity.