The rebels had made sure the Capitol would see what he was up to, the Capitol responded appropriately, an operative working for both sides snuck into his house and killed him, making sure the contents were gone with him. Haymitch wished he was innocent in what happened, that he was a mere bystander to the events of it all, that could blame the beautiful Elluria from 11 for orchestrating it. He couldn't. He was as much a mastermind as the higher-ups, the attention he had from being the victor of the Quarter Quell was waning in favour of the more glamourous victors, and he didn't have anyone that would suffer as a result of his actions if he ever got caught.

He didn't set the house alight, he did tip off the security department, did made sure Phaesus saw Hector's misplaced diary.

Guilt ate him and sleep provided no relief. Booze was the only thing that managed to ease the pain. He looked at the victors, who'd turned to alcohol and drugs and didn't see why he shouldn't be like them. They could at least pretend to be happy. He drank until near-death the night Hector died, waking up in a puddle of his vomit, feeling a deep sense of shame. That was a month ago.

The reapings were 24 hours away. 12 had fallen into a subdued state of grieving. Merchants greeted him with over the top smiles, one step away from begging him to buy out their whole stores. Rain clouds loomed overhead. He went to the grocer, his prep team always liked 12's food for stupid, artificial reasons. They were convinced it tasted it better because it was 'from the districts'. He didn't bother to remind them everyone's food came from 9, 10 and 11. He had a soft spot for them, he went out of his way to buy for them every year. Two small blonde children ran around the bakery, the baker and his heavily pregnant wife, already had his order ready. Cookies for his entourage, free bread for the Hob.

Stuck to the outside walls of the Hob was airbrushed posters of him dressed as a sexy coal miner. It was insulting.

Scion was one of the few mentors excited for tomorrow. His volunteer was a fine boy, strong and intelligent. He missed Cleome too. It had been more than a month since they were last able to be together in the Capitol. He couldn't think too much about her, he and his tribute had day-before preparation. Waking at dawn for running drills. Weights. Strategy tests. The kid needed to be the best if he was going to go up against the likes of other careers and tributes with exceptionally popular mentors. The 4 friends had one rule that had kept them from murdering one another while mentoring; don't take it personally.

Brutus took him under his wing after the man had come home from the 49th, a strange move on his part. Brutus was silent and brooding, he had the highest kill count of any victor in the games. Scion would later ask him why? The response was simple because Scion could make the trainers laugh in the middle of winning a fight. Sponsors would like the change of pace from 2. His plan, if he wasn't accepted, was to become a peacekeeper in a farming district, 12 or 7, with marks as fine as his he'd get priority placement. He liked being outside, liked moving and talking.

Scion felt a touch nostalgic, watching the boy practise answers to potential interview questions. He remembered the way he felt all those years ago, nervous and at the same time incredibly excited. The girl Scion was volunteering with had no chance against him. Crowds were obsessed when he put on a show of smiling and physical comedy in the chariot. Sponsors were intrigued when he scored a 10 and the tributes were terrified when he pulled off a terrifying and funny during the interview. He could remember it in such vivid detail; running for the Cornucopia. Battling serpentine mutts. Fighting his last opponent as drops of acidic water rained down from an indigo sky.

He wondered how his tribute would fare - surely he'd be the strongest in the Career pack. How Cleome's would. Would the two interact? He'd hate it if they did. If the girl was from the paper factories, she'd be dead in a heartbeat. Factory workers were the easiest to kill, they had no spine, no hope, some even stood on the pedestal long after the gong had run out, in complete shock. Farmers were the most fun. They knew they had a fighting chance – especially the old ones. Scion had been trained to kill them as soon as possible – the memory of Chaff drowning a girl Scion had spent his whole life looking up to had never really stopped haunting him.

News of Hector's death didn't faze him much at first, he never had much of anything to do with the man. 2's older victors announced the news with a gleeful smile and a warning to students at the Institute, rebels got punished, rebels were killed. Surely that's all Hector was? A stupid victor? He had no reason to mourn until the year's mentors all had a pre-games meeting. The timid women from the 20s were all crying, Mags was making small talk to the people from 9, and Hog, in way that was far too casual to be purposeless. He watched Cleome watching them, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. They stayed up that night coming up with more and more ridiculous scenarios for what they could have been talking about. He didn't ask her what she thought they were discussing, nor did she with him. In the days following, she carried herself with a resigned sense of sadness. He asked why.

"He was still a person." She sighed. Her words lingered on his mind.

After the news of Hector shook the nation, Bract noticed Durum being far more careful than he was before. For a long time he wondered if death would scare him into common sense, he was already less sloppy in the way he communicated and hid evidence. Durum was one of the outer winners from the first 15 games – before the 1, 2 and 4 could set up their training institutions, he and Winnow had to kill of course, though they never faced starvation, mutts or the disasters that rained down upon those who had to compete in the well-build, high tech arenas established from the 20th onwards. He didn't hate them, only it was hard to take them seriously when all they had to do was run around an old sports stadium to get home safe.

There was a level of unexplainably intense melodrama to the circle of victors, when you all went through a unique type of experience together it was hard for close bonds and equally strong hatreds to break out among them. Cliques formed and fell apart, people fell in love and found others to consider family. They were the only people in the world that could understand the horrors of the others had gone through just to survive; whenever one of them died it was like losing a family member. Bract didn't know Hector that well, though he was from the same generation as the mousy women that looked up to the man, he didn't know what to feel.

Outside, he heard the dull thud of a fertiliser bomb exploding. Supporters of 9's seemingly unkillable Secession Movement, were always brasher in the days leading up to the reaping; increased security only meant increased punishment – Bract could only assume it was their way of getting back at authority. Over the years he'd kept an eye on the main groups around victor's village, on occasion they would target Bract and the other inhabitants, and he quickly had to learn when they were planning an attack. Members of the surrounding groups changed over time, what he didn't expect was a group of country kids joining forces with the more violent kids from Central City. Completely contrary to the government's belief that more peacekeepers would mean more peace, the Secessionists fought back with more anger than Bract had ever seen. It didn't help Durum was slipping them coins every chance he had. Immediately after realising the country and the city had allied, Bract did what he was best at; silent observation before deciding a plan of action.

Their ringleader was a handsome, angry boy with a sick father and an unbreakable spirit, always followed around by a group of city boys equally as rowdy as him. Nothing appeared to deter them, and everything encouraged them. Durum found it amusing. Winnow thought they were fools. Bract was concerned for the leader, with the increased crime in 9 he was certain the government wouldn't hesitate to use the games as a chance to remind them how powerless they truly were.

Oh yes, how tragic. A death! It was too easy to discover and kill him. And the rewards Snow gave Phaesus and his team were a delight; he had all the money in the world now. It was rather exciting, it brought new levels of interest to the games that advertising could never dream of doing, they wanted to see if two women mentoring would give 10 a better shot at winning or if the mentors would be grieving the whole time. They wanted drama and if it meant higher viewership then Phaesus was willing to pull a few strings. With the bombs in 9 maybe he could use it as a chance to justify fixed reaping with a more entertaining tribute perhaps. He would have to ask 1, 2 and 4 who they were considering letting volunteer, make sure they let no one like ugly, forgettable Lyme volunteer again. Perhaps they could have a cold-blooded sociopath, there was a girl from 4 like that. Yes, yes, very thrilling indeed. They would have to be the best of the best though, they couldn't be boring. Boring was the worst thing the games could be. He asked his assistant to book a meeting with a handful of the mentors and see if they could be of any help. Hopefully, at least some of them weren't entirely useless.

Quartz Vivacian was happiest when she was treated like a celebrity, some complained about the attention, the lack of privacy that came with being in the Capitol. She revelled in it. 1 was almost a foreign place to her now; it was a district with a main city, villages endlessly connecting and mixing to the heavily armed border. Like its inhabitants, it was pretty at face value; glittering glass skyscrapers, perfectly sculpted gardens, manicured lawns. If you gave it a second glance, cared to spend a moment thinking about it critically, you saw cracks, noticed there was a level of grime to the buildings, that the swirling bars on the windows of the tall buildings weren't for decorative purposes; they were to stop the people within them from jumping out. There was so much more to 1 than its visual appearance. Countless cottages were left empty for Capitol tourists, while the poor and disabled were forced to live in the barebone apartments; if they weren't able to climb the stairs or afford the elevator, they were made to live in the dank underground, among rats and sewage. By design, 1 was intended to have the elite noticed and the poor invisible, existing with four distinct social classes the likes of which weren't seen in any other district.

The wealthy owned companies and businesses, they were entrepreneurs and old money, some even with fortunes inherited from before the Dark Days, they lived in spacious mansions and usually employed the help of servants. Their children didn't usually enrol in 1's Academy unless it was to discipline them - their people already had the luxuries being a victor afforded; prestige and money. Quartz hated them, unlike Capitol citizens, they saw the horrors of 1, they couldn't play dumb and yet they chose to because doing otherwise would mean admitting to themselves they aren't the angels they think they are.

Merchants had the luxury of living in the pretty cottages. It was an imperfect lifestyle, a far drop from the elites, sometimes they went hungry and there was a sense of emptiness and guilt they carried with them. They never had to worry about dying or being punished or going without for long periods – they lived rather comfortably. If merchants wanted recognition, they so desperately desired, they'd had a kid enter the training academy. If they were pretty enough and passed a handful of tests, they were accepted. Slick was like that, forced to enrol for family pride. He was a nice guy though – despite what the outers said – he cared about the tributes he trained, which you couldn't say for all the academy's trainers.

The working class had the most applicants for the academy every year - and most regions. Quartz was one of the few accepted; she lived on the 8th floor of a small apartment with concrete walls and floor and rough wooden furniture. Her father worked in the factories that processed the ores from 2, her mother worked as a blacksmith while she and her two sisters went to school. Money was tight, and Quartz kept getting into fights at school and they were talking about possibly suspending her. Surely it made sense to send her to the academy. She went and flourished while her family, like most of the working class, had to scrape by to stay alive. Going hungry, facing cold nights and stifling hot days, the threat of death around every corner.

The underground was hell on earth. And the outers said 1s had everything. Families were forced to live in small, stinking houses build into the earth, sitting along the district's sewers. Concrete furniture was bolted into the floor. Crime and disease run rampant. There was always news of someone drowning – especially after heavy rain. Peacekeepers targeted their people the most, whether that be to accuse them of a crime they didn't commit, to rape or just to beat up for the sake of it. They did the work not even Quartz's people would do; the tasks that killed people more often than not.

When she won the 48th, she vowed never to go back unless to see family. She hated everything about 1. At least the Capitol cared about her, they worshipped her for more than her ability to kill. They laughed when she made a sly joke and they fawned over outfits she put together and every movie she was in was always successful. They asked her about the food and art she adored and they didn't ridicule her or called her stupid for enjoying impractical things. Yes, the people who weren't politicians were self-indulgent and vapid, but they didn't know better. 1 did know. They simply didn't care enough to help. The Capitol was where she belonged and no rude, self-pitying person from the outer districts could tell her otherwise. She understood what brought people joy wasn't universal; every day she aimed to make sure other people understood that too. She wanted her tribute to find happiness before, during and after the arena. Because if there was one thing Quartz was better at than almost everyone, it was networking and having sponsors lined up, excited to help the tribute she'd mentor.

Phaesus wanted an exciting 57th Hunger Games. And she'd do everything to give her people of Capitol that.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading Unending Conflicts so far! Next up...reapings! For anyone who may be new to my story, I still have room for one more tribute to be submitted. I really hope you like what I've written so far and don't forget to leave a review
- Misty x