District 9: Luc Everett (16) Pov-

The only pack I've managed to snatch from the cornucopia thumps familiarly between my shoulder blades as I jog into the first line of trees. The pack is somewhat heavy in that a weaker tribute might not be able to run with it, but a lifetime of carrying sacks of grain has shaped me up for lugging around heavy things so it doesn't hinder me much.

Before long, the grassy underfoot of the meadow melts into the leaf-strewn ground of the forest. I take a peek behind me; the cornucopia is well out of sight. Reassured I have at least some cover from the careers, I decide to settle at least for a little while.

After a few minutes of searching, I discover a bowl-shaped ditch easily large enough to fit me. I crouch down inside and immediately feel exposed. If a tribute came in from any side, they'd have the high ground and I'd be unable to escape. I'm too tired to search any more, though, so I just pull a few branches over the ditch, which will hopefully shield me from sight if my makeshift camp receives any uninvited visitors.

I wiggle out of the straps of my pack and pull it in front of me, letting it come to a rest on my lap. Despite its seemingly large size, the ditch can't fit my legs, so I have to settle for poking them out slightly.

I unzip the pack and reach inside. The first thing I find is made of cold metal, and it has a rubbery endpoint. Curiously, my finger gently presses down onto the button, and the entire covered ditch is illuminated—a flashlight.

Cupping by hand around the bulb to keep the light from being too bright, I sift through the remainder of my supplies. There's a small piece of cheese tightly wrapped in plastic and an apple, but not much else in the ways of food. I do find two wicked-looking hunting knives—not the sickle I was hoping for but oh well—and a packet of pills labeled "sleep" in blocky red print. The label chills me to the bone. Does it mean sleep as in normal sleeping pills or sleep as in… I can't even bring myself to think about it. The final sleep.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

That's it. The last poor tribute has just died and the bloodbath is over. Knowing the careers will commence their hunt any second now, I push myself to my feet, breaking through the seal of branches I haphazardly assembled a few moments ago.

I don't know how long it is before I find my new home. It could be thirty minutes or five hours, but the stopwatch freezes as I pick up on the sound of trickling water. It's a thirty meter walk, and I pull aside the branches of one of the whimsically curved trees.

What I see is a creek that looks to be straight out of a fairy tale. The stream scissors in a zig-zag pattern from one end of my peripheral vision to the other, and little greenish plants that look like clovers line the surface, with pink blossoms.

I set my supply stash down on the bank and plunge my feet into the cool river, sighing as I take a refreshing sip of water. The sun is the perfect temperature, the wind is refreshing, the gentle murmuring of the stream is more calming than anything I've heard before—it would be heaven if not for the fact I'm in the Hunger Games. I hope I can make it back to 9 sooner than later.

District 3: Pixel Watt (12) Pov-

The forest is beautiful. Tall trees wind their way into the sky, limbs twisting and turning like particularly confused appendages. There's something so hectic, mysterious, and playful about them that I can't put into words. I can just feel it. This isn't an ordinary forest, for better or for worse.

I squint upward toward the sun, marking its position in the sky with my finger. When I first left the cornucopia it was a short distance closer to the horizon—though I can't say anything for sure, my best guess is I've been travelling for at least an hour.

I come to a stop in a sunlit clearing. The warmth of the shining sun is refreshing after so long in the cool shade of the trees, though I know I can't stay here for long. Any tribute in a quarter-mile radius would be able to see me in an area so well lit.

Anywhere I look, the purple mountains in the far north draw my attention. Something about them is even more mysterious than the forest. Perhaps it's some sort of morbid curiosity, perhaps it's magic, whatever it is, my feet are moving toward them before my brain has time to catch up. It'll be safer up there in the mountains, with fewer tributes around. I'll have the high ground, and that's important as the only twelve-year-old left in these games. And besides, District 3 tributes have grown a liking toward mountains since the incident—was it five years ago? I can't quite place my finger on it right now.

Anyway, there was this boy named Router Lowell, and from the start everyone knew he was one to be remembered. He scored an astounding nine with his technology and trap skills and such, and his arena wasn't unlike this one—a flat plain surrounded by a ring of rocky mountains. Twelve tributes perished in the initial bloodbath, Router having killed one of them, and he literally fled the cornucopia with the careers' proposal of alliance behind his back. He ran right for the mountains and crouched down into a cave where he started assembling a sort of trap. Basically, he would melt some snow into a bucket and then pour it over some areas of the mountain to make the snow much looser. Then Router would make loud noises until a tribute would approach and then he would send his little contraption under the snow that would reduce the strength of its foundations significantly. A few good kicks, and the snow would be sent tumbling down the side of the mountain like a mini-avalanche, knocking back the intruder and either suffocating them or causing them to freeze to death buried in the snow soon after. He killed—what, three tributes this way—and then Router won by flooding the horn with snow and trapping the 1 girl and the 2 boy inside, killing his final opponents in a matter of minutes. And to make matters even more surprising, Router Lowell was only thirteen years old—the first victor under fourteen in history.

I was never expecting my small and tired body to be able to reach the mountains in one day, and I'm forced to rest as the sun begins to set with what I'll estimate as three miles left to the base of the nearest mountain. The purple grows more and more vibrant the closer I get.

When night falls, I pick a few berries I recognize from a bush and munch on them greedily, before, falling against a broad-trunked tree, quickly being overtaken by the sleep my body has been craving for hours.

District 2: Nero Ryker (18) Pov-

The other careers and I watch from a distance as the hovercraft's claw descends, snatching up tribute after tribute and sending them to wherever they go before they're put into their coffins.

"How many were there?" I ask.

"Ten," Jaehaera responds. "Less than usual, but—" a smile twists itself onto her face, "That leaves more to mess around with now that the bloodbath is over."

For some reason, the way she talks about the tributes like puppets to be killed off at her amusement makes my blood boil with anger. If I were less smart, I'd say something, but that's a sure-fire way to get kicked from the pack in ten seconds. Ever since the games started I've been having these little fleeting doubts about the fact that I'm killing human beings left and right. I've been training with dummies for nearly a decade, but killing humans is different. I think it's the screams that do it. With the exception of the shape, people aren't anything like dummies. Dummies don't scream. They don't flop around with the terrified glint in their eyes and beg for you to let them go.

I just sigh, leading the charge back to the cornucopia. I immediately run to the back of the horn to get a better idea of what weapons are provided this year. I find mostly knives and a few swords and bows—yes, bows, Declan will be happy.

"1!" I shout.

Declan starts into sight. "2?"

In explanation, I hold up the bow, and he grins. He's already got a spear, and I'm not sure how he'll manage to use both weapons at a time, but he takes the bow nonetheless.

"Where are the arrows?"

That's when I realize there aren't any. I spin around and around, eyes poring over the endless piles of stuff inside of the horn. There aren't any arrows in sight. I feel the color rise in my face. I must look like the stupidest District 2 boy in the world.

Trying to conceal my embarrassment, I lift my shoulders, unable to hand over a decent response.

"What're you doing?" Jaehaera shouts. "We don't have time to mess around! There's three of us and twelve of them!"

I start to grab my sword, but Jaehaera holds out her arm. "Nope. You're guarding while we're hunting."

"But…"

"This is my pack and you're going to do what I say!"

The dark glint in her eyes is particularly profound now, and they scare me enough to fall back into the darkness of the cornucopia, nodding in acceptance.

Declan and Jaehaera leave, and I fall back against the interior wall of the horn. I feel like there have been a million ropes wrapped around me, all being pulled in different directions, and I couldn't chose one to follow even if I wanted to. I'm a career and I'm in the Hunger Games. But it's just starting to dawn on me that the things I've been taught from an early age are all massive lies.

District 7: Erik Nordskov (18) Pov-

Cerise and I flee the bloodbath together, heading for the sparkling lake just beyond the cornucopia. Beside me, my ally cries into her hands, and I can't help but feel really bad for her. Less than five minutes ago she decapitated Joule Merchiers from District 3.

We skid to a stop at the shore of the lake, and sand sprays up, some of it landing in my shoes.

"You hear that?" Cerise breathes, sniffs punctuating her words.

I shake my head.

"That's the point," Cerise continues. "It's so quiet."

She's right. Around most lakes you can hear a perpetual lapping and splashing sound. But this one is dead still, with barely a trace of a ripple anywhere on its glassy surface.

"Should we drink it?" she asks, piercing the silence.

My lips form into a frown as I carefully weigh the options. It's only now that I realize how thirsty I feel—a burning thirst that feels like my mouth and throat are being squeezed by the strongest hand in the world. I'd give a handsome amount of money to have a sip of clean water—but then again the lake might not be clean… too often in past Hunger Games do tributes die from neglecting to test their water sources before just diving in for a gulp.

I shake my head no. "We should test it slowly. That way if it is poison, we'll get only a little dose and then we'll find somewhere else."

Cerise reaches into one of the small packs she snatched from the cornucopia, pulling out a thermos. I watch as she kneels beside the lake and plunges the thermos into the water. There's a little vortex as water floods into the container, and then she pulls it back out, filled to the brim.

"Who goes first?"

"I volunteer," I answer, and we share an uncomfortable laugh. Putting the water to my lips, I take a short sip, instantly feeling refreshed.

Cerise raises her eyebrow.

"Tastes great."

She takes a drink of her own and immediately seems more full of life. We sit cross-legged on the shore of the lake, engaging in conversation as I lay out our supplies.

"You know, I didn't see any other water sources on the way here," Cerise remarks as I push our hatchets aside.

"Right. It's not impossible it's the only lake in the arena," I say, pulling a bag of translucent orange headache pills out of the pack.

"You say it so calmly," Cerise notes. "That's really bad if it's true. The tributes are going to flock here."

"Think about it from the Capitol's point of view," I suggest darkly. "One water source, and the tributes have to come to that location regularly if they want water. That means more bloodshed."

That's when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Something in the lake…

"What was that?" I shout.

"What was what?"

"That!"

I find myself pointing at the empty surface of the lake, with whatever I just saw having seemingly vanished.

"You need a bit more water," Cerise says.

I take the thermos, allowing myself a little more water, praying the moving shape I saw was truly just a figment of my imagination…

District 11: Jaro Veldt (15) Pov-

I've never thought about how heightened my senses would be in a situation as stressful as the Hunger Games. I pick up on sounds that I've never known my ears were keen enough to hear. I can see farther than I've ever known I could. And my brain has developed a sort of methodical way of seeing things it can't. That tree looks especially healthy. We must be close to water. There are lots of animal droppings around here. There must be food nearby. Thinking about it, assuming so much probably isn't good for me. All that glitters isn't gold.

By the time the sun reaches its peak in the sky, I'm pretty sure I've gotten far enough from the cornucopia to settle for the day. Thinking back to past Hunger Games, the only time deaths occur after the bloodbath on the first day is when tributes are stupid enough to settle for the night too near to the cornucopia.

A lumpy shape comes into view, sitting lazily in a sunlit clearing. I walk forward, the sleeping bag I've strapped to my back thumping against my shoulder blades. It's a rock. Well, rock might not be the appropriate word. More of a boulder. It looks to be about five feet in diameter, and when I touch it it's scalding hot.

I sit cross-legged beside the large boulder and take the sleeping bag off of my back. I wish I could say there's more I got from the horn, but in truth there's not much. Just a pocketknife and—a yo-yo. Well that'll sure come in handy if some yo-yo demon approaches and demands either a yo-yo or my life.

Since I don't have a thermos, I figure settling near a water source would be my best bet. Taking all my supplies with me, I venture east and eventually discover a small, dirty-looking pool so small I could probably splash out the entire contents with a basketball. I'm not desperate enough to drink water that filthy. At least not yet.

I turn around and run straight into something hard. Letting out a yelp of shock, I fall to the ground. When I get to my feet, I actually close my eyes hard once to make sure they're actually working properly. It's the boulder. The same one I saw half a mile to the west from here.

It even has my handprint still preserved in the layer of dust on its surface.

Either I'm going crazy or that boulder moved hundreds of feet while I wasn't looking.

Well, look what we have here. An hour into the games and I'm already questioning my sanity. Just lovely.

Alliances:

Careers: Declan, Nero, Jaehaera

11 and 12: Adelia, Remi

Jack and Jill: Cerise, Erik

Loners (For Now): Pixel, Dory, Adelaide, Lincoln, Luc, Mavvi, Orford, Jaro

A/N: Here's the next part of Day 1! Don't think that this story is going to be super boring toward the end—not all of the days will take four chapters to cover. They'll move by faster as more tributes die off :D

Also, here's a reminder that sponsoring doesn't start until Day 2. Just hold out for a little longer and then you can pour your hard-earned sponsor points onto your favorite tributes ;)

Question: If you were one of the victors voting on whether or not to have the 76th games with Capitol children, would you vote yes or no?