so the games start today... please read and review :)

The sun shone for once through my small window as I woke up, everything was peaceful. I stretched and felt that small sense of joy and comfort you get when you do so. But I forgot, today is the start of the hunger games, and no matter what I do, this will not be a pleasant day for anyone in panem…maybe besides the career's folks, and seeing a career die is a horrible sight indeed, knowing that their folks usually train them for these games and sent them in there themselves isn't exactly pleasant. When a career dies, usually a group of interviewers interview the parents and figure out why they sent them into the games, the parents always cry and make a scene, acting as if they are horrified by their childs "untimely" death. They did it to themselves, so what does it matter.

"wake up royal," gizz called, sincerely lacking his morning charm and delighted ring.

"I'm up gizz, what time is it?"

"about nine, the hunger games start in a hour, hurry up hurry up!" he stood in my doorway for a moment, taking me in calmly, but I could see it in his eyes that there was anything but calmness stirring within their depths, and everything besides happiness, which seemed to be leaked out of them entirely.

I stood on the small circular plate, waving at my stylist one last time before the tube closed and shot up. once it became dark, I shut my eyes, and never wanted them to open again. But of course, I promised royal I would make it home, I would make it home, and we would be together… of course she never thought about it the way I did, only a friendly way. And i hate that I'm going to die, and never get to tell it to her face, or kiss her, be with her, comfort her, be her best friend…

I took in the arena once the plate locked into place and the glass tube had lowered. All the other tributes stood there, some menacing, others shaking in the green boots they gave us. I looked around, and to my dismay, there lay miles upon miles of swamps and marsh. All the other tributes, even the large group of a careers, looked around frantically as cattails swayed and murky water moved slowly over rocks. The cornucopia stood before me, but before you could get to it, there was a deep, deep murky pool. I stared at it, and as I looked around, I noticed that each of us were on a tiny island that barely spread two inches out from our metal plates. For a fair distance in every direction there was water…murky, green, brown, dusty, slimy water. The speakers were just rumblings as they explained the basics that they do every year, but I wasn't listening, I was staring at the water, I swore I saw a ripple in it. I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to be the first one in it, I would wait a few seconds for people to get off it and rush for the cornucopia, anything that lives in there would go after them, and I would get a chance to get a backpack or weapon. I should go for a knife, or a sword, maybe that wire right there, yeah, get as much as you can, but not to much where you are weighed down.

The gong sounded, and I waited, most of the others went, only the small girl and boy from district twelve and six stayed, they both happened to be right next to me. Thank GOD they were not careers. I pushed back my black hair nervously as I saw a few tributes writhing and screaming in terror and pain. I saw the tail of a green scaly creature, thinking back to the times I went to the library and read about odd creatures like this. Some where menacing, with large teeth and the jaw strength of a train, so I've heard, and others didn't have a bite at all! Some were kept at home as pets back in the old days. I turned to the girl, who was looking at me, she only looked twelce, and I pitied her, I motioned for her to step off the plate and come to me. I don't know what happens if we stay on the plates to long, but I don't want to find out. She looked wary, and didn't come, but once I whispered "want to be allies?" she nodded, and stepped off her plate, the water was shallow around our plates, it only went up to our ankles in some places. Looking at her, I knew she didn't stand a chance really on her own. We both ran to the boy that stood there trembling

"hey!" I yelled at him, he jumped at the sound of my voice, and threw his hands over his head.

"want to be allies? With her, you and me? Decide fast, I think the careers got weapons," he nodded and we stood, watching the people all fighting on the other side of the cournicopia, no one noticed us yet, so we snuck around, we were only able to because there were paths of shallow parts. Appearently a lot of people didn't figure this out yet, there was so much blood in the water it was scary, and there were bodies floating in the water, their eyes lifeless and white. Once there, we searched around the outer layer of weapons quickly. The girl got a bow and arrow, telling us she was good at them. The boy got the small axe that lay there. I grabbed the spool of thread and I got my hands on a machete. SCORE! I could use this! Blades are one thing I'm good at… I watched their backs as they got food, water and a few more weapons. I grabbed a packet of something, I didn't know what was in it yet, but once we were far enough away, I would find out, and use it to my advantage. I couldn't think of anything un-useful the gamemakers sent in before. But I could think of millions of things that were useless otherwise.

We turned ans ran through the narrow paths hidden under water, once out, we navigated a way out of this wet mess. The boy saw it first, a large field spread out for miles, covering hills that didn't seem to end, and probably didn't. we all ran to it, I noticed that the girl struggled a little, I offered to taker her weapon, but she wouldn't give it up, probably the thought of me turning around and killing her was to great, so I nodded and took her pack.

We ran until we got there, and to tell you what, it was difficult. One wrong step and you went underwater and most likely were not coming back up.

We ran and ran, for how long I don't know, just until the sky became dark, and we could no longer see the cornucopia and its horrible scene. I wasn't tierd at all, probably because I am about two feet taller than both of these kids, and I have longer legs, making me run faster and take less steps. They were panting hard, bent over in exhaustion. I patted the boys back, watching his retch the contents of his stomach with a discusted smirk.

"the careers, they are coming after us tonight…I know it…" I nodded at him, knowing the boys word were true.

"then we better start walking, and while we do, I want to know you guy's names, okay?" they nodded, and once the boy stopped retching, I gave him a cracker and told him to wash out his mouth with the water in his pack.

She was staring at me still, her large blue eyes filling her expression with a horrified looking face.

"yeah?" I bent down and rearranged my pack, I had left it a mess from finding the crackers.

"what district are you from? You act like a career!" she whispered as I looked down at her.

"I'm from three…" then I started to wonder why the careers always stare at me when I'm training, or intimidating people into betting on weather I live or not. I didn't look up from my bag, I didn't want to look at her astonishment. But she seemed nice, and the next question she asked had no amusement or anything in it.

"whats your name?" I looked up, she had a wary expression, as if asking my name would cause me to suddenly go cannibal and eat her face of.

"victor, whats yours?" she looked at the boy timdly.

"lephora…"

"district?"

"six," so she was the one from six, I knew it was one of the two, so that means the boy is from twelve. He has the look of the rest of them that usually come. Sometimes we get one that's blonde and has blue eyes, but a lot of the time it's the black haired and gray eyed ones that get reaped. I don't think that their district has had a lot of victors, only haymitch, that drunken guy.

"so your from 12?" I asked the boy, as he spit out the water quickly. We started walking before he answered.

"yeah,"

"name?"

"roman…" I barely heard it, but he didn't look me in the eye when he said it, so I took it he was shy.

"yeah, well hey! I'm victor!..." the girl giggled a little, but looked dead serious when I got a glance at her.

"we better get running," they both nodded, and I saw that their breath had come back evenly and cleanly. So we darted off, me taking the lead.

We ran for what I would say to be about five miles. They were both faring well, I guess their bodies started to warm up to the vigorous exercise soon enough. We stopped to rest more often and I noticed the scenery had started to change into pine and fur trees.

"I think we made it far enough, so we should set up camp somewhere."

"how about in the trees? We are all light enough to climb pretty high, and the careers wont find us easily. If they do we'll climb higher, and they wont be able to climb as high as us considering their body weight and the lack of things to climb in their districts," roman said quickly, observing a large tree near us. Its branches didn't extend from the limbs until a good ten feet up. but lephora nodded and jumped at the tree with energy. I gaped as she scrambled up it like a squirrel. Once she sat on the lowest limb, she gave us encouragement until we all three sat in the tree, on different branches of course. We continued to climb up, until the small branches couldn't conceal us any longer.

"do we have any sleeping bags?" I whispered as we all searched our bags. I rummaged through mine quickly, and found one that was really tiny, but spread out and actually kept me warm in the cold night.

"only two…" roman whispered, looking at the one in his hand and back up at lephora. She smiled nicely, and pushed the sleeping bad towards him.

"you take it. I'll keep first watch, and I wont need it if I can use my jacket and climb around to keep warm…" she turned and grabbed her bow and arrow closer to her, I watched silently as she slung an arrow into its string silently.

"so we can go to sleep?" roman asked timidly from the shadows.

"yeah, as long as you trust our guard…" she turned to me, looking a little put down. All I did was shrug, "this is the hunger games…you don't know who you can trust…"

"well I wont kill you…" she turned back… and soon, roman was snoozing soundly, tucked up against the tree in his sleeping bag. But I didn't, I stared at her back for a long time. she wasn't normal, but yet… she was the good kind of different in her weird way.

"if your from six," my voice startled her, but she didn't turn, "then how do you know how to climb so well and shoot an arrow if your main export is modes of transportation,"

"keep your voice down, I don't want to get caught just yet."

"what do you mean just yet? And you haven't answered my question!" she stayed quiet, but suddenly, she turned, and was in my face. I felt her breath on my face, and stared at her mouth. It was awfully close to mine, and I couldn't do anything about it. I saw the white clouds billowing from her mouth, and I didn't like the distance between us. The sad part was, all I could think about was royal, that she was lephora…they had similar hair color, they had light pink lips, and some freckles across their nose. I didn't like it, she was to close.

"you better shut up victor, I don't want either of you two to die, and personally, I'm thinking of just commiting scuicide to get out of the careers way,"

"don't do that!" I gasped, looking at her in the eyes. That's when I realized that they weren't royals…

"you want to kiss me, don't you…"

"how old are you anyway?"

"how OLD is she ANYWAY!" I yelled, watching her breath seductively on his face. I was in rage, watching her do THAT to him, trying to get her to kiss him, it sickened me!

"you want to kiss me, so what does it matter?" she leaned in slightly, and I shut my eyes, waiting for it to happen.

"no!" they snapped open again, and I saw him push her away, she backed up, looking at him awkwardly.

"alright then…" I sighed in relief, " but why?"

"because I'm already in love, and I don't planning on being in love with anyone else until I die, weather I die here, or get to go home and die with her when we are old and unable." I sighed at that answer, feeling great that he would stick up for me like that.

"fine, you just seemed like you needed a little cheering up."

The rest of the games consisted of the careers killing another defenseless victim. She screamed as they pinned her to the ground, and they had a cut where every other tribute woke up with a start for half a second. The two and victor up in the tree almost fell, but managed to stay on the branches. Others shot up from their uncomfortable sleep in a bush or hidden behind a rock. Soon the cut turned back to the girl. She screamed bloody murder, but of course… it was a bloody murder.

They had a small knife, they but her face, and put some dirt in the cuts until it started bleeding brown and green liquid. I watched them pull out a rope, and tie her up.

They drug her like a dog back to their site, and killed her slowly, they ended up cutting off a few of her fingers and making her face totally unrecognizable. At that point, I had zoned out into the floor, and blocked out her screams. A lot of the other tributes seemed to be doing so too, with their hands squeezed into their ears.

"gizz…" I eyed my brother, he was watching the hot girl from district four finally kill the girl with a spear. She turned and yelled at the other careers, cussing them out and telling them that she didn't deserve that much. That it was abuse. Her district mate walked forward and drew her into a hug, but all she did was push him away and grab the girl by the foot. The camera followed her to where she left the girl, alone in a clearing. She pulled the spear out of her stomach and held it up for anyone to see if they were there. Before she walked away, she listened for the cannon that never sounded. When it didn't, she stared at her. The whole audience saw her eyelids flutter.

"why aren't you dead!" and the kicked her hard in the ribs, making her squeal in pain.

"i-…I cant do- anything about it…" the girls face softened for a moment, but came back harder than before.

"you should just die, I should feed you to the water monster…"

"just kill- me…" and so she did, but not before she said sorry for her teammates actions of torture.

"was that-…gizz?" he turned to me… "was that just weakness?"

"yeah, and she is going to die by morning I bet you…" he stood, and walked into his bedroom. I continued to watch absentmindedly. Only to see if victor came on anytime soon. He did a little while later, and he was talking quietly to the girl.

"she is beautiful...the way she is different than everyone. I miss her, and the thought of never seeing her again? It hurts me to think that she will see me die…" they switched positions, him taking up guard duty and her sleeping in the sleeping bag.

The camera came back to them a little later when he was talking again.

"it does pain me royal… I miss you… I'm going to try and get back to you I promise…goodnight my love…" I melted when he put a kiss into his hand and blew it to the sky.

I found myself reaching up and trying to grab it, the invisible kiss that never was and or will be. I figured out then, that I love him…and I wish that I could really kiss him right now.

"come home victor… please…" I whispered. And blew him a kiss back.

The amazing part of this whole thing was, the camera was still on him and I saw him catch my kiss right after I blew it.

chemistry! 3 more things planned for this story so please keep reading.

oh yeah, and since i feel like a plagerism-ish steal-ly person :

all rights go to suzanne colliins and was in no way intended to make money...it was soley created for other peoples (and my) enjoyment :)