District Three, the District of Technology. Geniuses tend to reside here which isn't such a surprise. If someone from this District were to win, it'd solely be because of their brain and strategic mind. Only once had someone from Three actually won because of their strength. Then again, there were only four Victors in this District, two of which were still alive. One had committed suicide, the other disappeared. Both had seen an outlet and decided to take the chance to escape Panem and their horrifying lives they had once lived and been content with. But nothing gold can stay.

Gold and bronze. Those are the two colors Roderick O'Neill sees as he tinkers with the home's power source. His mother would typically be doing this, the fixing and the tinkering, but, determined to show his knowledge, he was trying to fix it himself. His mother had taught him everything he knew about technology and his father taught him everything he knew about working with simple machines and maintenance. Roderick's parents were both a part of providing power to the District and the Capital. His mother was in the communication department of the Capital and his father the District's head infrastructure leader.

He murmurs a quiet cuss word as he gets shocked by an exposed wire. Typically he is great with his hands and straight with his mind, but today he has a lot on his mind. Today is Reaping Day, the day everyone in District Three fears. His older sister, Joyce, was able to escape the terrible fate of being Reaped, but he still had one year before he was home free.

Packing away the wiring, he shrugs and decides just to finish it off later after the Reaping. Besides, after today he will have all the time in the world to fix the damn electrical box.

Roderick stands up and walks back into the living room before flopping down onto the sofa. He drapes his arm over his eyes and just lays there, taking in the moment and the silence. With four other siblings, he will take any moment silent he is given and relish every second of it until he gets disturbed. He couldn't have been relaxing for no longer than five minutes before he felt someone sit on his stomach. He growled playfully, assuming it was one of his three younger siblings. Opening his eyes, he sat up and captured whichever sibling had sat on him before tickling their stomach. He was met with a high-pitched, girly shriek followed by,"Roderick! R-R-Roderick stop! Pl-ease!"

He gave his younger sister Samantha a wicked grin and stopped tickling her for a moment before starting back up again. The hysterical shrieks resumed shortly after. Roderick loved moments like these with his family. Moments where he could just let his laughter ring out, a genuine smile form on his face, and all his worries can just fly away into the wind.

"Roderick stop tickling your sister. We don't want her throwing up on you before you have to go," a stern voice called out at him. Releasing his sister, he got up and walked around the couch to his mother who still looked in her prime even after twenty-one years of non-stop mothering and working. He kissed his mother's cheek gently.

"Good morning mom," Roderick greeted her.

"Is it that good of a morning?" his mother responded,"You or Ryan could..."

Ryan was the middle child of the family between his two younger sisters, Brittany and Samantha, at age eleven, his older brother, Roderick, at eighteen, and his older sister, Joyce, at twenty-one. His family always seemed to have a active participant in the annual Reaping, but after today, two of the five children would be safe.

"Mother," Ryan appeared out of no where. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"Seriously mom, who would even be willing to reap him? I mean have you seen his face?" Roderick caught Ryan in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles on his brother's head.

"Hey quit it!" Ryan tried to escape his older brother.

"Roderick, stop. You two have to get ready." Joyce joined the conversation.

"All right, fine. I'll go get ready madame," he teased. Joyce returned Roderick's joke with a scowl. Typical sibling affection between the two.

"Euphoria! Eu-pho-ri-a! Wake up, wake up!"

Euphoria Kree was greeted with her shoulders shaking by an anonymous attacker. Although, the attacker wasn't so anonymous. Ever since Euphoria was twelve, she was always woken up with shaking shoulders or water to her face on the same day every year. That could only mean two things. One, her attacker was her younger sister Zilly, and two, today was Reaping Day.

"Get off of me!" Brat, she added secretly.

"But Euphoria you have to get up so I can start doing your hair and your makeup and making you all pretty for today!" Zilly said with strong enthusiasm.

"Zilly, I'm already pretty enough, I don't need makeup to make me any better," she replied. Euphoria tried shoving Zilly off of her,"Get off of me already and let me sleep."

"You're so cranky in the morning," Zilly murmured, hopping off of her sister and exiting her room like the good little sister she was.

"Finally," Euphoria sighed. And with that, she closed her eyes and fell back into a deep sleep for a few hours. She dreamed of nothing but darkness, as usual. She was too old for dreams in her opinion, well that was the explanation as to why she never dreamed. She hasn't dreamed anything since she was twelve, the year she was first eligible to be in the Hunger Games. Was it fear that stopped her dreams, or the curse of reality? She had yet to defer that answer.

It was about half an hour before the Reaping started when Euphoria had woken up from her dream of nothingness. She got out of her bed and wandered downstairs, but not before running into her younger brother Bolt.

"Out of my way Bolt," Euphoria muttered harshly. Bolt responded immediately and sidestepped out of her way. He, even at his young age, knew how to handle his eldest sister. She was kind whenever she wanted to be, but most of the time she was just cocky or vain, sometimes both. The fact that she had just woken up as well didn't help her personality either. She wasn't a pretty sight in the morning, that's when her vain, "I'm-better-than-you" persona came out of it's shell.

"Euphoria Kree! Did you just wake up?" her mother, Ekaterina Kree, asked her.

"Yeah, deal with it. I could go to the Reaping like this and still look nicer than some of the girls around me," Euphoria argued.

"Euphoria! Do not talk of the poor like that!" her mother scolded.

"What? It's not my fault they willingly sacrifice themselves by voluntarily getting tesserae," she countered.

"I'm sorry darling, but in case you've forgotten, we use to be that way until-" her mother was cut off by her oldest daughter.

"I know, I know. We would've been on the streets had it not been for father's incredible promotion. Well guess what mom, we can't live on what he's left behind forever! He's dead, you have no job, I say we start getting tesserae and training me so that when I'm eighteen I can go into the Hunger Games and win. C'mon, we all know I can do it," said Euphoria.

"You are not going into those Games unless you are Reaped, you hear me Euphoria? There's no way I am letting you go on a suicide mission."

"Watch me. After today, I'll be signing up for tesserae and there's nothing you can do about it. I'll go into those damned Games when I'm eighteen, cream the competition, come home and we'll never have to worry about food or money again because I'll be the Capital's precious little toy that they can't stand to see go back into poverty."

"Just go get ready for today, Euphoria. We'll finish this conversation later," her mother growled.

"Whatever."

Walking with only one of his siblings into the Reaping made Roderick feel safer. With this being his last year, that meant two of the five children would be safe from the Hunger Games. Sure his other three siblings would be in next year, Brittany and Samantha would be 12 and Ryan 16, but that was a whole year away, so Roderick didn't mind. The only thing he minded was that after this year he wouldn't be able to protect Ryan because he wouldn't be able to volunteer for him. At least Samantha had Brittany and Brittany had Samantha, but Ryan would just have Ryan. All that Roderick knew about next year that he was sure about was that he would stop any one of his younger siblings from getting any tesserae and having their name be put into the bowl one extra time. He wouldn't forgive himself if he knew that one of them would be going into the Games just because they had greater odds that he could have prevented. Sometimes he really hated his protectiveness over his siblings, but he knew it was for the best.

"Please extend your arm and relax," a Peacekeeper ordered. Roderick obeyed and stuck out his arm. Once he felt the prick, he winced only slightly. His blood was collected and he was cleared to walk into the boys crowd. He gave one last look to Ryan.

"See you soon Ryan," Roderick said.

"Wait, Roderick. Do you ever get a gut feeling about something? Like something bad is going to happen," Ryan asked.

"Quite often yes," Roderick replied.

"I have that."

Roderick looked at his younger brother. He carefully planned out his words in his head,"Don't worry. If anything bad happens, I'll swoop in and help you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good, now head to your section, the sooner we get this over with the sooner we can go home."

The two brothers took their places, one in the eighteens year-old section, the other in the fifteen year old section.

Euphoria was standing with her fellow sixteen year-old girls with a blank expression on her face. All she wanted right now was to go home, change out of this itchy dress, and go into the woods, her woods. There she could explore and create whatever she wanted. There was something mysterious about the woods that made her happy and even friendly, two things she never was unless she consented them to be felt.

Right now she was only allowing herself to feel blank.

Her hazel eyes travel upwards to the woman in the sparkly silver dress that, with the slightest movement, makes her looks like one of the stars Euphoria always enjoyed seeing in the night sky whenever she'd be in the woods. Now she suddenly likes the stars less. Whoever thought an entire dress of crystal was a good idea was clearly blind.

"Happy Hunger Games everyone! And may the odds be ever in your favor! I am looking out at all you and I am just overwhelmed at the amount of potential before me. Whoever shall be chosen will well represent District Three. Let's discover who these lucky tributes are, shall we?" Mrs. Sparkles waltzes over to the bowl over halfway full with the names of every girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Her gentle hand with white nail polish dips into the bowl like a ladle. She scoops out a few slips before plucking all out but one. She swiftly opens the last slip, clears her throat in a somehow lady-like manner, and reads,"Euphoria Kree!"

Euphoria could almost physically see her death reenacted before her as soon as her name is called out. Shaking her head in disgust at the conjured up image, she sticks her head up in her usual way and walks with confidence onto the stage. She will not appear weak, she decides. Hopefully she is able to convince everyone in the Capital and her fellow tributes that she's a challenge even with her slim body.

She was able to convince all but one person in the audience that she was fearless of these Games, and that was herself.

Roderick didn't notice this however and just kept staring as she walked up onstage and stood next to Mrs. Sparkles. The woman's smile seemed to fall as she realized just how little of a chance the slim girl may have. Maybe that's why she was in such a hurry to move on to the boys.

She repeated what she had done for the girls and called out in a voice that didn't waver,"Ryan O'Neill!"

Thoughts raced through Roderick's head. His brother was a book nerd that could barely even carry his younger sister. There was no way he would be able last a day in whatever arena they had chosen. Sure his brother was smart, Roderick was too, but they both knew that Ryan wouldn't come out of that arena alive. So he did what seemed to be the only logical solution.

"I volunteer!"

Red. That's what Roderick was seeing now. Red, red, and more red. The red for his blood he would shed. The red for the blood of his other tributes. The red for the fear that lodged itself into his heart like a disease he couldn't vaccinate.

As he stood on that stage, he refused to look at anyone but the open air before him for he knew that if he looked around, he'd find one of his family members and crack, and that was something that sponsors wouldn't find alluring. If he were to get out of this, he was going to start using his big brain more, no exceptions allowed.

"What might your name be then?" Mrs. Sparkles asked.

"Roderick O'Neill."

"How nice of you to volunteer for your brother, that's what true loyalty is. Let's have a big hand for our two daring tributes!"

Both tributes on the stage couldn't believe their terrible fates. Both dreams they had were crushed by a piece of paper in a glass bowl. A stupid white sheet of paper with black words was something so innocent and harmless but it was capable of something terrible. It was capable of a death sentence which Euphoria and Roderick were chosen for. Blackness was all either could think about. With no words, how could their minds process anything?

I'm just going to state the obvious here. Most of you guys thought I was being rude last chapter in my Author's Note. Fair enough, I never said I was the nicest person around, but that wasn't my intention. My point is, is that everyone is similar is personality except for minor details. I know I said I wouldn't tweak much on purpose, but maybe the creators are noticing that I've started to stray a bit from their personality and focusing on the little insignificant details thrown in. I love every tribute submitted because it warms my heart to know that you guys actually took the time of day to contemplate an original character, type it up, and deal with me being either a super speedy or not quick enough responder. So please don't think I hate your tribute, because I love them all. I'll only hate them if you either tell me to or you give me a reason to, and so far, I've had neither happen to me.

Think of this scenario in a different way: everyone is a chocolate sprinkle who is roughly 17, smart, and good with plants. Fair enough, I have wiggle room with that, but after a while I get more tributes like that and it's just like: "ugh, more chocolate sprinkles?" So here's what I'm doing, which I'm cool if you don't like this, but I'm slightly manipulating these "sprinkles". By focusing on the details in their persona that other tributes don't have, we are going from a chocolate sprinkle to a red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple/whatever color sprinkle. Therefore, each sprinkle is technically the same except for in color. Does this make sense? Feel free to complain to me if you hate this with your life. I'm just trying to add variety without killing the entire original character itself, because it's your character not mine. (Just so we are all clear: I'm not hating anyone's character! I think they're all original, it's just I don't like repetitiveness so that's my only true irritation)

I will say though, I am genuinely sorry if I offended you with my Author's Note and slight venting last chapter. I'm just getting frustrated with my inability to write anything, my inability to post anything, and my inability to actually enjoy myself; and it's becoming apparent. My life is just becoming screwed up so I can get ticked off kind of easily. Y'all probably don't care about that so I'll leave that topic there. Just know that I read every review/PM and whenever someone says they were offended by me or they don't like my work, I feel actual guilt or sadness and it's not a good feeling. So let me say it again: I'm sorry. I have no right to lash out at your characters. You guys put some serious time, thought, and creativity into them and I'm just seeing the repetitiveness, and that's not what a good author should do. I'm sorry. I'll try not to let it happen again. And, if it does, feel free to lash out at me. I'll just have to learn to deal with the hate and fix our problems.

Salus populi suprema lex esto
("the welfare of the people is to be the highest law")