District One

Jenriko "Jen" Florence's POV

"Ha!" I shouted playfully as a knife flew past my face. "Missed!"

I saw Terry throw another knife at me before I expertly jumped into the air and spread my legs to avoid the knife that flew towards my inner cafes. "Missed my again!" I told him as I landed on the ground, only to see him suddenly throw several knives at me in quick succession.

I didn't expect him to start throwing knives at me like that so soon and was surprised to see the many knives fly towards me, but my training quickly kicked in and I started to do back flips in order to avoid the sharp objects.

The knives struck the wall as I back flipped away from them. I kept up my routine until I heard Terry run out of knives to throw at me. I expertly got back to my feet by doing a somersault and smiled at my friend. "Missed," I told him pointing to the knives he threw at me. "Missed, missed, missed, missed, all missed."

"Damn girl," Terry said, impressed with my skills, as always. "Nothing can hit you."

"I know, right." I told him proudly. Unlike most kids at the training center, I learned how to be defensive just as much as I learned to be offensive. It was thanks to both my mom and dad, who both worked in the training center and had seen too many kids fail due to being too into one or the other.

"Even with your waist length hair, you can still do acrobatic stuff like that." I heard Terry say. "Surprised you don't get tangled up in it or anything. Anyway, get over here and wipe that sweat off yourself."

I ran towards Terry before he threw me a large white towel, which I caught with my right hand before I started to wipe the thin beads of sweat off my forehead. Even though we've only been in here for two hours, training lightly in between breaks, quite a bit of sweat was built up. Not enough that I had to change clothes, but enough that it had to be wiped off with a towel. "There's just one problem though." I heard my friend say.

"And what would that b-" I asked before I felt a hand grab my throat before I got slammed onto the ground. Hard. "What the hell?" I asked, surprised by Terry's actions before I saw a flash of steel appear in front of my throat.

"Did you really think I was out of knives?" Terry asked. His tone wasn't harsh or anything, in fact, it sounded like he was only playing around, so I was only surprised by his actions, not scared.

Terry then smiled before he lifted the knife away from my throat and offered me a hand up with his free right hand, with I gladly took. "Your parents told me to do that to you to show you that you should never let down your guard." He explained as he pulled me up. "Your too careless at times. They want you to be perfect by the time your eighteen."

I made a phfft sound before waving my right hand in front of my face to show that I wasn't taking my parents wishes seriously.

"I'm not going to wait 'till I'm eighteen, I'm volunteering this year. I don't care if it's a quarter quell, being part of a quarter quell'll make this an even bigger adventure, and perhaps more fun." Just think of what the twist might be. Oh, the possibilities. I was having fun just thinking of what the surprise twist this quarter quell might be.

I heard Terry sigh before he shook his head, while at the same time, smiled at me.

"Only you Jen. Only you would disobey your parent's wishes and volunteer at fifteen, at which point your parents say you don't know enough."

"I'm sorry to say this Ter, but I'm better at fighting and stuff then you are, even though you literally live in the training center."

"I don't have the honor of having Bain and Lucille as parents."

"But you have the honor of having me as a training partner." I told him, thinking back to when we first meet. Terry was a little on the unskilled side before I helped get him to the level he's at now. And even though I'm a year younger then him, he doesn't mind that I act teacher to him. He really does live in the training center since the owner takes in orphans and lets them sleep in the training center. just as long as they don't kill each other while he's away.

The weapons are locked up, so they can rule out death by weapons at least. The food that Terry and the other orphans get served is also high quality stuff, so starvation is also ruled out. The only thing to worry about in the training center at night is if someone wants to kill you in your sleep, and that's never happened in the owner's lifetime.

"And as a friend."

"Yeah." I told him cheerfully as I threw the slightly wet towel onto the bench we'd been sitting on, leaving it for my parents to pick up after the reapings. "Now come on, let's get to the reapings, I want to get a good spot in my section so that I can beat the other wannabe volunteers."

"Alright then," Terry said happily. "Let's go."

Terry then turned around before I kicked him in the butt, hard enough to sent him crashing to the floor. "What the?" Terry asked confused.

"Be on your guard Terry." I laughed playfully. "Practice what you preach."

Terry let out a little laugh before I helped him to his feet.

"It wasn't me who told you that," He protested while laughing slightly. "It was your parents."

Calamity Mershade's POV

Rain. I hate the rain, the rain brings back bad memories, memories that I wish would remain buried. But nothing remains buried forever, nothing, not even yourself. Or whatever could be considered yourself.

I don't want to go to the square, just in case I meet someone, or worse, I let a darker force take over and do something bad to them. But part of myself wants to go and create trouble, so I get out of my dumpster and walk towards the square against my will.

I can't control everything this body does, part of it isn't me, but at the same time, it is.

The rain soaks me to the bone within half a minute, not that I care, my thoughts are elsewhere, to some place much more important then some rain making me wet.

I look up to the sky to see the dark storm clouds that pour down the rain to this district. It looks like it's night time with the black clouds blocking out the sun, even though it's only about ten in the morning.

Fitting really, dark setting for a dark day along with dark memories.

I should stay away from those thoughts, those thoughts are what get me in trouble, make him do bad things. Things that I can see, but have no control over.

I hope we have a good reapings, for once, so that my life can be a little easier, at least for today.

I feel a sinister force start to surface within me. I manage to make my body stop moving and start, yet again, suppress it from taking over me.

Jenriko "Jen" Florence's POV

Terry and I ran for the district square, hoping to get a good spot there, when I crashed into someone in the middle of the street.

I fall onto the soaking wet ground, feeling the thick layer of water on the stone road seep into my dress while feeling the water fall onto my body as my umbrella fell to the ground.

"Ow." I quietly say, rubbing my slightly hurt face as I looked up to the person I ran into. "Sorry about that," I told them. "I was in such a rush to get to the square that I didn't see you."

He didn't say anything, all he did was continue to look at the sky, which I found kind of strange.

I got to my feet before I picked up my umbrella and walked around the guy to face him. "Umm," I said a little confused towards his actions. Or lack of actions. How do you ignore someone who crashed into you like that? "Hellooooo!" I said loudly to him, only to get no response again.

"Hey," Terry said, walking next to me before he waved his hand in front of the boy's face. "Are you alright?" The boy didn't even flinch as Terry waved his hand a couple of inches away his face.

"I think he fell asleep." I told Terry. "Must of been at the training center all night."

"I've never seen him around the training center." Terry told me. "There were about seven people there last night, but this guy wasn't one of them. In fact, I don't even recognize him. Do you?"

I did recognize him. His muscular look along with his dirty blond hair and green eyes weren't uncommon in District One, but I recognized his face with the large amount of scars that covered his face, and the blank look in his eyes, but I couldn't remember his name. I remembered speaking to him once, about three years ago. I couldn't remember where, but I remember that he kept telling me to leave him alone.

He looked lost, just as he had looked three years ago.

Why couldn't I remember him? I was friendly with most of the district and was friends with a good number of them, so of course I knew a lot of people, but I couldn't remember him.

"I recognize him," I told Terry before I reached up and snapped my fingers in front of the boy's face several times, and still nothing. "I spoke to him once."

"Was he always staring into space?" Terry asked.

"No." I told him. "He just wanted to be left alone for some reason."

It was then that the boy looked down at us with those blank eyes of his. It startled Terry and I a little, since we didn't expect him to do anything.

The boy looked at us for a couple seconds before he started to walk away from us. "Hey," I shouted to him, running up to him. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." He said unemotionally.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. "You were standing out in the middle of the rain."

"I'm fine." The boy said, walking faster.

"Is there anything that we can-" I started to ask before he shouted

"Leave me alone!" He then started to run towards the square.

A few moments of silence later, I heard Terry ask me

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know." I told him truthfully, remembering that he had said the exact same thing to me three years ago.

I felt sorry for that kid, he isolated himself from people and almost didn't seem sane.

But I really wondered about his blank eyes, they weren't the blank eyes of a cold blooded murderer, or of anything for that matter. They were just, empty, Glass like even.

When I got to the square, I signed in, chatted with some of the kids from school, then went into a closed off cage that was marked: 15. Why were we in cages? Why didn't these cages have bars or holes? Why were we cut off from the outside? I wondered that as I walked into it, before thinking that it might have something to do with the quarter quell. Or maybe they just didn't want us to go all crazy when we volunteered. Either way, it kept us dry at least with the roof over our heads.

But no cage was going to stop me from getting up on stage, all I'd need to do is shout loud enough for the escort to hear me. Get your lungs ready Jen!

"I can't do this!" I heard our district escort's voice shout through the speakers in the corners of our cage.

I turned towards the stage, as did every other girl in the cage, and saw our silver haired escort talking to the head peacekeeper. And if I didn't know better, I'd say that our escort was crying.

All the girls in the cage with me were silent as the escort continued to speak sadly. "I can't do this!"

"You have to and you will do it!" The head peacekeeper shouted to her. "You know what needs to be done!"

"No!" She shouted. Her voice was full of sadness. She had been our escort for as long as I could remember, and from what I've heard from some of the adults, she's been our escort for nearly twenty five years. But I've never seen her like this, she was always cheerful and full of life, and now, she was the opposite. "I can't and I won't!"

Just what was going on here? What couldn't and wouldn't she do?

"Your going to do your god damn job," The head peacekeeper snarled before I saw him pull out his sidearm, and point it towards our escort. "Or you'll end up in a grave."

"You can't kill me," our escort, Goldy, said with fear in her voice, her body posture showing that she was only slightly scared of the weapon in front of her. "President Blizzard won't allow it."

"Won't he?" The head peacekeeper said before a boom occurred through the microphones and a spray of blood shot out of the back of our escort before she fell onto the stage floor, clutching her stomach.

Screams occurred from both inside and outside the cage as girls began to wonder what was really going on. I was wondering what was going on. "President Blizzard knew that you'd try to defend this district, so he gave me orders to kill you if you didn't cooperate. The Capital doesn't have any use for those who get too close to the districts they escort."

Goldy coughed out some blood from her mouth before the peacekeeper with the gun walked up to her before he pointed the handgun at Goldy's face. "President Blizzard sends his regards." Our head peacekeeper said before another boom appeared and a spray of blood erupted from Goldy's head.

Screams occurred from inside the cage as I covered my mouth in shock. No, Goldy did not just die in front of me. She wasn't meant to die. She hadn't done anything wrong, she didn't deserve to die. "Let's get this show on the road!" The head peacekeeper shouted into the microphone. "Since your escort is dead, I am now your escort for the time being, and I'm not going to waste any time drawing from a reapings bowl."

What? So your just going to break the rules? Just like that?

"Girls of the age of eighteen, welcome to the tenth quarter quell, and may the odds never be in your favor."

At first nothing happened, we all turned towards the eighteen year old section, and nothing was happening, but then the girls inside the cage marked: 18, started to attack each other. First one girl, then another girl, then another girl. Soon they were all attacking each other viciously, tearing each other apart with their bare hands, until there was only one left. And she then tore her own face off with her own hands before she fell to the ground in a bloody mess.

I hoped that those girls were just unconscious and weren't really dead. Despite their bloody wounds and other horrific injuries only seen in the arena, I hoped that they were alive. They couldn't of been dead, they weren't going into the arena, they were innocent, just like Goldy was. "Now who wants to volunteer?"

"I do!" I shouted upon reflex. "I do!" I shouted again. While I was volunteering to save some of the other kids in the district, my first thought was that I wanted to go into the games. It was what I wanted and what I was raised for, so the thoughts of saving people, unfortunately, came as a third thought after wondering what my parents might say to me.

I didn't feel good about it, but at the same time, I was happy that I was going into the games.

Next thing I knew, I was on the stage, looking a Goldy's dead body laying on the steel floor of the stage with crimson liquid pooling around the upper half of her body. A look of fear in her eyes that now stared at nothing. I thought of that as a good thing, she never gave in, and didn't do what she didn't want to do.

"Name?" The head peacekeeper asked me.

"Jenriko Florence." I told him. "And at least Goldy didn't see what would of became of those girls, because of you."

"She can see them in Hell." He told me before shouting out. "Boys! Sixteen!"

Zane's POV

This was so much fun! Watching those kids murder each other with their bare hands. Watching them tear out their faces and gouge out eyes and bite off noses and watch the blood spray everywhere and create red rorschach blood splatter on the cage walls. I couldn't hear any of their screams, but I could tell that they were going crazy, and screaming from that and the pain they were inflecting on each other.

Oh man, what fun it is to watch the pointless slaughter of innocents.

You call that fun!? How can you call that fun?!

Shut up, you just can't appreciate it. It's why you were the outcast of this district, you didn't like the killings in the Hunger Games, in fact, you didn't like the games at all.

I tolerate the games, and I used to like them until you gave me a heavy douse of reality! And I don't like that you have a sadistic fixation on it!

Isn't that how we were raised? To become careers? To go into that arena and do what was expected of us? To bring glory to our district and become richer then rich and live like kings!

I gave up on that a long time ago!

Well I haven't. Well, I've only ever wanted to do one of those things in the first place.

"Any volunteers?" The head peacekeeper asked, giving me the opportunity I was waiting for.

Don't! Don't! Don't!

Don't what? Don't not volunteer? Alright.

"I volunteer!" I shouted before any of the other boys could even utter a word. The slaughter in front of them was just too sudden, too close to home for them. They didn't expect it to happen so soon and so close to home. I knew that feeling all too well on both sides of good and bad.

No! You didn't! No!

Yes I did, and there's nothing you can do about it.

A peacekeeper unlocked the door to this cage, grabbed me out, then closed it behind him and locked it once again before escorting me to the stage.

I saw the sorrowful faces of the adults, teens, and younger kids as I moved passed them. They were mourning their friends, their family, their classmates, or just strangers that got picked right in front of them.

Pathetic. None of you were worthy of being called careers if this shocked you so much. You were going into the games but couldn't handle death? Pathetic.

I got up on stage and ignored the dead Capital women beside my feet and focused on the girl in front of me.

I gave her a smile before looking around at the dark area and heavy rain. "Beautiful day, isn't it Jenriko."

You call this beautiful?!

"You could say that for us," Jenriko said. "But not for them," She said looking towards the corpses of the dead teens. "And her." She said looking to the late escort.

"They're what made this day beautiful." I told the young girl. "They're deaths brightened my day up."

Stop talking to her!

No. I don't think I will.

"At least their suffering ended." Jenriko said to me, trying to keep a happy mood. Trying to look at what nearly everyone would call the bright side.

"But your suffering is yet to come." I told her.

Shut up!

"Not if I let it." Jenriko said, putting on a brave face that glared at me, telling me to shut up or else. "And I can more then handle myself against the likes of you."

I laughed at her, she was too cocky for her own good.

I reached my hand out to grab her.

Don't you fucking dare!

Oh come on, look at her, she's so tiny and and frail looking, she couldn't possibly hurt us.

Just shut up and don't hurt her!

I change the direction of my hand and lean down and grab the late escort by the top of her dress and pull her dead body up. I was never really going to hurt that blonde girl, that was for later.

"Really?" I asked her as I reached my free hand into the the hole in the center of the dead women's head and pulled out some of the warm red liquid from her head. "Cause all I see is another dead girl."

I then licked the blood off my fingers while looking at the girl take in a look of surprise.

Damn it! Why don't you stop being like that for once in our lifetime?

Cause I'm not a bitch like you, Calamity.

Jenriko "Jen" Florence's POV

What was wrong with this guy? He was sticking his fingers into Goldy's head to taste her blood? This guy wasn't sane. And those eyes of his, they weren't the confused, glass like eyes that I saw before, the eyes I was looking into now was the eyes of someone with an ice cold heart as black as a moonless night. Was this really the same person who ran away from me?

"Tell the Capital your name boy." Our head peacekeeper demanded towards the boy, not caring that he looked like he was eating Goldy's brain.

"Calamity." The boy said calmly. "Calamity Mershade."

It was then that things started to click into place. Calamity Mershade, the boy who's home was burned down in an arson attack six years ago. The one who killed that thirteen year old girl five years ago. The one who had escaped from the mental correctional facility four years ago.

I now recognized him fully, and it made me a little more nervous being around him, but he didn't scare me, I could handle him if he tried anything towards me.

I felt the same as I did when I found out who he really was all those years ago, how I talked to him without realizing just who and what he was. Surprised. I was nervous being around him, but not scared. "Happy Hunger Games, Jenriko."

A/N: Darn, it's hard doing Calamity, mainly because he's a complex character. A little hard to do Jenriko near the second half, but she was at least easier then Calamity. Anyway, I hope I did both of them justice. And if not, I will later in the story.

To those who want to submit and have read this far, no more females are open at the time being. And and now psychos, I've got my one and only psycho now. You can create careers, but no psychos. I need males. I swear, nobody submits males, I bet males don't even submit males XD.