District Seven's Willow Jacksmith's POV

Before I went to bed, Timber said that he was going to go upstairs and fight Vida and show her that it wasn't a good idea to get too cocky for her own good.

Timber always had an anger problem. But, for some reason, when he said that, I felt that he wasn't angry at her, or wanted to really beat her up, but that could of been my imagination. He had told Vida that they'd fight and she'd get what was coming to her, so I guess it could of been my imagination. I was too scared to ask him if it was or not.

Fighting, making allies, those were the things that I was bad at that could of helped me in the arena, but for the life of me I couldn't get into any of the combat stations or get the courage to ask someone to be my ally.

My parents came to see me in the justice building, they were surprised that I even did anything during the reapings, and while they were proud of me for stepping up and saving the other kids, they told me that I was going to be missed if I didn't make it back. My one and only friend, Haley, came in, and all we could do was cry and tell each other how much we were going to miss each other because of my sacrifice.

But the thing was, I was almost like Timber in a way, I volunteered with only my thoughts and only wanted to accomplish one thing. In the end, we both told those close to us not to expect us back. We both did what we wanted, the only difference was our reactions.

I went to bed, thinking of how I could somehow survive the arena, when I suddenly felt a painful jolt shoot through my body, making me open the eyes that I didn't even know had closed.

My hands reached my neck automatically, as that was where most of the pain came from.

I touched my neck and felt nothing but the coolness of my skin, and the tingling that was now in every area of my body, but it was slowly disappearing. A good thing in my opinion.

"Are all you mother fuckers awake?" A powerful voice filled with authority shouted at us. I looked up in fright to see five peacekeepers. Four held their automatic weapons in their hands while the one in the center looked at us with those deadly eyes of his.

The five peacekeepers here weren't like the ones that were stationed at the Capitol, their eyes and voice and posture showed more discipline and seriousness, while their eyes showed hardness and deadliness. They were like the peacekeepers back home in District Seven. Those who hadn't gotten soft in the safe and wonderful world of guarding the Capitol.

I looked around to see that the other twenty three tributes were on the same side as me, all looking as confused as I felt. The only thing different was that the two District Two tributes had thick fresh blood all over their lips and lower jaw and chin. What happened to them? And why were they so calm about this? Sure they looked like they were in some pain, but they were calmer then the rest of us.

What were we doing here? "Good." The blond haired peacekeeper, who was the one clearly in charge and in the center of the peacekeepers, shouted as he looked at each and everyone one of us, seeing that we were all awake. Confused, but awake. "Now, if all of you stay quiet, this will go by quickly and smoothly. So if you'll all listen to-"

"What the hell's going on here?" A girl's voice shouted.

I turned around to see Vida, standing up and looking directly at the peacekeepers. Glaring at them really. I don't know how she could stand up and glare at them at a time like this.

We were in an unknown location with four armed peacekeepers. For all I know, these peacekeepers kidnapped us and want to use us for something that I couldn't even think of right now. And these peacekeepers looked like they weren't very nice people either. So making them angry wouldn't be on my list of things to do. "Why are we here and what are you planning on doing with us? What the fuck happened to District Two?"

All the blond peacekeeper did was sigh, look to the peacekeepers on his left, and move his head in the general direction of Vida before those two peacekeepers rushed towards Vida and slam the ends of their weapons into her stomach before they knocked her to the ground by bashing their guns on the back of her head.

"Hey!" The voice of Timber shouted out as Vida shouted out in pain. "Get off her you assholes!"

I then saw Timber run up to the peacekeepers that were beating Vida up.

Timber ran towards them and was about to hit them with his fist, but one of the peacekeepers turned around and slammed the end of his gun into Timber's face, causing him to fall to the floor before the same peacekeeper lifted his right foot up and slammed his heavy boot onto Timber's face.

I closed my eyes as I heard a sickening crunch that I could only guess was Timber's nose as he screamed out in pain.

"Both of you, get back here, now!" Their leader shouted before I heard them do some last minute attacks to either Timber, Vida, or both, before their footsteps told me that they were returning back into position.

When they got back to their position, I opened my eyes to see that Timber had blood running out of his now broken and off angled nose while Vida had a thin stream of blood running out of her mouth.

"Now," The blond haired peacekeeper said. "As I said, if you'll all shut up and listen, this WILL go a lot smoother and quicker for the both of us."

Well, whatever he wanted to do, I wanted it to just be done with, I didn't want to see any more of what just happened.

"I'm going to kill you!" Vida shouted. I turned to her to see that she had already stood up and was once again, looking at the group of peacekeepers.

"That a threat?" The blond peacekeeper asked before a series of guns getting ready to fire occurred. "Better fucking not be, because if it was, there'd be some serious, fucking, consequences."

To my surprise, Vida back off almost immediately, probably from the fear of getting a bullet in the brain.

A couple seconds of silence occurred. "Now that we're all on the same page," The group leader said before he cleared his throat. "Let me tell you all that this is no kidnapping, rescue, or ransom of any kind, your all still going into the god damn arena, I'm just here to explain some things and hopefully, your thick, fucking skulls can process some of the information. Never mind what happened the Victory or Jeremiah, just shut up and listen." The peacekeeper looked around, to each other us. Nobody said, or did anything other then the grunts of Vida, and Timber. "Now, the games normally begin at two in the afternoon. Well not today it ain't, it's going to begin at six in the morning, so prepare to see a sunrise and those facing it east prepare to cover your eyes."

Game changing rules. We were beginning eight hours early, and those facing the east were going to get a disadvantage from the start. What else was going to happen? "One more general thing you should I know for the arena, there are going to be weapons that weren't introduced in the training stations, so be prepared to face weapons that haven't been used in previous Hunger Games before."

Another rule change, now instead of the normal knives, spears, swords and arrows, what else was there going to be? Guns? Things that can control mutts? Acts of God? "Now, as for tributes, I have a few things to announce." The peacekeeper cleared his throat again before he continued. "To one, Malik Broker. You asked your escort, Ouid Lyles, to look into the name tag Carmen that was found on one of your old clothes. Well, it's been found out that you have no sister, that name tag is a Capitol clothing brand name called Carmen."

I looked at Malik and saw the look of shock on his face. He tried to find a sister, only to find that he never had one and was chasing a clothing line in the Capitol. That must of hurt him a lot. "To one, Jamie Paradis," The peacekeeper continued. "We found your token, a taser that belonged to a peacekeeper known as Lancer King. It's been confiscated for being an unfair advantage weapon in the arena and a prohibited weapon in general. Lancer will be dealt with accordingly." The way he calmly said it. He was going to kill that other peacekeeper. It was insane.

"To one, Caritta Desin. Despite your rebellious actions towards the Capitol, you will not be killed in the bloodbath or before these games start."

Well that seem fair. We were all too scared to talk bad about the Capitol, and this girl was going to get away with it? It just didn't seem right to me. "But you'll still be going into the games and will have to watch yourself, because we won't forget your words against us." Well that seemed better. Even though I didn't like the Capitol and the Hunger Games, I just couldn't think of them as letting us get away with things like that.

The peacekeeper then smiled before continuing. I didn't like his smile. "Oh, and by the way, some unfortunate ten year olds were shoot dead because of your words."

At that moment, I heard the sounds of gasps come from the other kids around me. I even gasped. It was because of the calm way he told that more kids had died, like they were nothing to him, just more dead people to write on the list of the dead, just like with that Lancer peacekeeper. I could also sense the hatred directed towards Caritta, even though I wasn't even looking at her. "You talked about hating your parents, and you only volunteered when the twelve year olds were chosen, so, killing them would be a worse punishment then killing your parents since you don't give a shit about them."

And because of that, Caritta was now even more hatted among the rest of the tributes. And even if she won, she wouldn't be forgiven in her district for the simple fact that she didn't volunteer soon enough to save nearly half the district youths, and her rebellious words didn't help any, as they only got more kids killed.

I could almost hear District Eleven calling out for Caritta's blood. "Now for the last little bit." The peacekeeper continued. "There was a situation that involved a tribute and a mentor involved in sexual intercourse in exchange for sponsor gifts and extra sponsors."

What? That happened? I guess they'd want to win at any cost, but that? Wow. Just wow. They were really going for the win. "Bring him out!"

After he was doing shouting, I heard a door nosily open before I looked towards the direction the sound had came from.

In that direction, I saw the District One mentor being dragged in by two other peacekeepers. He was fighting back, but with his hands tied behind his back, he wasn't putting too much of a fight up. The two peacekeepers overpowered him and dragged him into the room, and forced him down to his knees in front of us and the group of peacekeepers.

"The accused has been brought in and injected, sir." One of the peacekeepers dragging the career mentor said to his leader before giving a salute, without letting his one hand let go of the mentor.

"Excellent work." The blond peacekeeper told him.

I couldn't help but notice that while the blond peacekeeper wasn't the oldest, he looked like he was only in his late twenties or early thirties, but he was still the one giving the orders. In fact, the only two that were younger then him were kids not much older then we were at probably age twenty or so.

The blond peacekeeper looked back to us. "Now, this sack of shit thought that he could break the rules of the Hunger Games because he's a victor and a mentor. Well, guess what? He can't. Mentors aren't allowed to sponsor their tributes with their own money nor are they allowed to steal other tributes Capitol sponsor finances."

Wow, he was really doing a lot in exchange for his tribute, which I could already guess who it was that had given him sex. "So for attempting to breach the rules of the games, I'm going to make an example out of you. Turn him towards the kids."

The two peacekeepers holding the mentor turned the District One victor towards us so that we could see his face. His face full of fear and regret. "This is what happens when you mess with the Capitol."

Alexa "Fortune" Langer's POV

Drugs made everything easier to deal with. When I was high on them I felt that I could almost deal with anything.

My dealer was kind enough to come see me during my goodbyes, but he didn't give me any drugs, all he did was give me an ace of spades playing card. Reminding me of my nick name, Fortune. The time where I won big, he was telling me again that I was going to win, just like I did all those other times.

Having him say his goodbyes weren't the best that I could think of, but at least he was better then what my brother would of been, but luckily, he didn't come. It was a good thing too, because he was a real asshole, even before the rest of our family died.

He wouldn't let me live with him in the victor village nor would he even want to be near me anymore. Not even after I volunteered did he want to get close to me, even though he was one of my mentors.

I couldn't depend on him to help me, but it's not like anyone else was helpful since they wouldn't supply me with drugs. I felt like shit and could feel my body crave for the fix.

Now, looking at the District One mentor was harder then it should of been.

The two peacekeepers that had been holding his hands behind his back had let go of him, and now the mentor was now holding his head tightly and groaning, almost screaming, in pain as he held his eyes shut. His hands moved about like crazy across his face before he opened his eyes, and I was frightened by the sight of his eyes.

The whites of his eyes were now webbed with thick, red lines that were painful to even look at. They were worse then the District Ten girl's bloodshot eyes. Not to mention that the veins in his neck were noticeably expanding into sizes that weren't normal.

The mentor then started to gurgle, like he was drowning in something as his eyes seemed to expand along with the red lines inside his eyes before blood started to run run out of mouth and nose in thick streams.

The mentor began to gurgle more as crimson bubbles of red started to air up from his throat as the blood vessels in his eyes seemed to explode as blood teared out of his eye sockets and rolled down his cheeks.

The mentor clawed at his face in agony, trying to get the blood to stop flowing, trying to make the pain go away, but failing. All he continued to do was bubble up blood from his mouth, have blood pour out of his nose, and move his hands across his face while crying tears of blood from his exploding blood vessels.

I couldn't help but feel pain in my eyes as I watched the horrific event in front of me.

The mentor continued to struggle to hold onto life, but he eventually collapsed onto the floor, and died with those now hideous eyes of his wide open as blood continued to pour out of his mouth, nose, and eyes. And I hadn't noticed it earlier, but he was also bleeding from the ears.

"You see what happened to this crap tart?" The blond peacekeeper asked us. I couldn't look away from it, but I'm sure others may of closed their eyes or looked away. "Did you see what happened to him?" He asked again. "We've injected you with the same thing he was injected with, and it can only be removed safely with Capitol surgery, so don't even think about trying to find it and removing it, unless you want to die like him."

The games had their ways of getting rid of those they didn't want, but this was something truly new, now we could be killed at anytime and not know it until it was too late. Forget sending in mutts, forget getting hit by a fireball, those we could avoid because we could hear them coming towards us. This, however, whatever they injected us with, this was unpredictable and we'd never see it coming. There was no way to avoid them, and the Capitol could do it to us whenever they felt like it. It was frightening. "This." He said, pointing to the now dead mentor. "Is what'll happen to you in the arena if we don't like you. Or if we just feel like killing someone."

"You can't do this!" A voice shouted out. I looked over to see that it was that District Three girl, Caia Wicken. "Sending us into the arena at six in the morning, beating us up before sending us into the arena, killing ten year old kids and killing mentors in front of us! What does President Blizzard have to say about your actions?"

"The president's dead." He quickly answered. In that instant, the entire world seemed to go silent. President Blizzard, dead? But. Then. Who was in charge?

"What does the current president have to say about your actions?" Caia asked. Asking the question on everyone's mind.

"Nothing," The peacekeeper told us. "Because there's ain't no president, the Capitol's in anarchy right now. So for all you know, I'm in charge of your lives." That might be the situation. "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds never be in your favor."

With that said, the world turned into a blur of black and white and every colour in between, which was shades of grey.

The peacekeepers forced us into the next room and forced us into the launch tubes that would lead us into the arena.

The games were going to be different this year. There was no president, so what was going to happen I don't know. All I knew was that it wasn't going to be good. Anything could happen now.

I felt the launch pad being lifted up towards the arena. All I could think of was how was I going to survive. I felt the playing card in my pocket and thought: Let the games begin.

A/N: Well, this went better in my head. Now, the next chapter is the bloodbath and all I can say is, god damn finally.

So, a question to you all, who do you think's going to die in the bloodbath and who do you think's going to survive the bloodbath?

Also, who's your favorite tribute, aside from your own? Who's your least favorite?