Ten months after the tenth quarter quell

I had given birth to not one kid, as everyone had expected. Instead, I got the unforeseen result of getting triplets. Sixteen years old, and I was a victor and a mother of three children that were from the result of entering the arena.

I choose to give birth to my kids, because I knew that I wouldn't of been able to live with the guilt of killing someone. And no matter the circumstances that said that I should get rid of them, I couldn't get out the overwhelming truth, they were a part of me. Killing them would of been like killing myself.

I also didn't want to give them up, because I was their mother, and I should be the one to raise them, even through my imperfect methods. Whatever they might be. No matter what anyone said, I was going to raise them the way that I wanted to raise them. Did that mean that I knew better than others? No. I just wanted my kids to be raised in an environment that told them that your purpose in life was to train for a game that killed you more than it did anything else.

Other than that, they'd be raised as normal district kids. They'd be going to school, learning how to fight, making friends, or enemies, or both, and just living, without having to worry about their life ending early. Just like so many had before them had.

The Hunger Games weren't worth the risks and rewards. All the games did was ruin your life, wither you're the loser or the winner. I learned that the hard way, I didn't want my kids to learn it that way.

For many months, I had been thinking of names to give my kid, but couldn't decide which one I was going to give them. But now I had two boys and a girl, so I managed to name them everything that I wanted.

The first born, a boy, got the name Chance Dylan Florence. The second born, a girl, got the name Tanner Cala Florence. The third born, another boy, got named Adrian Terry Florence. I named them after the friends I had made, and the circumstances we had faced in the arena. And what I faced after the games.

I recovered for a month, and with the help of my parents taking care of the kids with me, I made a full recovery quite quickly.

I'm glad that I didn't get rid of those kids, they were probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Despite all the work and misery that they gave me from time to time. They were my life now.

But while I did care about my kids, and my life, I still had one last, stupid thing to do. That thing was to sneak into the correctional facility, find some records of Calamity Mershade, and get out of there. It couldn't be that hard to escape, Calamity had done it when he was fourteen. I was sixteen, and a victor. I was more acrobatic than he was, so if he could do it, so could I.

I managed to sneak into the facility, using the cover of darkness and avoiding the guards. That had been the easy part, but the hard part was had begun. Now I had to find the records office, and I didn't know the layout of the building. I was walking blind.

But when I got inside, I almost forgot about finding the records when I saw what was happening inside the building. Inside was like the vision of a nightmare. The things that I saw and heard were things that I would of expected in a torture chamber.

The sounds of prisoners crying, yelling, scratching, killing, dying. It made me want to cover my ears. And I did, but it hardly helped. And as I walked past the cells that they were kept in, I saw just how inhuman the conditions were. Beds that were almost nothing and rotting, cells that hardly fit, starving and dehydrated inmates, clothes that didn't protect them from the elements, and that was just the ones inside prison cells.

As I adventured deeper into the facility, I saw guards dragging and beating prisoners, prisoners hurting themselves, hurting each other, men and women in white lab coats sticking needles into bodies, feeding them crystals, and torturing them in ways that I couldn't of even imagined.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was just so unreal. The physical and mental torture that they inflected upon their patents. I wasn't the one that was put under mental stress, and I felt as if I was the one being tortured. Their words alone almost made me want to submit.

I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't belong in that hell hole, and that I had came for records on one of their inmates. But I almost didn't want to. I had already seen enough. If this was their way of trying to correct someone, than I could see why Calamity was as crazy as he had been.

This wasn't a correctional facility, it was a death camp. A way to experiment with people's minds and bodies. I had to wonder if they even had making the people in this building better in their minds. It sure didn't look like it from the way they enjoyed giving out acts of cruelty.

Sneaking through the building, I found the records room, and snuck in. It took what felt like a lifetime to find Calamity's records, and I was shocked to discover that he had two names. The first name was obviously Calamity Mershade, but his second name was Zane and only Zane.

It said that he had a rare case of split personality disorder, where two personalities know of each other, and even fight for dominance. They reported that Calamity and Zane often fought each other, clawing at each other and shouting at each other, trying to get the other to give up.

It also reported that Zane was apparently the so called evil one, while Calamity was the so called good one.

I started to think of that time Calamity had came to talk to me, right after the Capitol interviews. Was this what he wanted to tell me? That he wasn't the one in control? That I should stay away from him because Zane was a murderer and rapist? I would never know now.

I tried to find out more about Calamity, but it seemed that he didn't have a past before he got sent to this place. Why would he have no past? I don't know. The truth would never be known now.

I then tried to escape the prison, but I got caught. I was then subjected to the same treatment as the other prisoners.

I experienced hell on earth before I finally got rescued by a group of peacekeepers that demanded to search the area. It was in my cell that they discovered where I was.

I had been missing for a week, and the reason they had gone searching for me was because my parents had been worried about me. When they couldn't find me within the first two days that I was gone, they knew that something was up. The correctional facility was the last place that they searched.

Turns out that I was gone for a week, but to me, it felt like a thousand years. I had discovered first hand what went on in the correctional facility, I couldn't imagine being in here for the rest of my life. It would turn anyone insane.

I got escorted back home, still traumatized by what I had to go through. I thought that the things that happened in the games were bad, but this was just as, if not worse, than the arena. Calamity and Victory had been playing the games since before they had entered.

A boy that was fighting an evil second personality, and a girl that was fighting for her sister. They had been the villains in the arena, but they had their own personal demons to fight, just like everyone else.

One year after the tenth quarter quell

I was forced to mentor the District One girl this year. She was older than me, eighteen years old, and confident that she would win. She reminded me of the old me. I didn't like it.

She didn't know what she'd be facing in the arena. What kind of nightmares that might lurk in that place where twenty four kids were taken each year to kill each other, all for entertainment. And worst of all, I knew that she was going to die. I could see her flaws and how others would take advantage of her before using her weaknesses. I knew, because she was just like me, only older. Older, stronger, and more cocky and arrogant then I had been.

She looked down at my five foot four body with her six foot three height and laughed. She told me that the only reason I had won was because other people had done all the heavy lifting for me. She went on to tell me that I only killed Daria, Caia, Calamity, and Victory, because someone had weakened them for me. That if Calamity hadn't injured Victory as much as he did, she would of won.

I didn't want to be talked down by her, especially considering that I had to survive a fight against Victory and Calamity. A fight that included my hand getting impaled, said hand getting ripped off, an eye gorged out, my neck getting a hand shoved into it, and the other injures that I suffered because of them.

This girl didn't look like she knew just how terrible that pain was, nor did she seem to care. She told me that she was a better fighter then I had been, and that she wouldn't go through the same things as I did.

I told her that she wouldn't, because I had gone through something that the game makers wouldn't allow. Not only that, but I looked at the other careers, and the other tributes. None of them looked like they could ever be like Victory or Calamity.

I didn't like the girl that I was supposed to mentor, but it wasn't my job to like her, it was my job to make sure that she made an impression on the Capitol and got sponsors. It was my job to make sure that she gave a good show, and get her home.

She did well during the training days, did well during her Capitol interviews, and she was good looking as well, so it wasn't hard to get some sponsors for her. She didn't take my advice, doing everything her own way, making me think of how I had been with my mentor. Now being on the other side, I could see just how annoyed and patient she had been with me.

Even though the girl annoyed me, I still wanted her to come home, so I continued to try and give her advice on how to survive the arena. What little I did know, I tried to share with her, but she didn't seem interested in what I knew. She said that she wasn't going to listen to someone that had cheated her way through the games and was younger than her.

When the bloodbath started, she and her allies slaughtered nine tributes, and her as the leader of the career pack, split the pack into three groups. One stayed near the cornucopia, the other two groups went out in search for tributes.

I couldn't help that Dylan's friend, Caspian, was in the games. Even though Dylan had died and Caspian had seen what had happened to him, he still volunteered. I couldn't understand why he'd still want to volunteer after what had happened to his friend. I guess he thought that because Dylan's game was so different from the norm that he didn't expect his game to be like Dylan's.

A couple days past, and they had found four non-career tributes during their hunt. They were making good time. But her allies got tired of her bossy nature, and she got stabbed in the back of the head. Caspian's knife going through the soft part of the lower head, and through her mouth. Her brain activity started to die as she saw that her allies had betrayed her, and then she died.

Apparently, the Capitol audience thought that she was annoyingly bossy as well. Even more so than Victory. I didn't think that was even possible since Victory hit us whenever we seemed to do something wrong, or just annoy her. I guess because Victory didn't talk in the arena.

The boy from my district died as well, getting killed by the District Nine girl who made it to the final four. She meet her end by the victor of this year's game, the District Four male. Caspian.

I couldn't help but notice that the Capitol audience was reviewing what they liked and didn't like about the games. They thought of the parties that they were go to, how they would change their bodies to make respect to the winning tribute, and what they were going to be doing for the next couple of weeks or so. And what made me angry the most, was that they said that they couldn't wait for the next Hunger Games.

That just made me sick. They were ruining kids lives, and they wanted more. But then again, they didn't care about our lives, they just cared about their's. And just like my life, Caspian's was going to be at the mercy of the Capitol's. They were going to have him do whatever they wanted, and there was nothing he could do about it. Not unless he wanted those that he loved gone from his life.

Three years after the tenth quarter quell

I was older, and with that, it meant that tributes were coming to actually look at me as a mentor and not as some kid that thought that she was better than them. They started listening to my advice, and I tried my best to get one of my tributes home alive.

That was the problem. I could only get one home. Even if I managed to get one of them to win and return home, the other would die in the arena. Not only that, but I knew that even if they did win, their life would never be the same again.

I should know, I used to be a tribute. I was now a victor and a mentor, so if anyone should know that if your life was going to change for worse the moment you go to the Capitol, it would be me and the other victors.

I wanted to tell my tributes that death in the arena wasn't the worst thing that they were going to face. I wanted to tell them of what laid ahead of them if they won. Hell, I wanted to tell everyone that was training at the academy what horrors laid ahead of them if they choose to volunteer into the games. But of course, the Capitol didn't want me to do any of that.

They didn't want the future tributes to know what happened after the games, because that would discourage kids from training, and volunteering. It would affect Capitol entertainment, and with the minor chance that it would happen, it might cause a rebellion. I doubted that it would cause a rebellion, because even after everything that had happened three years ago, there were only talks of rebellion. There were talks, but that's all it was, talk. Nobody took any action towards the Capitol. I don't know wither it was because they couldn't, or wouldn't, or both, but all I did know is that all they did was talk about the horrors of the tenth quarter quell, and that was it.

An upraising was hopeless. Even if District One rose up to take on the Capitol, it was only us verses the Capitol, and it was obvious who would win.

I didn't tell anyone about the horrors of the games for one reason. Well, actually, I didn't tell them for five reasons. My family was in constant danger from the Capitol. If I refuse to cooperate with the Capitol's demands, than they'd be the ones to pay the price.

After everything that I had lost, I didn't want to lose my parents, sons, and daughter. So I continued to give in to the Capitol, despite how much I hated it.

I continued to be their sex slave and entertainer and tribute mentor. I continued to be haunted by my memories of everything that had happened in the arena, the trauma that the Capitol continued to feed with their activities, and watch as kids that I tried so hard to help, got killed on the screens in front of me.

I didn't know which was worse, getting sent into the arena, or trying to help two kids getting sent into the arena. Knowing that at least one of them was going to die.

Five years after the tenth quarter quell

If there was one thing that I learned while being a victor, it's that nobody but other victors know how you really feel. That's why I felt so disconnected from the rest of the district. They just didn't understand just how the arena affected you, just how bad mentoring was. How your life just isn't the same after the arena.

Normal district folks thought that I should be happy with everything I have in my life. What they didn't know was the price of everything that I had gotten. My friends, I liked to call them friends, that weren't victors, told me that I should just forget and move on. That it had been five years and that I should be able to get over it.

That's what I didn't like about them. They thought that it was easy to get over it, like switching a light on and off. But I ask them, how easy is it to forget a bad memory? A memory that comes up seemingly everywhere you go.

I avoid certain foods, as they remind me of blood and gore and vomit. I avoid the training center as it reminds me of aiding a crazed Calamity, and where I learned how to murder kids. I'd avoid the Capitol, but I had to go there. It was there that I was reminded of death and the short lived friends that I had.

My parents said that I should get back into the training center and do what I used to love doing, training. But like they hadn't been listening to me, I get flashbacks of learning how to kill, and using those skills to aid the murder of Timber, Dylan, and Kendrick as well as actually murdering Daria, Caia, Calamity, Victory, and Conrad.

They said that I should be happy. But how could I be happy with everything that I experienced, learned, and have to life through? My best friend was dead, and I was still guilty about everything that I had done to him. I never managed to say sorry for everything that I did to him. I wished that I could turn back time and tell him just once that I was sorry for being the old me.

My friends that I made during my game were dead. They were the ones that knew me and what I went through, and them dying was my fault. I was stupid and naive, and that lead them to their deaths.

My so called friends here in District One and the Capitol hardly knew me, and I didn't even consider them friends.

The victors, the only ones that I could call friends, were just as broken, if not more broken, than I am.

My parents also left me, choosing not to live in the same house as I am. They didn't want to live in the victor village with me because of my nightmares. I would wake them up in the middle of the night with my screaming and crying.

When my kids were younger, I'd wake them up with my shouting and crying, and have them doing the same thing. It must of drove my parents crazy, but they put my kids to sleep and helped me the best they could. But now five years later, I guess they got sick of it. They must of thought that a twenty year old girl should get over some bad dreams. So they left. They just packed up and said that they'd return after I healed. But the thing was, I didn't think that I was going to ever heal.

And just like me, Jack Carther hadn't healed either.

Jack, still furious at me for killing his brother, had gotten reaped at the age of seventeen. When I first saw him, I almost mistook him for Timber, but Jack was some feminine features that made me think of his sisters.

In the Capitol, I saw that the only things that Jack had in common with his brother was that he was skilled with axes. Jack didn't have a temper, and his anger was only directed at me. I saw him giving me dirty looks at me every time he saw me.

I felt guilty about aiding Timber's death, and tried to get Jack some sponsors as well, but the Capitol was more interested in other tributes. Jack wasn't on their high list.

When it came down to the arena, Jack managed to make it to the final eight. He managed to kill the girl that I had mentored by axing her in the back before slitting her throat and ripping her tongue out of her throat and taunted her all the way to her death. A clear message to me, that he still hadn't forgiven me for what I had done to his brother.

Jack's death happened at the hands of the District Two male. Jack was good at axes, but when he lost his axe, he was mostly helpless. Because unlike Timber, Jack wasn't a good hand to hand fighter, nor did he had the strength to endure punches. That ended up being his down fall.

I had to wonder about his family, how were they managing now? They had just lost one brother after the other. It made me wonder if the remaining family members were going to survive for very long.

And if there was one thing that I had learned, it was that it was easy for the Capitol to forget people. They had forgotten about Timber, and I was certain that they'd forget about Jack as well.

Six years after the tenth quarter quell

I had watched Valley Valentine volunteer for the games, and watched as she utterly destroyed everyone in her path, much like her older brother and sister before her. She got third place, before meeting her end by the male tribute of my district. My male tribute ended up winning, and came home a victor. I had to wonder how mad Valley's mother was, now that all three of his kids had failed to fulfill her wish of making one of her kids a victor.

I didn't tell my tribute what kind of horrors he'd experience even though he was out of the arena, he'd find out soon enough.

I had my own horrors to combat though. In a few short months, my kids, a few months shy of being six years old, would be entering the training academy. They'd learn the career life style, but I hoped that I could convince them not to volunteer. I hoped, but doubted that I could convince them to not volunteer, because the trainers, including my parents, and teachers and the district would brainwash them into thinking that winning was of the highest honour. They'd be just like every other kid in this district, they'd be just like I had been when I was younger. But I could still hope.

I didn't have hope for a lot of thing, but that was one of the things that I hoped would come true.

Another thing that I actually had hope for was that I could actually find someone that I could love. Someone that I could spend the rest of my life with.

During one of my trips to town with my kids, I meet a guy. Or really, I meet a kid. He was four years younger than me, and even though he wasn't a victor, he and I became fast friends.

It started out as something simple. He'd take care of my kids when I had to be called to the Capitol, and I'd pay him. But as time went on, he became my go to guy whenever I needed something, he was always glad to help. He liked my kids, and as I later found out, he liked me as well. And I liked him.

He was over so often that he began living with me and my kids. My kids loved him, he was a fun guy, even if he wasn't very smart. But he was understanding, and but me and my kids before everything else.

I had gone out with other boys before, but ever since I had got back from the arena, things between me and boys hadn't been the same. This guy was different though, I felt closer to him, like he was someone that I could talk to, and he would listen. Someone that I could be close with.

He'd make an effort to make me happy, and wouldn't force me to do anything that I didn't want to do. He understood that I was going through a hard time, and that he'd help me as best he could.

When I got to the age of twenty two, and he turned eighteen and was ready to volunteer for the games, he told me that he didn't want to do it anymore. He didn't want to volunteer anymore. When I asked him why he was giving up his dream of becoming a victor, he told me that he didn't want to take the chance of doing and leaving me and the kids. And even though I knew that wither he won or lost the games, it was his lifelong dream to go into the games. I didn't want to be selfish and tell him that he couldn't go and volunteer. I told him that I wouldn't stop him.

It was strange. Why was I allowing him to volunteer? I had been thinking of making people not volunteer for the games, and I was allowing the guy that was closest to me to volunteer. It didn't seem right, but at the same time, it wouldn't of been right to stop him.

His answer to me? My happiness meant more to him than his own.

I think that's when I discovered just why I had been acting that way. That's when I think I discovered just what love really was. Just like with my kids, I tried to get them to not volunteer for the games, to not throw their lives away for some so called fame and fortune. But if they were going to volunteer, I wouldn't of stopped them. Why I gave birth to them in the first place.

Love wasn't about making someone making you happy. It's about you doing just about everything in your power, even if it meant sacrificing something important, to make sure that the one you love is happy.

He was a career who wanted to win the games, he gave that up so that I could be happy.

I was a mother, who gave up a part that could of healed, so that three kids could be born.

And even though my parents left me, I knew that they still loved me as well, because they hadn't left me, they just did what they thought was best for me.

Eight years after the tenth quarter quell

He wasn't perfect, but neither was I, and we both made the best that we had with each other.

Now that Price was nineteen, we officially got married. Even though I knew that the Capitol had a very little chance of getting him into the games when he had been seventeen and eighteen years old, I didn't want to take the chance. But now that he was too old to get into the games, I felt that it was safer to have our relationship out in the open. The Capitol had one less way to take him away from me.

We were each others, but I still belonged to the Capitol. He understood though, what the Capitol wants, the Capitol gets. I couldn't tell him what I was doing over there, or that I didn't want to do what they were asking, but I didn't need to. He understood.

I was close to him on an emotional level, but I was still closer to my Capitol clients than I was with Price. But at the same time, I was closer to him than the Capitol clients.

We didn't sleep in the same bed as each other because of my nightmares. I was afraid of hurting him, but he stayed close to me, because apparently I was more of a danger to myself than I was to him. I hadn't have a sensual experience with him, because whenever I had that kind of experience with anyone, I would only see Calamity and Victory. He didn't mind though, he didn't want to force me to do anything that I didn't want to do.

But the reason I was closer to him than my Capitol clients in the case of being physical was simple. It was kissing. It was almost childish, but Price had been my first. I hadn't kissed anyone before him, and I hadn't kissed anyone during my time with him. My Capitol clients were more interested in my other areas. To me, kissing Price was better than sex.

Price had his moments as well. He wasn't the smartest person ever, missing out on simple things, and seemed to not be able to lie to anyone. He would say things the way he saw it, and while not stubborn, wouldn't change his opinion, even if it would benefit him. My parents didn't like him for that reason. I have to admit as well, I found it annoying as well at times.

We were imperfect but we were imperfect together.

I didn't know if I could help him, and he didn't know if he could help me, but we both tried. Try, fail, and try again. I don't think either of us could be fixed completely, but we wanted to try and make each others lives better. So we continued to try.

I was an emotional wreck, Price was someone that couldn't help but tell the brutal truth, and my kids were now going to the training academy.

My first child, Chance, looked just like his father, Calamity, and whenever I looked at him, I had to wonder what was going through his mind. Chance, even though he looked like one of the misunderstood monsters in the tenth quarter quell, was probably the kindest soul that you could ever ask for. But his fatal flaw was that he just didn't know when to back down. Price had to go to the academy more than once because Chance had picked a fight that he couldn't win.

My parents said that Tanner looked like the splitting image of me when I was younger, but she took her training more serious than I did. I wondered how long it would be before she started to avoid training in order to have fun. Tanner loved the physical training, but she didn't like the studying and would often skip classes that she found too slow paced. Things that weren't physical.

And Adrian, while he had the looks of both Calamity and I, he was more like his siblings. He was hard working and didn't slack off while training, but he was shy and reserved, often not speaking up and ended up being lost during his lessons due to not understanding something. I kept on telling him that it wasn't wise to keep questions to himself, but he didn't seem to want to embarrass himself.

We all had our flaws. We were a family of a wrecked soul.

My soul may of been shattered in the arena, but the relationships I had during that time period kept my soul together long enough for me to continue on until this point. And right now, the ones that were keeping what was left of my soul together were my kids, and Price.

I don't know what I'd do without them.

Ten years after the quarter quell

If you're listening to this message, it means that I'm now gone.

No doubt that you were sent to this house because of the concerns from the Capitol. Well you can go tell the Capitol to go fuck themselves. I'm sick of being used for your entertainment. I'm sick of having to always submit to you, I'm sick of always being at your mercy, and sick of you using me to make yourselves feel good.

I've gathered everyone that matters to me and have left District One for good. Don't try to follow us, you will never find us, and even if you do we won't go down without a fight. We might not be under your protection anymore, and we might not even be alive by the time you're reading this. But if we die ten seconds out in the wilds it'll of been ten seconds of freedom.

I'm no longer going to be part of your game, and I'm no longer going to play it for your entertainment.

This is Jenriko "Jen" Florence, and I hope that someday, you see just how wrong this is.

A/N: And that's the end of Shattered Souls.

Damn everybody, I just have to say, this story went in some unexpected directions. First of all, I had originally planned for it to only be 60-80,000 words. LOOK AT WHAT THE WORD COUNT'S AT! Holy Crackaroini people.

Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone that submitted your tributes and hoped you enjoyed this story.

Am I proud of it? Well... Considering all the spelling and grammar mistakes and how I basically didn't do 100% on this fic and how the internet spell check took out some words, I wouldn't say entirely. There are a lot of things wrong with this piece of writing. But I'm proud to say, I finished it, I think I did some pretty good stuff in here, and I learned some things along the way.

Oh yes, and if Price seems like a Gary-Sue to you people... Well... There's nothing that I can really do about it.

Final result: Experiment... Successes.

If anyone would care to review and tell me their final opinions, here are some questions that I'd like to ask you.

1) Overall, what did you think of this fic?

2) In the beginning, middle, and end, who were your favourite tribute(s)?

3) Least favourite tribute(s)?

4) Favourite and least favourite moments?

5) Are you satisfied with the winner and the ending?

6) What did you like and what could I improve?

This is the Awesome Novice Writer, saying, thank you for taking time out of your life to read this fic.

Time of active Hunger Game spanned: 10 years.

Status of tributes:

D1 Male: Calamity Mershade: Dead

D1 Female: Jenriko "Jen" Florence: Missing

D2 Male: Jeremiah Sentris: Dead

D2 Female: Victory Valentine: Dead

D3 Male: Kendrick Reeves: Dead

D3 Female: Caia Wicken: Dead

D4 Male: Dylan Drake: Dead

D4 Female: Selene Ripple: Dead

D5 Male: Jamie Paradis: Dead

D5 Female: Alexa "Fortune" Langer: Dead

D6 Male: Colton Mullican: Dead

D6 Female: Adrienne Quintus: Dead

D7 Male: Timber "Saw" Carther: Dead

D7 Female: Willow Jacksmith: Dead

D8 Male: Malik Broker: Dead

D8 Female: Vida Rosalyn Harkle: Dead

D9 Male: Trim Fetching: Dead

D9 Female: Wren Sylvia Hayes: Dead

D10 Male: Tanner Hart: Dead

D10 Female: Perla Freuff: Dead

D11 Male: Adrian Colton: Dead

D11 Female: Caritta Desin: Dead

D12 Male: Zeal Skoda: Dead

D12 Female: Daria "Dare" Nettle: Dead