District 6 female – Cindy Trimmers, 18

The scream of the man was music to my ears. After he'd just stood there, watching in stunned silence as a younger boy, who was the same age as me, had grabbed me and tried to touch me.

Instead of trying to help me, an old man had just let it happen. If I hadn't been able to defend myself from Jeffery, the thug guy in my class who'd tried to touch me, I could have been badly hurt by him, and that old man would have just let it all play out without even attempting to help.

That's why I was now pulling my knife from that old man's heart, and wiping the blood off on his face.

"God, you pathetic old man," I said, putting my knife into my pocket after all the blood was wiped from it. I rolled my eyes at him as he writhed on the floor, slowly dying, then turned away from him. But when I'd spun around a hundred and eighty degrees, I came face to face with a peacekeeper.

Shit.

I pulled my knife out of my pocket again, but another peacekeeper took it from my hand from behind, and the one that I was facing hit something across my head, and I was knocked out.

When I woke up, I was wearing something different. An orange prison suit. I'd been arrested. Great.

I felt the pockets of the suit for something that could help me get out of there, but there was nothing.

"Ah, look who's finally decided to wake up after being out for three days," came a voice, and I looked up to see a girl from my class at school, called Melissa. She'd been arrested several weeks ago for stealing over a hundred Panemian dollars, and I hadn't seen her since.

"At least I haven't been in prison for three weeks without busting out," I said to her dryly.

Melissa's face went pink with embarrassment. "The new mayor spoke to us all while you were out. He wants me to explain to you what he said."

"OK?" I snapped. "What is it, then?"

"The Quarter Quell was announced yesterday morning," she said. "The tributes are going to be voted in, instead of being reaped. He was asking if we wanted to be voted in, since we're in jail. It's crazy, I know. Why would anyone want that?"

Why would anyone not want that? I thought to myself. I'd always wanted to be reaped into the games so I could have the chance to kill as many people as I could. That sounded like a dream to me.

"How do I sign up?" I asked Melissa, who just snorted.

"You'll die," she said.

"No, I won't," I said. "People only die in the Hunger Games when they're too afraid to kill people."

Melissa took a step back. "You're not going to kill me right now, are you?"

I rolled my eyes at her. She was so pathetic. "I don't even have anything to kill you with except for my bare hands. And I'm not going to potentially hurt my fists right now. I'll need them to be in good quality for the arena."

Melissa laughed. "Yeah, alright. You can tell the peacekeepers that you're interested at dinner, then."

After dinner, when I was all signed up to be voted into the Hunger Games, my parents came to visit me in the visiting booth.

"Yes?" I said as soon as I was facing them. My mother was crying, and my father's jaw was tight.

"How could you do this to yourself?" my mother sobbed, clutching onto the telephone. "You're better than this, Cindy. You're turning into someone you're not. You can't expect everyone to do something about everything."

"I'm not becoming someone I'm not," I said sharply. "This is who I am. A criminal. And I'm proud of it. There's nothing you can do about it. Now, is there anything I can do for you, or can I go?"

My mother let out another sob, and I put the phone down and got up, then walked back to my cell. Melissa was there waiting for me.

"You know, I was thinking," she said. "You said I've been here for three weeks without busting out, and... you're right."

"Well spotted," I said to her bluntly.

"And maybe you and I could escape together?" she said, looking at me with bright eyes.

I looked at her for a second, then burst into laughter. Melissa's face fell at the sight of me laughing at her.

"I'm going to the capitol in a week, remember?" I said to her, still laughing. "I don't need to bust out."

"Oh, yeah, OK..." said Melissa. "Well, if you don't get voted in, then?"

"I will," I said. "And in the very slim chance that I don't, the answer is no. I work alone."

I spent the rest of that night pondering on who to vote for, since I couldn't vote for myself. For the girl, I'd vote for people that probably no one else would vote for, to not take away my chances of getting voted in. I eventually decided on some crybaby girl called Martha, and then my mind shifted to the boys.

There were plenty of boys who had tried to assault me during my childhood. There was also plenty of boys who had watched other boys try to assault me and done nothing about it. Most of those boys would be men by now, though, too old to go into the Hunger Games.

Eventually, my mind landed on one guy. The stupid thug guy in my class at school, Jeffery, who had tried to touch me when I'd seen that old man do nothing about it. The man that I'd killed, whose murder I was now in jail for. If Jeffery hadn't tried to touch me, I wouldn't have ever been in jail.

So, it was settled. I would be voting for the crybaby Martha, and the partly in fault for my arrest, Jeremey.

Not that it mattered at all, who I voted for. Because I would be the female tribute of District Six.

District 6 male – George Caron, 18

The hands of the peacekeepers gripped my shoulders tightly as they dragged me out of my cell, leading me who knows where. Of all the people in my gang, Les Voyous who had to be arrested, of course it had to be me. Why not Archie? He was supposedly the leader. If I had been the leader, I wouldn't have let this happen. We wouldn't have even been caught if I was in charge.

But instead, Archie bloody Montand, who I'd once considered a brother, was the leader of the gang. He was too trusting and easy going, in my opinion. A leader of a gang like Les Voyous needed to be skilled, cunning, and ambitious. So, pretty much, the leader should be me.

I already disliked Archie before the rumble that had caused me to be arrested. He was absolutely useless to the gang, and yet he was still the leader, which pissed me off more than the fact that my parents had decided to abandon me before I was old enough to remember them.

My thoughts and anger towards Archie was cut short when the peacekeepers finally let released me from their tight grip, and I took in the scene around me. I had no idea where we were, but I recognised the people around me. It was all the other people who were around my age and had been in jail with me.

And I recognised the man who was standing in front of us. It was Callis Foster, the mayor of our district. I'd never seen him in real life, because he was only voted in as the new mayor a few days after I was arrested, and I'd seen a photo of him on the back of a newspaper that a peacekeeper was reading. What the hell did he want with a bunch of criminal teenagers?

"As you all are aware," said Callis, interrupting my thoughts, "The Hunger Games reaping will be next week. As you may also know, this Hunger Games will be the 25th, meaning it is the much anticipated Quarter Quell.

"The twist has been announced just this morning... and I think you guys could be possible tributes."

"Well, what's the twist?" one guy asked.

"The twist is that the district will vote in their tributes. The voting opens tomorrow morning and closes three days after that," said Callis.

"OK, so what's this got to do with us?" another guy asked.

"Well, since you all have a taste for... getting yourselves into trouble, I thought that maybe you all might be interested in going into the arena. I could get everyone in the district to vote for one of you guys," said Callis.

A few people laughed at the idea, and one even said, "What, you think just because we're in jail, we're going to willingly go into that death-trap? No thank you."

Maybe they all thought it was a stupid idea, but to me, it actually didn't sound too bad. If I was to win the games, I'd be rich. Rich enough for everyone in Les Voyous to be able to not just have food on the table, but to have fancy meals every day. I'd let them all stay with me in the Victor's village whenever they wanted (well, maybe not all of them, Suzie and Jax were a little too soft to come into something as luxurious as the Victor's Village), and they'd all admire me so much that they'd have no choice but to appoint me as the new leader of Les Voyous and have Archie kicked out of the gang.

"They can vote for me," I said to Callis, who smiled.

"Great. What's your name?" he asked.

I wanted to roll my eyes at the fact that he didn't even know my name, but I didn't, just in case he decided he wouldn't put my name up to get voted in to the quell because of it. Instead, I just said, "My name is George Caron. I'm eighteen years old."

"Great, thank you Mr Caron," said Callis, writing my name down on a small notepad, then talking to some other boys who'd put their hand up to be voted into the quell as well.

The next morning, one of the gang members, Piper, came to visit me in one of the visiting booths. In my opinion, Piper was the only reasonable person in Les Voyous, as she was the only one other than myself who believed that I should be the leader instead of Archie, and she agreed that Archie was much too soft and relaxed.

"Hey, Fly," she said as soon as she sat down and the telephone thing reached her ear. She was using the nickname that I'd earned from how fast and hard to kill I was during fights with other gangs. "I'm about to go and vote for the tributes, and I wanted to know your opinion on who I should vote for."

"Didn't they show you the criminal records for me and the others in here?" I said. "Vote for me."

"Fly..." she said.

"What? You don't want to vote for me?" I said.

"What if you die? Then we'll be stuck with Archie forever," she said.

"You'll be stuck with him forever if I don't go," I said. "I won't die. I'll win. And when I win, I'll be rich."

"George, there's twenty-four people in that arena," said Piper, "only one will survive."

"And that one will be me," I said, my tone sharp. "Do you not think I'll win?"

"No, I do think you'll win," she said, very quickly. "Vote for me, then. As the girl. We'll go together."

"But then I'll have to kill you when we're the last two left," I said. "Vote for me, and for the girl vote... I don't know. One of the criminal girls."

"Who are you going to vote for?" she asked.

I grinned. I'd already thought about this. "Archie. He won't get in because no one else will vote for him, they'll all vote for me or one of the other boys in here. But still, it will feel satisfying anyway."

"Who are you voting for as the girl?" Piper asked.

I hesitated. I already knew that I was going to vote for Suzie, one of the softies in the gang, but I didn't know whether Piper liked her or not. "Are there any girls whose criminal records are out to be voted?"

"Yes."

"OK, then... probably just one of them, or some twelve-year-old girl. One less person to worry about, in that case," I said.

Piper just grinned.

Big thanks to wilifan2002 for Cindy, and Very New to This for George. What do you guys think of these two?