District 10 female – Fllora Hanzell, 17

I pinched my nose, trying not to throw up as I walked towards the showers. I wasn't one of those girls who thought everything was disgusting and had to wash myself after a single speck of dirt got on my clothes, but let's be honest, if a cow had shit all over you, you would want to get rid of it as well.

I was used to it, though. I worked around cattle almost every second of my life. If I wasn't at school, and there was still light in the sky, I was on the cattle ranch, rounding the cattle faster than everyone else, all of them to go off to provide beef to the rest of Panem.

Some of the people who worked on the ranch didn't like the idea of spending some time with the cattle only to know that those cows could possibly be in their next meal. But as for me, I didn't mind. I was getting the job done and earning money for my family.

So, back to me with the cow poo all over me. I reached the showers and, after quickly stripping off, I washed it all off as much as I could. The water felt like ice burning into my skin, but as much as I hated the cold, I didn't complain about it. I wasn't that sort of person.

I washed the jumpsuit I'd been wearing, then changed into my spare clothes before walking right back onto the ranch, where my best friend, Asterie Spans, was waiting for me.

"Oh my god, Fllora, what a mess," she said, barely able to contain her laughter.

"Ha-ha, very funny," I said, rolling my eyes. "Let's get back to work."

"What time are you going home?" she asked me. "I was thinking of heading off soon."

"What time do you think?"

"Please don't tell me you're staying until it gets dark again," Asterie sighed.

"You know me too well," I grinned.

"Alright, well, do try to get some sleep tonight, alright? I'll see you Monday at school, I'm taking the weekend off," she said.

"Alright, see you then," I said, and Asterie placed her hand on her straw hat and nodded to me with it, then walked out away from the ranch.

I got home later than I'd intended to that night, after staying back at the ranch after dark and then helping to pack up. I then made the usual walk to the butchery and picked up some meat to make dinner for my mother and brother.

Here in District 10, we all lived on a diet of meat, meat, and more meat. There wasn't a vegetarian in sight here. We barely ate any carbs or vegetables, because that was so expensive for us. We only got meat cheap because we were the district of livestock. And since I worked on the cattle ranch, I got the meat at an even further discount.

"Evening, Fllora," said the butcher, Chuck, as I walked in. "The usual, I presume?"

"Yeah," I said, grabbing out my money as he grabbed my beef from the little fridge it was all kept in. He then wrapped it up in plastic and brown paper for me and handed it to me as I handed him the coins.

"I'll see you here tomorrow night?"

"Of course," I said, walking towards the door out of the butchery. "Thanks, Chuck."

I tucked the brown paper containing the beef into my bag as I exited, then began the familiar walk from the butchery to my home. As soon as I stepped into my house I took off my muddy shoes and placed my bag on the bench, taking in the familiar musty smell as I walked to my mother's chair.

As usual, my mum sat motionless on the only chair we owned. She'd been pretty much planted to that chair ever since she got injured while working on the cattle ranch when I was younger. She'd gotten brain trauma from the injury, so she struggled to speak, and only moved from the chair to the bathroom to her bed.

Now I walked to where she sat and kissed her softly on the cheek. She must be starving, it was well past her usual dinner time.

"Ugh, you stink!" said my, Jana, who was sitting on the hard floor next to my mum's chair. He stood up and gave me a hug even though I still smelt like cow poo.

"I'll take a bath," I said. "Can you start cooking the meat? It's in my bag."

Jana nodded and I went outside to get our bucket and began to fill it with water. I was the only one out of the three of us who had regular baths because we couldn't afford for all three of us to use that much water. My brother had a bath once every two weeks, while my mother only had them for special occasions such as reaping day. I had to have them every day because I was always on the ranch and covered in cattle grime every night.

The water at my house was just as cold as the showers at the ranch. We didn't get luxuries such as warm water here.

When I was finished, Jana was in our tight kitchen, attempting to cook the beef.

"Jana, the gas needs to be a little lower than that," I told him. "Otherwise the outside of the meat will burn and the inside will be raw. Go on, turn it down."

Jana pulled a face at me and lowered the gas level of our tiny stove. I smiled softly at him. I didn't like many people, but I loved my younger brother.

He was fourteen, only three years younger than me, but I'd practically raised him since my mother was injured. My second main priority in life was to earn enough to keep him and my mother alive, but Jana was my number two priority.

My mother, while I loved her, I couldn't interact with her because of her injury. But Jana I could interact with. I'd been through a lot with him, from our father's death to looking after our mother together.

But, my number one priority wasn't him or my mother or the cattle. My number one priority was myself. Keeping myself alive. Because, what was the point of sacrificing myself for someone else? I wouldn't even get to enjoy time with the person I sacrifice myself for because, well, I would have been sacrificed.

So, no matter what, even if I was reaped for the Hunger Games, or the Quarter Quell that was to be announced the next morning was against me, I would always survive because I would never take risks to help allies.

District 10 male – Janusz Kurczak

The sound of the rush of the river was roaring in my ears so hard that I couldn't even hear the pitter-pattering sound of the rain and the cold, the cold of the water was unbearable, like ten thousand knives stabbing into every inch of my body, destroying my ability to think straight. I choked on the taste of the salty water that came into my mouth as the waves of the river lapped up into my face.

Part of me wanted to let the river just carry me away, and for someone to find my body and bury me. But, with my vision blurred from water all through my eyes, I looked up at the sky and saw the lighting coming down. I couldn't give up, I would survive this, I would...

Scream. I would scream. Because as I opened my eyes, I was in a cell. The cell my parents had trapped me in for a month? No, please no...

But no, it thankfully wasn't that cell. It was the prison cell I'd been in for five weeks since I had...

No.

I let out a sigh of relief at the fact that at least I wasn't being sacrificed to the Rusałki anymore. I'd had a flashback, a sudden, soul-wrenching moment where I relived one of my past moments in so much detail that I felt scared of myself. How could my brain conjure up such a thing?

Well, it wasn't exactly conjured up from my brain. It was a real event, I just didn't understand how I had replayed it with so much detail.

Before I could continue with my thoughts, I heard the long creaking sound of my cell opening, and a peacekeeper came in, arms crossed.

"What was the screaming about? It's the middle of the night, for god's sake, Kurczak," the peacekeeper grunted at me. I could tell from his voice that he'd been woken up.

"I was screaming because I'm an evil psychopath preparing to kill everyone in this prison," I said. Even if it was a lie, I managed to keep a straight face. Lying was a skill I prided myself in.

"Well, don't scream," he snapped, then spun around swiftly, clearly too tired to even comment on the fact that I'd just said I was going to kill everyone.

I just rolled my eyes and climbed back into bed, attempting to drift into a dreamless sleep.

But my mind seemed to laugh at that idea. As soon as I was asleep, the scene of how I had ended up in jail played in my head.

Her running at me with her knife after I'd come out of the bank my group and I had been robbing. Pulling out my gun mindlessly and shooting her out of self-defence. The blood that had poured out of her stomach after I'd shot her. The realisation that it had been her who I'd shot. Trying to help her. Being taken away and arrested. Watching her die as I was dragged away, kicking and screaming her name.

Jowita.

Growing up, my younger sister and I had been like two peas in a pod. Inseparable. Jowita had been my best friend. Up until when she was twelve and I was fourteen, our parents forced the idea into her head that I had to be sacrificed to their stupid little cult.

Just because she had wanted to kill me after being brainwashed didn't mean I didn't still love her. Hence why now, in the jail cell, I was having a nightmare of the scene playing out of me killing her five weeks ago.

When I sat up out of bed this time, I managed not to scream, but I was drenched in sweat, and the bed sheets were wet as well. No sleep for me then, I guess.

"What is that black stuff you're putting on your eyelids?"

I rolled my eyes. Me and the guy who was in the cell next to me (whose name I didn't care to remember) had both been washing our hands at the same time the next morning, and I'd just begun to put on my eyeliner.

"It's called eyeliner," I said.

"Did you get that from the Capitol?"

I shook my head. "I just got it. My parents were rich."

"Were? Did they die?" he asked.

"Yes, it was very unfortunate." Another lie. The truth was that I'd run away from them after they'd tried to sacrifice me by throwing me into the river and leaving me to drown.

So, technically I hadn't run away. They thought I was dead. Or at least, they had thought I was dead. Before I was arrested and the peacekeepers had taken me back to them to be sacrificed.

But, thankfully for me, the monthly sacrifices of their cult 'The Flood', could only happen with a visible full moon, and there had been a storm on the night they were going to sacrifice me to.

So, my only way of surviving was to go into the Quarter Quell. And, thinking of it, the twist to the Quarter Quell would be announced in a few minutes.

I finished off my eyeliner and then ran as fast as I could with the high heels I was wearing out of the bathroom and into the prison's TV room, where all the other prisoners were crowding. President Snow was already on the small hologram screen, talking about why we were doing the Quarter Quell and what it was.

"What is with these hats you wear, Janusz?" a guy asked me, crossing his arms. I'd worn multiple different hats over the past few days and he'd commented on all of them.

"This one was a gift from my parents, for my twelfth birthday," I lied, taking off the bright blue hat embroidered with pictures of ducks. "God, they were lovely. I miss them dearly."

People began to tell us all to shush then, as President Snow finally got to the point. The twist was that the tributes would be voted in by their own district. OK. I could get in then. I just had to get everyone to vote for me. Otherwise, I was toast.

"Everyone vote for me!" I called out to the crowd. They all just grunted, which I hoped meant they would vote for me.

So, now all I had to do was get the general public to vote for me. The fact that I was in prison helped.

So, I would get my gang to help me when they came to visit me that afternoon.

Thank you to tellsatanisaidhi for Fllora, and QueenOfMorning37 for Janusz. What did you all think of these two? See you in the next district!