District 7 female – Asiza Sakewael, 15
"Asiza. Asiza, don't be a coward," Gerald snapped, chasing after me. "You know what you did!"
"Piss off, Gerald," I snapped, shoving past him.
"You think you can just get away with stealing that amount of money and get away with it?!" Gerald hissed at me, grabbing my wrist.
"I'm pretty and smart, and everyone likes me," I said to him, snatching my wrist back and beginning to walk away from him.
"You think just because you can manipulate some people, you can manipulate everyone," he continued, walking beside me. "Well, not me. Where is my money, Asiza?"
"I spent it!" I shouted at him.
"On what?"
"On food! For my siblings!" I snapped. "Some people aren't rich, in case you and your stupid father haven't realised that yet! You can do without a bit of spare money. Grow the hell up."
Gerald's expression went blank, and he said, very coldly, "Fine then. I hope the twist to the Quarter Quell that's being announced tomorrow is that all tributes must be called Asiza!"
I just rolled my eyes, then spun around to continue my journey to Hera's house. I pushed the thoughts of Gerald and the money I stole from both him and his father out of my head, and thought only about Hera, and what she did to my brother. About what she deserved.
I approached her house, and even though I wanted to bash down that bitch's door, I took in a deep breath and lightly knocked on the front door, and her mother came to answer it.
"Um, hello?" she said. "How can I help you?"
"Hello, Mrs Kemper," I said, beaming at her. "I'm just going around the neighbourhood, washing people's dishes for them."
"Oh, that's very kind, dear, but I don't have a coin to spare at the moment," she said.
"Oh, of course not, I am simply doing it out of the kindness of my heart," I said. "I know the reaping is coming up and it can be a stressful time for many, so I just want to do my part to help the parents of kids, especially ones like your daughter, Hera, who'd be eligible to be reaped for the first time this year."
"Aw, aren't you a sweetheart," she said, stepping aside to let me in. "What was your name?"
"Asiza," I responded with a smile, looking into her house to see Hera doing homework, sitting on the floor. "Asiza Sakewael."
I put an emphasis on my last name, in the hope that Hera would recognise it, but she didn't react at all.
I walked over to a small tub and filled it with the tiny bit of hot water and soap that they had, before placing their dishes into it. As I scrubbed, I glanced over at Hera, who still hadn't looked up at me.
"So, Hera, how's your homework going?" I asked her.
"Good," she responded shortly, not looking up.
"Oh, Mrs Kemper, I think I left my jacket outside, would you mind grabbing it for me, please?" I said to Mrs Kemper suddenly, coming up with an idea.
"Of course, honey," she said, walking out the front door, and I followed her, slamming the door as soon as she was outside and locking it from the inside.
"Alright, listen here, Hera," I snapped, storming over to Hera. "I know how you have been treating Jamie.
Hera looked up at me, and I heard the sound of keys from out the front. Mrs Kemper must have had a set of keys hidden at the front of the house, and now she was coming back in. I clenched my fists and made my way even closer to Hera.
"You disgusting little pig of a child," I snapped in her face, just as her mother came back into the house, her eyes wide.
"Get. Out," she said through gritted teeth. "Or I will call the peacekeepers on you and order them to give you a public whipping!"
"Fine. Just know that your daughter is an awful person!" I snapped at her, before spinning around and leaving, because however much I wanted to fight back and make Hera go through hell, I didn't want a public whipping. I'd get her soon enough.
The next morning Saoirse and I took Jamie and the twins to the town centre where there was a large screen where we could all watch the announcement of the twist to the Quarter Quell. The broadcast began with the Head Gamemaker talking about the reasoning behind the Quell before the president came onto the stage to finally announce the twist.
Apparently, the tributes were to be voted in by the rest of the district, and the voting would open the following day. I smiled widely. If I hadn't been able to get my revenge on Hera yesterday, then this was the perfect way to get back at her for mistreating my brother.
And as for the male... Gerald. If he was dead in the Hunger Games, he could never tell anyone about how I'd manipulated him into giving me his money, and I would maintain my perfect, kind reputation forever.
I turned to Saoirse and asked her if she would also vote for those two, and, while giving me that look of admiration that she always did, nodded.
The day of the reaping came along just a week after the voting had opened and all the votes were counted up and put onto a tablet that the escort carried as he walked onto the stage, ready to announce two teenagers' deaths.
"The female tribute..." he said after providing us with a long history of the Hunger Games... "is Asiza Sakewael."
"Oh, shit," I murmured under my breath, feeling tears form in my eyes, but as soon as I saw the camera coming towards me I changed up my expression and, smirking, said, "Yeah, whatever."
I went up onto the stage as the escort announced the male tribute as Arnold Pryor. I watched as that weird chef kid from my class stormed onto the stage, and shook his hand briefly before going behind the stage to the goodbye room.
Saoirse, Jamie, Adoette, and Vanaja all came in to visit me, tears in all of their eyes. Jamie especially. My poor brother was sobbing. I knew what he was thinking. Who would protect him now?
"Saoirse, for the few weeks that I'm gone I need you to take care of them," I said. "And I'll come back, I'll take care of them again, it'll be just as it was, OK? Except I'll be rich. And I will use that money so that none of us ever struggle again."
"Asiza, don't go," Jamie sobbed, clutching onto me.
"I'm sorry, Jamie," I said. "I'll be back soon."
"No, you won't, Asiza!" he cried. "Twenty-three of twenty-four people are going to die!"
"Well, I won't be one of the twenty-three," I said. "OK? I love you. I love all of you. I love you, I love you, I love..."
District 7 male – Arnold Pryor, 15
The next morning was a Saturday, and the morning of the long-awaited Quarter Quell announcement, because at the end of last year's Hunger Games, we discovered that there would be a twist to the reaping every quarter of a century.
This year, the twist was supposed that the tributes would be voted in by their own district. The betrayal of being the person voted in would be awful. Almost as awful as having your restaurant closed down because of one of your employees. However, the latter would be incredibly entertaining for me, at least.
I worked at the restaurant again that night, however this time I was on with Maddie, who was my absolute rival in the cooking world. It was her family who owned and ran the restaurant I worked at, and she went along with their stupid belief that the food they sold should be good for the customers in the long run.
Maddie was a skilled cook, there was no denying that. Her attention to detail and insistence on using fresh, organic ingredients set her apart from the other cooks in the kitchen. She had a genuine passion for creating dishes that not only pleased the taste buds but also nourished the body, but I did not agree with her views.
As we stood side by side in the bustling kitchen, the heat from the stoves and the aroma of sizzling spices enveloped us. Maddie focused intently on her work, gracefully chopping vegetables with precision while effortlessly multitasking between various cooking tasks. Her dedication and talent were evident, and I couldn't help but want to crush her into ten trillion little pieces and then set all of those pieces on fire until she was nothing but a stupid pile of ashes that I could blow away carelessly.
"Hey," Maddie finally spoke, breaking the silence between us. Her voice was calm, almost serene, in contrast to the chaos surrounding us. "Have you heard about the Quarter Quell twist? The voting system seems both cruel and intriguing, don't you think?"
I gave her a side-eye. "That's not enough oil."
Maddie sighed, her eyes flickering with a mixture of concern and unease, but she completely ignored my statement. "I just hope the people in our district choose wisely. The consequences of their decision will be dire for those who are selected..."
As the evening progressed, the atmosphere in the restaurant grew tense. Patrons dined, their conversations filled with speculation and apprehension about the upcoming Quarter Quell. It was hard to ignore the pervasive sense of unease that permeated through the air.
With each dish I prepared, I couldn't help but contemplate the choices that lay before our district. The fate of the tributes would soon be sealed, and I hoped that it would be Maddie. If it wasn't, perhaps I'd just poison her, because I could not stand her any longer.
In the midst of the chaos, as the night drew to a close, Maddie and I found ourselves cleaning up the kitchen together. We exchanged glances, and I wanted to throw up at the sight of that stupid face who had ruined every single dish all night.
I knew for sure that I'd be voting for her as the female tribute in the Games. Watching her get crushed was all I wanted out of my life.
When I was placing my votes the next day at the town centre, I found myself stumped on who to vote for as the male tribute. If the manager of the restaurant I worked at had a son, I would vote for him.
But then I remembered, while he may not have a son, he did have a favourite employee other than his own daughter. Timmy. While he was my best friend, he also didn't have the best logic when it came to cooking and making food taste good. Getting rid of him would just be another step in taking down that stupid restaurant. With both Maddie and Timmy gone, I could put as much crap in the food as I wanted, poison everyone and take over the world of cooking!
Just as I wrote down Timmy's name and slipped it into the box, he appeared behind me, giving me a jumpscare. He had a wide grin on his face, completely oblivious to the fact that I had just voted for him to die.
"Hey, Arnold!" he said happily. "Who did you vote for?"
"Just randomly," I shrugged. "Can't even remember."
"Oh, alright, I might just do the same, then," said Timmy, grabbing a slip of paper to place a vote. "Are you working tonight?"
"No, unfortunately," I said.
"Oh, no, that's good," said Timmy. "We can hang out. Maddie and I..."
"Maddie?" I repeated.
"Yeah, she's got tonight off too, we were thinking the three of us could hang out," said Timmy.
"I'm busy," I said shortly, then walked past him.
The reaping day was the following weekend after all of the votes had been put in and finalised. My parents and I got up early that morning to make a huge breakfast for the three of us.
People always wondered where my family got all the food we had from, but they underestimated me. People assumed that I never stole food, and, most importantly, oil and spices, from the restaurant I worked at. But of course I did. A family full of chefs would never live off grains.
I was allowed to add as much flavour to the eggs and bacon as I wanted to at home because my parents were the ones who encouraged the way I cooked, making it taste better than everyone else's cooking.
So, when we sat down to eat together, my tastebuds were in heaven, and I could tell that my parents felt the same way based on their facial expressions.
After we finished eating, I put on a neat, plain shirt and a pair of jeans for the reaping, along with my favourite cooking apron to show my pride in cooking.
I lined up with the other boys my age, and I knew that I looked the best. I was the only one who showed off my talent at the reaping. Everyone else was boring and wore boring clothes with no personality.
The escort came onto the stage, then, waving out at the whole district with one hand, holding some tablet device with the other. He provided us with the history of the Hunger Games, before announcing the female tribute as Asiza Sakewael, who was a girl in my class at school. I wasn't friends with her, but from what I knew she was really nice and people liked her a lot. I didn't know why she was voted in.
"And the male tribute is... Arnold Pryor!" the escort said happily, and I felt my heart drop to my stomach and let out an angry scoff. Me? What did I ever do?
I crossed my arms, then uncrossed them and stormed up to the stage. This didn't make any sense. It should have been criminals, not Asiza and me.
Once I was on the stage, I was told to shake hands with Asiza, which I did, all too aggressively, because I was pissed.
I was taken into a goodbye room, and my parents came rushing in, tearfully, Timmy close behind them, but I found myself just glaring at him. It should be him here, not me.
"Goodbye, Arnold my dear, we'll see you in a few weeks," said my mother, tears pouring down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around me.
"Bye, Arnold," said Timmy, but I ignored him. I didn't want to speak to him again.
And maybe I never would.