District 1 female – Phoenix Valentine, 18

Even if I did this almost every day, I still felt terrified, standing backstage with my show suit, the technical director asking me if I was ready. I wasn't ready. I never was anymore. I used to always be ready and used to think I could do well, but now, after the accident? I lived in constant fear that something would go wrong again.

"I'm ready," I said, despite this. She lit the match and put it onto my suit. Even though the suit was non-flammable and if it had been put on properly, the fire couldn't touch me, I physically winced as it burst into flames. It felt like my scar from the accident was burning up again.

"And now..." came my father's voice from on the stage, "Introducing the beloved 'The Phoenix Rising From The Ashes."

The cheering I heard from the audience was my cue to come onto the stage, tried to let all fears slip away from me, and just perform.

I did several cartwheels onto the stage, making the flames move with me and appear like a hot, blazing, bright orange wheel that was rolling across the stage. I counted the cartwheels to eight cartwheels, just like every other time, and once I'd done the eight cartwheels, I landed on both my feet at the same time and lifted my arms up, with a loud response of cheers from the audience.

"Who wants to see more from Phoenix?" my father called out to the crowd, and they once again cheered. As rehearsed, I didn't move. Not yet. Then my dad called out to the crowd again. "I can't hear you! Do you want to see more of the Phoenix rising from the ashes?"

The crowd practically screamed, then my father gave me a small nod. This was my cue to do several backflips across the stage as the crowd cheered for me. I landed awfully on one of my flips, and inwardly cringed because of it. Everyone must have noticed. They all knew how horrible at this I was.

Well, they already knew how horrible I was. Everyone in the district knew what had happened at my performance before the reaping of the twenty-fourth Hunger Games. My fire suit had caught onto the decorations around Justice Square, setting fire to everything there. Ruining the reaping.

I tried my hardest to push the thought of that out of my head and focused on the present. On the current performance I was doing. To not screw it up for this crowd.

After the performance had finished and my suit was no longer on fire, my father and I went out to the lobby to meet and greet the crowd. I felt my heart sink all the way to my feet when I saw the people I'd least like to see in the crowd of one of my shows.

Kassandra and Klaus Klassen, as well as Kassandra's two friends, Jaime and Renata. That small clique, especially Kassandra, had given me hell since I was thirteen and the accident during the show. I knew them all through the Careers Academy, and I didn't think I'd ever hate anyone more than I hated them.

"Good thing you didn't get set on fire this time, hey?" Kassandra said, a smile tugging the left side of her lip like it always did when she was teasing someone. "I don't think you could get any more ugly than you already are. If you did, the Arturos wouldn't even be able to look at you."

"Alright, then," I said, giving a shrug. "Anything else?"

"You did awfully tonight as usual," Kassandra said with a smile, and she and her stupid little clique walked away from me.

"Hello, lovely," came a voice from behind me. I turned around to see Sivan Arturo, holding his arms out to me, smiling not just with his mouth, but with his eyes too. He always did that, and I loved that about him.

"Sivan. Did you enjoy the show?" I asked him, walking between his arms and nestling my head on his chest.

"I loved the show and I love you," he said. "Tatiana's gone and got drinks. She doesn't care about you as much as I do."

"Oh, I'm sure she does..."

Tatiana was Sivan's sister. The pair of siblings had constantly been in competition with each other for my heart for the past year, and however much I felt attracted to both of them, I knew that I was a lot more compatible with Sivan, to his clever mind, his passion, and just... Sivan. Tatiana was nice, one of the hottest people I'd ever met, and an amazing kisser, but she was too brash and did not take rejection or criticism well.

"Hey, Phoenix," came a voice from behind me. I turned around to see Tatiana, carrying two glasses of drink in fancy cups. She handed one to me with a grin.

"I asked you to get me one, too," said Sivan.

"Oh, really? I must not have heard you, sorry," said Tatiana, shrugging and then turning to me. "Anyway, Phoenix, I have a date planned for you and me tonight if you want to get changed."

"Oh, actually I was going to spend the night with Sivan..." I said and watched as Tatiana's nostrils flared with jealousy.

"Alright, then," she said sharply. "I'll just... go to your favourite restaurant on my own."

"Sorry, Tatiana," I said.

"Whatever," said Tatiana, then spun around, flicking her brother in the face with her hair.

"Alright, let's go then," said Sivan, putting his arm around me, and we left the crowd together.

"Phoenix! Phoenix, Calliope is here to see you," came my father's voice from the living room. I was still in bed and it was almost eleven in the morning. I was exhausted from not only the show last night but from staying out even later with Sivan.

"Tell her she can just come into my room," I said, not getting up. Seconds later, my bedroom door opened and Calliope Irving, my best friend for as long as I could remember, stepped into the room.

"I thought you'd still be in bed," she said, opening my bedroom window and letting the sunlight in.

"God, Calliope, too bright!" I cried out, placing my hands over my eyes.

"You performed well last night, no wonder you're tired," she said, pulling my blanket off of me. "But you missed the announcement from the Capitol this morning, so I came here to tell you."

"Announcement?" I said, finally sitting up. "What announcement?"

"President Snow announced what the Quarter Quell twist is going to be, for the Hunger Games."

"And?"

"We have to vote the two tributes in," she said.

"Oh, OK," I said. "That's a little cruel, don't you think?"

"Yeah," said Calliope. "But it does mean one good thing. We're both certain to be safe for another year because it will all be criminals who get voted in."

I had thought she'd been right. I genuinely thought I would have been safe.

District 1 male – Mark Simeon, 18

I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor. These people were taking forever. I'd been waiting in line for my turn to fight for almost an hour now because all these other kids at the Careers Academy were too scared to actually hurt each other during a practice fight. Why were they even at the Academy, then?

You know what, screw this, I thought to myself, and moved out of the line and grabbed a spear, and came in between the two boys who were fighting, both of them at least half a foot taller than me. I split them apart, and stabbed one of them in the eye with my spear, just far enough into his eye to not kill him, but to cause him awful injuries.

I spun around to the other guy and kicked him to the floor, then bit his leg hard, sinking my teeth in deeper until I could taste his blood.

"Surely I'm the chosen volunteer for the games this year," I said, turning around to face the instructor.

"Mark, we've spoken about this already," the instructor said sharply. "The volunteer will not be selected this year until the twist of the Quarter Quell is announced tomorrow morning. And even if it wasn't the first Quarter Quell, with that behaviour I'm not too sure."

"What!?" I snapped.

"Not waiting your turn... that's poor sportsmanship," said the instructor, putting his hands on his hips.

"Do you think I'd be waiting my turn in the arena?" I said, crossing my arms.

"You probably wouldn't be able to reach even the lowest of objects at the Cornucopia," a boy who was standing in the line snickered.

I started to walk toward him with the spear I was holding, but the instructor snatched it out of my hand, then said, "Get to the back of the line, Mark."

As I walked towards the line, I stopped when I passed the boy who'd said I wouldn't be able to reach the lowest objects at the cornucopia, and muttered into his ear, "Meet me out the back of the academy after classes finish."

"See you there," he snickered.

After all classes for the academy finished for the day, I walked out the back door to the forbidden back section. It was a really sketchy area, where all the druggos and alcoholics of the district hung out, smoking who knows what, drinking themselves silly, and graffitiing all over the walls of the back of the Careers academy.

I'd brought a sword with me since obviously, I intended to fight that jerk. I gripped the handle of it now and looked at my watch. What was taking him so long?

"Why do you want me to fight you, Simeon?"

I turned around quickly and saw the guy coming towards me from the back door of the academy, twisting a spear around carelessly. I'd laugh if he poked himself in the eye.

"Because you're a jerk," I snarled. "Ready to fight?"

He didn't respond, just thrust his spear towards me, which I deflected easily with my sword, and yawned mockingly at him.

"Tired already?" he sneered.

"Just bored," I said, moving my sword towards his neck, but he stepped away from me and twisted around.

"You've got to do better than that, you short loser," the guy sneered.

"Alright then," I said, and pushed my sword forward to him, but when he spun around, I hit the side of his waist with the sword.

As soon as it made contact, he stumbled back from me and clutched his side where I'd struck him.

"What's the problem?" I snickered at him. Before he could respond, though, I moved towards him, pushed him over, sat on his chest, and dug my fingernails into his eye sockets.

He let out a loud scream and cried, "Stop! Please stop!"

"Apologise," I snarled.

"I-I'm sorry!" he cried, moving his hand to my wrists and trying to move them away from his eyes.

"Sorry for what?" I pushed my nails further into his eyes.

"For making fun of you!" the boy wailed.

"Good," I said, finally removing my fingers from his eyes, blood coming out with them. "Now, if you ever..."

"Mark, what are you doing?!" came a voice from behind. I froze, then turned around slowly to see my younger sister, Chloe, standing in the back doorway of the academy.

"Nothing, just teaching..." I said very quickly, but paused when I realised I didn't know this asshole's name, "what's your name again?"

"L-Lincoln," the boy said, trembling.

"Right, I was just teaching Lincoln here a lesson," I said.

"Stop it, Mark, he's really hurt!" Chloe cried. "I'm going to get someone to help him."

"No!" I cried, but she was already moving back into the academy. "Don't do that. Chloe! Don't do that, please!"

But she was already out of my sight. So I did the only thing I could do in this situation: I just owned it, because I was proud of what my sisters called my 'bad sportsmanship'. People could think whatever they wanted about it.

However proud I was, I wasn't going to just let myself get arrested. So I left the scene, leaving the jerk to slowly bleed out from his eyes and for my traitor sister to snitch on me.

Chloe got home after me that night, and she was not impressed. She gossiped to our older sister, Layla, about what I'd done, and she also was not happy with me.

"Whatever, I'm going to bed," I muttered to them, rolling my eyes. They were both being dramatic. It wasn't like I'd actually killed the guy. Just injured him.

Over dinner, both my sisters didn't even back me up in keeping what I'd done from my parents. They kept dropping hints until, when we were clearing our plates and they still hadn't figured it out, Chloe blurted the whole thing out.

My mother dropped the plates she'd been holding, and they all smashed on the floor in slow motion. I felt my stomach flip for a second, even though they always took my side.

And, once again, they did, much to the annoyance of Layla and Chloe. They talked about how since I had anger problems it was OK, and I was still learning to control my emotions, how Lincoln shouldn't have provoked me, and so on. I couldn't keep the grin off my face. It was so easy to get away with foul play.

Thank you to Paradigm of Writing for Phoenix, and wilifan2002 for Mark. What does everyone think of these two? See you in the next district!

P.S - If you've submitted a tribute, you may have noticed I sent you an extra question by PM. Thank you for answering that if you have, and if you haven't, please answer it ASAP as it will be important later on!