CW: Slight talk of nudity

District 1 male – Mark Simeon, 18

As Phoenix and I clambered off the train together, I couldn't help but feel insecure. She was a good three inches taller than me, and that made me mad. And now a billion cameras were flashing at both of us, and I clenched my fists, scowling at the cameras.

I didn't know her well, but I did know that Phoenix was a performer, and I could tell this now, as she waved happily to the cameras. She was clearly taking the strategy of making sponsors love her.

Once the cameras were done with us, we were taken into separate rooms so the Capitol people could get us ready for our chariot rides. They stripped me naked and shaved my chest and my face, and once they were done, they left me there for my stylist to come and dress me up.

My stylist was some overly dressed-up person called Apex Harper, whose big hair was the exact same shade of purple as mine. When they saw my hair, they gasped loudly and placed their hands on the top of my mohawk.

"Oh, I've never seen someone from the districts with dyed hair!" they cried out in their thick Capitol accent. "Come on, come on, let's dress you up..."

Before I knew it, I was dressed up in a suit of armour, and being led out to the chariot area. Phoenix wasn't there yet, but I looked back at some of the other lined-up chariots, where some of the other tributes were standing.

Both the tributes from the two were already there, and I stared at them, trying to get their attention. The guy, a large boy with black hair and grey eyes eventually saw me and nudged the girl. She looked up at me and then walked over to my chariot, the boy following close behind her, his arms crossed.

"Yes?" the girl said, raising her eyebrows.

"You two got in because you were the best careers?"

The girl smiled. "I'm only the greatest Career in the Academy. Your name?"

"Mark," I told her.

"I'm Dania, and this is Quintus," she said, gesturing up to the guy. God, he had to be at least a foot taller than me. Quintus didn't speak, he just nodded at me.

"Great. We'll be allies, then?" I suggested.

"Yeah, where's your district partner?" Dania asked.

"Still getting dressed I assume," I said, and then, as if on cue, Phoenix appeared beside me. She was dressed as a bejewelled raven and was holding a sceptre covered in rubies.

"Good evening," she said to the three of us, nodding her head. "I'm Phoenix, and you two are?"

"Dania and Quintus," I told her. "Some of the other Careers."

"We can actually introduce ourselves, thank you," Dania snapped at me, crossing her arms.

"Well clearly he can't," I shrugged, gesturing to Quintus, who clenched his fists. God, why couldn't the idiot just speak? What was wrong with him?

"Tributes, to your own chariots, please," came a voice from behind us. It was a woman from the Capitol who I later found out was Phoenix's stylist.

Phoenix and I made our way back to the chariot up front, and Phoenix's stylist told us to climb into it. A lot of the tributes would be smiling or waving, which was what I was sure Phoenix would be doing.

But, as our chariots began to move, I gritted my teeth and glared out at the audience. The pathway our chariots moved across was bigger than any chariot path I'd ever seen before. There were jewels embedded all over the path, of many different colours that all shined up and onto all of the chariots.

Phoenix was smiling and waving at everyone of course. The crowds of the Capitol seemed to be loving her. Then, without thinking, my fist found her jaw, and that smile was wiped away immediately.

"What the hell was that all about?" she hissed, but I ignored her and grinned as I looked at the crowd. A lot of them were cheering. Cheering for me, perhaps?

"Sorry, nothing personal," I said to Phoenix, not even looking at her. "Just needed to show the audience that I have it in me to hurt people if I need."

"You're a jerk!" Phoenix cried out, and I finally removed my eyes from the crowd to look at her. Her face was covered in blood.

"I'm just incredible..." I said, mainly to myself, but Phoenix must have heard me, because I saw her hands moving toward me, and the next thing I knew, I wasn't in the chariot anymore, and I was on the floor.

District 8 female – Gabrielle Buiton, 14

I had not enjoyed one second of the train ride to the Capitol. My district partner, Patch, seemed to be so chill about going off to the Hunger Games. He'd so seemed confident; he was able to talk to our mentor about strategies for the games in a calm and collected matter.

As for me, I sobbed through the entire five-hour trip. I was going to die. I was never going to see my parents again. Never going to see my brothers again. Never going to see my best friends again. Never going to see... never going to see Cyrus again.

Now at least I'd stopped crying, but I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable as I stood naked before the stylist I had been appointed. Who was a man.

When I'd seen that he was my stylist, I didn't care at first. I had four brothers, after all, I felt comfortable around men. But it wasn't until he told me to strip off that I wasn't liking it. I'd asked not to, but he insisted because he had to dress me up.

Why did I need to be dressed up, anyway? I didn't like dressing up normally. If I wanted to I could, my family would steal clothes for me or sell things to get the money to buy nice clothes, but honestly, I didn't care. I wore stuff that was practical and comfortable, and the outfit I was being dressed in was neither of those things.

It was a big dress made of several pieces of fabric, all of them different colours. It looked absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, but it didn't look half as ridiculous as Patch's. I came out to where all the chariots were lined up, and I saw him standing there, arms crossed in his stupid outfit. He was dressed like a bird. Completely in white clothes, with feathers all over those clothes, and even a bird headpiece. It looked so stupid that I laughed out loud, and Patch laughed with me, making me feel a little better about this whole dying and leaving my family thing.

"Gabrielle, I have a question for you," said Patch suddenly. I looked at him sharply. What were his intentions with this? Did he think he could earn my trust so he'd be able to easily eliminate me in the arena?

I had never spoken to Patch personally, but I saw him at the black market often. He was only a year younger than Charles, and the two of them were friends a few years back. According to Charles, he could get very violent very quickly if provoked, and he was quite manipulative. So, I dismissed his question by turning away from him and climbing onto the chariot.

He climbed on right after me, because we were meant to be going on them now anyway. God, this whole chariot thing was a stupid idea. Putting us all out like show ponies now only for us to be slaughtering each other in a week.

As the chariots began to move, I couldn't bring myself to look at the audience. I knew I needed sponsors and I knew to get sponsors I needed them to like me, but I couldn't. I couldn't submit to that sort of crap. Instead, I looked up at the screens that were showing close-ups of all of the tributes.

Some of them looked like they could snap me in half, and some of them looked dead scared. Maybe they all were, and some of them were just better at hiding it than others.

God, I felt sick.

I saw the boy from District One fall off his chariot at one point, but our chariot moved past him, so I didn't think much of it. We got to the end of the long, shiny path, the City Circle, where we stopped right by President Snow's mansion. He was sitting on his balcony, smiling down at all of us.

The president made some long boring speech that I did not care for before the chariots began to move again and the camera followed us all the way to the exit, the crowd still cheering for all of us.

District 11 male – Buster Melrose, 13

My district partner, May, was a good district partner, which I was glad of. She was a bit older and therefore quite a bit taller than me, but she was thin like me. Despite us both being in a smaller frame, we both had a shared determination to win this thing.

We'd got along quite well during the train ride, and I felt a sense of relief about that as we went into separate rooms to be dressed up for the chariot rides. As the stylist dressed me up, I couldn't help but think about the reason I'd gotten into this mess, with Sargent Price rigging the votes.

I still didn't know what I'd supposedly done. When I went back to District 11, I'd force him to tell me. I'd have more power over him then, being District 11's first victor. I'd be richer than the mayor.

My outfit, however, didn't make me feel very rich. It made me feel as if I was simply an object of District 11, which, I supposed, I was in the eyes of the Capitol.

I was dressed like a fruit knight, and I looked ridiculous. A helmet made of apples and a suit of armour made of berries. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever worn, but I was sure the other tributes would be wearing outfits just as stupid. God, District 4 was probably going to be dressed as fish.

I was led out to the chariot by my stylist, and he told me to just wait there for May before I climbed onto the chariot. I looked back at the chariot for District 12, where the girl looked terrified and the boy looked extremely confident.

The girl was even smaller than I was, and she was wearing glasses with coal coated over the rims, which were far too big for her face. I turned around and looked at the chariot for District 10. Only the girl was there so far, and her outfit was almost as ridiculous as mine. Her clothes had a cow print on them, and she was wearing a cowboy hat.

May came to the chariot then, and I couldn't help but notice that her outfit was so much better than mine. She had flowers through her short, curly dark hair, and a genuinely nice-looking dress.

"You ready?" she said to me, gesturing to the chariot.

"Yeah, but why do you get a semi-normal outfit and I get... this?" I said.

"I'm dressed as a goddess of agriculture, apparently," she said. "And you are...?"

"Some fruit knight thing," I grumbled. "Whatever, let's just get on our chariots, everyone else is."

May nodded and we both climbed into the chariot and just a few minutes later the chariots all began to move out onto the path. As soon as we were out there, I heard the crowd go wild and managed to give a smile out to the crowd. God, how was I supposed to get them to like me? They'd all be rooting for the Career Districts. No one was probably even looking at the stupid little boy in the fruit of armour.

But I did my best to wave, and wave, and wave. And, even as the chariots had stopped in front of the President's home, I continued to wave. I wouldn't give up. They'd remember me as the kid who waved.

The kid who waved and won.

District 7 female – Asiza Sekewael, 15

The weird chef kid did not like me. We'd never gotten along much, as I couldn't get him to do anything for me by sweetly batting my eyes like I could do to most of the boys in my class. Plus, I went to the restaurant he worked at once, for Jamie's last birthday, since I'd stolen enough money for us to afford to go there.

However, when we were there, despite how good the food was, Jamie, my sisters, and I all got awful food poisoning from it and were throwing up for at least a week afterwards. When I'd finally returned to school after being sick, I'd decided to confront Arnold about it, whose reaction was to scream at me and call it a coincidence.

We'd avoided each other since. And we avoided each other for the entire train ride, but I knew now, as I sat in my forest elf costume, that in a few minutes, I'd have to stand next to him on a chariot and wave at random people.

I already knew that my tactic was that I was going to make everyone love me. I did that back in District 7, anyway. I gave my stylist a large smile when they said I was ready to go out to the chariot.

I made my way out and met Arnold on the District 7 chariot. I gave him a side-eye as I climbed on, and he just rolled his eyes. I looked around at the other chariots where the other tributes were, sizing them up, looking for potential allies.

I was sure the girl from District 8 was looking at me already. She was probably admiring my beauty. I could get her and many others to do whatever I wanted them to do.

The chariot began to move then, and the cheers of the Capitol citizens echoed in my ears. I felt my stomach do a flip and gave a big smile at the camera. I looked over at Arnold, who was also waving, but not as enthusiastically as I was, and gave him a little nudge, pointing at the camera.

"What?" he said, and I gave him a wide smile. Had to show the audience that I was nice enough to get along with my district partner. They'd root for me in that case, and I could earn some sponsors.

"God, you're so fake," I heard Arnold saying, but it was hard to hear him over the roars of the crowd. I just continued to smile widely. Sure, I was fake, but the Capitol didn't need to know that.

When we got to the end of the long pathway, to President Snow's mansion. I looked directly at him while he made his speech, and he made eye contact with each individual tribute. When he looked at me, I gave my sweetest smile and blinked a few times. But he didn't take much notice of me, his eyes just going to the next tribute.

Still, I didn't stop giving my best and biggest smile until the chariots were out of the pathway and in the training centre, where I grumbled and climbed off the chariot straight away.

Those elf ears were uncomfortable as hell.