The First Quell

by Lady Hill

It's the 25th Annual Hunger Games, the First Quarter Quell. And the districts have to choose the tributes this year. But 18-year-old District 9 citizen Emmer Skadsen refuses to fall prey to the Capital's Plan to divide the districts from within. He volunteers as a tribute, taking the burden away from his people. With his partner, he learns from a past victor how to win the Games.

1. Part 1: The Lamb

Part 1 "The Lamb"

District 9 has had one victor in the past 24 years. Demetria Langford was her name. Shortly after The Games, she came back home and killed herself with a handful of nightlock berries before she could go on her Victory Tour. Now, technically speaking, our District has no victors. All of our tributes have gone without a proper mentor all these years and none of them have come home. But none of that matters now. Two people from our District were about to be chosen by their own people to die.

I'm guessing that was the idea of the Capital: first, turn the districts against each other by forcing the members to kill each other in The Games. Now, they're gonna turn the districts against themselves from the inside. The message being no one is safe. The Quarter Quell, they were calling it. A few weeks ago, a television broadcast announced that this year the districts would have to elect who they would send into the Games. A raffle, they called it, not a reaping.

Ever since then, the people of Nine have been casting their ballots to choose who they wanted to send into the Arena. But I wasn't about to let my people be responsible for killing one of their own. I wouldn't let the Capital pull the wool over their eyes that way. That's why I've been campaigning to be the male tribute that they send in. And when they call my name and I go on that stage, I'll be making a statement to the Capital, and to my District, and it will be this: They can't make us do anything. We do have control. And we do have at least some say in how we live and how we die. They don't. They're not Gods.

That's why I'm standing here, the 18-year-old son of grain millers, here for my last reaping ever, in slacks and a clean white collar shirt—my best clothes—waiting to hear my name be called and hoping to God that my plan works.