Trydan Briod- District Five male (17)

Traps seemed like a logical place for me to start. I'd always had an eye for complicated things like that. It was soothing to sit down with a complex problem and slowly figure it out and iron out all the flaws. Knowing that everything had to be exact helped me focus. If I got something wrong at work, someone could die. If I got something wrong in a trap, I might die.

"That knot will come apart if it's pulled." The assistant reached over and pointed out the rope I'd just tied.

"Oh, sorry. I'll fix it," I said. My cheeks warmed as I put my head down and retied the knot. You already messed it up, I berated myself. I didn't have time to make stupid mistakes like this. Everything had to be perfect.

"A trap like this is great for ground-dwelling animals like groundhogs," the assistant commented as I worked.

"Oh? Cool," I said. I was trying to listen but something was distracting me. I tried to muscle past it but decided to come clean. "I'm sorry, this is really weird, but would it be okay if you didn't watch while I made this? I'm really shy."

"Oh, no problem! Plenty of people are like that," the assistant said, giving me a friendly hand-wave. "I'll go take five."

"Thanks," I said politely. Really I should have welcomed more advice but I just got so far in my own head. I knew the assistant was only here to help me but I always felt like people were judging me. I hated doing anything with someone even in the same room unless they were working on someone else. I just knew if I made a mistake that would be exactly when they looked over.

"Done?" the assistant asked when he returned a few minutes later.

"I think so," I said. I looked critically at the snare I'd made. It looked right- the rope was tight, the loop was anchored so it wouldn't go off randomly, the sticks I'd used were bendy but not too weak.

The assistant took a stick and tugged at the rope. The snare sprung and tightened around the stick.

"Looks good!" the assistant said.

"Thanks!" I looked proudly at the snared stick. I should have more confidence, I told myself.

"I'm gonna try the shelter station. Thanks for the help!" I said, waving at the attendant as I left.

The shelter-making station looked a bit like a playground in my opinion. There were fake trees and rocks to build off of and branches and materials lying around to use. It was like the kind of park we didn't have in Five. I decided to use a hip-high boulder as my base. I couldn't predict much about the Arena but surely it would at least have rocks. I started with a pine bough and leaned it against the boulder to make a lean-to.

If the wind comes it will blow over, I realized. I fixed that problem by weighing the bough down with some rocks.

What if water gets in? I raised the floor with some grass and vegetation. I pored over every inch of my shelter, checking for any minute flaws.

As I worked, Taylor came over and started her own shelter. I noticed she'd started on bare ground, while I'd chosen a boulder as a solid foundation. She was using moss for her roof. I wondered how it would behave if it got waterlogged. My shelter was pointed so the rain would trickle off.

Not that we're competing, but if we were, mine is totally better.

Trayne Treadwell-Lang- District Five male (17)

"Wow, cool shelter."

I'd come over to the shelter station mostly to check out what materials were there and try to scope out what sort of biome the Arena might be. While I was there, though, I saw a totally dope rock-and-stick shelter. Something like that deserved a shoutout.

The kid inside wiggled out. "Thanks," he said. "I curved the roof down this way to divert water to a single spot so I could maybe capture it.

"Ooh, smart," I said. "I used to make forts like this back home."

"You had trees and stuff in Six?" the boy asked.

"Not most of us, but I lived right by a lake," I said. "Public land or something, so we got to play on it."

"How did your forts work?" The interest was evident on the boy's face. "Did they keep you warm?"

"In Six? Oh, no," I said. "I would only stay overnight if I was lost in the woods or something." I pointed at his shelter. "A fort like yours would keep me from dying but it would be miserable."

The boy frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," I said. "It's just northern Six is really cold."

"I suppose if I dug a hollow out of the grass floor and scooped out some dirt I might be able to make a fire pit," the boy said. He put his hand to his chin as he looked at his fort, his brows furrowed. "I'd need to add ventilation then."

"Oh, yeah, don't forget that. Every year one or two people die because they didn't ventilate their ice-fishing huts," I said. A girl in my class lost her father that way. Funny how the rumor mills worked. Different cliques of third-graders insisted he'd died from everything from alcohol poisoning to falling off a building. Looking back it was weird not a single one of us just asked our parents for the real story. I guess we'd thought it was impolite.

"How are you supposed to ventilate them?" the boy asked. "I work with electricity so I know how to control for that, but cold is entirely different."

"Wow, you ever get shocked?" I asked.

"Not anymore but before I was good I did," the boy said. He held up the hand I'd somehow completely overlooked. "This is what happens when you're dumb."

"I knew a guy who lost a finger while he was working on a motorcycle wheel," I commented. "We called him Stumpy."

"I've heard that one a few times," the boy said with a sheepish smile. "It's really Trydan, though."

"I'm Trayne," I said. "Oh, you asked me something. Usually people at home had chimneys for their ice huts. Boring answer but I guess they're popular for a reason.

Trydan got on the floor on his back and scooted into his fort. "I guess if I kind of break the branches until there's a hole in the roof..."

I wiggled in after him to help out. "If you put some small branches loosely over the hole maybe they'll let the smoke through but keep some of the snow off if it's snowing."

"You stay in here and break from the bottom and I'll go out and meet you from the top," Trydan suggested. The two of us carefully snapped twigs until we broke through to each other's hands.

"Is the air coming out?" Trydan asked.

"It got less stuffy in here, so I think so," I said.

"Let me see." Trydan wiggled in next to me. Turned out the shelter was the perfect size for two.

Cactus Cleo- District Seven male (18)

There wasn't anyone here I didn't think I could take. I didn't mean to be arrogant but it was just true. Besides, I didn't say there wasn't anyone here I couldn' take. I only said I thought so. It wasn't even as much of a brag as it might have been. The Careers this year were a joke. Barely half of them were even real Careers. The strongest of the bunch was probably Kendall. WIth his skills and his economic background he had to be the odds-on favorite. He was the one whose radar it would pay to stay under. I glanced over at him until he finally tried out his weapon. A crossbow, it turned out. I made a note to visit the running station and learn about evasive maneuvering.

Far more interesting to me than who I was avoiding, however, was who I was going to kill. Obviously the Games didn't end until almost everyone was killed. Past that, though, there was the fact that killers got sponsors. As much as I hated to admit it, I wasn't entirely a self-made man. I'd had help getting to where I was and I'd need help to win the Games. I'd thought about allies and was still on the fence, but friends in the Capitol were a lot more valuable than friends in the Arena.

Unlike some of the more savage of the Careers, I wasn't looking to kill just anyone. I was doing this for business, not pleasure. I wanted the maximum profit with the minimal risk of injury. The smallest ones, like Josie and Ai, were the easiest to kill but came with the lowest payoff. They could possibly even backfire- no one liked a bully who killed kids half his size. Those two were off my list, then. I'd kill them if the occasion arose but they weren't my first pick.

It would gratify my pride to pick Kendall as my target but I couldn't let my pride be in charge. It was a huge potential payoff, to be sure- killing the strongest Career right in the Bloodbath? I'd have my pick of supplies and might even be able to leverage it to get into the Career pack. With this group of Careers I could run everything. But Kendall wasn't just a plot device in the story of my life. He'd fight back, quite likely at least injuring me, and very possibly killing me. High risk, high reward. Not the kind of bet I usually liked to take.

Alara, maybe? Career-adjacent but not quite a Career? An easier target and some people might overlook her non-Career background and think I was even stronger than I was? Val and Octavia suggested the same but each came with a built-in protector. I'd wait until one died and then go after the other.

I was learning about sand pit shelters when I heard the boys next to me. I looked over from my partially-dug pit to see the boys from Six and Five working on a forest shelter. They seemed to be working together pretty well. The boy from Five was clearly smart and I could see the Six boy's athletic tone even under his clothes.

I could take them together, I assessed, running the numbers on their sizes and temperaments and my experience. There was less risk here- I didn't have to worry that if one got away he would call the police. I thought I could take them both, but I decided I'd play it safe and pick them off separately. The Six boy might even believe me if I said I just wanted to talk. He seemed like the friendly type. The Five boy would be suspicious but no problem, I could just outrun him. Then I'd have two solid kills and a cozy shelter to boot.