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Reaping Day was the day that every parent, and every child in Panem dreaded. For 25 years, the children and the adults prayed to whatever god was listening that they would be safe this year. Please, not me. Please, not my child. But then, of course, it was always somebody’s child, and everyone could only watch as the poor unfortunate boys and girls were lead away to their deaths, and their poor parents were forced to watch their children die on national television. The Hunger Games were cruel enough, but on this year, the year of the 25th Hunger Games, the president had announced that there was going to be a twist. Since it had been a quarter century since the first games, the twist was going to be called a Quarter Quell, and from now on, there would be one Quarter Quell every 25 years, to mark each quarter century. To remind the districts that it was their choice to initiate violence, the twist for the first Quarter Quell would be that the districts would vote on who to send into the arena. Each district had to vote for one boy, and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to send into the arena to die. Volunteering was not an option. This, naturally, had lead to a lot of scheming within the districts. A lot of scheming indeed. Since they could now choose who to send into the games, instead of having two children picked at random, some saw it as an opportunity to get rid of children deemed troublesome, or a burden. Others saw it as an opportunity to vote in children nobody would miss. And others saw a chance to produce a victor for their district.
The arena was made to look like an abandoned snowy village, with 12 two-bedroom log cabins, and a large, frozen lake, along with snow-capped trees. The head game maker that year said that the freezing arena represented the cold, callous hearts of the district citizens, as they voted on which of their children would be sent here to die. There were muttations, too, of course; reindeer with kicks strong enough to break down the log cabin doors, and razor-sharp bladed antlers they could use to stab any tribute who got too close. Snowy owls who spat venom from their beaks. Huskies with a bite force strong enough to break bones like matchsticks. The tribute uniforms that year consisted of big, puffy waterproof coats, with faux fur-trimmed hoods, snow boots, and several layers of thermals. Each coat was made in a different colour, depending on the tributes’ district; gold for 1, rose gold for 2, silver for 3, blue for 4, verdigris for 5, red for 6, forest green for 7, white for 8, purple for 9, tan for 10, peach for 11, and black for 12.
Naturally, Districts 1 and 2 both voted for who they thought were most likely to win the games. They both had a pool of eager volunteers, sure, but they both wanted to be sure that they were sending the best of the best to the games. They wanted victors, and District 1’s ideas of victors were two 18 year olds named Jasper, and Ruby. Jasper was most known for his ingenuity; he didn’t like to use traditional weapons, like swords, or a bow and arrow, no, he preferred to use homemade explosives against his opponents. He was an expert at crafting small explosives like Molotov cocktails, and he’d used them to kill several mutts, and even some tributes in the arena. Ruby had treated the election like a presidential campaign, and she plastered ‘Vote For Ruby’ posters on every square inch of flat surface she could find, and even had her friends hand out cupcakes and buttons. At the tribute parade, she’d smiled and waved like a celebrity, and at her interview, she’d said, “See you all in a few weeks time, when I’ve won.” She was proficient with axes, and warhammers, though her weapon of choice in the arena was an ice pick. She and Jasper had put up valiant efforts, but they both burned to death on the last day of the games, after someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of their cabin. They hadn’t woken up, or been able to escape in time.
District 2 had sent two 18 year old careers named Granite, and Slate. Granite wasn’t the best in his academy, but he thought that he was, and he bragged to everyone about how was gonna go into the games, kill everyone, and win, so everyone had voted for him so that he could put his money where his mouth was. He was the first casualty of the cornucopia massacre, getting an axe in the back of his head from the District 7 boy, Aspen. Slate, meanwhile, lasted a little longer, but not much. She was great with weapons, and very physically strong, but she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Jasper blew up her cabin with a Molotov cocktail on Day 5.
District 3’s offerings were Tinker and Ysabelle, aged 14 and 16. Tinker was a smart and resourceful boy with a strong build, voted in because they thought that his strength and wisdom would mean that he could win. Ysabelle was a bully who had tried to get her whole school to vote for one of her victims, a sweet, shy girl named Silver who was very loved by the adults in her district, as she volunteered at various charitable causes, and worked part-time in the projector factory that her parents owned. Ysabelle’s plan had backfired when the adults had voted her in to save Silver. Ysabelle had gone to the games like a dirty coward; snivelling and crying about how it wasn’t fair, and that she didn’t deserve to be in the games, Silver did, that little bitch. She’d cried to Lucky Flickerman about she’d been the one who was bullied on the night of her interview, which had garnered sympathy from the audience. She survived the Cornucopia massacre, and received a lot of sponsors’ gifts, but with no fighting, or survival experience to speak of, she couldn’t survive on her own, and the careers didn’t want her as an ally, because she served no benefit to them. When word got out that she had been the bully at home, and not the victim, the sponsors’s gifts stopped, and no one else wanted to ally with her, especially not Tinker, who had seen her bully Silver first hand. Ysabelle threw a tantrum when he refused to ally with her, and went on a tirade against Silver, which had led to Tinker pushing her into the frozen lake in a fit of rage. She screamed for help, but no one came as the ice broke beneath her feet, and she succumbed to the icy depths. Tinker was granted a much swifter death, as he was attacked by the reindeer mutts. They skewered his chest, and that was it.
From District 4, there was Ahi, and Marina. Ahi was an orphaned 15 year old, voted in because he didn’t have any family, or even friends, who would mourn his likely death. Marina was the same; an orphaned 16 year old thrown into the games simply because no one loved her, and no one would miss her. Ironically, Ahi and Marina ended up falling in love in the arena, thus finding the love they had never had before they were sentenced to death. When Ahi contracted pneumonia on Day 10, Marina had tried to nurse him back to health. The Capitol audience, enthralled by the tragic story of the star-crossed lovers, sent them gifts of food, and medicine, and warm blankets, but none of it was enough to save Ahi. He died peacefully in Marina’s arms, and Marina, unable to live without the only person who had ever loved her, died not long after. She slit her throat with a sword she’d gotten at the cornucopia massacre.
District 5 had voted in Spark, and Janice. No one was sure exactly what was wrong with 17 year old Spark, but he was rumoured to be a sociopath. Back home, he killed random people’s pets, and beat up little kids just for fun. He was handy with a knife, a skill which got him on the good side of the District 1 careers, until he’d betrayed them. He’d buried a bear trap outside of their cabin, in the hopes of trapping, and killing one of them, but Slate had accidentally dug it up while foraging for food. When she’d confronted Spark about it, he’d tried to play dumb, but Slate didn’t believe him, and bashed his skull in with her war hammer. Spark was a highly lethal tribute, whose bloodthirsty nature and eagerness to kill had gotten him far into the games, but his own hubris had been his undoing. The same couldn’t be said for his district partner, 13 year old Janice. Janice was severely intellectually disabled, so much so that she couldn’t tie her own shoes, or brush her own hair. She didn’t understand the rules of the games, or why the tributes who were sent to them never came home. She’d been deemed a burden by her family, and her district, and they’d voted into the arena to get rid of her. Poor Janice had never even seen the careers coming at the cornucopia massacre. She had died screaming for her mother as they charged at her with ice picks, and Molotov cocktails. Her being in the games alone was controversial, but there was public outrage when she’d died. Many argued that she shouldn’t have been in the games at all, not that the people of District 5 cared, or even her family. Oh, sure, they’d pretended to cry for her on the winner’s victory tour, but their tears were crocodile tears. They’d sentenced her to her death, after all.
District 6’s offerings were 12 year old Karl, and 18 year old Estelle. There wasn’t much to say about Karl, for he’d refused to speak to anyone, even on the night of his interview. Still, some of the audience found the awkward silence between Lucky’s questions hilarious, so, in spite of his poor odds of winning, he’d garnered the attention of some sponsors. He didn’t live long enough to receive any of their gifts, though, as he was a casualty of the cornucopia massacre, speared from behind by Ruby. His death had been as quiet, and insignificant as he was. The rest of Panem never found out who had voted him in, or why, though there were rumours that it was because he was from an abusive family. Neither of his parents wanted him, which had been a good enough reason for the rest of District 6 to vote him into the arena to die. No one would mourn him, after all. Estelle, meanwhile, was voted in by her classmates at school. She was a quiet loner who only had one friend, and hardly anyone paid attention to her, even her teachers. She’d been severely bullied in the past, and didn’t trust anyone, except for her parents, and her one and only friend. Nobody bothered trying to get close to her, and she never reached out to anyone else. When her name had been announced at the reaping, she and her friend, Lune had burst into tears. At her interview, Estelle had said that she had no one to live for, except for Lune, and her parents, but that she was determined to survive for them.
Aspen and Birch were the ones sent to the arena by District 7. Aspen, like the careers and Tinker, had been voted in because they all thought he would win. He was 18 years old, tall, handy with an axe, had a strong build, and he knew a lot about foraging and survival. He taught people in the district how to forage for edible plants to feed themselves, so that they wouldn’t have to have their children’s names put in the reaping balls more times. Some of the families who’d learned from him, and many of his classmates, had cried when his name was called. There had been mass upset when he’d been ripped to shreds by the husky mutts on Day 20. 14 year old Birch, meanwhile, had been sent to her death for petty reasons; she wasn’t a criminal, or an orphan no one would miss, and she wasn’t deemed a burden to anyone, no, she had been voted in simply because a lot of people didn’t like her. Her classmates at her very big high school thought that she was loud, and annoying, and she liked to butt in on conversations that didn’t involve her. She was reportedly neglected at home, and, since she got no attention from her parents, she sought attention from everyone else. Negative attention was better than none at all, in her eyes. But what had caused her classmates to sign her death warrant was the fact that she’d latched onto a popular boy who wasn’t interested in her. She’d refused to take no for an answer, sending him flowers, and homemade cards every day, until he finally snapped. When Birch was voted in, she’d cried for him as she was lead away. When she was interviewed, she’d told Lucky Flickerman that she wanted to win so that she could go home to her ‘sweetheart’. When she’d been killed on Day 10 by the reindeer mutts, her last words had been for him. Everyone thought that it was sad and pathetic for her to still lust after a boy who obviously hated her, but she knew better. With every sharp-tongued rejection, he’d given Birch more of the attention she so desperately craved. In her mind, him hating her was the deepest form of love.
False accusations has gotten District 8’s tribute boy, 16 year old Velour, into the games. He’d been accused of murdering the mayor’s son, but when the case went to court, it had ended in a hung jury. Velour hadn’t murdered the boy, but since he wasn’t proven innocent, nor guilty, everyone had assumed that he was guilty. Velour had never hurt a fly in his life, and he never made any kills in the arena, either; he survived the cornucopia massacre, but starved to death, because he didn’t know how to forage, or hunt, and no sponsors sent him any food. Meanwhile, his district partner, 15 year old Silkie was voted in as an act of revenge. Her mother had won the 5th hunger games by brutally decapitating her district partner, and said district partner was the son of the mayor’s older sister. The boy’s mother had never recovered from the grief of losing her only child, and so, District 8 had conspired to vote Silkie in so that her mother would know what it was like to lose her only child. Silkie’s mother had collapsed, screaming when she’d seen her daughter die at the hands of the owl mutts.
District 9 had sent 15 year old Harley, and 16 year old Vesta. Harley was, like Ahi and Marina, an orphan who had no family to mourn him, and on top of that, he didn’t seem to be any good at any of the jobs he’d attempted to train for. With no discernible skills, and no family, he’d been deemed worthless. Even so, he’d gotten friendly with some of the other tributes, and when he’d stumbled across a dying Silkie, he’d held her hand to comfort her as she passed on. He ended up dying at the hands of Farrie not long after, as she decapitated him with an axe. Meanwhile, no one knew why Vesta, his district partner, had been sent there to die. She was tall, kind, and beautiful, with olive skin, and long, shiny black hair. She’d looked positively radiant in her tribute parade costume, with a tan Greek-style chiton, and a wheatgrass crown on her head. Or at least she had, until training begun. It was clear to everyone that she was a goner when she collapsed in a pool of the blood she’d just vomited up. Her district had sent her to the arena to die, because she was dying anyway. When the games began, she’d coughed hard enough to make her feet slip off of her platform before the gong rang, and been blown up. They’d had to send people into the arena to scoop bits of her off of the bloodied snow.
13 year old Wattle, and 18 year old Farrie were District 10’s unlucky tributes. Wattle was a sensitive boy who got way too attached to the chickens his family farmed, and he couldn’t bear to see them go off to slaughter. He loved them like they were his pets, and on multiple occasions, he’d been caught trying to free them on the night before they were shipped off to slaughter. He couldn’t bear to see any animals be slaughtered for human consumption, and naturally, that had painted the target on his back when the Quarter Quell was announced. Anyone who couldn’t farm, or slaughter animals, or even handle meat was useless in District 10. He couldn’t bear the thought of killing the other tributes, either, when he’d been voted in. He’d died in the cornucopia massacre, killed by his own district partner. Farrie had been one of the people who had voted for him. Farrie was, like Spark, rumoured to be a sociopath; her parents ran a slaughterhouse, and she took a little too much pride in helping them slaughter pigs and cows for meat. She knew how to do her job, but refused to do it correctly, because she enjoyed making the animals suffer as much as possible before they died, and that was what had gotten her voted into the games. She was of no use to her district if she refused to do her job correctly. She had ended up having one of the most painful deaths in the arena; she’d charged at Estelle with a sword, only for Estelle to shoot her in the throat with a blow dart. She’d then ripped the dart out, causing her to slowly choke on her own blood.
The tributes from District 11 were polar opposites. The boy they’d sent to die in the arena, 18 year old Ryan, was the spoiled rotten golden child of District 11’s mayor. He was mommy and daddy’s little prince, and he could do no wrong, meanwhile his younger brothers weren’t allowed to even cough. Ryan was a bully who stole whatever he wanted, beat up other kids, especially his brothers, and even sexually harassed girls, and his parents let him get away with it all because he was their golden child. They’d sobbed like the world was ending when the district had voted him in. That was the day that Ryan had realised that being mommy and daddy’s little prince wouldn’t save him from everything. Ryan didn’t last long in the arena. On Day 3, he’d tried to make a move on Estelle, and gotten rejected, so he’d attempted to kill her. He’d chased her from the cabins to the frozen lake, and she’d made a risky gambit by attempting to lose him by running across the lake, in the hopes that it would crack, and he would fall in. Her gambit paid off when Ryan accidentally stepped on a weak spot she’d nearly fallen through herself, and the ice had cracked, and he’d fallen straight through. It had taken a while to find his body at the bottom of the lake. Meanwhile, 14 year old Bloom’s family thought that she and her five sisters were mistakes. They’d wanted a son, and in their attempts to produce a son, they’d had five daughters. They wanted to try again, but couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, so they had gone around telling people to please vote for their daughters. Any one would do, as long as it freed up a space for them to try for a boy, and the district citizens happily voted for them, knowing that their parents wouldn’t miss them. Bloom, the youngest, had the misfortune of getting the most votes. She had lasted a week into the games before being killed by Slate during a fight over some cloudberries.
District 12’s tributes were Dougie and Ash, a 12 year old pair of twins born to one of the poorest families in the Seam. Their mother couldn’t afford to feed them both; she was a mother of 5 already before they were born, and when she’d found out that she was pregnant again, she’d wanted to give her twins up, but no one would take them. No one in District 12 could handle two extra mouths to feed, not even the mayor, so she’d been forced to keep them. Dougie and Ash had never had enough food in their lives, and their mother resented having to feed them at all. They’d gone to the Capitol, ashen-faced, with skeletal frames, and, despite being sentenced to death, they’d appeared much healthier, and much happier when the games had begun. For three weeks, they’d been treated like celebrities, instead of like burdens, and been given fancy clothes, and fancy food. Dougie had died at the cornucopia, and Ash was killed by Spark shortly after, but at least the two of them had died with full bellies, and the love and support of the sponsors who were cheering for them to win.
The winner ended up being Estelle. She trusted no one, so she made no alliances, and didn’t take any food that was left out, unless it was from the cornucopia, in case it had been poisoned to trap her. Her cautious nature made her a favourite in the Capitol, and she received a lot of gifts for her resourcefulness and quick wit. She’d used some venom collected from a dead owl mutt to poison the blow dart she’d used to kill Farrie. She’d created a Molotov cocktail from an empty glass water bottle, some lighter fluid, and a piece of her own torn-off coat, and thrown it through the window of District 1’s cabin, which started a fire, killing both of the tributes inside.
On the night of Estelle’s tribute interview, she’d been dressed in a silver sheath dress, with a silver wolf-ear headband, and a white fur shrug, to represent her lone wolf nature, according to her stylist. On the night of her victory interview, she’d been dressed in a shimmering lilac gown with a white fur trim, and an icicle tiara. Her stylist had wanted to make her look like an ice queen; she’d been ‘iced out’ by her own district, by being voted into the games, and she’d survived the frozen arena, so ‘ice queen’ seemed like the perfect motif for her outfit. When asked if she had anything to say about her victory, and her kills, she’d declined to comment, saying that she was just glad to be alive.
When Estelle received her house in the Victor’s Village, she’d immediately moved herself, her parents, and Lune’s family in with her. Suddenly, the district who’d sent her into the arena to die were acting like she was their pride and joy, and they all tried to be friendly with her just so that she would share her newfound wealth with them, but she’d refused. Estelle wouldn’t share her wealth with the people who sent her away to die. She only wanted to share it with the people who cared about her, and wanted her to live. She’d survived the games, not her condemners, and the least she deserved for surviving the horrors of the games was to live, with her loved ones, in the lap of luxury.