.

Part II:

Hunger Games #26-50.

Victims #576-1174.

576: Like most children in District 12, Nary was born into a coal mining family and lived in the poorer part of the district known as the Seam. But his family was a little bit more well-off than most of the others in his neighborhood. His father worked hard to earn a promotion to shift foreman prior to his conception, which allowed Nary's mother to get out of the mines after she got pregnant. She was able to stay at home raising chickens, as well as their only child. Nary was a precocious child, fearless and well-liked by his teachers and classmates. But his whole life, he could never escape the connection between himself and the Hunger Games. Nary was born on the day the Thirteenth Hunger Games ended, the day District 12 witnessed their first ever winner. In some other districts, he might have been named Victor, but instead his parents named him after a bird and tried not to think about the Games.

Their efforts were in vain, however. The first year Nary was eligible for the Reaping, he was selected for the Twenty-Sixth Games, just a few weeks short of his thirteenth birthday, despite having taken no tessera. He was the first twelve-year-old from District 12 to defy the odds and be selected with only a single entry in the weighted lottery, a feat that would not be repeated for another forty-eight years.

Nary took his reaping in stride. During the few minutes that his parents were allowed to say goodbye, he confidently told them that he would find a way to win. But his brashness was his undoing as he ran directly into the heart of the Bloodbath and found himself pitted against a much larger seventeen-year-old boy from District 1. He fought bravely, but quickly found himself on the wrong end of the other boy's sword, making him the first victim of the Twenty-Sixth Games.

598: The District 1 boy's name was Shine, and he went into the Reaping more prepared for the Games than any of the other tributes. Shine was second-born child of a wealthy business owner. His grandparents were among the sizable portion of District 1's population that supported the Capitol during the War, and they were rewarded nicely for their loyalty. Shine's parents were young enough to be eligible for the first few Hunger Games, but in the early years it seemed as though the odds were always stacked against the children of the rebel families. Untouched by the horror of having loved ones actually in the Games, Shine's parents instead developed a fascination with the bloodsport – quite similar to that of the Capitol residents. In a district where wealth and status meant everything, Shine's father became enamored with the idea of having a child win the Games, earning glory not only in the district but also from the Capitol. So from a young age, Shine was conditioned to prepare himself for the arena. His father trained him to fight with sticks and dining knives almost before he even learned to walk. Every free hour after school was devoted to preparing for the Games. Technically, it was illegal, but with his family's loyalty to the Capitol unquestioned, the Peacekeepers let it slide. They tended to root for the tributes from their assigned district during the Games, anyway. In many ways, Shine was the first Career tribute. With District 1 fresh off its Quarter Quell victory, Shine volunteered a year early to try to make it back to back wins for the district.

Shine received a lot from his parents: healthy food, physical fitness, combat training, survival skills and discipline. But one thing his parents never gave him was their affection. They saw him as a means to an end, and he could never earn their approval without succeeding in the Games. And even though he didn't know it, deep down he had a yearning to be loved. It was that which would prove to be his undoing. His district partner was not a volunteer, and she had no combat training whatsoever. But she was clever enough to know how to take advantage of a guy like Shine. By the end of the week between the Reaping and the start of the Games, she had him hopelessly devoted to her (though before the days of interviewing tributes prior to the Games, they never had a chance to sell a Star-Crossed Lovers angle to the Capitol audience). Naturally they allied right after the Bloodbath, although it wasn't so much a team as the girl letting Shine do all the work, while providing just enough assistance to keep him wound around her finger. The only solo kill she was credited with was when she stuck her knife into a very confused Shine's heart, moments after he had defeated the last remaining competitor outside of District 1.

612: Kara was the eldest of three children of a maintenance worker in District 9. She had a fairly happy childhood, as her loving parents worked hard to provide for their family. Although they weren't rich by any means, there were many families in the district that struggled far more than they did. But tragedy struck when Kara was thirteen years old. Her father was tasked with keeping the giant machines that sorted wheat and barley operational. It was a difficult job, as the machines were very old, made up of many recycled parts dating back to before the Dark Days. Kara's father constantly had to replace worn out parts with slightly less worn out ones. He submitted numerous requests to the mayor and the Capitol to have new parts built, but they fell on deaf ears. One night, as he was trying to replace a broken gear, a support beam gave way, crushing him and two coworkers. Normally, when someone is killed while on the job for the district industry, a small amount of financial support is given to the family, enough to cover one month's worth of wages. However, Capitol officials ruled that because Kara's father was in charge of maintenance, it was negligence on his part, so they denied his family compensation for his death. Kara was forced to start taking tesserae to help support her family, and at the age of seventeen, the extra entries in the Reaping caught up to her.

The arena for the Twenty-Seventh Games was a set of grassy hills that offered very little cover. Kara escaped the opening Bloodbath with no weapon and very few supplies. She lasted three days on her own before she was discovered by the pair of tributes from District 4. It wasn't much of a fight. The girl ran Kara down from behind and tripped her up, and the boy followed in to finish her off. Mercifully for Kara, he wasn't interested in making any kind of a show, quickly plunging his trident into her heart.

636: Kobee was the son of a District 10 cattle rancher. He was named after a legendary gladiator who once competed in a sport known as "basketball", a competition whose rules and history had long ago been forgotten in Panem. But in District 10, the name was remembered due to its connection with the meat industry. It was said that the legendary gladiator was named after a type of gourmet beef produced in the ancient times. Many genetic engineering efforts were made in an attempt to reproduce the long-extinct species, but none were entirely successful.

Despite having such a legendary name, Kobee's life in District 10 was fairly typical. He and his brothers worked on his father's ranch after school, while his mother and sister took care of the meals and kept the house clean. And each year, they prayed for the children to avoid being chosen for the Games. Kobee almost made it; he was eighteen and in his last year of eligibility when his name was called for the Twenty-Eighth Games.

As one of the oldest competitors in the field and physically fit from his days working on the ranch, Kobee was seen as one of the favorites to win. Unfortunately for the Gamemakers, Kobee wasn't particularly interested in murdering a bunch of kids, and instead tried to hide and let everyone else die off. He escaped the Bloodbath with a rope, which he soon used to lasso a wild pig, providing him with plenty of food for the early days of the Games. Three days in, he encountered the boy from District 11. Rather than brutally fighting to the death, they formed an alliance instead. Between the District 11 boy's knowledge of plants and Kobee's skills with animals, surviving the wilderness was not a problem for the pair. But pacifism was boring, so the Gamemakers manipulated them into a confrontation with a larger alliance consisting of the tributes from Districts 2 and 4 and the boy from District 5. Kobee and his ally fought bravely, but in the end, they were overwhelmed and both lost their lives.

Kobee's run in the Games was largely forgettable by Capitol standards, except for one small footnote: during the time he was allied with the District 11 boy, they had several conversations about their lives prior to the Hunger Games. During one of those, Kobee shared about the significance of his name. That conversation was seen by a Gamemaker, giving him the idea to have interviews prior to the Games, to help bettors decide who to put their money on. It took more than a year to get approval, but eventually the tribute interviews would become one of the most popular parts of the pre-game festivities.

670: The first tribute to ever be interviewed was named Freesia. She was the daughter of a perfumer in District 1. Her father was one of the select few district citizens who actually got to visit the Capitol. This privilege was virtually unheard of in other districts, but the rules were always a bit different for District 1. As suppliers of luxury items with a favored relationship with the Capitol, the top businessmen were afforded the opportunity to travel into the Capitol to demonstrate their new products. Freesia's father was one of these lucky ones. Of course, he could only travel for strictly business purposes, and was never allowed to bring Freesia along with him. But he did bring back stories of the splendor of the Capitol, and Freesia dreamed of going there.

Freesia was also very much a typical District 1 girl in that she was somewhat vain and obsessed with popularity. Status meant everything in District 1, and though Freesia was already near the top of the social ladder at school thanks to her father, still she craved for more. When the announcement was made that the Thirtieth Hunger Games would for the first time include a televised interview allowing all of Panem to get to know the tributes, it seemed to be everything Freesia was looking for: a chance to go to the Capitol and become a national star. Of course, there was the minor problem of having to outlive twenty-three other tributes in the arena, but Freesia' judgment was clouded by the Capitol propaganda videos, and she was convinced that she was destined to become a Victor. She was fifteen years old when she volunteered. Her father, who was in the Capitol for business on the day of the Reaping, didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

The interview process was somewhat different in the early days. The tributes were questioned by a group of Capitol reporters, rather than an experienced television host. Since Freesia was the female tribute from District 1, she was up first. Without any precedent to work with, the reporters simply grilled her on her abilities and strategies for winning the Games. Freesia was totally unprepared for the questioning, and came off looking like a silly and naïve girl with no plan. She proved to be completely out of her depth in the arena, as she picked up a mace that was too heavy for her to handle and tried to take on the much bigger boy from District 2 in the Bloodbath. It only took a few minutes for him to cut her throat.

726: Husk was the younger of two orphan brothers who grew up in a Community Home in District 11. His father was a farm laborer, like the majority of the district. When Husk was four years old, his father was caught stealing food to feed his very ill wife, who was pregnant with her third child. He was executed, and Husk's mother died shortly thereafter. Husk was too young to remember his father's hanging clearly, but his older brother remembered well enough for the both of them. They were very close since they only had each other, so close that Husk's older brother might have volunteered for Husk when he was reaped for the Thirty-Second Hunger Games, had he not already aged out of eligibility.

One of the facts of life in the District 11 Community Home was that every child there must take the maximum amount of tesserae each year. This reduces the financial burden on the district, and helps support the younger children who cannot yet take tesserae. At the age of sixteen, one of Husk's extra entries was drawn in the lottery, sending him to the Games. Husk fought bravely in the Games, surviving for eight days in the arena and even managing to defeat the boy from District 4, a volunteer who clearly had trained prior to the Games. But he was injured in the fight, and in his weakened state he was unable to escape a wild boar which turned out to be carnivorous.

Husk's brother watched him die on television, powerless to save him. The last surviving member of the family, he remained alone, harboring a hatred for the Capitol fueled by the memories of Husk and their parents, as well as a guilt for being the only one to survive. But for forty-two years, he was too afraid to do or say anything against the government, until he watched two tributes from District 12 stand up to the Gamemakers and live. That inspiration gave him the courage to instigate a small act of defiance by District 11 when they visited during their Victory Tour. His eyes were on the District 12 girl, but his mind was on Husk and his parents the whole time. He was immediately executed for that act of sedition, but he welcomed the bullet that went through his brain, feeling at peace for the first time in decades at the prospect of reuniting with his family in the afterlife.

757: Coral was the only daughter of a man who was basically the closest thing to a politician outside of the Capitol. He was born into one of the wealthier families in District 4, and his parents were fiercely loyal to the Capitol during the Dark Days. In what was perhaps the most evenly divided of the districts during the war, the leadership of Coral's grandfather was crucial in helping the loyalists to regain control of the district. He was rewarded handsomely after the war, as the Capitol seized the fishing boats owned by traitors and placed the majority of them under his control. Coral's uncles were content to inherit the new fishing empire, but her father had his sights set on another prize; his ambition was to become Mayor of the entire district.

There are no such things as free elections in Panem; the Mayor is appointed by the Capitol and can be removed at any time. The Capitol selects the person who it believes will best maintain their control over the district, so demonstrating unwavering support of their policies is a must, including of course the Hunger Games. Coral's father long believed that having his only child volunteer for and win the Games would cement his candidacy for Mayor. Coral's mother was less convinced, but she went along with it because she too had ambitions of living in the Mayor's mansion. So from a young age, Coral spent her entire life training to be a tribute and knowing that her fate would be decided in the Games. Winning would mean her survival, but more importantly, it would help her father become the Mayor. Coral was seventeen when she volunteered for the Thirty-Third Hunger Games (her father had her volunteer a year early just in case someone else also volunteered and Coral wasn't chosen).

Coral wasn't the only "Career" tribute in the Thirty-Third Games; Districts 1 and 2 were starting to send trained volunteers more often than not. Coral was the one with the best training score, though, outperforming even the burly boys from Districts 1 and 2. When the Games started, she formed an alliance with the other Careers – the four tributes from 1 and 2 plus the boy from District 7. (The boy from her own district didn't make the cut, dying during the opening Bloodbath.) Together this "Career pack" hunted down and eliminated the other competitors – all but one; the girl from District 11 who survived by hiding and setting traps against the alliance. On the eleventh day of the Games, with the Career pack down to four, they wandered into a trap set by the District 11 girl, which badly injured Coral and killed one of the others. The remaining Careers, having no use for a wounded ally at that stage of the Games, quickly turned on Coral and finished her off.

Coral's father was disappointed that he would not have a Victor in his household, but he recovered quickly, spinning his image into that of a man who willingly sacrificed his only child in service of the Capitol. A year after Coral was buried, he was appointed Mayor despite her failure to win. But his tenure would only last a few months, as his wife was far more affected by their daughter's death. On what would have been her nineteenth birthday, Coral's mother took a steak knife to her husband's throat before taking her own life, in one of the biggest scandals in District 4 history.

798: Gandy was the only child of a railway maintenance worker from District 6. He lost his father when he was still very young. While repairing weather damage to a trestle above a steep gorge somewhere between Districts 7 and 10, Gandy's father slipped and plunged into the river below. His body was never recovered, which led to the unfortunate rumor that he might have faked his death to escape the Capitol's control. Truth be told, the Capitol didn't try particularly hard to find his body; they sent a hovercraft which did a few thermal scans downstream for a couple of hours before declaring him dead. At any rate, Gandy's mother never doubted that her husband had died; she knew he would never desert her and Gandy. She loved her late husband dearly, but raising a young child as a single mother proved to be too difficult, so she remarried a couple of years later, mostly for financial reasons.

Gandy's stepfather was a mechanic who worked on Peacekeeper trucks in the central service center located within the district. It was a safer job, but unlike Gandy's father, he never got to see what was beyond the district fence. Gandy's stepfather was a harsh and occasionally abusive man, though he saved the worst for the boy that was the living reminder that someone else got to his wife before he did. He would always say he was just toughening up Gandy to prepare him in case the boy was chosen for the arena, but he never bothered to "toughen up" any of his own children, Gandy's half-siblings. At the age of sixteen, Gandy had had enough. He volunteered for the Thirty-Fifth Hunger Games, knowing that if he survived, he'd get to live in luxury in the Victor's Village. Either way, he would never have to endure his stepfather again. His mother came to see him after the Reaping; his stepfather didn't.

The Thirty-Fifth Games was held in a barren wasteland that had very little water and virtually no food that could be gleaned from the arena. Instead, there were a number of landmarks scattered around the arena, and each day the Gamemakers would announce that food would be available at one or two of these at a specific time. The tributes would have to make their way to the specified "Feast" and battle it out for the supplies. (This concept proved popular enough that it would occasionally be reused as an element in future Games.) Gandy was not exactly a Career tribute, but he was definitely more prepared for combat than any of the non-volunteers, easily winning the first two Feasts he joined. On the eighth day of the Games, though, he met up with the brutal boy from District 2. The site of this Feast was a trestle-like pyramid spanning a narrow canyon with knife-like rocks below. The fight was vicious, with the structure canceling out some of the District 2 boy's skill advantages. Gandy actually managed to disarm the other boy, but before he could land a killing blow, the boy managed to grab him and knock him off balance. Gandy took a wrong step and ended up clinging to the edge of the pyramid. The Career took advantage of his opportunity, stomping on Gandy's hands and making him fall to his death on the rocks below, an eerie echo of his own father's demise.

862: Magnolia was a fourteen-year-old girl from District 7. Like the much of the district, Magnolia's father was a logger. Her mother was originally a logger as well, but got a job in one of the sawmills after becoming pregnant with Magnolia's older brother. Their son grew into a strong young man who loved the outdoors, well-suited for a life of logging in District 7. Magnolia was the polar opposite, however. She was the smallest child in her class, and she had little interest in the district's principal industry. What she loved the most was drawing, and she was actually a very good sketch artist. Of course, her school saw little practical use in art, so Magnolia had to develop her talent at home on her own time. Good art paper was a commodity that few outside the Capitol could afford, but Magnolia was fortunate to live near one of the district's paper mills. Outside the mill was a large dumpster where scraps left over from cuttings, misfed sheets, or any other rejects due to imperfections were placed while awaiting disposal. For years, Magnolia would come here every day on her way home from school and scavenge for material to sketch on.

About a year before her Reaping into the Hunger Games, though, she was spotted by a Capitol inspector who was visiting the paper mill. Stealing of any kind is strictly prohibited, but since the paper Magnolia took was technically considered trash, the Capitol official couldn't punish her for it. Still, he was annoyed by the idea of a district citizen getting something for free, even useless scraps. So he ordered the mill to change its waste disposal procedures, keeping the rubbish inside and hauling it directly to the incinerator on a more frequent basis. After that, it was much more difficult for Magnolia to keep up her artistic hobby.

Magnolia's brother was eighteen years old and eligible for the Thirty-Eighth Hunger Games, and had he been chosen may have actually been a contender. Unfortunately, it was Magnolia whose name was called, and because of the gender difference her brother couldn't even think about volunteering in her place. Magnolia never had a chance. She was knocked unconscious by a Career in the opening minutes of the Bloodbath, which bought her a few hours, since others didn't realize that she was still alive. They recognized their mistake when the bodies of the fallen were collected and Magnolia was left behind, though. The boy from District 2 quickly corrected the error by slitting her throat where she lay.

891: Tread was the son of a shoemaker in District 8. Before the Dark Days, his grandfather was the owner of a small shoe factory that had been the family business for generations. After the War, the Capitol seized control of virtually all of privately owned textile-related operations in District 8. The larger factories were added to those already run by the Capitol, while smaller ones like the one owned by Tread's family were shuttered. As the decades passed, however, a few entrepreneurs were gradually allowed to open up their own businesses again. Usually, this required a large sum of money, as well as the favor of the Capitol officials which oversaw the district's industries. Both were very difficult to acquire. Saving up enough money on the meager wages provided by the Capitol took years of frugal living. Earning the favor of the overseers meant proving your loyalty to the Capitol, typically by being an informant that told of any misbehavior from the district citizens.

Tread's father dreamed of buying back the abandoned factory and reopening the family business. He had managed to save up a substantial amount of money – not quite enough, but it was getting close. His status with the Capitol officials was another story, however; Tread's father was no snitch, and refused to betray his fellow District 8 citizens. There were other ways of proving one's loyalty, though. One of these, it was rumored, was to have a child volunteer for the Hunger Games. Tread first heard of this rumor when he was ten years old. Not from his father, of course, who cared for him deeply and would never have sacrificed him for his own ambitions. No, Tread heard about it from his friends at school. It was a bit of a joke amongst them, because who would actually want to volunteer for a one in twenty-four chance to survive? But Tread loved his father, and saw how hard he had worked to try and regain that factory, and so the idea stuck and grew like a weed in his mind. Now, Tread wasn't suicidal, but he grew into one of the biggest and strongest kids in his class, and gradually he managed to convince himself that he could actually win the Games. And so, at the age of seventeen, he volunteered for the Thirty-Ninth Games, much to his father's dismay.

As it turned out, Tread had not overestimated his own abilities. He had a training score that was comparable to the career tributes, and was considered by many as one of the favorites. The difference, however, was that the Careers banded together, while Tread formed no alliances. Still, he performed quite well, managing to survive for over two weeks on his own in a miserable swamp of an arena. He was credited with two kills; one tribute who had fought him over the same backpack at the Bloodbath, and a Career who had tracked him down on Day 10. But other than that, he steadfastly avoided all confrontations with other tributes. It was the arena that finally got him; he was caught and crushed to death by a giant snake which had been introduced to the arena to liven things up.

Two weeks after his funeral, one of the Capitol overseers came to Tread's father and gave him the opportunity to buy back the old factory. He responded with an instruction to shove the offer someplace quite painful in his anatomy. Then he went and hung himself for good measure, putting an end to the foolish dream once and for all.

939, 940, 941, 942, 943: The Forty-First Hunger Games was long remembered for its sudden and shocking conclusion. Five tributes were killed simultaneously by a trap set by the boy who emerged as the Victor. Here are their stories:

Ritz was the youngest of three children born to the manager of one of the most preeminent factories in all of District 1. Using a highly sophisticated technique known as elemental transmutation, the factory produced gold from other more common elements. It was a very costly process, but it was the only way to satisfy the Capitol's continual demand for the rare metal since the mines had long run dry. Because of this, Ritz's father was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the district. Now Ritz's elder brother and sister were born a little more than a year apart, but Ritz didn't arrive until nine years later, not long after his father earned his promotion. It was commonly believed that Ritz was bred for the sole purpose of competing in the Hunger Games. The logic was this: as a community leader, Ritz's father was expected to set an example of loyalty to the Capitol by training his second-born child, but he was unwilling to sacrifice his precious little girl. So instead, he went and fathered a third child to serve that purpose. The rumor was never confirmed, but at any rate, Ritz was trained from a young age and well-prepared when he volunteered at the age of eighteen.

Eighteen-year-old Tyranus was the eldest son of a former Peacekeeper. His father was part of a fiercely loyalist family that helped put down the rebellion in District 2 during the Dark Days. As a teenager, Tyranus' father had a chance to volunteer for the Hunger Games, but instead chose to join the Peacekeepers immediately after finishing his schooling. He was promoted up the ranks fairly quickly, becoming one of the youngest Heads in history. But then he took a friendly fire bullet to the back during a riot in District 6, which derailed his career. The Capitol granted him an early retirement with a decent pension, which allowed him to start a family. Tyranus' father strongly supported the Hunger Games, and believed that it was the role of District 2's tributes to carry out the Capitol's punishment of the other districts for their disloyalty by executing their children in the arena. So he sent his son to the newly opened Training Center, where some of District 2's early Victors prepared potential volunteer tributes for the arena. Tyranus was the strongest of the boys of his year, and so earned the right to represent the district in the Games.

Jasmine was the daughter of a construction worker tasked with converting District 2's vast Central Mine into the new primary base for the Capitol's military forces. Construction began not long after the War, but it was a monumental project that would take decades to complete. Jasmine's father spent many long and hard hours at work, and had little time for his family. He left Jasmine's mother when she was seven. Unable to support both Jasmine and her younger sister, Jasmine's mother sent her to Training Center, where meals and lodging were provided as part of the training regimen. Jasmine was not the most qualified of the girls in her year, but the two strongest candidates were intimidated by the idea of having to eventually defeat Tyranus in the Games, and so withdrew their names from contention. Jasmine was not afraid, and because of that she got to go to the arena.

Trawl was the youngest child of five children born to a fisherman and a fish packer. Unlike his older brothers and sisters (and almost all of the rest of District 4), Trawl hated the smell of fish. He also suffered from seasickness, which was quite rare in the district, leading to a running joke that he had Capitolean blood in him. At any rate, he was ill-suited for a potential future in the district's principal industry, so he trained for the Hunger Games as a way to escape a life of fish. Trawl was seventeen when he volunteered.

Eddison was the son of a District 5 power plant worker. His father worked as a coal loader for one of the oldest coal-burning power plants in the district. It was relied upon heavily during the first few years after the Dark Days since both the nuclear and hydroelectric power stations were damaged in the War. But by the time Eddison was born, it was starting to fall apart. Eventually, a new and more efficient coal plant was built to replace it. Now, Eddison had been fascinated by the Games ever since District 5 won it when he was seven, and had started training for it at the age of ten. Although Eddison's father didn't want his son in the Games, he saw the wisdom of having him prepared if his name ever got pulled at a Reaping. But everything changed when the new power plant opened several months before the start of the Forty-First Hunger Games. Because the new plant had an automated system for loading coal, Eddison's father found himself out of a job, and finances soon became a major struggle for the family. Eddison signed up for tesserae, but it wasn't enough, so he decided to volunteer at the age of seventeen, in the hopes of earning the lifetime of riches promised to the victor.

By the Forty-First Games, it had become fairly common practice for any Career tributes from Districts 1, 2 and 4 to team up. Occasionally the alliance would include tributes from other districts, but only if they proved their worth during training. Eddison managed to get in; the District 4 girl, who wasn't a volunteer, got left out and died in the opening minutes. After the Bloodbath, Tyranus took command of the Career pack as it began hunting down and killing off the others one by one,. Publicly, Jasmine backed him in every decision, but secretly she was looking for the best opportunity to betray him. Eddison and Trawl had worked out a secondary alliance for the eventual breakup of the Career pack, while Ritz and his district partner had their own plans. But all their schemes were put on hold when became evident that at least one of the other tributes was not content with simply hiding and waiting for death to find them. The boy from District 3 was no match for the Careers in combat skills, but he set a series of traps that hampered their hunting efforts. A week into the Games, he made his boldest move, approaching the Career camp while the others were out hunting and luring the single guard, the District 1 girl, into a rockslide that he had set up. He went back and raided the camp before the other Careers got back, taking a large pack and setting fire to the rest of the supplies. Realizing that he was the biggest threat, the remaining Careers agreed to keep the alliance until they caught him and get their revenge. Thus it came to pass that on what would be the final day of the Games, the five Careers were still teamed up and hunting the last remaining tribute. Now, amongst the items taken by the District 3 boy was a cattle prod and a large coil of wire. Although a cattle prod can be a pretty powerful weapon since it can neutralize the advantage of a physically superior combatant, by itself it was not supposed to be lethal. But the boy from the electronics district was able to adjust the circuitry to emit a much higher voltage, and when the moment was right, he sprung his final trap. The Careers were closing in on him when Tyranus and Eddison stumbled into the web of wire that he had set up. As the others tried to help them get untangled, the District 3 boy connected the cattle prod and electrocuted them all to claim victory.

981: Eighteen-year-old Matrix was the daughter of two factory workers in District 3. Both of her parents worked double shifts to try and support their six children, so by the age of nine Matrix, as the eldest child, was responsible for looking after her brothers and sisters. Her friends gave her the nickname "Ma Trix", and eventually she was so used to it she shortened her name to just Trix. Now Trix was the brightest student in her class, one of the select few destined for the Academy after finishing high school, where she would have been trained as an engineer and funneled into a much better paying job than her parents could ever attain. But fate was cruel to Trix, as her name was selected in her final Reaping, just a few weeks before graduation, sending her to the Forty-Third Hunger Games.

Trix may have been the smartest of all the tributes in the Forty-Third Games, but she was no fighter. Her strategy was simply to hide, which she did quite well, locating a little cave not far from the Cornucopia and camouflaging it so well that the Career pack passed it over and over without the faintest clue that it was there. But eventually the Gamemakers decided that she was too boring, and arranged a perfectly timed invasion of fire ants that flushed Trix out of the cave and directly into the path of the gigantic District 2 girl, who quickly finished her off.

1000: Offal had a difficult life long before she was chosen for the arena. She was the second-youngest of six children born to a pig farmer in District 10. Her parents had planned to stop after the first four kids, hence her rather unfortunate name, which was easy to pick on, both for its meaning and for the simple pun. She was teased mercilessly by her classmates, calling her "Awful Offal". At home, Offal's parents didn't hate their unexpected daughter, but there was only so much affection to go around in such a crowded household, especially after her baby brother was born. Offal's best friends turned out to be the young pigs that she helped care for. Of course, she could never become too attached because they would often be taken away to be slaughtered. So when she was selected for the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games, the fourteen-year-old saw it as just another in a long line of misfortunes in her life.

Although virtually no one in the districts either knew or cared, the 44th Games had an extra level of anticipation because it would include the milestone 1000th death in the arena. Gamblers in the Capitol had opportunities to place bets on who would be the lucky victim, as well as who would earn the kill. Picking the victim was a bit tricky, as it would be the eleventh death in the 44th Games, which meant it could occur either at the tail end of the Bloodbath, or possibly early on in the "real" Games. Prior to the start of the Games, Offal was not heavily bet on, since she did not look like any sort of fighter. Most thought she'd either be one of the first few to go out, unless she fled immediately, and then she'd likely outlast the first eleven. As it turned out, Offal did choose to avoid the Cornucopia entirely, but she had only ran a few minutes before she hurt her ankle badly and had to stop and hide. When only ten tributes died in the Bloodbath, she suddenly became the prohibitive favorite to be number 1000. And when the Careers came across her trail on their first hunt and tracked it to her hiding place, Offal never stood a chance.

1032: Bilsted was the son of two coal miners who lived in the area of District 12 known as the Seam. Though his family was fairly poor, his parents managed just enough to support their two children. But when Bilsted was thirteen, his father was crippled in a mining accident that killed five of his friends, and after that both Billy and his older sister had to start taking tesserae. Billy's sister made it to her nineteenth birthday without having her name called, but Billy wasn't so lucky, getting reaped for the Games at the age of seventeen.

Billy wasn't particularly strong, and he had no combat training whatsoever, so he wasn't expected to be a contender in the Forty-Fifth Games. But he forged an alliance with the boy from District 11, who shared his sense of humor and ability to crack jokes in the face of death. Together they were able to overcome many of the perils of the arena and even take out two of the Careers. But Billy was badly wounded in his final battle, and ended up dying in the arms of his ally, who went on to win the Games in honor of his new friend.

1077: Seventeen-year-old Georgette was one of the few tributes who could actually boast of being a killer even before entering the arena. She was the daughter of a young unwed factory worker who left her in the District 8 Community Home until the age of twelve - the age she qualified to claim tesserae. Growing up with no parental guidance, Georgette learned the hard way that the only person she could rely on was herself. She hung out with the troublemakers at school and at the age of sixteen she hooked up with a thug of a boyfriend. They were together for about a year before he became too abusive and she tried to break it off. He didn't react well to being dumped, and one day he caught Georgette alone and forced himself upon her. She reported the incident to the Peacekeepers, but they had no sympathy for the "relationship drama" of a district girl. So she took justice into her own hands, catching him by surprise with a kitchen knife. The Peacekeepers weren't particularly concerned about his life either, but murder was a capital crime. Fortunately for Georgette, it so happened that the Reaping for the Forty-Eighth Games was coming up, and the Head Peacekeeper was tired of watching his district send two feeble tributes with no hope of competing year after year. So he gave Georgette a choice between the gallows and volunteering for the Hunger Games. She chose the Games.

Georgette was a force to be reckoned with in the 48th Games. The Careers invited her to join their alliance, but she didn't trust anyone and chose to go it alone. During the Bloodbath, one of the Careers targeted her immediately, but she won that fight and escaped the Cornucopia with a pack of supplies. She got her second kill later the first day when she encountered an unlucky boy who had stopped to rest after fleeing the Bloodbath. As the Games wore on, Georgette's strategy of hunting rather than hiding earned her the favor of the Capitol audience, which showered her with sponsor gifts. She racked up two more kills before the remaining Careers finally caught up to her. It was a bloody fight in which she managed to kill one and injure another, but in the end she was simply outnumbered and overwhelmed.

The Second Quarter Quell

For the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Treason, to remind the rebels that they suffered two times as many losses as the Capitol during the Dark Days, each district was required to send double the amount of tributes. Forty-seven children perished in a little over one week. Here are a few of the extra tributes, the ones who would have avoided the Games had the usual number been chosen:

1129: Napthala was a fifteen-year-old from District 6. Her parents worked in a factory that made plastics – one of the many secondary industries connected to the transportation district. (Since virtually all of Panem's fuel was refined in District 6, it was a natural place to produce items from petroleum byproducts). Napthala was in the middle of a breathing an automatic sigh of relief after the first District 6 girl was reaped when she heard her own name called out. She broke down and cried. She was one of eighteen tributes to die during the Bloodbath.

1147: Eighteen-year-old Joulene was the daughter of a District 5 power plant worker. She had a habit of expecting the worst, so she actually burst out laughing when her name got called after having already survived seven drawings, which would have put her in the clear except for the special rules of the Quarter Quell. When the Games started, she left the Cornucopia with nothing because she didn't like her odds of surviving the chaos of the Bloodbath. That decision proved to be fatal when she took her first drink of water from a stream, which turned out to be deadly poisonous.

1151: Millet was the eldest son of a District 9 farmer. He left behind three younger siblings when his name was called at the age of sixteen. Perhaps his name would have been called the next year if the 50th Games didn't require two male tributes, or perhaps he would have escaped altogether. Millet was a pretty practical person, though, so he didn't concern himself with "what-ifs". Unlike many of the tributes who were somewhat dazed by the beauty of the arena, he quickly grabbed a pack from the Cornucopia and got out before the Bloodbath started in earnest. He immediately set out for the mountain that was on one side of the arena, figuring that high ground would offer him the best chance at defense. That fateful decision cost him his life; the mountain turned out to be a volcano, and when it erupted on the fourth day, Millet was the first to die. The crevasse where he had been hiding split open, dropping him directly into a lava flow. There was nothing left for his family to bury.

1167: Jasper was the son of two quarry workers from a village in the outskirts of District 2. His parents were among the minority in the district who never bought the propaganda and had no love for the Capitol. Unfortunately, Jasper was the opposite, and he long resented his parents for their "traitorous" beliefs. When he was twelve, he ran away to the Training Center. His parents wanted to bring him home, but they had no choice but to leave him after the headmaster threatened to report their "seditious" attitude to the Peacekeepers. Jasper trained well, with only one other eighteen-year-old boy that outperformed him. He was relieved when the rules of the Quell were announced, giving him the opportunity to compete in the Games anyway.

Jasper was among the five Careers fortunate enough to avoid the volcanic eruption. Two days after that, he and the other two surviving Career boys ran into one of the boys from District 12. With a surprising display of speed, the boy managed to kill both of Jasper's allies, but Jasper was able to get the upper hand. He was moments from finishing the boy off when he got hit by a poisoned blow-dart from behind. He never saw the girl who killed him.

1171: The girl who shot the dart was from District 12. Her name was Maysilee, and she was one of the rare tributes from the district that didn't come from a coal mining family. With all the poverty in her district, the majority of the slips of paper in each Reaping bowl could be attributed to tesserae. Maysilee's family could easily be considered rich by District 12 standards (she even owned a songbird, a beautiful canary). She, her twin sister, and their older brother never had to sign up for tesserae, so she only had five entries the year she was reaped. But it was the year of the Second Quarter Quell, and twice as many tributes were required, so she got unlucky.

Maysilee did very well for a District 12 tribute, partnering up with the boy she saved after using her blow gun to ambush and take out several tributes with far higher training scores than her. But in the end, it was the arena that got her; a flock of lethal muttation birds ended her life. Maysilee's songbird went to one of her school friends. Her token, an ornamental pin, went to her twin sister.

1174: Glory's story was almost the polar opposite of the aforementioned District 12 girl. She came from what would be considered a lower class District 1 family; neither of her parents owned a business. Glory's father was a technician in a factory that specialized in gold plating, while her mother was a waitress in a restaurant. Of course, being from District 1, their wages were still more than adequate; most citizens of the poorer districts would have probably killed to have even one of their paychecks.

In the years leading up to her birth, it had started to become a tradition for District 1 families to train their second-born children to be tributes. Her parents gave her the name "Glory" in the hope of what she could achieve by winning the Games. As it turned out, perhaps "Second" would have been a more apt name. In addition to being a second-born, she came in second in the race to volunteer at the Reaping. If it had not been for the Quarter Quell selecting twice as many tributes, she would have been left behind. But she got her chance, and ended up taking second place in the Games.

The odds seemed to be in Glory's favor in the Quell. Her alliance with the rest of the Careers gave her access to supplies of the Cornucopia – an advantage made even more significant by the scarcity of edible food in the poison-laced arena. On the fourth day of the Games, the Career Pack split into two groups to hunt for victims. Glory's group went into the woods while the other half went up the mountain that erupted into a deadly volcano. A couple days later, what remained of the group split again – Glory and the remaining District 2 girl tribute remained behind to guard the Career camp, missing the boys' confrontation with the pair of District 12 tributes, in which District 12 proved to be more formidable than anyone had expected. When the field of competitors narrowed to four, the District 2 girl turned on Glory, but she won that fight, demonstrating her lethal skill with an axe. The final confrontation was between Glory and the surprisingly agile boy from District 12. It was a vicious battle in which Glory lost an eye, but despite that she managed to get the upper hand, disarming him and cornering him on a cliff at the very edge of the arena. But that's when she made her fatal mistake: badly injured, exhausted, and blind in one eye, she didn't want to risk getting too close to the edge of the cliff, so she elected to throw her axe to try to finish off the District 12 boy. She missed. The axe rebounded off of the arena's boundary force field, and defying all odds, flew directly back at her and embedded itself into her skull. Her death brought the second twenty five years of Hunger Games to a stunning conclusion.

A/N: So… hi, everyone. I know it's been over three years since I posted part I. I took a break after pushing to get the first part out in time for the movie (I think I saw it five or six times in the theaters), and then I got terrible writer's block in the middle of writing Shine and stopped for more than a year (my own version of JRR Tolkien at Balin's Tomb). Anyways, if you're still with me due to story/author alerts, thank you for your patience! I make no promises about part III, but my current goal is to get it out in time for Mockingjay Part II.

There are seven canon character cameos in this section (besides Maysilee, of course), and one additional OCC from Caisha702's series of stories. If you find them all, you win a puppy. Which you can pick up at your local animal shelter. =P