A necessary explanation in the form of an Author's Note:

My school is small. Very small. In fact, in my class (NO, I AM NOT TELLING THE INTERNET WHAT GRADE WE'RE IN) we have just enough people for one Hunger Games (actually, we have only nineteen, but I added a few people from last year, so we have exactly twenty-four). Well, word got around that I was writing a Hunger Games fanfic *ahem, Fighting Fire* and some brilliant someone got the equally brilliant idea of asking me (quite loudly so EVERYONE could hear) if I could write a fanfic with them in it, 'them' meaning the person who was asking.

Well, as you can probably guess, a few people overheard. And they so happened to get this outlandish idea that I was making a Hunger Games with our class. So before I knew it, I had a bunch of kids on my hands, all demanding a Hunger Games with all of us as tributes.

Well, that might be an exaggeration. I bet that at least a quarter of the class didn't even know about it until I told them. And I bet that there's a bunch of them who aren't reading this right now.

I'm fine with that.

I decided to tell it from my point of view. It would be easiest, after all. So, a warning: all who are reading, know that I am telling this from the POV of Skylar Liu, aka me. Yes, Skylar Liu is also a pseudonym. Everyone in the following story is using a pseudonym and I have purposefully made our personal descriptions very vague. What didja think, that I was going to give out our freaking pictures all over the Internet?!

So, speech said and done, I shall end the author's note and resume in the actual story.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. So Suzanne Collins, don't sue.

I think luck hates my guts. If there's even such a thing as luck. Maybe it's just that sometimes life simply stinks on ice. Hey, I'm just saying. Because at the time I was supposed to be sitting at home and updating my fanfiction, I found myself sitting in some weird metal prison cell thingy with these two creepy scientist guys staring at me. One of them had skin the color of a lime and the other one looked like a cross between my favorite anime character and one of my favorite book characters.

Like I said, creepy.

So here's what I think happened. I say that I think it happened because my mind is a strange thing — I call it the Infinite Void of Darkness and Off-Topic Hyperactivity — so I don't like to trust it all too much. It gets off topic really quickly, hence the name. Like, when my science teacher mentioned the "expression" of Jack Frost in science class, I went from partially paying attention to the process of sublimation to completely daydreaming about Rise of the Guardians.

…Whoops. See?

Hehe, oh well. You just got a glimpse into my mind that you probably never wanted to see anyway.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yes.

Well, it started out just a normal day at my super small school in our super small town. You can probably guess simply from those words that it didn't stay normal. But, in all honesty, it was never normal to begin with. My classmates and I are not in any way possible normal people. We're — how can I say this nicely — weird. I mean that with all the sincerity of my heart. There aren't very many of us, so we're pretty tightly bonded, like siblings. Anyone who has siblings will know what I mean.

It was eighth period on a Monday — of course, it had to be on a Monday — which meant gym class. Yay. Gym class is usually held outside unless it's super cold, and it was not yet cold enough to stay inside. But it was pretty dang cold anyway. I had my soft fleecy white jacket and sweatpants, but the wind somehow found a way in.

We were playing softball. Or, more accurately, trying to. My team was in the outfield and I was standing in what I liked to call a Totally Useless Spot — that is to say, a spot way in the outfield where nothing would come anyway due to the strong crossbreeze and the extremely low probability that anyone could actually hit that far. One of my classmates, a tall and curly-haired kid named Brendan Lottes, was complaining loudly from his Equally Useless Spot about five meters away.

"IT'S SO COLD!" he yelled, spinning around on his heels and rubbing his arms.

"I KNOW!" I yelled back with equal volume. He did not find this in any way odd, hence proving my point that we were all weird here. We embraced the weirdness.

At the plate, Wilson Tree hit the ball and took off running to first base. I watched the ball soar through the sky and didn't take my hands out of my pockets. I started giggling because they were all idiots, the whole lot of them. I had a tendency to think such things when we were playing games, because after eight hours of being in the presence of other humans, I started going a little bit hysterical. My human tolerance ratios had not always been this low, trust me, but they took a drastic decline when I found my true love — writing.

(Sometimes, I wonder if my freaky obsession with writing is bad for my sanity.

I always decide that it probably is.)

Back to the game. I can't tell you the score, nor how many people had batted or how many outs or who was pitcher or how many innings we'd had, because I wasn't paying attention. Instead, me and Brendan started singing the song for conjugating the Spanish verb ser (which, if you didn't know, means "to be") that we'd learned in sixth period. It was extremely annoying and ridonkulously catchy, but we were cold and bored out of our brains so we sang it anyway.

I stopped singing when I saw something shiny.

Okay, maybe that sounded a bit weird. But seriously. It was something shiny. I don't know if anyone else saw it, because I'm telling this from only my point of view and I'm not going to start changing POVs like some writers do, but I know it was definitely there. I trusted my eyes on this one.

It was like a mirage, kind of. About one hundred yards away from home plate, directly behind the catcher, I saw the figure of a man. As much as I could tell from that distance, he was clad in all white. The shiny thing I had seen was…a belt buckle? Then the air shimmered again, and he was gone.

"What?" Brendan asked, noticing that I'd stopped singing the Spanish song with him.

"Nothing," I said distractedly, blinking and taking off my glasses. "I thought I saw something. My glasses are dirty again, I think." But I knew I was lying. I had seen that.

Someone got out, and we switched sides. I managed to get at the very back of the hitting line, so I'd be last up to plate if we even got that far. I didn't like hitting. Well, let me amend that statement. I didn't like hitting the ball with the bat. I still do not to this very day. I was very bad at it. I have horrible depth perception, so I don't always know when or where to swing. I have a horrible grip, too — once, when I swung the bat and actually hit the ball, I let go of the bat, and it sailed right over my head and hit Landon Allens right in the gut. I blamed the bat, and from then on I resolved not to use it until I absolutely had to.

But somehow, I got pushed up to the front of the line. I think it was something about our gym teacher noticing that I hadn't batted for the past three innings, or something else like that. I dunno.

Anyway, I went up and took up the metal baseball bat. Warily, everyone behind me took a few steps back and put their hands up to cover whatever body part they thought would hurt the most if hit by, say, a flying metal bat, or something like that. The catcher, who was a thin, athletic girl by the name of Anna Purpleston, scooted a bit to the side.

The pitcher, who was a kid with glasses named Gavin Johanson, threw the ball. I swung uselessly at it. Anna caught it. No one said "strike one" because we were all bored out of our brains and we could all, quite literally, sense that gym class and henceforth the school day was almost over. At least, I don't think anyone said "strike one". In all honesty, I wasn't paying much attention. I was just focusing on not throwing the bat again.

"Skylar!" the gym teacher yelled. "You're holding the bat wrong!"

I looked at the bat. Well, how the heck was I supposed to hold it? The teacher came over, adjusted my hands into some position that felt wrong to me, and walked away.

Gavin threw the ball. I swung and tried not to let go of the bat. Surprisingly, I felt something connect with the bat, and I watched in utter shock and awe as the ball sailed up into the air…and left.

"YES!" I yelled, forgetting about the bat in my hands and jumping up and down. "I HIT THE BALL!"

"It was foul," Nelson Stones deadpanned.

"I DON'T CARE, I HIT THE BALL AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS! I'M ACTUALLY GETTING GOOD AT THIS GAME!"

I'd like to say that no one thought this was weird. Unfortunately, I think that everyone thought it was weird.

(Fortunately, I didn't care. I'd lost my ego with my mind a long time ago. I've never tried to find either of them and I don't want them back, so if you've seen either, don't tell me.)

"Ooohh-kaaay…" Nelson said, exchanging a glance with David Valley that, quite clearly, said "she's crazy".

I noticed it but I really didn't care at the moment. I had other things to focus on. The ball had gone way, way left, almost backwards due to the strong crosswind that day. Which, when all math is said and done, means that it was about twenty feet away. As Wilson Tree ran to get it (that kid has way too much energy for his own good) I noticed something strange. A flicker of movement, of some spectral figure — similar to the one I had seen from the outfield — suddenly appeared nearby. The figure, who I just noticed to have a shock of wild black hair, was crouched over the ball, as if to pick it up. Then the apparition vanished, and I was left looking at just the softball. But even as I stared at that, it almost seemed to flicker and change colors, from dirty off-white to a purer, brighter white that was almost…silver.

Then Wilson scooped it up and threw it to Gavin, and I shook myself out of my haze. What was happening? Who was that man? I could swear I hadn't imagined him, but —

Gavin threw the ball and I lost my train of thought, as I was too busy swinging the bat.

My bat connected with something solid, and, contrary to common occurrence, it wasn't someone's body. I had hit the ball a second time, but this time, dead on target. It was a perfect hit.

Except that the ball didn't go anywhere. We did.

When my bat connected with the surface of the ball, there was something akin to an explosion. Well, not really an explosion, more like a flash of bright, blinding light. The force ran up the length of the bat and jarred my arms, numbing my fingers and setting my teeth on edge.

All of the aforementioned occurred in the space of one millisecond.

After the blinding light faded, I was left with only a pitch-black void to stare at and only the sensation of being pulled through the fabric of time itself to draw solace from.

Needless to say, the feeling of having involuntarily set off a time-travel device did not provide much comfort.

"Uh, sir? I think she's awake…"

I groaned and rolled over onto my side. For some reason, whatever I was laying on (and now I realize that it was probably the floor) felt really hard and cold. Meh. I was tired. I'd deal with it. I squeezed my eyes tighter and pretended I hadn't heard the unfamiliar voice.

Then came another unfamiliar voice. "Which 'she'?"

"Number nine, sir."

Nine…hmm. I liked the number nine. It was my favorite number. It was also my number on the mailboxes where we turned in our homework. Homework…that reminded me. I hadn't done my current event yet. Hmm. (As you can probably tell, this is my thought process when I am drowsy. Not particularly sharp.)

Then second unfamiliar voice came back. "The one who set off the taco?"

Why were they talking about tacos? Meh, I was probably still dreaming. Involuntarily I giggled, just a little bit.

There was silence. Then the first voice said, sounding very serious as he did so, "Yes sir. The one who set off the taco. The one who just laughed at us."

Oh well. No point in pretending I was asleep any longer, at least if this wasn't a dream. Sluggishly, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at two shiny black shoes.

The shoes were being worn by two feet, which were connected to legs, which were connected to a body, which had a head on top of it. My eyes traveled from the shoes and up the legs (which were covered by pressed black pants) and to the body (which, like the legs, were also clothed, but rather in a white lab coat) and up to the head, which was very young, very freckled, very curious, and very green.

Needless to say, I woke up completely and instantly. I didn't know I was up and scrambling backwards until I found myself pressed against a solid metal wall, which was surrounded by metal walls on the other sides and about five feet from the clear glass door, through which I could see the green-faced man. Yes, green. His face was a pure, bright shade of lime green not found in nature, which contrasted with his curly orange-red hair. He was about eighteen years old (which is a guess, for I am horrible at guessing ages) and looked about as scared as I probably did.

"Whoa!" he cried, stumbling backwards just as I did the same. "Whoa —sir, aren't they supposed to be — you know, subdued and drowsy or something?"

Another man entered the limited field of vision provided by the glass door. The two were both dressed in white lab coats, but while the green-faced ginger was short, stocky, and…well, green, this man was tall, thin, and very pale. His milk-white face was sharp yet young and handsome in an almost exotic way, which contrasted with his shock of wild dark hair. Instead of black dress shoes, pressed pants, and a button-up shirt, he wore black Converse, black jeans, and a black t-shirt. He reminded me of Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series, if Nico di Angelo was in his twenties and wore a lab coat. Maybe he looked more like L from Death Note because of the structure of his face, and maybe that way his hair sprang up a bit more than was natural…but L had gray eyes. I would not tolerate such a difference.

A wry smile pecked at his lips. Another Nico similarity — a seriously creepy smile. I liked this guy already. I decided to call him Mr. Creepy and the green-faced one Mr. Green, for obvious reasons. "It depends. This one is…" He searched for a word, and I could tell that he had a list of more offensive and more descriptive adjectives than the one he eventually decided on. "…abnormal."

I glared at him. "Thanks." Though I glared, I actually did take it as a real compliment.

Mr. Creepy's smile grew a tad wider and altogether way more creepy. "You are welcome. Now, I expect that you have a million annoying questions for me, so go right ahead and ask them."

"All at once?" I asked. If I asked him all my questions all at once, we'd be here for a while.

"All at once," he confirmed. I didn't think that meant that he'd answer them all at once, or even at all.

I considered this. "No."

Mr. Creepy raised a nearly nonexistent eyebrow. "What?"

"Instead," I continued, "I'll just ask you one."

"Fire away."

"What do you mean by 'set off the taco'?"

Both Mr. Creepy and Mr. Green seemed somewhat taken aback by this odd choice in queries. Mr. Creepy regained his composure first. "Um, yes. 'TACO' is an acronym. An acronym is, if you don't know — "

I started not liking this guy. He might've looked like Lawliet or Nico di Angelo, but neither of them (my dear sweethearts) were this annoying. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what an acronym is. I'm not stupid, mister. Get to the point."

Mr. Creepy — okay, let's change his name to Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out — scowled. "Fine, then," he sniffed. "TACO is an acronym for the Time/Area Continuum-altering Object. I programmed one inside something that looks similar to what you would call a softball, and when you hit it, it activated the sensory/shock panels and set off the TACO."

I stared at him, slack-jawed. "I hear words," I said. "They sound familiar, but I make no sense of them."

Mr. Green and Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out exchanged a glance. "I thought you said that her IQ was higher than mine," Mr. Green whispered very audibly.

"It is," Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out/Mr. Still-Very-Creepy hissed somewhat contemptuously.

I cleared my throat. "Uh, hello, I'm sitting right here," I said. "Hehe, sorry about that. I understood you completely. I'm just feeling kinda snarky today."

They didn't seem able to take this in entirely. They just stared at me with the "I-think-she's-lost-her-marbles" look that I tend to get a lot.

I coughed and brushed my annoying dark bangs out of my eyes. They'd taken all of my clothes, even my ponytail holder (which wasn't technically a piece of clothing, but whatever) and now I wore this really weird orange jumpsuit thingamajig that thankfully covered everything that needed to be covered. But I felt uncomfortable that they had undressed me entirely to put me in the thing. The only thing they'd left on me was my glasses, for which I was grateful because without my glasses, I'd be walking into walls and mistaking horses for very large dogs.

"So, uh," I said, still a bit awkwardly, "if that was a time-travel device, then when am I?"

Mr. Creepy's lip twitched in a bit of an amused smile, and his dark eyebrow went up. I couldn't help think that, even in a lab coat, he was really cute. " 'When am I?' " he repeated.

I stared at him and his little green friend. "Yeah. You know, when. I kind of want to know where, too, but when am I is the more important question."

His lips twitched again. "I like the way you think, Skylar." I didn't want to know how he knew my name. He turned and gestured to the room behind him and beyond my prison door. In his hands was a small silver remote, and his bony white thumb went down and pressed a button on it.

"Welcome, child of the twenty-first century, to the year of the Eight Hundredth Hunger Games."

Don't worry, it'll start making sense. I'll include you other guys, trust me.

…maybe.