a/n: With a lot of Hunger Games fanfics, I think there's a lot of suspense in that the reader doesn't really know who's going to win in the end, which is a completely valid approach, and I do enjoy reading those, too. However, with Chaya, I wanted to try something different, so for her story, I'm hoping to explore her journey through the Arena, and who she became as a result of her time there. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Prologue, Part 1: Post-74

My name is Chaya Injera, and I represent District Eleven. I am the sole survivor of the 24th Hunger Games. I was sixteen years old when my name was pulled from the sparkling crystal glass ball of doom.

My position is certainly rare, because, as of the end of the most recent Games, surviving the arena makes me one of 75 kids to have made it out alive. One of 75, out of 1800 participants, but even among the select few, my case is pretty unique. Perhaps it's not as singular as those two kids from Twelve both making it out alive, but it's pretty close. For one, the 24th Hunger Games holds the distinction of being the longest Games in the history of Panem. And for another, I hold the distinction of having met and learned the name of every tribute before they died.

And I have never forgotten.

Prologue, Part 2: The Fateful Day

It started like any other Reaping Day in District 11. We got up early, washed and dressed in our best clothes, which for me was my dress from last year. It was a pale green color, with small pale yellow polka dots in diagonal patterns and a big, frilly collar that reached my shoulders. It was almost a little too short on me, hitting just above the knee, but at least it was clean.

I was sixteen, but tall and strong for my age. I was one of the lucky ones, I'd thought. We were still well off enough for me to still be in school (rare for someone my age). My Poppa and I worked in the orchards, which he said wasn't as grueling as those who broke their backs plowing in the fields, and my brother Romaine was a factory worker who spent his days carting and hauling vegetables. Momma also worked in the factories, but her job was mostly in packaging, and she didn't have to do much of the heavy lifting. I was one of maybe a handful of kids who'd barely put in any tesserae. My number wasn't 0 like the merchants' and overseers' kids, but it was nowhere near as high as some of the kids who worked fields and had to drop out of school by the time they were teens.

So I went into the ceremony with low expectations and similarly low nerves. Some kids went into these ceremonies physically ill from the fear of it, but I was almost calm as I walked into the square. My name was in there maybe 15 times, and there were some 33,000 kids in our district of age to go into the Games. Maybe I was too cocky, or maybe it was that I was desperate, but I took comfort in those numbers. Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. Fifty years of 20/20 hindsight can't change how I felt then.

We crowded around the stage, billowing out in sections by gender and age group. I stood between Rebecca Grover and Tala Pitts, who were both my age, but neither was still in school anymore. I stood a full head taller than either of them, and it was easy to see over most of the heads of the children in front of me.

The escort was a tall man with pale purplish-grey skin that made him look like a corpse, and a large shaggy sunflower-yellow beard that clashed terribly with his skin. His voice was soft but expressive, with an air of gravitas that seemed so contradictory to his gawdy appearance.

"The female tribute for District Eleven is Chaya Injera!"

Nine words and everything changed. There was no doubt about whose name had been called - he'd even pronounced it correctly: SHY-uh in-JEH-ruh.

Sixteen years old, and my life was already at its end. At least, that was what I thought. And, in a way, I was right. My life as I knew it ended that day. My home, my parents, hard work in the orchards, it all ended the moment they called my name.

I didn't cry. I was scared, but I didn't cry. I made my way up to the podium, like so many others before me. I looked out into the sea of faces and registered fear, anger, sadness, in the faces of those in the crowd. But mostly relief. And how could I fault them, really? I'd felt the same way every 1st of July since I was twelve. Everyone felt like that. It sucked that they were going to die, but at least it wasn't me. Not this time, not this year.

Of course, it couldn't have just been that simple. I didn't remember it at the time, but fifty years is a long time to go back, re-watch, memorize it. Watch their faces until their expressions become ingrained in your very soul.

The escort, a Capitolite by the name of Alessandre Di Martini, reached into the bowl and pulled out the name of the boy who was doomed to join me. A twelve year old. Malachi Holden, he was called. He shook like a leaf in the wind as he fell forward out of the crowd of boys at the back. But he never even made it up to the stage.

"I volunteer!"

The heads turned in shock and awe as a young man stepped from the crowd and the world around me disappeared.

"No!" I felt the word leave my lips as I rushed forward into his arms. "No, no, Ro, you have to go back. Ro, no, you can't do this... Ro, go back to mom and dad!"

"Shy, shut up. You know I ain't gon' do that. Besides, too late for that now."

I closed my eyes and bit my lip as the tears finally began to fall, but he was right - it was too late for that now.

My big brother Romaine had volunteered for the Games. He was going in with me.

Prologue, Part 3: Before the Arena

The next week flew by, in a blur of activity. Makeovers and parades and training and sparring and interviews and planning and all those things that get crammed into just a few days, and all of it is supposed to help you stay alive but in all reality it's all just too much information to take in at one time and most kids have to just run on pure instinct and luck to get them through a single day in the arena.

As for me, I'd had about as much clue going into it as any kid - my mentor told me to try to not get killed in the bloodbath, but that was probably standard advice for him by that point. Honestly, given that he was the only Victor from Eleven up until that point, he'd probably just got used to losing us in the bloodbath, and then, if we survived, then he'd think about possibly getting us sponsors just so we'd survive a little longer...

Alessandre wasn't much help either. He wasn't stupid, exactly; it's just that his suggestion of trying to always stay good-looking for the camera never seemed all that helpful. Sure, it might help us get more sponsors, but that would all be in vain if I spent more time looking good for the camera than finding food and avoiding the Careers. Romaine's plan seemed more practical, anyway: grab something, find me, get out of there. Find somewhere safe to make a base. We'd play it by ear for the rest. We were good at that.

Surrounded by a small group of the other tributes, I boarded a large metal hovercraft that felt incredibly unsafe to me, since I'd never been in a vehicle that hadn't been gravity-bound before, and they stabbed my arm with a huge needle, which made me want to puke. (I'm not usually the queasy type, but I swear the tracker needle was a foot long.)

They dragged me and Romaine into separate launch rooms, and I shivered as I was dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt, a leather vest, a fringed skirt tied over pair of jeans, a belt with a heavy metal buckle, black boots, and an Eleven's deep green bandanna around my neck. A hat that my stylist described as a "cowboy hat" was perched over my locs. Apparently my hair was supposed to get braided in two long braids, but my stylist had, of her own volition, decided to ignore that and let me keep my hair as it was.

I spent my last moments pre-Arena with her, a strangely ordinary woman named Vintage Lockhurst. She had golden-brown eyes and green hair, but other than her strange hair, she mostly dressed like a normal human being. Throughout the hellish week between my reaping and my Games, Vintage had been a great source of calm and comfort in the garishly loud Capitol. As I stepped into my launch tube, she gave me a hug, patted my hand, and told me to focus, she'd be watching me.

The tube closed around me. I closed my eyes and held my breath, and by the time I'd opened them again, I had been lifted into the place that would be my home for almost an entire month.