Please read: This story is a sequel to "What's Built In The Basement Doesn't Stay In The Basement". Without reading the original, the following story will make no sense, and most likely spoil some events of the first one.

At last! After contemplating title after title for this story, I finally found one :D It's a spin off of a C.S. Lewis book called The Problem of Pain. Enjoy!

Disclaimer(s): I do not own any part of The Hunger Games (it belongs to Suzanne Collins and all of those publisher people). I ALSO do not own The Problem of Pain (it belongs to C.S. Lewis and all of those other publisher people). One was written by a lady who likes to channel surf, and the other was written by a mythology-lover

I sighed and tossed my English textbook onto the desk in my room. I'm pretty sure that if you were to make a list of the world's most evil people in history, 10th grade English teachers would be somewhere on that list.

Of course, English had never been a gift of mine…

That was me; Haley Green, 16 years old. It had been about a year before that when I had traveled two hundred years into the future. No one ever thought that there would be an actual Hunger Games, but I knew that there was.

It took me quite a while to calm down about the whole thing after I got back. I was going crazy trying to meet up with Suzanne Collins and ask her how she knew about it. I tried everything I possibly could to prevent the future from happening, but as far as I knew, nothing had succeeded yet.

I still hadn't told a single person about what had actually happened in the future. As far as all of my friends knew, it wasn't pretty- but they had no idea that it was something as terrible as The Hunger Games.

My cell phone rang from inside my tote bag, and I picked it up to see that it was my friend Josh. He wasn't necessarily happy that I hadn't told him where I'd been in the future, but nothing can really tear apart two friends that worked on a time machine together.

"Hey, Josh," I said, holding the cell phone up to my ear with one hand and flipping open the English textbook with the other. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to catch a movie later," he said. "My brother just got home from college, and I really don't want to be around while my parents ask questions about if I'm going or not."

I smiled. "Wow, your life is so complicated."

"You know it."

"Alright. But if I fail my English test tomorrow because I was studying quickly to go to a movie, it's your fault." I held the phone with my cheek and my shoulder as I sharpened my pencil.

Josh laughed. "Somehow I knew that was coming. It's always my fault, isn't it?"

"Always."

"Alright," he said, "Meet me there at five."

I hung up and set my phone down on the desk. Before my time traveling trip, I took phones for granted. Sure, I knew that Katniss only had one in her Victor's Village house, but her situation seemed much more…. Fictional, before then.

Although I had much more to do now than work on or think about a time machine and the trip I'd taken with it, it was still always on my mind. I'd talked to Finnick Odair. He saved me from death on more than one occasion. I even still had a scrap of his shirt.

I only had one question now- if I were to go back to that exact same time and place as I had before (which would now only be 199 years into the future), would he still remember me? Think about it. If I took the scrap of his shirt back, would the time machine somehow make it vanish, since he wouldn't have ripped the shirt yet? My mind always hurt when I thought so hard.

My mind kept on wandering and wandering, causing me to be so frustrated that I put my hands over my ears as if it would block out my thoughts, and stared at the textbook that's lessons were foreign to me at the current time. It's impossible to say how much I wished that I had never taken that trip into the future. Even still having the machine in our house was a haunting memory to me. The important thing was that I would never ever go back.

Fifteen more minutes went by, and I still couldn't focus. Instead of slamming my book shut, I took a deep breath, smoothed down my hair which I had been twirling relentlessly, and calmly closed it. I needed to start walking in the direction of the theater if I was going to make it there by five o'clock.

I put a sky blue scarf around my neck on that chilly November afternoon. I slipped on some simple black gloves and told my parents that I'd be back by eight. Then, I headed off.

I wouldn't have had to walk everywhere if I'd have learned how to drive. But in all honesty, driving terrified me. I'm also hopeless when it comes to directions, and where certain streets are, and- well, the list goes on. But really, when you live in a town where you can walk to anything, what's the point of spending money on gas?

I reached the theater just in time. Josh stood inside the door with his hands in his pockets, as usual.

When I went over to him, he looked at his watch and shook his head. "Always on time." I was usually no more than two minutes late to anything, but Josh had adopted this phrase after my time traveling. And just like that, he thought he was so cool because he could play around with words.

Throughout the entire movie I lacked concentration. My mind kept going off into some Hunger Games trance, and before I knew, the credits were rolling.

Josh waited until we were outside the theater to talk to me. "So, I couldn't help but notice that you weren't paying attention in there?"

I sighed. "You're quite correct."

"You know, you've changed, Haley," he said.

"How have I changed?" I asked. "Is it in a bad way?"

"Not really." We began walking in the direction of my house. Josh continued, "You used to be this crazy freshman who practically hated her life in this time. When you got back…. You were different. You're way more mature."

"What I saw in the future was very maturing, Josh," I replied, looking down as I walked beside him.

"I don't understand why you don't tell anybody about it. I mean, if it was all that bad, why would people want to go?"

I didn't answer. Honestly, what do you think will stop a crazy fan from going into the future to meet their favorite book character? If I had still been as foolish as I was, I would probably want to. But in a free country, the mind can't even fathom what it's like to be held so captive.

"Well, can you at least tell me how you got the machine to work?" he said. "I've always wondered how it didn't work when I was there, but did when you were alone."

I thought out my words carefully, as to not give anything away. "The machine only knew what time I'd selected- it didn't know where I wanted to go. So, I kind of told it where to go…. By accident."

"How? Did you give it some sort of destination feature without me knowing?"

"No. Apparently, it can analyze anything that's on it. I had…." I paused, wondering if I should even tell him. "I had a book with me."

"You went into a book?" Josh said with amazement. "Were you holding some kind of Star Wars book adaption?"

I sighed in frustration. "See, that's exactly why I can't tell you. Just the idea of going into a book is tempting. But if you would have been there, you would know that it's not something you want to do."

"I honestly don't get what was so bad about the whole thing," he said. "If it was as absolutely terrible as you've been saying, then shouldn't you be trying to stop it?"

"I've tried, Josh! But I'm not exactly sure if I can change the future, if you know what I'm saying."

There was silence. I wanted more than anything in the world to tell him why he couldn't go into the future… But I just couldn't bring myself to say it. Between his knowledge of science and the amount of time he spent watching me work on the machine, I'd say he had a definite possibility of trying something he shouldn't.

Suddenly, he spoke up. "Did you ever consider the possibility that you might be a part of the future?" His voice was much calmer than before.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"What if you are supposed to be an actual person in the year that you traveled to? I mean, what if your time trip was no ordinary plot interruption, but a way to get you to where you belong?"

"That sounds pretty unreal to me," I said.

Josh shrugged. "I guess you're right. It was just a thought."

Ok, it will get to the Hunger Games part very soon- I promise :D How did you like the first chapter? Does Haley seem more mature to you?