Being born into another new world is an interesting experience. The first time it happens, you're confused—which is fine, I suppose, when you're a newborn. The second time, you're a bit incredulous. The third time, the frustration kicks in. Eventually, though, you pretty much come to expect it.

You can take the tract of 'Oh, damn it, not AGAIN,' but that doesn't really make you feel any better. One thing I've learned over however many lifetimes is optimism. It's been a hard learn, but absolutely essential to survive mentally when you're somehow supposed to help fix whatever's wrong in every world you're born into.

If it's a choice between laughing about it or crying, well, you have to laugh or you fall apart. And it takes ten times as long to put yourself back together afterwards, so it's best not to.

I was born Celia Jardine. The first glimpse I got of myself was in a mirror spotted with rust and salt from the nearby ocean; through the grime, I made out a thin face framed with dark auburn hair and bright blue eyes, a slender nose and prominent cheekbones hidden under a layer of baby fat. I'd grown up enough times to be able to tell that I'd be pretty—it might be vane to say, but I was relieved, since it's so much more troublesome growing up the other way. I've done it both ways, and I know my preference, thank you very much.

My first few years were bland and uninteresting. I toddled about, reading the scant books available to me, somewhat relieved that the language common to my new world was English. We lived near the sea, and my people spent the majority of their lives fishing, and because both my parents were fishermen, I saw them only rarely. Instead, I spent my time with a half dozen other children who were cared for by an elderly couple too frail to manage the life at sea.

Heyward and Drianna Sawyer were wizened, permanently tanned and weathered from long lives spent onboard fishing ships in the bright sun. He walked with a limp from an old accident, but still always smiled when whittling toys for the children. Drianna was strict but fair, the disciplinarian of the couple, but she always helped with homework and a smile of approval gained from her was a worthwhile achievement.

The children I grew up with where as put off by me as would be expected; going through the standard rigmarole time after time hadn't improved my ability to deal with children, to my eternal embarrassment. I feel a little guilty that all I knew of them were names—Sandrea, Holly and Helgy (twins), Seamus, Cambria, and Felton—and beyond the requisite mealtime activities, I kept myself apart. That seemed fine for everyone involved, though Drianna would complain about my general reluctance to play with the other children. Heyward seemed to like me well enough, and after catching me several times trying to copy his skill with wood, he taught me how to shape wood with slashes and twists, to carve out symbols and faces and create the figurines he'd sell in town to augment our frugal lifestyles. I was never quite as good as he was, lacking that creative spark, but I was good enough.

And, most importantly, it was a prime opportunity to re-familiarize myself with a blade.

I didn't not see my parents, but being away for weeks at a time and not being given much time between cast-offs meant that when they died at sea in my second year, I wasn't overly distraught. Heyward and Drianna did their best to console me, but to be honest, I considered them more my parents than anyone else. I mourned for the ones who gave birth to me, but I enjoyed my life as it was—swimming in the shallows of the sea outside the Sawyers' cottage, picking shells and shellfish to supplement our diets, climbing cliffs and chasing seagulls on the beach.

I would have enjoyed spending my whole life right there, had the outside world not intruded once I'd passed my fifth birthday and began to understand the true horrors of this world.

I'd never gone more than a couple of miles from the cottage I grew up in, but turning five seemed to be a milestone event of some kind. It wasn't one that anyone seemed to celebrate, but I caught enough looks from Heyward and Drianna to know that there was something solemn about this birthday in this world. I was born in winter, and a few months passed by before the other children and I were bundled up and packed into an old cart and brought to town.

Having grown up in an environment that screamed pre-industrial 19th century, I was shocked—not just surprised, but mouth-agape, stunned to silence shocked—when we turned onto a road and were intercepted by three men wearing white armor from head to foot, carrying automatic weapons, not yards away from a Humvee, who asked us our names and our business. I was so agog that I missed what Heyward said to one of the guards, but not so much that I didn't catch what his muffled voice said back.

"Alright, you lot, get in. The Sixty-First Hunger Games selection will start in less than an hour."

Well, SHIT.