AN: This chapter is from Puck's POV since I've had a lot of people ask for it. Enjoy!

The Hunger Games is easily my least favorite part of the year, as it is for every other victor out there. Actually, victor isn't the right word to describe people like me. No one really wins the Hunger Games. You have survivors, not winners. Winners wouldn't wake up screaming every night with the memories of what they had done to stay alive.

I was twelve when my name was called at the reaping. Of course, no one volunteered to take my place. No one ever volunteers in district 8, so I wasn't very surprised at the time. I'm still not surprised, actually. Who wants to volunteer in a district where there are hardly any survivors?

Shelby and Will are the only reason I'm still alive. Back then, the two of them worked together to train both tributes. They worked as a team of four, two mentors and two tributes. Back then, Will wasn't as drunk as he is now. He drank some, but not the way he does now. That started the year Shelby's daughter was reaped. That was my first year as a survivor and I tagged along, watching Shelby and Will act as mentors. Shelby was a wreck, having to teach her daughter to kill while Will drank as much booze as he could.

Shelby's suicide nearly killed him. I've always thought Will was in love with Shelby and that's why he took her death the way he did. He's been practically useless since that year. We tried to mentor together the next year, but it was a disaster. We've been working alone ever since.

Watching the Hunger Games is always tough. It reminds me of my own games, and those are memories I try very hard to forget.

Entering the arena is a scary thing for anyone, but it's even more terrifying being twelve-years-old. The number of victors that age is minuscule, possibly zero. I knew my chances of making it out alive were small. Will had told me as much before I went in. He'd pulled me aside before our final goodbye to give me some last-minute advice.

"Look Puckerman, you don't have a chance in hell of winning if you play fair."

"I know," I said to him, my head hanging.

"You're not listening. I said you don't have a chance if you play fair. That's how you're going to win. Don't play fair. Don't follow the rules of fair combat. You've been playing weak in all your training sessions. Keep it up. Don't look like a threat to the other tributes. They'll leave you alone. I want you to find water and then hide. Hide and wait for them to come to you. Then, when they're sleeping, kill them all."

I couldn't believe he was telling me this, telling me to brutally murder whoever was left at the end. But he was right, that was the only way to win.

So that was what I did. My arena was set up like an abandoned city, so I could a hidden ditch and stayed there, watching and waiting while all the others killed each other. In the end, there were five left, all of them looking for me before they would have to turn on each other. I slit their throats as they slept.

I still have nightmares about that night. They were all older and stronger than me, so I struck when they were most vulnerable. You can't defend yourself if you're sleeping. They never even saw me coming.

Will was the one who warned me what was to come after winning. I was pulled out of the arena after I'd killed the last remaining tribute, bloody and close to death. After I was nursed back to health and made to look like nothing had ever happened to me, Will and I sat in the room before my victor interview. I figured he was going to tell me what to say, how to act, not to insult the president.

Instead, he looked me in the eye, looking serious and sober for once in his life. "You probably feel great right now, and why wouldn't you? You won. You get a house, food, all the money you want for the rest of your life. You'll have fame, fortune, anything you can dream of. But in a few weeks, you won't feel so great. You're going to remember ever single person you killed, and you're never going to be the same again."

I didn't believe him, not right away at least. I enjoyed the fame, got any girl in District 8 that I wanted, and more money than I could ever imagine. It was like that for months. I was still on top of the world after the victory tour.

I think it first hit me when I climbed on the train, my first year as a mentor. Will and Shelby had promised to show me the ropes, that I wouldn't actually be mentoring anyone, just learning from them. It was also the year Beth was reaped.

Climbing on that train, all the memories of my games flooded back. I thought of all the kids I had murdered, all the families I had destroyed in my quest to go home. I was alive, but 23 others were not. I haven't been the same since.

I have always had a hard time going back to the Capitol for the games, but this year is so much harder. It's terrible watching kids from your district die at the hands of other children. It's even worse watching someone you love fight for her life.

Every day I sit in front of the monitors, my eyes on Rachel's every move. I work tirelessly to find her sponsors, which is starting to become easier now that there are less tributes remaining. Camera crews have left for District 8, preparing to interview Rachel's remaining family members. They'll also talk to people in town who know Rachel.

They won't, however, talk to those who have given Rachel money for the pleasure of her company. I know why she's done what she's done, but I am lying to myself if I don't admit it bothers me knowing how many men have enjoyed her.

I suppose in the end it doesn't really matter if she's slept with one guy or one hundred. Either way, that's all over now.

Watching these games is harder than I thought it would be. I knew after I realized my feelings for Rachel that this year would be harder than the others, but I had no idea just how hard. The blood bath was horrible. When I watched that girl aim the knife at Rachel, I nearly had a heart attack. After that, I lost sight of her and wasn't sure if she'd made it out alive.

Then the cameras went to her, sitting in a tree, very much alive. I remember letting out a sigh of relief, knowing she was alive and apparently unharmed. I could feel Will's eyes on me as I watched, trying to sense if I was about to break down. I knew if something happened to Rachel, I probably would have to leave the room.

Will had come over, clapping me on the shoulder and giving me a few reassuring words. She was alive and that was all I needed to think about right now. He reminded me not to think about what might happen tomorrow or the next day, just focus on the fact that Rachel was sitting in a tree, very much alive.

That is what has gotten me through these games. Not a single part has been easy to watch. The worst was watching Rachel in the field with the mutts. I couldn't see what she was seeing, but I knew it was bad. Even Persei and Will had to turn away from the monitors when we heard her screams. Of course, every monitor was focused on Rachel at that time, every person in Panem watching Rachel's mental breakdown.

Thank god Sam was with her or she may not have made it out alive. I'm very thankful for both Sam and Santana. Rachel's small and not very strong. She's more resourceful than most of the other tributes I've mentored, but I doubt she'd survive more than a night on her own without someone looking out for her.

I'm just lucky Will and I have found sponsors for her. After Knot died in the opening battle, Will and I both started working hard, tracking down sponsors who believed in Rachel and were willing to send her the things she needed to survive in the games. We found one, a wealthy business owner in the Capitol who told me Rachel reminded him of his daughter. He didn't know what kind of chance she had, but he said watching her was like watching his own kid in the arena. He had to do something to help.

He was the one who bought the blanket for Rachel. I made sure to slip a small note in there for her, letting her know I was watching her, waiting for this all to be over so we could be together again.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what will happen if Rachel makes it out of the arena alive. We're barely spent any time together, but that little time was enough for me to know I don't want to live without her. I don't know how I went these eighteen years without her in my life, but now that I have her, I never want to let her go.

I step out of the room Will and I are in, needing a break from all the death were surrounded by. It's night time and Rachel is sleeping, she and Santana having found shelter in their first night without Sam.

I don't know how to deal with this. I feel as though I'm on the verge of a breakdown. Right now, Rachel's okay. But what's going to happen when she's not? What's going to happen if she takes a knife to the back and suffers a slow and painful death?

The door opens and Will is standing beside me, leaning against the wall, a cup clasped in his hand which I am positive is filled with white liquor. "Sucks, don't it?" he asks, handing the cup over to me.

I take it and sip slowly on it, shivering slightly at the bitter taste in my mouth. "What does?"

"Watching someone you can't imagine life without in there. I may be a drunk, but I wasn't always that way."

"Yeah, I know. You were good the first few years, then all the nonsense with Beth and Shelby happened, and you haven't been the same since."

"Nah, that just sped things up. I was already on my way to drowning my life away with booze two years before."

"What happened?" I ask, genuinely curious. Will and I never spend much time together. In fact, I'm ashamed to admit I really don't know much about the man besides the fact that he's a reclusive drunk who hardly ever leaves his home. We're neighbors, and I couldn't tell you when his birthday is. To be fair, he doesn't know the first thing about me, either.

"Nothing that eventful. That was the year that girl from four won. She was eighteen and looked a lot like Rachel You know, thin, small, very nonthreatening. No one thought she had a chance in hell of even making it past the first battle. But she did. She made it to the end and managed to kill a guy twice her size from one to win."

"So?"

"Would you shut up and listen? I'm not done. So this girl, I'd never met her before. We were strangers. But I shared the elevator with her two nights before they went in to the arena, and I felt it. That spark you feel. We didn't say two words to each other, but I know she felt it too. Then I had to watch her fight and kill. This beautiful girl who was too young, too innocent for this arena. It damn near killed me to watch her."

"What happened to her?"

"She watched her district partner take an axe to the forehead and it really fucked her up. She had a mental breakdown of sorts, hasn't been right since. I write her once a month, just so she knows someone out there will listen to her and has some kind of idea what her life is like. Obviously it's never going to work out with us the way it will with you and your jail bait, but I get it. I get how much it sucks watching someone you care about stuck inside the arena when there's nothing you can do about it."

"The girl. What's her name?"

"Emma. Emma Pillsbury. She's a mentor from time to time, but she's usually not up to it. Just being here brings back nightmares for her. Last time she was here was three years ago and she could hardly function. I was drunk as a skunk the whole time so I wasn't much help to her. She's told me that I'm the only person who helps the nightmares go away. If there was a way, I'd spend my life with her, just helping her live."

"Maybe one day you'll be able to."

Will gives me a stern look. "Don't say things like that, not here. The wrong person hears you say that, and you won't be going home with Rachel if she makes it out alive," he warns, reminding me of the type of society we live in. Even the most innocent comment that's thought to have rebellious thoughts behind it earns you a bullet in the head. It doesn't happen in eight, but I've heard rumors of public executions in other districts.

Will looks at the door that leads back to our viewing room, letting out a sigh. "Well, we should head back. Don't want to miss any of the action," he says bitterly.

"Hey Will?" I say as he places his hand on the door knob. "I'm sorry you can't be with Emma."

"Yeah. Me too."