Trigger Warning: Severe trauma.

Eidolon Wrack, 18, District 4 Male POV

Teeth. There's a set of teeth sinking into my throat. They belong to a human - a girl. I try to scream but I'm drowning in my own blood. The air wheezes through my ruined throat.

Suddenly, my voice returns. The scream fills my throat. It's whole, undamaged.

But I can't forget how it felt to have it ripped away. That wild, voiceless panic.

"Stop screaming. Don't tell me you're a sissy as well as a murderer," a woman's voice snaps.

I sit bolt upright. My head whips around to face her. I freeze with fear when I see her, all cold, dark eyes and razor-sharp teeth.

Enobaria.

I cower away from her, wrapping the clean, white sheets of my hospital bed around myself. I need something to protect me from her and the sheets are the only things within reach. I try to find my voice to scream for help but the only sound that escapes my lips is a thin, terrified whine.

Enobaria cackles. "You're not so tough now, are you, Wrack? I can't wait to watch you die again."

Again? I wonder. I can't speak, though. My mouth opens and closes, uselessly.

"Oh, you don't know?" Enobaria sneers. "A bunch of tributes who came second got brought back to compete the Quell. Including you. Including your sister."

I let out a small, helpless sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. Honey's in the Quell? But that would mean...

"Yes," Enobaria gloats. "She died in the games after yours. She volunteered to honour your memory or something but she died in second place, just like you did. Now you're both going into the arena together and only one of you is coming out."

I turn away so Enobaria can't see the tears pouring out of my eyes. My sister died and it's all my fault. The last time I saw Honey, we'd both been so certain I'd win. As I'd died, I'd had a tiny sliver of hope that my gruesome death would scare her away from volunteering. I didn't want her to die in the games. But she volunteered and she died and now we're opponents.

This isn't your fault, Eidolon, a small, sensible voice in my head says. This is Enobaria's fault. You can kill her and then things will be better.

I twist around and snarl at her, readying myself to lunge. But Enobaria hisses at me, baring her teeth.

They're longer than before. Sharper than before. I know that they're the kind of teeth that'll haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

"Listen up, Wrack," Enobaria mutters. "If you attack me, I'll rip your throat out. If you say something too annoying, I'll rip your throat out. If you so much as look at me the wrong way, I'll rip your throat out. But however you anger me, I'll make sure that your sister dies first and you have to watch every second of it. Is that clear?"

I nod, shakily, and sink back to the bed. I've never been more terrified in my life. I curl up in a nest of sheets, trying to hide the fact that sobs are tearing through my body.

But I know there's no hiding anything from Enobaria. The moment I lift my head, she'll pounce and tear me apart.

Jiro Ethridge, 16, District 10 Male POV

Day Two of the Seventy-Third Hunger Games...

I look at the knife in my hand. It's shaking. The knife is shaking because my hand is shaking. And my hand is shaking because I'm absolutely terrified.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Focus, Jiro. You've been wielding knives since you were a toddler. You know what you're doing.

It's true. I've known what I was doing since the moment I was reaped. I knew I had a shot at victory but only if I played my cards right and the odds were in my favour. I'm good with knives, since I work at a slaughterhouse. I'm bad with people. That's probably also because I work at a slaughterhouse. It's far less glamorous than working at a ranch and being a rootin' tootin' mutt-shootin' cowboy like my mentor, Manel.

But we get results. Last year, one of my coworkers, Ramona Lopez, got reaped. She came fifth. Her single kill was the quickest kill achieved by a District 10 tribute in Hunger Games history. She would've won had the girl from District 3 not thrown a bottle of acid in her face.

I'm just as good with a knife as Lopez was. Maybe even better. And I've made sure I'm not a Career target like she was. When you have crippling social anxiety after years of being ostracised due to your profession, slipping under the Careers' radar is easy.

But, as confident as I was in my plan to lay low and take out my opponents before they even remembered that I existed, the arena doesn't seem to be playing ball. It's a ruined city. The entire arena is incredibly disorienting for someone who's used to wide, open plains. I'm sure the urban kids - especially those blasted Threes - are having a ball. But I'm unsure about everything.

I'm lucky that I managed to grab a bottle of water in the bloodbath along with my knife, otherwise I'd be in a really bad way. I have absolutely no idea how to find water. I found a few rats yesterday and I managed to catch, clean, cook and eat one in a way that hopefully eliminated any diseases the rat was carrying. I also found a battered tank full of a clear liquid but I was worried that it wasn't water. The last thing I want is to accidentally drink acid and end up like Lopez.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily paranoid. Maybe I'm the smartest guy in the arena. Maybe I'm both. If I learned anything from watching the Threes last year steamroll the competition only for one of them to get steamrolled by a mutt, it's that being smart is good but being too smart for your own good will just earn you a painful death. Especially if the Capitol thinks you're too smart for your own good. It's best to be humble and respectful.

Or too insecure to be disrespectful.

I hear a noise and fight the urge to jump. If it's one of my opponents, I'd rather they didn't hear me. If it's a mutt, they can probably smell me anyway. The nearest building to me has a massive gaping hole in the side, a good place to hide. Silently, I withdraw into the shadows, slipping the knife into my belt. The blade might reflect light and alert my opponents to my location.

The walls seem to close in on me but I fight my growing sense of claustrophobia. If I want to survive, I'll have to step out of my comfort zone.

A girl stumbles through the rubble, just outside my little cave. She's the girl from Eight, only a year or so younger than me. She's a lot smaller, though, and a lot weaker.

Easy prey.

Come closer, I silently beg her. Step into the shadows and I'll have one less opponent to face.

The girl's eyes dart around with fear as she picks her way through the ruins. They light up like a knife in the fluorescent slaughterhouse lights when she sees my little hiding place. She rushes forwards.

I raise my knife and slit her throat open with one slice.

Blood spills out from the slash I've made across the girl's throat. She lets out a panicked gurgle then collapses. A cannon fires. I've just made my first kill.

I force myself not to feel shock. You were just slaughtering an animal, Jiro. Just doing your job.

Calmly, I pick the girl's body up and lift it over my shoulder. I'm careful not to spill any blood, fearful that a clever opponent may use it to track me. It's okay if I get blood on my clothes, though. I'm well used to it. If anything, it calms me.

Blood reminds me of home.

I set the girl's corpse down, out in the open, where the hovercraft can easily collect it. Then I retreat back to my hideaway as if death itself is chasing me.

A hovercraft comes to collect the girl's body. A matter of minutes later, a silver parachute drifts down from the sky. There's a big red '10' on the side of the parcel. A strange mix of flattery and surprise grows in me. I hadn't expected the Capitol to like me. I also hadn't expected my rootin' tootin', morphling-shootin' mentor to have the intelligence to send me anything. Perhaps the other mentor from Ten, Maia, decided to take pity on me.

I rush out, grab the parcel and hide before anyone spots me. Inside is a bottle of water. I wonder what to do with the packaging when an idea dawns on me.

Carefully, I rub dust on the side of the package until the '10' is difficult to see. Then I set it down just at the edge of my shadowy little hideout. Far enough out to be spotted and draw unsuspecting tributes in but close enough for me to kill them without alerting anyone else.

It's a smart move.

Now I just need to make sure it's not too smart.

"Thank you," I say, quietly. "Without the support of the glorious Capitol, this plan would not be possible. Perhaps nothing would be possible."

Then I wait for more lambs to slaughter.

Now we know how Honey's brother is doing... and it's not well at all. Eidolon is probably the first tribute here whose trauma from dying outweighs any coping mechanism they might try to use. Every one of his POVs comes with a pretty big trigger warning.

Those of you familiar with the films may know Jiro as the guy who got his head smashed with a brick. He didn't have much of a personality so I made up this stealthy, calculating character.

Next chapter, some very familiar faces emerge. It's time to bring in the big guns. It's time for District 3!