Trigger Warning: Homophobic abuse, PTSD, suicidal ideation.

Régine Maurin, 18, District 1 Female POV

January, 63 A.T.T., Aged 12

This is the first time in my life that I look like me.

My face is a swollen, bruised mess. My hair sticks out of my scalp in uneven, blonde tufts. I know that, once I venture out of my my lair, I'll catch the eye of everyone I encounter. Strangers will cross the street to avoid me.

And I'm glad. I'd rather they avoided me because of my face than because of the ugly, twisted feelings bubbling up inside.

It had felt so innocent at first, so pure. There'd been a girl in this year's Hunger Games, a pretty girl with liquid brown eyes and the grace of a queen. Enobaria.

Earlier today, she stood on a stage and said that another girl was beautiful. They gave her a round of applause.

I did the same. I got beaten up on the street.

I should've listened to my parents. They always told me that girls weren't supposed to get crushes on other girls. They'd done it gently, like I was a little kid who wasn't old enough to use a knife and fork properly. They'd just wanted to guide me to the right path, the one that I'd somehow strayed from.

There was nothing guiding about the girls from my class, nothing gentle about their fists or their words. I'd tried to block out the things they'd said as they'd hammered at me with punches and swung at me with kicks, as they'd cut off all my hair and left me, battered and broken, in the gutter.

One word had stuck out, though. Monster.

I wish, more than anything, that I could show them what a real monster looks like.

I can hear my parents' voices downstairs, talking to Amethyst. I can always recognise the voices they save for their favourite daughter. Amethyst is the tall, athletic, hard-working one with the good grades. I'm the disappointment who doesn't try hard enough.

I can't hate Amethyst for it, though. She's the one who carried me home.

My two biggest problems chase each other in endless circles in my head. I'm a monster. Nobody loves me. I'm a monster. Nobody loves me...

What could I do to make people love me?

I study my reflection in the mirror and try to imagine it as all the things I'm supposed to be. Prettier, more successful, more popular. I try to picture myself with a hot boyfriend but all I can picture is a girl with liquid brown eyes.

It all comes to me so clearly. Me on a stage, giving a speech to an adoring crowd. I'm celebrating my victory, just like Enobaria did. I have a loving girlfriend waiting for me backstage and a beautiful house waiting for me in Victor's Village.

I am glorious. I am golden. Everyone loves me. Everyone knows my name. Régine Maurin - victor of the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games.

Then I hear my parents calling me. My illusion shatters but its fragments are buried in my mind forever.

Now I know what I have to do. I have to win the Hunger Games. And not just in an ordinary way. I need to make an impression, to stand out.

I'll teach the world to love me. If people don't learn, however...

Then I'll teach them to fear me.

Fawkes Chau, 19, District 3 Male POV

The pain is gone.

My last few moments are a messy jumble, blurred by pain one second and brought into agonisingly sharp focus the next. I remember tentacles forcing their way through my skin, my vision swimming with dark shapes, a knife driving into my throat.

Binah's eyes like twin stars. Her whispered apology. The last things I ever saw and heard.

Or so I'd thought.

If you won, then she's dead, an angry voice in my head says. The girl who showed you mercy even though you betrayed her is dead. And you're still alive. You're a worthless, treacherous coward and you're still alive.

I open my eyes only for them to be seared by bright, white light. Hospital lights, so cold. Maybe this is where they piece the truly broken victors back together. I test out my new, painless body. I run my tongue along my teeth, relieved to find that there aren't any more tentacles pressing it down. I flex my fingers.

Then I remember that I shouldn't have fingers anymore. The mutt growing inside me made all my limbs burst open and pushed all my bones from their sockets.

Suddenly, I feel feverish and uncertain. It's squirming inside me. The mutt. Even if it's not really there, I remember it. I'll always feel it. I struggle to a seated position and stare at my hands, wondering when they'll burst open...

"Fawkes..." My head snaps up the moment I hear Binah's voice. My heartbeat quickens.

How are we both still alive?

I recognise the young woman by my bedside instantly. She's still got that white streak in her hair but it seems much brighter than before. Her skin has that radiance that can only be found in victors, like winning the Hunger Games makes you twice as pretty as the average person.

But there's something else beneath Binah's skin, something beautiful. Maybe it was always there, I just never believed in it.

A good heart. A human heart.

Maybe there was always something ugly and twisted and tangled in me but I never realised it was there.

"Is... is this my body?" I blurt out.

"You were cloned," Binah says.

"So... I'm not me anymore?"

I almost laugh at how stupid the question is. Of course I'm not "me" anymore. I'd completely lost sight of "me" the moment I'd been reaped. That was the moment that I killed Fawkes Chau, took his name and plastered his usual brilliant smile all over my face. He's long gone. The cloned body in the bed, the fragments of a mind inside it... this is just whatever's left of him.

"Your DNA should be an exact match," Binah says. "Ramona's better at the whole DNA thing than I am so you can ask her about it later. They must've put so much effort into getting your mind right, though. It must be like some advanced computer program just... for people. Do you remember things from before the games?"

My mind is flooded with memories. My parents smiling at me. Laughing with my friends. A lot of kisses, with both girls and boys. A happy, safe little life.

I nod. But those memories belong to a different boy. A boy who was warm and kind and friendly. I don't know what happened to him.

Binah smiles at me but her eyes are sad. "Oh my goodness, Fawkes," she says. "It's so crazy seeing you alive again."

She looks like she's trying not to cry. I reach out and squeeze her hand - something I couldn't do when I was dying.

"It's okay," I whisper. I'm surprised to realise that I mean it. The mutt that I felt inside me earlier is gone. Maybe Binah scared it away.

Maybe she can protect me. Maybe, with her help, I can get better, be the guy I'm supposed to be.

"Fawkes, they cloned you so they could put you in the Quell," Binah says.

My world stops. I can feel the tentacles wrapping around me again, constricting until I can't breathe anymore.

"I'm going back into the arena?" I ask.

Binah nods. "I'm your new mentor. I can't stop you from going back in but I will fight to get you out of there in one piece."

I shrink back, pulling away from Binah. It won't be enough. Binah might be formidable but she can't make me a victor. Not when the Capitol have chosen my fate. I must be their toy, their pretty, powerless rag doll to unravel at the seams. They must've had so much fun watching me die in agony that they'll torture me again and again until...

I can't think of a reason why they'll stop. They'll never stop.

The only way to save myself is to kill myself, to kill the monster that's taken root inside me.

But Binah can't know. If Binah knows she'll try to stop me. She doesn't know what I'm going through. When she looks at me, all she sees is someone she has to protect, just for the sake of protecting someone. It's noble and selfless of her but it doesn't make me feel any better.

Now her wide, dark eyes are full of concern.

"Are you alright?" Binah asks.

"I thought you hated me," I whisper.

"I did," Binah says. "You were an idiot. But you're my idiot. I know you only betrayed me because you were scared. You just wanted to live. I did some stupid things as well. Now you're stuck with me. Sorry."

"Don't apologise," I say, smoothly. "There's nobody I'd rather be stuck with. I could probably win this time now the most dangerous girl in Panem isn't going into the arena with me."

I give Binah my brightest smile. Her cheeks colour a little. I wonder what she's thinking right now. Probably, Does this moron think he can flirt his way to the end of the games again? He has no chance but - awww - he's cute. Let's help him!

As long as Binah believes I'm still trying to win at all costs, she won't be able to stop me from losing.

Régine and Fawkes are polar opposites in terms of how being in the games affected them. Régine had a really tough life before her games. District 1 isn't a really accepting place because they're trying to force kids into the Career mould. That scene with the mirror is actually one of the first scenes containing Régine that I thought of but I couldn't find a way to fit it into any of my earlier stories. She didn't start out as a torturing sadist, just a lonely, vulnerable girl who was brainwashed by the Career system. Her death scene in All I Do Is Lose happened just as she was starting to accept herself so Régine's future POVs will be a lot less upsetting.

Fawkes, on the other hand, is probably the only tribute who can compete with Eidolon when it comes to trauma. Dying in such a terrible way has put him in a really dark place. He's another character whose POVs come with massive trigger warnings. Also, his age isn't a typo. Fawkes turned nineteen during the bloodbath of his first games. It means that he's broken the record for the oldest tribute of all time but he's probably beyond caring at this point.