Back to the past. This time I'm actually myself, standing in the doorway of the Training Center with Sydni. We are the last to arrive; all twenty-two other kids are sitting in the center of the gym. We join them silently, slipping in next to Marilee and Jude from 4. Giselle, the Head Trainer, tells us the rules and introduces each station. She finishes by saying, "All right, off you go!" in her motherly voice. We Careers all jump up quickly and head over to the weapons stations. I drift around and end up at the sword station with Rachelle and the boy from 10. While I chop dummies to pieces, I chat with Rachelle; we swap tips on sword technique. "If you use a two-handed sword, you'll have more control and blocking power," says Rachelle. "But I personally prefer two swords over one. More steel equals more power," she says nonchalantly as she butchers a stuffed dummy. The boy from 10 standing next to us inexpertly stabs and slices at his dummy. Rachelle watches him for a while, snickering under her breath. The boy turns to face her. "Is there a problem?" he growls. Rachelle laughs. "The only problem is that you won't make it a single day in the arena. But that's your problem, not mine. Although I could be the one to finish you off." The boy's face reddens, and he drops the sword and heads over to the snare station. "District 10 hasn't won the games for seventeen years," says Rachelle to me. "And I doubt these Games will be any different." She turns to face a new dummy and beheads it in one clean stroke.

After a while, I head over to the shooting weapons station. Marilee is already there, pointing a semi-automatic gun at some moving targets about 20 yards away. I stand next to the blonde-haired girl and watch her shoot for a while. "Guns aren't usually available in the Games. It makes them go by too quickly, especially if you're good," quips Marilee in her singsong voice as she loads another clip into her gun. "But they can cause quite a mess if you hit an artery or a vein, and the Capitol loves a little bloodshed. Who knows, they might change their minds this year. And if they do, I think we both know who's gonna win" She giggles sweetly and shoots six bullets right into the bull's-eye of a target. I practice shooting for a while. It's almost second nature to me: gun training was one of the first things I learned as a child in District 2. But Marilee is good. For every target I hit, she hits three. As I walk away from the station, I can't help but wonder how someone so sweet could be so deadly.

I see Togru sitting at the chemicals station, so I go over to join him. I watch him work in silence, mixing different chemicals together in different vials. "My father is a chemist," Togru explains. He picks up a white cube with his tongs and holds it up to me. "Pure sodium. Not very deadly by itself. But mix it with water and you'll get a violent explosion." I'm impressed with his knowledge. The instructor teaches me how to make different poisons and healing mixtures. Togru is able to create an acid so powerful that it melts right through a stainless steel sword. Maybe I pegged Togru completely wrong. Who else but him could stab you with a spear then pour a homemade concoction of poison into your wounds?

I move around to a few other stations, ending up at the archery station with Jude from 4. He's not even shooting; he's sitting on the floor laughing at the tributes from seven and eleven trying to learn how to shoot. It's at this point that I remember my mentor Cato's words. "Do something that will make them fear you. Fear is your biggest weapon. If they think you can kill them, they're probably right." I walk up to the girl from seven, grab her bow out of her hands, aim my arrow, shoot a bull's-eye into the standing target, and hand the bow back to the shocked girl. Altogether, it takes less than five seconds. Strolling away, I hear the tributes whispering to each other. I also hear Jude laughing at them. "You should see the looks on your faces! Is that how you're going to look when he kills you?" I smile, truly happy for the first time in this whole experience.

Now the dream flashes forward to lunchtime, with all the Careers sitting together at their square table, two chairs on each side. Rachelle and Togru are making a game plan, deciding which tribute they want to kill first. "I call the boy from six," whispers Rachelle, pointing to the chubby boy sitting two tables away from us. "Not if I get him first," replies Togru. Both laugh loudly. Jude and Marilee chat with each other about the appearance of the tributes. "Did you see the girl from three?" squeaks Marilee. "Yeah," replies Jude, "I wonder if she's eaten anything in the past year!" The two snicker as they watch the girl and her partner chow down on their food. "Slow down, kids!" yells Jude. "Savor the taste of food while you can, before I kill you!" Sydni chokes on her food, as do eighteen other tributes at their tables. An eerie silence fills the room. Then the boy from eight, who is sitting at the table closest to us, stands up and begins dragging his table away from ours. His partner helps him move chairs, and they end up sitting next to the tributes from nine. The girl from three stands up and drags her table away as well. Soon, every tribute has followed suit and made one giant circle of tables as far away from ours as possible. The unnatural silence persists, and the effects have clearly disconcerted our happy group of Careers. Alienation: All Careers face this battle before the Games. Jude and Marilee poke at their food, occasionally glancing over their shoulders at the girl from three. Sydni constantly stares across the table at the eighteen tributes all sitting together. Rachelle stares at her lap stoically, never once blinking. Only Togru seems unaffected, eating his meal as if nothing had happened. I try to eat, but a strange feeling in my stomach tells me that whatever I eat will just come right back up.

I hear a chair next to me move, and I watch as Sydni stands up, holding her tray in one hand, and drags her chair over to the eighteen others. They hear the disturbance and stop their chatter to watch her. She stops short at the edge of their table and, smiling sweetly, waits for them to make room for her. No one does. Slowly but surely, Sydni's smiling face morphs into visible frustration. Then she explodes. "You stupid second-rate tributes, you're as stuck in your discriminatory ways as we are!" She snatches a knife off her tray and points it menacingly at the nearest tributes. "I'll kill you all slowly and painfully, and your partners will be forced to stare at your dead, broken bodies as their timers tick away!" Sydni turns and throws the knife into the chrome-colored wall, which turns out to be only wood paneling with wallpaper. The knife sticks in up to its shiny hilt. As Sydni turns and drags her chair back to our table, the girl from twelve begins to cry. Then the girl's cry becomes distorted. It starts to sound more avian in nature, like a bird.