3

I am unconscious for a total of 3 days. Subliminally there are hundreds of pictures that flow through my mind. Peaceful images. Peeta painting and drawing into my mother's medicine book. Prim braiding my hair. Finnick offering me a sugar cube. In between each image there are glimpses of different colours that define the moment. All I can think is that I could live like this forever—trapped in a nonexistent reality in which my mind can finally rest.

My body feels drained as I struggle to open my eyes. For a second I feel as if I'm back in the Capitol hospital, after my escape from the Quarter Quell. But I am not strapped in. I am in an open room, free to move as I choose. The lights on the ceiling are too well-lit for my liking. I squint as I try to compose myself. Sitting up, my mind comes back into focus though I can't tell whether the last time I was awake was a dream or not. Glimmer did not hit me. I killed her 2 years ago. She's gone. Isn't she? I start to get off the bed I'm on when the door in the corner opens and Sivlette comes in. Sivlette. Did she bring me here to kill me? To avenge a tribute's death? My head hurts, but I instantly remember the fact that Peeta is no longer anywhere near me. I get up in a hurry when I see that Sivlette is sitting patiently on a chair across from me. The look I give her must reveal all because she speaks before I can give my opinion.

"The attack was an accident. The girl is restrained. You might want to sit for the rest of my explanation…the one I was about to give you." I don't trust her. "Your friend is fine. He pushed you out of the way and took the rest of her attack and has been put into care. Just sit."

I sit quietly. She provides for me the following explanation.

Since the very first Hunger Games 77 years ago, there has been a long-kept secret conspiracy within the Capitol and all residents. The Capitol has always had a secret quarters built far away from Panem itself. Every year during the Games, four tributes are chosen to be kept alive by the Gamemakers. While these tributes are in the arena, they inevitably begin to die off. Before each of these tributes' pulses stops, their cannons are fired, to fool Panem into thinking they are out of the Games. A hovercraft then comes and collects their bodies before they actually do bleed to death. Of course, these hovercrafts are normal to viewers because they're supposed to remove bodies from the arena. But in these cases, the four chosen bodies are lifted aboard the crafts and then put into intensive reconstruction, in which they are completely repaired from all the past year's damage, and brought back to life. At first I consider this idea impossible, but I remember how the Capitol had completely fixed Peeta and me after we won and we had no flaws left whatsoever. After "Reconstruction", as Sivlette calls it, the chosen tributes are deported to Panem City, where they believe they are given a second chance to live. Fake, premade bodies are sent back home to their families in the Districts, and the tributes are given a welcoming place to stay and are tricked into believing they are being given a better life. For a year after Reconstruction, these tributes start their lives over. All are aware of their families at home, but choose to stay in the hope that they will do better. They stay in a residence ten times grander than any the Capitol could provide back home. They are tricked into believing the Gamemakers chose them to live because they had the most potential in the Games, and therefore are the most worthy to remain alive.

They've been wrong.

I keep my composure and save any outburst for later, calmly nodding at Sivlette when called for. When the next Hunger Games in our world begins, the Panem City tributes are hit with the news. They will have to compete in a whole new Game. They are taken into custody along with every other tribute from different years—the same way we all were when we were chosen in the Reapings. Perhaps to make it "fair" the Capitol could have repaired the tributes in a way so that they don't age and thus have a chance at winning—I think of Mags and her sacrifice for Peeta's and my life. But then I realize most of them are probably killed off before they can grow even a few years. They go through the entire process of being a tribute in the Hunger Games all over again-minus having the stylists and interviews and whatnot. At this point, if they didn't see it before, there is no escape. Even if they could break past the high-security condition of the City(which is highly unlikely), they have no knowledge of where they are. Even I have no idea where we are, despite having all the information already given to me. Anyways, the tributes that have been chosen have usually been the most vicious in every Games. The intent is to throw them all into an arena where there will only be serious and engaging battle, instead of days spent on killing off the weaker opponents the way it is in our Hunger Games. They cut right to the action. I open my mouth to ask who it is that watches these things, when Sivlette again reads my thoughts before I can say them. The people in the audience are the same people who choose the tributes to be in these Panem City Games. There has long been an unspoken option for the citizens of the Capitol to vote for the tributes who they find to be most "appealing"—or, in Capitol terms, most "showstopping". The citizens are fully aware of where these tributes will go, but I guess they have little consideration of innocent lives. All they want is to see familiar blood being shed a second time. I have never doubted the Capitol's selfish and unfeeling nature, but I would never have imagined they would pick their favorite tributes and allow them to die brutal deaths just for their personal pleasure. Likely they didn't have any guilt because they found it as a 'privilege' to be in the Games again and be selected as favorite.

What makes me so uncomfortable is the fact that, right now, I'm doing a very good job at being indifferent to everything Sivlette has told me. On the surface, I show no reaction to anything I am told. I have grown talented at…can we call this lying? No. Either way, I am deceiving Sivlette into believing I couldn't care less. Maybe it could be because I am so used to the Capitol and humanity and our capability to be repulsing creatures. But inside I know I am truly disgusted by everything I know. Still, I can't say I'm insanely surprised. But something is still not quite adding up.

"Well, if they kept only having one winner every year, wouldn't every other Panem City tribute have been killed off long ago?" I ask. The calculations don't allow for there to be Panem City Games for more than a few years, even considering what I think to be 300 innocent lives that have been chosen.

Sivlette looks uneasy. "Miss Everdeen, you have not let me finish. You see…these chosen tributes are not simply brought here and left to die in the arena…" She's looking at me closely. "They each die every year. Over and over."

First confusion hits me in the face. What is she talking about? She gives a sigh of relief to see I have not understood.

"Miss Everdeen. Every year, there is only one victor in the Panem City Games. Most of the Hunger Games' rules apply. The only difference is that…whoever doesn't win and is killed in battle is again brought up by hovercraft and then Reconstructed another time. Brought to life another time. The next year, they are to be thrown into the arena again, and fight to the death again. And the victors aren't so lucky, either. They only benefit they have is exemption from the Games for one year. Then they go back, just like everyone else. Each tribute is to die a certain amount of times, but no less than three. Try to stay with me. Every tribute available goes into the arena. Say there are 36 one year. If a tribute is the first to die, he is number 36. 36 places away from being victor. This is the number of times he must be in the Games until, finally, he is not Reconstructed anymore. When someone dies after this tribute, he is 35 places away from being victor, and thus has to die 35 more times."

I keep in mind the fact that there have only been 76 Games, so the number of years it would take for each tribute to die his designated number of times would be infinite and impossible to fill in 76 years. So it's a trap. Unless you have very few deaths to 'live', you are in the Games for a good while.

So the capitol doesn't have to make you immortal. They just need to slaughter you again and again.

Because if you keep dying and being Reconstructed again, it's simply not possible for you to age. Reconstruction fixes any flaws you might have from the past year.

Being slaughtered, it turns out, would have been much better than having lived these tribute's lives a second time. I shudder at the thought that my defiance of the authorities might have created relentless conflict, but it also may have saved me, as well. Any favor from a member of the Capitol's authorities may have brought me to Panem City so everyone could watch me die a second time.