"Roots, roots, roots. Who would have guessed they even have hair dye in District 12? I thought they barely had running water," the prep woman, named Aconia, tsks above my head. She's a nice woman, friendly and talkative, which is kind of impressive since she has what look like diamonds for teeth.

She flops my longer-than-I-remember-it hair around, examining the dark roots. This is a normal, having a stylist complain about the up keep I never do., but the ordinariness makes everything else feel more surreal.

I went to sleep the train, fully believing that whatever this is—a dream, a hallucination, a breakdown—would be over and I'd wake up at somewhere that's not the decade's most successful young adult series.

I was wrong.

And nothing in the book fully prepares you for the annoyingly high pitch of Effie Trinket's voice. The sound of her shrieking "Up, up, up! It's going to be a big, big, day," sent me careening out of the bunk and onto the floor. The mahogany floor.

Karma's a bitch.

I spent the rest of the day not being Peeta Mellark. I figured out that if I say what he's supposed to say, the others go with it and the "scene" goes exactly the way it does in the book, but if I don't, they sense something is off and try to correct it. After I ignored his alcoholic breakfast of champions, Haymitch threw his own glass across the room.

Strangely entertaining, yes, but is doesn't tell me what the hell is happening. And I can't figure out how much the characters know about what should be happening.

But on the plus side, I did avoid that black eye.

Now it's almost time for the parade thing and becoming a human torch has never appealed to me. Well, actually, I tried out for the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four reboot, but that's not the point. The point is that the fight-to-the-death Games start in one week. And shit's looking permanent.

There's no way I'm going into the Games, not willingly, so I have to get out. But how? And, more importantly, where? Anywhere I run will still be in the Twilight Zone. But there's a difference between just being in book world and being in the Games. I could hide out somewhere not in the arena until I find a way home.

So, who in the Capitol would help a runaway tribute?

Of course, there's everyone in the secret-rebel faction, but there's no telling when they became rebels. People like Plutarch and Cinna might have joined the rebellion after the first Games. They might still be Team Capitol right now. And how would I start that conversation, anyway? Hey, you've never met me, and as far as you know I'm an unimportant tribute, but can you risk your life smuggling me out of the Capitol? That is not going to work.

Okay, who else?

In the movie, Tigris the cat-rebel had a shop a few blocks from the President's mansion, which is supposed to be somewhere nearby. Now her character seemed to have a long standing grudge against the Games. Bitter is good. Maybe she'd actually would put me up, get me to District 13…where there's another crazy dictator waiting.

Still, Coin isn't actively trying to kill Peeta, so that's doable. And Peeta isn't supposed to know District 13 exists so going there will throw things off the balance. Maybe off balance enough that the universe or God or whatever this is will send me home.

Or not.

Since I've been acting, I've seen enough time travel/alternate dimension screenplays to feel a doubt niggling in the back of my mind that says changing the story might not be the best plan. Wasn't there one screenplay where, if you change the past, it rips apart the universe? But, then Detention was about changing the past and things worked out there, right?

I let out a long, slow breath. I can't believe I'm taking advice from old screenplays, but right now they're the closest things I have to my new "reality."

Who knows if any if the other fake worlds apply in this one, though? The Hunger Games isn't the past or even really the future, it's a book. What happens if you change a book?

The questions swirling around my mind finally consolidate on one single point: this is the book and in less than three weeks, the book says Peeta Mellark loses his leg. Loses. His. Leg.

That settles it, there's no way I could explain losing my leg to my agent.

I look around the Remake Center for an exit. Security is kind of lax here in the heart of the Capitol. There aren't any guards that I can see and the door is just one of those ordinary motion detecting ones like they have in malls. It's sad that the people here are so used to being oppressed that they don't even try to escape.

When Aconia's turns around, I race for the door, wishing for the millionth time that I'd never started smoking. I hear one faint shout, but I keep going. I'm right on top of the door when I remember that the Capitol doesn't need human guards or locked doors to keep people in. That this is a novel about the future.

And one thing novels about the future always have are force fields.

Damn you, Suzanne Collins.

My body slams into something impossibly hard and invisible. I breathe in the scent of burned toast mixed with violets before the world goes dark.

"You're an idiot, you know that, Peeta Mellark?" A voice calls from above me while a small hand tentatively runs through my hair.

"I'm not Peeta Mellark," I say automatically and then crack open my eyes. It's a mistake, a terrible, terrible mistake. Pain blossoms behind my eyes as soon as I open them and I can't stop a low groan from escaping my lips. Gray eyes, framed by thick ebony lashes look down into mine, frowning. So, yep, still in the book.

I sit up and look around, ignoring the way the world tilts around me. I'm in something like a hotel room, but with ultra-modern lights and a curved bedding. This must be in the Training Center.

"Then, who are you?" she asks. "Are you one of his brothers?"

"Good guess, but no," I say, rubbing what feels like a humongous knot on the back of my head. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You don't know what I'd believe."

"Trust me, I know more about you than you know about yourself."

Katniss snorts, "I doubt that."

"So what happened, again?" It's hard to concentrate through the pounding in my head. It feels like something is trying to force its way through my cranium. I hope the Hunger Games hasn't morphed into Alien and some tentacled nasty isn't about to come bursting through my forehead.

"You ran into a force field, you idiot. I didn't see it, but apparently you flew about five feet in the air before coming down." Katniss' face take on a speculative look. "I wonder what they would've done if you'd died. Would they have had another reaping in 12 or just went on with twenty-three tributes?"

"You were much nicer to Peeta when he ran into force field," I mutter.

Her nose scrunches up in confusion, "And what's that supposed to mean? Look, I don't have time for…whatever this is. I'm going to dinner. Effie asked me to see if you wanted to eat. They're still sending you into the Games, injured or not, so you might as well keep up your strength."

"Nay," I say around a yawn. "I think I'll just stay here. That whole dinner and the rooftop scene after is just foreshadowing, anyway. And it doesn't even pay off until Mockingjay. That's why they dropped it from the movie."

Katniss' eyes suddenly narrow into slits, "This is your strategy for the Games, isn't it? Pretending to be crazy so people underestimate you?"

"I told you, I'm not going to the Games."

"And how are you going to accomplish that? You're a tribute, even if you're not Peeta, and the Games start in seven days."

For the first time, I feel something like resignation, a creeping fear that I'm really and truthfully stuck here. "I don't know," I say softly.

Katniss' features soften and for one split second, her expression reminds me of Jen. "Well, at least you'll be memorable. I don't think anyone's going to forget the boy who tried to get away. Twice."

She gets up from the bed and heads for the door. Her hand is on the knob when she turns to look at me again, her face wistful. "And who knows, maybe you're worried for nothing. You might be the one to win."

Katniss says it like my winning wouldn't mean her death. Like the whole experience is normal. The reality of this world, how I'm really in a place where the government kills children for entertainment, hits me like a punch in the gut and I can barely breathe.

It's one thing to understand that a fictional story is an allegory for war, it's another to have a girl, a seemingly real girl casually talk about her own death right in first of you.

"Katniss," I call as she's about to leave. "At dinner, you're going to see a red-haired girl you know. You might want to keep it to yourself."

Her eyes widen in shock and confusion. I don't know why I'm warning her. Peeta got her out of that conversation in the book and I've sort of made it my goal to be as anti-Peeta as possible, but I don't want to put her in a situation that might turn dangerous just because I'm boycotting the role.

Katniss looks at me for a long moment, before closing the door firmly behind her. As I listen to her footsteps echo down the hall, I realize something else. Peeta Mellark was right. Fictional or not, Katniss Everdeen does have an effect.