North Freemont- Res D6F

Often in the training room, the flashiest stations were dominated by Careers. It was Careers who went to the weapons stations, or the agility course. They were the only ones who had the privilege of getting to show off everything they could do. Outliers were afraid of putting a target on their backs. Careers were the ones who targeted. I wasn't playing their game, though. I hadn't grown up with Careers, but I'd grown up with something that, in its own way, was worse: gangs. Careers will stab you so they can win. Gangs will cut you into pieces, along with your entire family, if you look at them wrong.

I sensed the eyes on me as I sparred with the training partner. I didn't think I was going to learn much in the short time we had. I was just practicing to stay limber and to make sure my new body felt the same as the old one. Sure enough, it felt like I'd never been dead. It was kind of disturbing, honestly. The Capitol literally had power over death now and they used it to make more Hunger Games? Some people really never learn you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Surely with all this technology we could feed and keep everyone. They didn't even need to crush the masses or limit the supply of necessities. I guess "rich" only has meaning if some people are poor.

"You're pretty good," Rapture said from where he lurked at the edge of the sparring station watching me. I ignored him, since I was still actively fighting my partner and didn't want to get punched in the face. When the round was over, I took a seat on the bench to catch my breath.

"Sorry, did you say something? I was busy," I said.

Rapture's face got a little cloudy. "Just saying you were pretty good. You gonna use that in the Arena?"

"That's the plan," I said, wishing I had some earbuds to put in.

"You're not afraid?" Rapture hinted.

"Not any more than I should be." I didn't even mean it as an insult. Sometimes my mouth just moved faster than my brain.

"You don't think there's anything to be scared about?" Rapture pounced, immediately taking my comment in the worst way possible. He was like the wolf in the old story, determined to find a reason the lamb deserves to get eaten.

"I just think if someone was in this for the long haul, they wouldn't want to pick a risky fight on the first day," I said, meeting his gaze. "It always sucks to be injured in the Arena, even if the fight doesn't kill you. There's a lot to do other than fight grudge matches."

"You think you'll injure me?" Rapture asked with typical Career braggadocio.

"I think I might. Guess you gotta decide if I'm a risk worth taking. Seems to me you have Careers you should be thinking about first," I said. Had I been a more subtle sort of girl, I might have feigned submission, but what you saw was what you got with me. I was neither scared nor confident. I was simply ready.

"Just watch your back," Rapture said as he slunk off.

Thanks. As a matter of fact, I will.

Paloma Bennett- Descent into Madness D10F

Yttria and I sat awkwardly in the Ten lounge, trying to figure out what our plan even was. Our little friend group, formed in such strange circumstances from the beginning, was all torn apart. Othella wasn't here, and I was already dreading the horrible possibility I couldn't shake. They'd brought back all the older Tributes. If I was optimistic I'd say they were having mercy. I didn't have much optimism after what I'd seen, and the Capitol didn't have mercy. I didn't want to say it- I was afraid even thinking about it would make it real- but the more obvious answer was that after this, there would be a young Resurrection Games. It made me sick to my stomach. Most of all I hated how it would mean Othella and I would never see each other again. I would never have to face her.

Othella aside, Jezzebel was gone, too. It had been a very friendly parting- warm, even. I didn't hold it against Jezzebel at all when she confessed that just looking at either of us brought things back. The Arena had been even harder on her than it had been on me and Yttria. I knew just what she was talking about. Every now and then I looked at Yttria and felt again that the things I remembered were true and not nightmares. Honestly I was just grateful it didn't happen every time I saw myself in a mirror. Jezzebel was already allied with some other girls and they seemed very nice. It was probably better for us to split up anyway. Close friendships were nothing but a liability in the Games. Yttria and I were still together out of some mix of clinging to what we knew and lack of confidence that we could find someone else. Yttria really was a nice girl, and she stayed, so she must have thought the same of me.

"You think we should look for someone else?" I asked. Old Hunger Games footage was playing on the wall television, but after a while it all just started to blur. It looked like a movie, the way it was edited and packaged. I would have thought it would be more traumatic to watch, but it looked nothing like my Games. The Arena was a jungle with dinosaurs. It almost seemed like an adventure compared to the cave. I wondered what it was like for them, seeing dinosaurs come to life.

"I was thinking we probably should," Yttria said. She didn't seem convinced. "I mean, it seems like a logical sort of idea, it's just, I don't even know who we want."

"I get it," I said. Where would we start looking? Would they end up fitting in? Might we find a double-crosser and end up worse than if we'd never tried? Our first alliance had meshed unusually well. It seemed stupid to think we could get lucky a second time.

"Maybe someone will come find us. Then we can decide," I said.

"It feels like we should be doing more. I just don't know what." Yttria's legs bounced restlessly.

"Maybe we should learn some first aid?" I suggested, just to say something.

"That sounds pretty smart, honestly," Yttria said. She turned off the screen and a triceratops winked into a blank wall. We tidied up the table before we left. It just seemed rude leaving it for the avoxes, even if that was their job. The Capitol was what it was, but in the Districts, we were raised with manners.

Gavin Booth- Descent into Madness D10M

If I tried to do this on my own, I was dead meat. I was generally a happy, optimistic sort of guy, but in this case, "optimism" didn't extend much farther than hoping I would get out of the Bloodbath. Then again, I could very optimistically hope I would find some allies, because otherwise, I was dead meat.

Enzo wasn't here. For whatever reason, the powers that be had declared he didn't get a second chance at life. I hated it, but it was beyond my powers to fix. All I could do is mourn and move on. Out of the hundred-odd Tributes all around me, surely there was someone I could click with.

The Careers, perhaps? Surely they wanted a strapping young lad such as myself. Not. Neither the nicer nor the rougher Career group was for me- I say, like they would give me the time of day. No, better they didn't even know I existed. The girl from Six and her friend caught my eye pretty early. Alysanne was a beast in the sparring ring, and Lacey just had a trustworthy-looking face.

"Hey. Kind of blunt, but you two looking for more allies?" I asked as they stopped by one of the watering station.

Alysanne looked at Lacey with an uncertain expression. Lacey looked back at her with an almost panicked one. There was a moment of awkward silence before Alysanne took the plunge.

"We're kind of just a pair," she said, her tone uncomfortable but sympathetic.

"Oh, no problem," I said, waving my hand.

"Sorry," Alysanne said.

"No, no, you don't owe me nothing," I said, smiling. "Just shooting my shot, but I'll go shoot elsewhere."

A moment later, as I wandered the training room some more, I was distracted by a flurry of squeaking shoes and overlapping voices from across the room. I turned and saw half a dozen young men darting around the small basketball court tucked way into one corner. While I was more of a baseball man myself, I recognized the classic "shirts vs. skins" formation, and I also noticed the shirts had one fewer players than the skins.

"Pinch-hitter!" I yelled as I darted onto the court. I wasn't too familiar with the game, but it wasn't too hard to pick up. Move the ball that way, don't let them move it this way, don't run over the girl, since she's a foot shorter than everyone... it wasn't rocket science. Someone slam-dunked the ball into our hoop and everyone broke into cheers.

"Hey, didn't we start this game with five people?" one of the boys asked as we moved to the sidelines.

"I dunno, it looked fun," I said, shrugging.

"You want to stick around for the next game?" Logan was one of the few boys whose name I remembered.

"Sure," I said. "Why not?"

Castiel Wickham- Over and Over D10M

Fleur looked worriedly across the room at Walcott, who was at the edible plants station with Visenya. There was a complicated mix of emotions on her face, from concern that Walcott wouldn't be safe with her new group, to resentment that she'd left us, to preemptive anger at her allies for possibly mistreating her in the future. It made me weirdly jealous to see such depth of emotion for someone else.

"Do you think she'll come back?" Fleur asked, not looking away from Walcott.

"I think she might," I said. "We can still do our best to look out for her."

"I'm just afraid by the time she leaves it will be too late," Fleur said.

"Hopefully someone's looking out for her." It was the closest thing I could say to something neither of us could. I didn't know how prayer worked in Voodoo, but I was pretty sure it was part of their beliefs, too. Fleur had made one or two comments about how mildly I'd received her faith. It was true I'd been brought up to think other religions were untrue, but I didn't think there was any good in throwing that around. I was better off modeling Christianity by my own positive life, not by saying other people's lives were negative.

"It just sucks." Fleur looked away, smiling sadly. I hoped it wasn't obvious that I was looking at her. I just didn't understand it- this much connection between two people. I hadn't told her the real truth. Truth was, I didn't care at all if Walcott came back. Or maybe that wasn't the right phrasing- it was so complicated. I didn't feel sad at all that she'd left. I wouldn't feel sad if she came back, either. I wished I could care but I couldn't make myself. It had been this way all my life. I'd read somewhere that people were born with empathy, or at least with its beginnings. If you didn't have it, that was that- you couldn't learn it. It had taken nearly eighteen years for me to make peace with a conception of love as an action, rather than an emotion, but it didn't stop me from feeling broken. Maybe my antisocial tendencies didn't make me unlovable, but it was true at the same time that God loved broken people.

"We can stay as close by as you want," I reminded her. Fleur hadn't wanted to ask it of me, but I'd already floated the idea of shadowing Vulpes' alliance so we could keep an eye on Walcott. She probably thought it was because I was worried about her, too. She kept saying I was such a nice guy. I wasn't sure if I was nice or not, but I certainly wasn't worried. That was my secret. I wasn't willing to stay close to Walcott because I loved her so much. I just knew it was the right thing to do and I'd chosen to do it. It also helped that in the end, I wasn't afraid to die.

Volvo Courvaile- Child's Play D6M

Maybe there was something cosmic in the fact that I was no longer addicted and Hemi wasn't here with me. Cosmic in the stunted, selfish way Capitolites think, anyway. Hemi was a nurse, they thought. No need for her to be here if he's not sick. Because that was her only value: what she could give to others. Not because she was a purpose. Hemi was a person, not a job. I'd also like to think I was a person, not an addict.

Trust the Capitol to think it's so easy, too. Just generate a new body and everything will be right as rain. Did they think people just woke up one day and decided to do morphling? They were so gentle in their PSAs, so paternalistically compassionate in telling us that morpling is bad! It will kill you! It will ruin your life! They never considered, they never fathomed, that that could be the best someone's life got.

Getting a new body cured my track marks. It cured the heart palpitations I used to get every now and then. It did not cure me. All the things that drove me to drugs, they were still there. My life was still my life and everything that had happened to me was still there. My new body cured the damage in my right ear. It didn't cure the truth that my mother was the one who damaged it. It balanced the chemicals in my brain from where morphling had reorganized them. It didn't stop the anxiety that stemmed from the permanent, crystallized fear that every loud noise I heard was a gunshot. Just get a new body! They said. All better then! Like painting a sinking ship would make it float.

I didn't think there was any danger of relapse. While internal struggles were always the root of addiction, one of the larger causes of relapse was simple cravings. It was someone who never tried drugs who coined the term cravings. An addict "craved" drugs like a waterboarding victim craved air. People didn't get it. Once you were in bad enough, you could die if you stopped. Drugs didn't just override your free will. They rewired your body. But in any case, the cravings were gone with my old body. It was only my demons who would call me back. I had experience handling them.

There was something primal about hard exercise. At some point you reached a level where all you could think about was the next step. Everything else- all your worries and plans- just went out the window. Then, when you hit that final wind, the endorphins were like some inverted high, not nearly as potent but so much more uplifting. I pushed myself through my workout doggedly, seeking the routine my care team always emphasized. Addiction was patterns in behavior. New ones and better ones could replace the ones I'd left behind.

There was one other reason I exercised nearly fanatically. It was something I could never share with someone, how degrading addiction was. It was painful, and damaging, but it was also humiliating. To be so bereft of future, or shame, or even autonomy at my worst, was like being enslaved. When I trained, it was me deciding to go run, me pushing past excuses to get that one last pull-up. To recover was to reclaim my body, my mind, and my soul. My body was that easiest first step.

Wangari Kariuki- Res D2F

Words were weird for someone like me. I wasn't much of a "talk it out" sort of person. I was more of a "crack a joke, do a little roughhousing, we hug at the end and it's all good" sort of person. Where I came from, people acted instead of talking. All that to say, it was the most mortifying, confusing moment of my life when my son and I tried to figure out where we stood with each other. Since we'd gotten that out of the way to the best of our abilities- sometimes a Two upbringing didn't prepare you for everything- I was ready to get into action with my boy. Peach, the Twelve girl we'd picked up along the way, had been kind enough to say she wanted to train alone that day, so why didn't Kamau and I have some quality time?

"You remember this?" I asked as Kamau picked up one of the two simi blades the Gamemakers had been nice enough to provide for us on the swords table. It never got old, seeing his perfect face. When he was just a little baby, I'd seen he had my nose. It was still there, a little bigger but still perfect. It did something to you, seeing a piece of yourself in a future generation. Even if that generation ended up looping back across yours in some weird time intersection.

"A little," Kamau said. Of course, he was four years old the last time I trained him. It had been more of just idle play, both our swords blunted and nothing really getting taught past basic stances. The way Kamau held the short sword, it was clear he hadn't picked it as his own weapon. I wasn't offended in the slightest. My boy had been Reaped, not trained, and the simi took time to master. With me here to help, though, we could make some progress.

"Did they tell you the stories?" I'd always delighted in the stories of our heritage. Our people were warriors long before the Academy was even an idea. We earned our swords on the sun-baked grasslands of Africa, without any of the equipment or technology Academy students were surrounded by. With sticks and our own hands we slew lions.

"Sometimes," Kamau shrugged. He looked at the sword in his hand. On the surface it looked like a common blade, rounded at the tip and with a wood handle wrapped with rawhide. It looked deceptively simple, like the person who came up with it couldn't think of something better. No, the people who made this didn't need better.

"Did they tell you we were the only ones?"

Kamau smiled. "That one they told me."

My blood kindled inside me. Long ago, before the Dark Days, the outsiders pushed for one Africa, trampling on the already divisive borders they instituted in the first place. They called for "modernization", forcing people into towns and cities. They said our herds harmed the environment, ignoring the thousands of years we had lived our traditions without damage. At last, they dropped the facade and moved to assimilate all of us. I could not count how many cultures were lost to bribes, and then to laws, and at last to bullets. But not the Maasai. We were the only ones to force them back. We hunted lions, and people were no opponent. I didn't know where they were now, or if any of my home was even left, but I knew there would always be Maasai.

Wangari's POV doesn't refer to any real-life events. It's just future history made up of things that make sense to have happened before the start of Panem.