First, let me explain. I remember dying. In another world. In another life. The worst part? This isn't even the first time I've gone through puberty. My seven thousandth? Sure feels like it. I was five, sitting too close to our flickering ancient-boxed TV and trying to impress my own nose with my finger, when I first remembered. Bright smile, dim eyes, ladies and gentlemen of Panem, we have a winner! Except the winner was me. Nothing like watching kids murder each other to bring back warm memories of death.
Picture me at five, eyes wide as the pit we call a district, barely understanding how to tie my shoes but suddenly knowing exactly how to lose my head. Thanks, childhood trauma! I'm watching my first Hunger Games like it's just another boring day. My mom's in the background telling me not to get too close to the screen, as if that's my biggest danger. A cannon goes off. Someone's head explodes like a pumpkin on mining day. Then—BAM. Every life-altering memory I've ever had floods back like a damn of existential terror breaking. The kids killing kids was messed up enough, but remembering I'd died? Really put a damper on the Saturday morning cartoon vibe.
For a solid week, I'm basically catatonic, just drooling and mumbling about plot points like a conspiracy theorist at a Comic-Con. "They're coming! The Games! The rebellion!" Imagine me, chubby cheeks and big doe eyes, spouting off about dystopian nightmares like the world's youngest drunk prophet. It's a miracle no one called the Capitol cops on my unpatriotic behind. Somehow, the only thing anyone decided I needed was a good nap and some calming tea. Good thing they didn't believe a word of it.
Here's the kicker: it all came back in jagged chunks, like a puzzle made of knives. I knew there'd be an uprising. I knew who the key players were. Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Haymitch Abernathy. I could practically see their names flashing above their heads, reality-show style. I'd read this story before. Literally. I could predict everything from the train wreck of a love triangle to the final fight with the Capitol, which I'm pretty sure involved even more explosions and questionable fashion choices. Like I said, I remember dying. Just didn't expect it to be followed by an all-too-familiar rerun.
Let me break it down for you: I came from a world with a total lack of totalitarian hellholes. Not that it was all sunshine and butterflies. Well, maybe it was. I once worked at a boring desk job that was only lethal if you include paper cuts. I played a little in high school. Starved for a few years in college, but only because I couldn't cook for crap. Watched TV that didn't feature kid murder. That kind of place. So imagine my surprise when I woke up here, in a world that was basically entertainment back there. Nothing like finding out you've been reincarnated into a goddamn bestseller. It was funny in a cosmic, laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of way.
And how did I react, you ask? With the grace and composure of a kindergartener on a sugar high, which is to say, not much at all. I'd spend whole nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling and trying to wrap my underdeveloped brain around it all. Was this a gift? A curse? Some crazy person's idea of a joke? "All of the above," whispered the cynical part of me that somehow survived from my old life. Every time I closed my eyes, I'd see the Capitol. The arenas. The rebels. The traps closing in on everyone, myself included.
By the time I could tie my shoes with only moderate help, I'd accepted a few harsh truths: One, this world sucked even worse than I remembered. Two, there was no way out but through. And three, I wasn't going down without a fight. A really well-planned fight. The game plan: don't get dead. Weeks of connecting bloody dots and remembering everyone's sad little lives makes me the most traumatized five-year-old in District 12, which is saying a lot. I pretend not to know any better, acting like a clueless kid and drooling when necessary.
It's funny what adult memories do to a kid. By seven, I'd learned how to play the district like a poorly-tuned fiddle. I was too smart for my own good, which meant no one trusted me, and I didn't blame them. "Weird little Asher Ember," they'd say, giving me sideways looks at the Hob. "Gets weirder every day." Sure, I was weird. Weird and alive, and determined to stay that way.
Then there's Katniss. Peeta. Haymitch. I know where they'll be in the story before they do, and I know how much it's going to hurt getting there. Key players, all of them. How do I get in with them early, get them on my side without changing things too soon? With strategic lying and lots of luck, that's how.
Humans are creatures of adaptability and by the time I was ten, I was basically living a double life: hopeless slacker by day, hopeless strategist by night. They were going to call my name at a reaping someday. I knew it. Everyone knew how these reincarnating plotline goes. Unless you're in denial or just plain stupid. So I practiced smiling for the cameras. I practiced stabbing for the careers. It's better to be prepared and paranoid rather than being useless and helpless.
Here's my favorite part: I got pretty good at both. By the time I hit twelve, I'd broken four knives, two bones, and every rule in the district. I'd also come to realize the irony of my situation: my unique knowledge, my one-in-a-billion advantage, might not be enough to save me. And if I wasn't careful, it'd get me killed before the Games even had the chance.
By thirteen, I'd learned how to hide my crazy well enough to make new friends. Not that they'd call themselves that. Gale Hawthorne was the first. Or maybe I was the first, worming my way into his trading gig and pretending to care more about payment than the company. His only girl "friend", Katniss, followed, suspicious of me from day one. Then I started hanging around a certain drunken victor until he agreed to teach me, reluctantly, how not to die.
So here we are, almost at the present. Me at seventeen, sitting in my half-Seam, half-Town house and nursing a split lip Haymitch generously gave me for my birthday. Ladies and gentlemen of Panem, you're probably wondering: what kind of future does this charming kid have? Well, my imaginary audience, I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out.
=====
Haymitch spent a year trying to dodge my eight-year-old shadow before he gave up. Before he started to train me. He shuffles down an alley and I keep my distance, a smirk away from being caught. Poor man couldn't shake me. I followed him everywhere until he finally gave in just to make me stop.
District 12 has its share of dangers. I'm not one of them, but try telling Haymitch that. He spends his nights looking over his shoulder for Peacekeepers, drunkards, and my scrawny self. Most folks would call it unsafe. I call it home field advantage. He can't escape me when I know every inch of this slum playground.
Most nights, he makes it halfway to the Hob before stumbling onto his ass and calling it a victory. I crouch behind rusted-out barrels and abandoned crates, waiting for him to haul himself up and try again. "Gonna need a drink after this," I hear him mutter. Like he wasn't already six ahead of me.
I duck behind a wall as he glances back. There's not much here but rats and the smell of misery. I keep close to both, thinking maybe I'll wear him down. It's exhausting work, being a stalker. Exhausting and cold. The wind cuts through me like a reaping blade, but I've been through worse and I'm not quitting now.
Haymitch does his best to ignore me. A few months ago, he'd turn and yell, "What do you want, kid?" But these days he just scowls and pretends I'm not there. He's getting used to me, and I'm learning his schedule better than my own.
One night, I corner him in a back alley as he lights a cigarette with shaking hands. I think he'll finally talk, but he flicks it in my direction and laughs instead. "Watch out, kid." A warning? A threat? I take it as a challenge.
He won't lose me. I'm small and stubborn, slipping through the cracks like coal dust. He's big and bitter, stomping off like he's got something to prove. "Crazier than I am," I imagine him thinking, but I'm used to that. I'm the best at being crazy.
At eight years old, I'm not the fastest or strongest. But I'm a whole lot of other things, like scared and desperate, and those count for something. I follow him night after night, until I know each stagger and stop by heart. The nights get longer. Colder. One day he'll see that I'm not giving up.
I bet myself he'll crack by New Year's, but he's a lot more stubborn than I thought. January turns to February and I almost give up before he does. Almost. My kid heart races every time he slows, then sinks when he picks up again.
Finally, it's March and Haymitch stumbles to a stop behind the Hob, too worn out to keep up the charade. "Go home, kid," he growls without turning. "You're scaring the rats."
"No." My voice is barely more than a whisper. I didn't think he'd hear, but he turns to face me with a look that says I've got one chance to get this right.
"What do you want?" It's a challenge and a threat. The question I've been waiting for. The opening I need.
"I'm scared," I say. I'm not lying, and he knows it. "I need you to teach me. I don't want to die in the Games."
His shoulders slump like I've hit him. Hard. Harder than I mean to. "Games?" he says, more to himself than me. He looks me up and down, like he's seeing me for the first time. "They're gonna eat you alive."
"I know," I say, and for once, I let my fear show. "Unless you help."
It's the honesty that gets him, I think. He runs a hand through his tangled hair and lets out a long, tired sigh. "Stupid kid," he says, but there's no heat in it. "You won't leave me alone till I do, will you?"
I shake my head, trying not to look too hopeful.
"Tomorrow," he grumbles. "You show up, I might not be too drunk to care."
It's the most beautiful invitation I've ever had and I could just kiss him. But I don't, because that'd be really nasty for the both of us. So I nod and run off, my feet barely touching the ground.
He doesn't bother to turn around. Just waves me off like I'm the stray dog he didn't want but is starting to tolerate.
Poor guy. It took a year to get through to him, but I'm in. It's more than I hoped for when I started trailing him. More than anyone in this dead-end district would expect. "Drunk old Haymitch has gone soft," I imagine them saying. "Letting a kid like that near him." I guess we're both full of surprises.
I know it's going to be rough. Harder than anything I've done so far. I also know it's the best chance I have.
Tomorrow, I'll show up like I always do. But this time, it'll mean something. It'll be the start of everything.
=====
Haymitch knows how to play the long game, but so do I. By age nine, I had worn him down. Haymitch threw every impossible task at me he could think of, hoping I'd fail. Hoping I'd quit. I didn't. The Games scared me more than he did.
He tries everything to make me stop. Shows up late, sloppy, like he can't be bothered to remember I exist. Like I'll go away if he drinks enough. It almost works, but he's underestimating my capacity for failure. For months, I drag myself to his house every morning, afternoons at the Hob, nights shadowing him like a half-starved stray. He dodges me like the plague until it finally dawns on him: Ashton Ember doesn't know how to quit.
"Build me a trap," he grunts, tossing some frayed wire my way. He sounds bored. Dismissive. It's more than I can say for myself. I'm breathless and twitching with anticipation, giddy from this morsel of hope. "A real one," he adds, when I beam like it's my birthday. "That works." I half-expect him to make me set it on myself.
"Ha," I say, with all the confidence a nine-year-old not-quite-failure can muster. "Easy."
He shrugs, uninterested. "Catch something by tomorrow or don't bother coming back."
I catch a squirrel by some miracle, barely enough meat for a victor's breakfast. Haymitch pokes at it, amused, like it's not even worth eating. "Better than nothing," he says.
But it is something, because next he tells me to climb trees. Learn to shoot. Pick fights with older boys, just to see if I can hold my own. Half of it sounds more like punishment than training, but I take the scraps he gives me and do whatever it takes to keep getting them. It's less training and more hazing, but I have my reasons for sticking around. One reason, really.
The Games.
I choke on fear every time I think about them. Every time the names of the dead start flashing through my head. I imagine I'll be among them if I don't keep trying.
Then one day, right as I'm getting somewhere, right as Haymitch starts showing some actual interest, it all goes to hell. I hear the mine accident before I see it. One, two, three explosions. Everyone stops. Everything stops. Then a scream cuts through the chaos, and I run.
The ground shakes and my world trembles with it, the sky blackening as ash swallows it whole. There's shouting, crying, and the sound of sirens I know are too late. Too damn late for anything but grief and panic. I freeze. I knew this was coming. It still feels like dying.
The smoke lifts, and I see a girl my age collapse, calling for her father. Katniss. Her grief-stricken cries haunt me as I stumble away.
Watching it happen is nothing like knowing it would happen eventually.
I go numb. Almost give up. Almost let my terror get the better of me. I see the pieces falling exactly as they're meant to, and I lose the will to fight them. Katniss. Her father. Her whole damn future spiraling down, and me knowing every part of it.
Haymitch doesn't see me for days. No one does. I slip into the shadows, into a kind of shock, until the weight of it starts to lift. Until I start to care again.
But I do. Of course I do.
A week later, the Hob whispers with news that the Everdeen girl has taken up hunting. "Poor thing," they say. "Barely getting by." That night, I show up at Haymitch's door with a raw, scraped-up rabbit and a look that says I mean business. I won't be scared off by explosions or anything else, not when there's too much at stake.
He nods and hands me a broken knife. "Make it sharp." I do.
I make it sharper than he expects, cutting through fear like I cut through doubt. Mine and his. When he tests the blade on his thumb, I half expect him to say I've gone soft. But he gives a satisfied grunt and waves me off. "Back tomorrow."
I'm back. Again. Always. But I don't forget what I saw. What I felt when I saw it. It hits me hard every time I think about the people it affects. The people I can't save. Not yet, anyway. For now, I'm nine years old and working with what I've got. Watching the Everdeens slowly fall apart without breaking anything myself is harder than I thought. I tell myself it's strategic. Keeping a distance means I won't get tangled in the parts I can't change, the threads of the story that will snap if I pull too hard. It's better this way.
But I start sending help. Care packages, well disguised, courtesy of a certain victor. I make sure they think it's Seam generosity, charity from their own, and I make sure they don't suspect me. That's harder than anything Haymitch throws my way, but I keep at it.
He catches me stealing one night, late and careless. I'm tired and the food is heavy, but not as heavy as the look on Haymitch's face when I see him watching. "Kid," he says, voice like flint. "You're gonna explain this."
I don't have the energy to fight him, but I give it a shot anyway. "What does it look like?" I ask.
"Looks like you're screwing up my good will."
He thinks it's sabotage. A rival game, blackmail. "It's not," I say, standing my ground. "I just need to do this." I clutch the package tighter, letting him see my determination, my desperation.
"What the hell for?" His voice is hard, his stare harder. I can't tell if it's betrayal or something else.
"For them."
Something shifts in him, almost too small to see. His eyes narrow like he's not sure what to make of me, and I wonder if he'll let me leave with it.
"Get out," he says. The package is still in my hands.
I get out.
The rain starts an hour after he kicks me out. It's the coldest night of the year, and I'm half frozen before the first drops hit. I take shelter under his eaves, but it's not enough. Not even close.
But neither am I.
I don't expect him to change his mind. I don't expect anything at all except frostbite and misery. When he opens the door next morning, he's surprised I'm still alive. "What the—? Did you—"
His words choke off, unfinished, and he looks at me like I'm the ghost of something he thought was long dead.
I don't say a word. My lips are blue, but not as blue as the smirk I give him. He grunts. Sighs. Grunts again. "Fine," he says, as though it pains him. "Get inside."
I do.
He shakes his head, bemused and resigned. "You're crazier than I thought," he mutters as I drag my shivering, sopping self past him. "We're gonna need to work on that."
I nod, shivering too hard to smirk. This time, he knows I'll be back. This time, he knows he's got competition when it comes to being a stubborn bastard.
He keeps me on when I think he'll let me go, testing me with harder and sharper lessons than before. I test him back with my persistence, my willingness to do what it takes to survive. It's our little game, and neither of us is ready to lose.
=====
First thing he taught me was how to take a punch. Second thing was how to deliver one. Neither was particularly gentle. "That all you've got?" I'd say, laughing through the pain. He had a lot more. By the time I was thirteen, I'd mastered both.
Most of what Haymitch taught me involved pain. How to take it. How to give it back. How to laugh when your mouth's full of blood. I was ten when he knocked the wind out of me. Ten and a half when he broke my wrist. A whole new world of hurt opened up between us, and I pretended not to enjoy it as much as I did.
There was something satisfying about the way he hit. Like every punch was a question and my bruised, battered body was the answer. "That all you've got?" I'd taunt repeatedly, spitting teeth like curses. Turns out, he had a lot more. So did I. By eleven, I could take a hit without flinching. By twelve, I could dodge it before it came. By thirteen, I knew I was learning from the best.
Pain was part of the lesson, but so was endurance. I learned how to take a fall, how to get up again, how to drag myself back to him for another round. How to not care when caring was all I did.
We'd train in the woods, in basements, in places no one would hear me scream. I didn't scream much, but I got loud when he'd push too far. "Capitol will be watching," he'd say, twisting my arm till I yelped. "They like a good show." He taught me how to put one on.
He also taught me not to rely on anyone, especially him. He'd show up drunk or not at all, sometimes forgetting we had plans, sometimes pretending he forgot. That was part of it, too. Not knowing if he'd show until I heard his rough chuckle and the rustle of dead leaves. "Thought I'd let you hang," he'd say, tossing me a knife and an excuse to use it.
Training days were my favorite. The worst. I'd limp home with black eyes and split lips, telling my mom I got in fights with other kids. She didn't believe me, but what could she do? I made it clear I'd go out anyway. Come back bloody. Come back stronger.
I got better at the things that would keep me alive. A good liar, a decent shot. A way with knives. By thirteen, Haymitch would squint at me and say, "Not bad, kid," with a grudging respect that came too close to pride.
I acted like I didn't care. I cared more than I should.
What else could I do? He had a rough sort of love, and I did too. Not enough to call it what it was. More than enough to call it training. "Games won't know what hit 'em," he'd say, usually after hitting me.
"Hope it's you," I'd mutter, rubbing my sore spots and wincing with the joy of not quite dying.
All the while, I kept one eye on the Everdeens. Made sure my packages didn't come from me, but from the Hob. The Seam. The community I couldn't pretend to be a part of. Not like Katniss. She took her father's place, headstrong and full of fire, while I watched and waited for my chance.
We were on different sides of the same game. She didn't see it that way, and I made sure she wouldn't. I gave the Hob a wide berth when she was there, knowing too much about the first time she'd be forced to see me.
Meanwhile, I kept up with my secret strategy. When folks talked about mystery food showing up at their doors, I let them think it was charity. Not mine, but someone's. I called it resource allocation. Sounded less noble that way.
Haymitch saw through it. Saw through me, too. "Keep it up and you'll be the district hero," he warned, meaning anything but. I nodded, knowing that's not how I wanted it to go.
If the packages were suspicious, so was my skill. I played a delicate balancing act, being just good enough and not too good.
The Games scared me, but they were nothing compared to the risk of showing my hand too soon. A victor's caution. A coward's caution. Sometimes, I couldn't tell which.
I wanted to tell Haymitch what I knew. All of it. How the district would revolt. How Katniss would be the spark. How he'd have to play his own double game, same as me. But I didn't. Couldn't. He had to think it was all his idea.
Instead, I trained like a madman and let him think he was calling the shots. Let him believe he was breaking me, when he was doing the opposite. When he was giving me every tool I needed.
By fourteen, he taught me how to set traps that wouldn't catch me. How to think like the Capitol. How to be their favorite until I could be their enemy. I learned fast. I learned well. By fifteen, I'd learned how to wait.
In the end, Haymitch's rough love wasn't what saved me. Neither was mine. It was something else, something I didn't see coming. Not until the 74th reaping threw everything I knew into chaos.
I watched it unfold, knowing I wasn't as ready as I thought. That maybe I'd never be.
=====
The 74th reaping. I'm sixteen and panicking, scanning the crowd for familiar faces. It should have been Katniss volunteering for Prim. Instead, they call another girl. Her name is Eliza Corwen, but it might as well be chaos.
She's from the Seam. Katniss's age. Not the Everdeen I expect. My mind reels with the wrongness of it, how a tiny variable can shift the whole damn system. I knew everything, had it all mapped out in my memory, and now it's falling apart like the rest of this decrepit district. I'm so stunned I don't notice the looks Gale gives me from across the square. I don't see the girls crying. I don't see anything but my past life spinning out of control.
Eliza takes the stage, a sacrificial lamb with none of Katniss's fire. A sweet, shaking lamb. My ears ring with the names that should have been. A whole story, a whole future, rewritten in one sharp, sudden moment.
I can't breathe. Can't move. Can't process what's happening. By the time they call the boy, I'm paralyzed with confusion.
Barley Tanner. Just as unexpected, just as wrong. Should have been Peeta. Should have been predictable. But Barley stands there, his wheat-colored hair catching the sunlight like a beacon, and I know in my gut he won't last. Know it because it's different, because it's changed, because it's something I don't know at all.
Katniss. Prim. Peeta. All of them still in District 12. Still alive. For now. My confidence shatters as the rest of the district processes what just happened, whispering and buzzing with shock and relief. I stagger home like I've taken a hit, barely making it to my room before the shaking starts.
Everything I counted on—everything—comes crashing down. I was so sure. So damn sure I knew it all. Turns out, I knew squat.
They were supposed to have each other. They were supposed to fight back. But the wrong girl went up, the wrong boy went with her, and now the Games are an open wound I didn't see coming.
Eliza. Barley. The rest of the tributes. They're not what I expect, but they're still the same to the Capitol. Kids to kill. Kids to mourn. Not mine, I think, trying to take comfort. Not yet. I watch the broadcast like a hawk, noting each change, each moment that strays from the script in my head. Cato's stronger than I expect. Eliza's weaker. They don't even bother with romance, with rebellion. It's a slaughter. Twelve days in, the cameras zoom in on Eliza's face as she crumples to the ground, spear through her chest, blood on her lips. "Ladies and gentlemen, your tribute is dead." Barley lasts a little longer, but not by much. By the time it's over, I'm numb.
The Games won't be easy on anyone. Least of all me.
I take out my memory journal and scribble furiously, trying to make sense of the new timeline, trying to piece together the world I thought I knew. The changes pile up and taunt me, each one a mockery of what I thought was real.
Nothing is safe. Nothing is certain. Everything is dangerous, more so than before.
Cato is brutal, tearing through his opponents with a kind of gleeful violence that turns my stomach. He wins the way I thought Katniss would—with force, with skill, with everything I don't have.
It's a reminder. A threat. A wake-up call that I should have seen coming, and didn't. I scramble to adjust, to compensate for the faults in my past life and my current one.
By the end of the 74th, I'm more desperate than I ever thought possible. Nothing I've done, none of the plans I made, mean a damn thing if I can't account for what's changed. If I can't change with it. The whole district goes quiet, relieved they've dodged another bullet. I should be relieved too. But all I feel is panic, dread, the sickening fear of not knowing what happens next. I spend the rest of the year on edge, knowing I'm just as vulnerable as before. Knowing the odds aren't in my favor, no matter how much I wish them to be.
And then it's June again.
The day before the reaping for the 75th Games. I'm seventeen and shell-shocked, clinging to whatever scraps of my past life still make sense. It's not many. Not enough. What happens next? I don't know. It haunts me. Drives me to the brink of madness and back again. So I prepare like it's the end of the world, which maybe it is. For me, anyway.
This time tomorrow, the Capitol will have its eye on District 12. I'll be another name, another sacrifice, if I'm not careful. If I'm not very, very lucky.
But I'm still betting on myself.
It's not courage, not quite. More like sheer, reckless panic. The memory of the last year stings me like a whip, pushing me forward, driving me to be ready for the worst.
And the worst is coming. I can feel it.
The Third Quarter Quell. Another chance for the Capitol to prove I'm nothing but an overconfident ghost with bad predictions and worse odds. I'll have to outsmart them all.
Here's the surprise: I just might.
There's a sinking pit in my stomach, a restless thrumming in my chest, and the kind of hopeless hope I've come to depend on.
Everything's wrong, and everything's right. The world's out of control and it's my job to wrangle it back in. It should have been easy. It should have been what I knew. But nothing's easy, and knowing it doesn't help. Not when the rules keep changing.
Here's what I know for sure: I have a very bad feeling about tomorrow. I have a very bad feeling about all of it.
The Games. The rebellion. The people I want to save. It's a mess of uncertainty, and I'm tangled in the middle.
It could be the end. Could be a beginning. Could be nothing I'm prepared for.
But I'm going to see it through. See if the jokes on me. Ladies and gentlemen of Panem, we have a winner! It's not what I'd hoped for.
Not yet, anyway.