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At first, when I was reborn into The Hunger Games, I didn’t realize it. Neither did I realize it at 3 years old, when my father died in the coal mines, even though that was a big hint.
I was 5 when I watched my first Hunger Games. My first time watching people, no, children die just for the fun of the capitol. I threw up that night, horrified, my frail mother holding back my hair.
I quickly learned how to sneak over the fence into the wild. Learning everything else was hard. I didn’t know which plants were edible or not, I didn’t know how to set snares or how to shoot a bow or how to hunt with a knife.
However, necessary breeds desperate people: I learned. I cried, sweat and bled, but I learned.
I learned to view the world through that of a reader: I was distant from it; it wasn’t my real life. In reality I was a 21-year-old girl, chubby and never knowing cold or hunger.
I wasn’t that scrappy, 7 years old girl, hair shorn short, gangly with hollowed out cheeks, calloused hands and dead eyes.
So I wasn’t the girl who killed those men grunting over my mother. I wasn’t the girl who could only watch as my mother refused to drink or to eat. I wasn’t the girl who was the one to dig the grave.
I knew, distantly, as one knows truth, that it was a defense-mechanismn born of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. I was compartmentalizing, I was just trying to survive, to live to see another day.
It didn’t stop me from killing the families of those men to get revenge for my mother. I knew it was morally wrong, that I should feel upset, sick.
I have never felt more alive without those feelings.
As all children do, I grew up. Sometimes I went to school, often enough so people wouldn’t get suspicious. Otherwise I lived out in the woods in the day, killing animals so I could eat.
In the night, I killed men with similar looks like Those Men. I protected those who did not know what monsters lurked behind their smiling eyes. I had realized the night my feelings died, that humans are composed of blood, bones and meat just like any other animal.
They died like animals too.
I knew there was something deeply wrong with me. Maybe I was a psychopath, or a sociopath. Books, to differentiate between those, were not available. I couldn’t be bothered. My outlook on life shifted until only my survival and my hunts mattered. I catalogued the escape possibilities and every possibility to kill people every time I walked into a room. It was easier to live like that.
I liked to hunt. I stalked my prey for weeks, sometimes for months. I wouldn’t kill innocent people. Only rapists, and of those, this district had many. I didn’t bother to make a ceremony of my killings. At first, I killed with poison and with my knife. Over time, I got better at making it look like an accident. No one suspected me, if they even bothered to look into those deaths. They were, after all, from the slums. Who cared about people from there?
oOoOoOo
I was reaped when I was 13. I smiled pleasantly when I walked up the stairs after they called out my name, firmly not thinking about it.
In the room, where family would be able to say goodbye, I thought furiously. Those last morals to which I had clung like a lifeline had to go. I wasn’t a 21 century woman anymore: I was thirteen. I had to kill children much larger and stronger than I.
Nevertheless, I had advantages. I knew how to survive in every part of the environment around district twelve: I had two months every summer to explore the wild. I knew how to kill and I knew my poisons. I read every book of the district (not that they were that many) and wounds from hunting were an excellent excuse to learn first- aid and to look at medicine books. Every medicine could be turned into poison. I knew, I tried it.
I had the right headspace.
I would survive. (A song from another world played in my head, cheering me on.)
Nobody visited me in the room. I didn’t have any family left and I never made any friends.
When it was time to get on the train, I was focused. My first goal: Haymitch and Effie.
I cornered Haymitch first. “I will win those games. It would be a lot easier if you help me.” I stared into his eyes, full of determination. Haymitch just laughed drunkenly and drank from his bottle. I hit with one of my needles the nerve-cluster on his neck. He went to the ground, wide-eyed.
I knelt down, looked into his eyes and repeated: “I will win those games. It would be a lot easier if you help me.”
This time, he believed me.
I wasn’t stupid. After I realized where I reincarnated I recalled everything about The Hunger Games and wrote it down. It was my tradition to read that book the day before each reaping.
I would participate in the 70th Hunger Games. I knew a few characters and how the plot would develop.
I would survive, using everything to my disposal.
I impressed Effie through my table manners while I got to know my district partner. I was polite while I catalogued everything about him. I could have killed him throughout the dinner in 56 different ways. He was fifteen. I smothered ruthlessly the whispers of “child, innocent” from the back of my head.
oOoOoOo
I didn’t really care about how I was presented to those People. So I wasn’t bothered when I was only powdered with coal. I smirked, waving to the people, unbothered by their eyes on my body or the way tribute number twelve tried to preserve his dignity, blushing and self-conscious.
“Own it” it whispered in the back of my head. I stood taller.
I did try every station I could. I was a quick learner and I had to smother the hysterical giggle at the dejavu feeling of cramming before an important test.
I prioritised every survival station but tried out every weapon to at least know how one should act with it. Every advantage I could get was another step to my goal.
I showed off in front of the Show-Makers. I knew I needed to impress them so they would at least give me a chance out there.
So I showed them how to assassinate someone in a simulation. I showed of my knife-skill, hard won from years of work.
I got an 8.
I got coached what to say in the interview. I knew that I had to wear a mask, to make people love me.
I had to lie to get sponsors. It wasn’t hard. Haven’t I lied my whole life?
“So, Taylor, are you ready?” Ceasar asked me.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Oh, you sound confident! That is what it takes to win, doesn’t it, folks?” We sat down.
“Why did you always wanted to be here, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses?”
“I watched those games since I was a kid.” I threw up because of them and got nightmares.
“I wanted to participate before I knew how to say that.” A Lie. Hopefully, it would get me sponsors.
“My strengths? Not going to lie, I’m not strong. But I am agile, I am quite handy with a knife and I know how to survive. My weaknesses? I turned them into my strengths long ago.” Nobody would be stupid enough to out their weaknesses. I knew I was small, but that could be a strength on its own in the right circumstances. I knew how to get those circumstances.
“How do you feel about the competition?”
“Bloodlust. I am going into these Games, Ceasar, with one single Goal: To win. That makes everyone else the Losers.”
“Well, this is a determined young lady! Applause for Taylor!”
oOoOoOo
When I rose into the arena I was tranquil. I was glad for the thick woods of the arena: I knew how to survive in them. I had a terrain-advantage. I had to suppress a languid smile; I wouldn’t want to seem to confident.
I killed two people in the blood bath. Adrenalin was high, but I was used to kill unaware people, to calculate my moves to catch my opponent in the right moment. I got a two backpacks, a few knifes and I was out of there.
I didn’t kill anyone else on the first day. Instead I went to sleep in the early afternoon so I woke up again at what my inner clock titled 2 o’ clock.
I let out a bloodthirsty smile while I strapped one of my backpacks to my back while I left the other well hidden: I wouldn’t be weighted down.
Then I went hunting.
I killed two people before I got into the Cornucopia and spotted three others. I managed to kill one career-tribute-boy with a well thrown knife and one of the boys on watch by surprise. I melted into the shadows before they sounded the alarm.
Again I dozed through the day before I went out at night. I knew how to hunt at night: Those children tributes didn’t.
The Rest of the Tributes of 1, 2, 4 and 8 died the next day after a delicious breakfast full of poison.
With this I had killed twelve chil- no, twelve tributes. Six others had died; I had counted the canons.
I told myself to stop remembering those faces in the sky.
The next night I found only one girl and slit her throat. The next morning there were two cannons. Now we were in the top three.
And I knew where they were.
Both girls that were left died in their sleep.
I won. It was the fourth night.
oOoOoOo
In the interview with Ceasar I was still my usual self: blunt, to the point, but not the ruthless killer they saw. I didn’t want to be put down. I knew that the Games weren’t over; I knew I would have to play for the rest of my life or until a revolution would come.
I had an audience with President Snow. He wanted me whored out. I asked what I would get in exchange.
I didn’t care about that foster-family that lied about taking me in. I had never seen them in my life.
We came to a standstill. I walked out. At the door I looked back at the elderly man with a huge presence.
“I will do as you want, as soon as you find something I value. I wish you luck: I have not found such a thing since I was five.” I wasn’t as happy as I thought, having the last word.
oOoOoOo
I was back at district twelve. I gathered enough water and food, went over the fence and only back at my old haunt I allowed myself to break apart.
I needed five days to piece myself together again into something resembling human. In those Games I had to kill children and it left an impression on me I wouldn’t be able to shake off.
I realized the futility of my survival: I had nothing and no one waiting for me, hoping for my survival. The only thing I had was the thing I held onto since I was five: The naked desire to survive and a feeling of protecting others, of being needed.
I killed children. Life went on.
I wished to forget. I wished to get black-out drunk or high on drugs or to find release in sex. But that wasn’t me.
I wasn’t sure who I was. But I knew what I wasn’t- at that was enough for me.
I had broken too many times for something as simple as this to keep me down.