Chapter One: Life is an Unexpected Journey

Before she'd realized exactly where she'd been born, Maize Nettle Galloshire had always adhered to the concept that life was an unexpected journey and, much like a certain Headmaster once stated in her once favorite book, that death was only the next great adventure. Even then, it was still a great surprise for her to awaken following her death. Before she was Maize Galloshire the eldest daughter of two hardworking farmhands, she was a simple young woman named Juliana Santos the only beloved child of a Puerto Rican family.

But that was before. Before she died. What a strange concept it was to acknowledge. That she had died once. That her first parents were forced to mourn the untimely death of their only child. That she could come to love her new parents, Libra and Alder Galloshire, as much as her first parents. And as time passed on, the memories she had of her first life began to fade around the edges as new ones began to replace them until she could only remember the basics of that life.

Her infanthood had been a strange and terrifying moment of her new life as Maize. She'd been so confused. By everything really. The language spoken by her new family was different from her first language and nothing like the ones she'd been forced to learn during secondary school back in Puerto Rico. It vaguely resembled English, if she was forced to compare it to any language from her old world. Because essentially that's what it was, her new life had to be occurring in a whole new world. Once she'd finally began to piece together the language and actually understand the conversations being held by the adults in her new life, she quickly realized it wasn't anything like the world she had grown up in the first time around.

She doubted that the superpowers of her old world, like the United States, would have let such a country like the one she lived in continue without there being war. Panem, a name that would tickle the recesses of her memories for years until she'd finally make the horrifying connection when she was five years old, was unlike any other nation she'd ever imagined actually existing. The power balance between its subjects and rulers (because that was essentially what it was) was disgusting. It reminded Maize of the many failed attempts of Communism in her old world, but worse since there wasn't even a vague attempt of equality and shared commerce between the Districts and the Capital. Panem was separated into twelve distinct Districts that each specifically manufactured different goods for the Capital to flourish.

Maize was born into one of the poorer Districts. Ironically District 11 was known throughout Panem for its Agriculture. She hadn't really understood when she was younger why it was that she would see her parents go hungry some nights, after all they were farmers! Couldn't they simply harvest some crops and eat them? Maize soon realized after her vision cleared and became sharper as she left infanthood behind and traded it for toddlerhood, that the men-in-white (she'd once compared to Storm Troopers from the Star Wars movies that her dad was obsessed with) or Peacekeepers as she would come to know and fear them as, would viciously discourage thievery of the groves.

The first time Maize saw a man, no child because the boy couldn't have been older than sixteen, whipped to death she was two. The Peacekeepers had made it a public spectacle, forcing almost half of the District to witness the event, including the boy's emaciated and heartbroken family. Her mother, little Maize attached to her back in a sling wrap, had been pulled out of the line to receive the weekly amount of grain assigned to their family and dragged into the square. The teen's shirt had already been ripped off and arms were bound in the manacles attached to the post as he kneeled before them on the podium. His younger siblings were crying helplessly, the youngest one pulled into the chest of an old woman, their Bibi/Grandmother. Once a sufficient crowd had been gathered, the head Peacemaker made a quick speech about it being the 'offenders' third and as a result last offense against the Capital.

Two Peacekeepers that had been standing on the side then moved towards the shaking teen and proceeded to flay the boy's skin until his screams of pain and heaving chest stopped. Maize had been so horror-struck that she couldn't turn away from the gruesome sight, even as her mother had unwrapped her and turned her young eyes away from the tragedy occurring in front of them. Even the hushed sobs of other young children in the crowd couldn't help drown out the sounds of the whips digging- breaking the teen's skin and the subsequent shouts of pain, nor the horrified pleadings from the boy's family.

It wasn't until Maize and her mother returned home that evening that she'd come out of her shock. Even a week after the event, whispers continued to follow. The boy, Kudzu, had been desperate to get food for his starving siblings following the death of their parents. Their grandmother wasn't making enough money to feed the five young children and Kudzu's stipend wasn't enough to barter for even one pound of grain. He paid dearly for getting caught.

Her family's poverty wasn't their own doing, hell the poverty of her District wasn't their own doing, it was because of the Peacekeepers. It was because the Capital had made it so. Her hatred for them was born that day.

Her horror and hatred only continued to grow from that day. It was when she was five years old when she realized exactly where she'd been reborn. Her oldest cousin Aloe, a sweet and caring twelve-year old who had always told the most fantastic stories as they helped pick fruits in the orchard, was reaped for the 57th Hunger Games.

Yes.

Hunger Games.

Words: 985

Author's Note: Hey Guys! I'm experimenting with this concept idea for the Hunger games that simply would not leave me alone. Chapters are going to be short but numerous! Let me know if you'd like them to be longer!

Edited: Oct. 20, 2019