I wake up hearing the television blaring and the tinkling of glass on glass. I sit up and wonder where I am. Then I remember, I fell asleep on the couch last night. I turn around to see the table, and there are two unfamiliar people there. There's a woman, tall and fit, with beach blonde hair cascading down past her shoulders. She was rather pretty, and was looking deep into the eyes of the unfamiliar man that was sitting across from her. The man was blonde and hair a cow lick hairstyle. He had stubble around his chin, and it made him look weasley. He was staring into the woman's eyes. Then I noticed a very cross looking Glow coming in to the room. "Are you two flirting again?" Glow asked with a hint of accusation in her voice. Both of the unfamiliar people snapped out of it and looked sheepishly at Glow. "Ah, Amethyst! Awake, are we? Breakfast will be served in 15 minutes, now go wash up." Glow turned her attention to me. Everyone stared as I left the car.
I cleaned up and put on a light green blouse and regular pants. Then I went back out to the main car. "Amethyst, I would like you to meet your mentor, Sparkle." Glow said to me as I entered the car. What a name, I thought. Sparkle waved to me and smiled kindly. She gestured to the man and said, "This is Borax's mentor, Tyro." He waved but didn't have a smile on his face. I sat down at the table just as Borax and the servants came in. The servants set down plates of french toast, bacon, eggs, waffles, pancakes, rolls with cinnamon icing, and lots of other wonderful foods. I dug into the food, savoring the sweet taste of the rolls. "We will be arriving at the Capital later on today. We will be there in a few hours' time." Glow announced. Finally, we were almost there. I can't wait to see what the capital looks like in person.

"We're arriving! Amethyst, Borax, look out the windows!" I ran to the window to see what Glow was talking about. Tall silver buildings stood everywhere. At the train station we could see a crowd of brightly colored people in the distance. I started waving at the people as the train grew nearer to them. The next moments flew by in a blur. We stepped out of the train and I was dazed from the many lights and cameras and colors that were there. We were led to a car with blacked out windows, and we took a speedy ride to a building in which we were going to get make-up and body work done.
"This way," A peacekeeper demanded. He led us down a hallway in the building. At the end of the hallway was a group of three women and another group of three men. The men were standing stoicly but the women were chattering and giggling. "This is your prep-team, Amethyst." The peacekeeper gestured to the three women. He said the same for Borax and gestured to the three males. "We'll take you upstairs to get you ready, dear." The middle woman told me. The next hour or two seemed to drag on forever. My prep-team was pulling every inch of body hair off of me. They even pulled off all of my eyebrows, which hurt tremendously. "Ow! Quit that!" I said angrily to them as the ripped off a section of my eyebrow. They tut-tutted and continued on without acknowledging me at all. Finally they left and I could lie down in peace. About 10 minutes later, a male stylist came in. I could tell by his stuck-up face that he was a spoiled Capital brat, and he didn't care about the slaughter of children. "My name is Venta. I'm here to make you look pretty. End of story. If you shut up and don't fidget, then this will go smoothly. I'm not here to be your mommy, so don't cry or I'll leave the room and I won't style you." He told me. I glared at him as he walked in a circle around me, examining me. "You're not especially pretty, are you? Average, nothing special. I'll see what I can do, but I don't think you'll ever have the ability to stun people with your looks." What was his problem? "If you don't shut up, then I'll do my own makeup and it'll be ten-thousand times better than yours, you rude little brat!" I said angrily to him. He looked shocked, like no one had ever spoken to him like that, but quickly regained his snob-like demeanor. He didn't say anything else to me for the rest of the day, except things like, "Raise your arms," or "Chin up," or things like that.
Venta told me that my outfit was going to consist of lots of sparkles and diamonds. Great, that's EXACTLY what I wanted to wear... An hour before the chariots ceremony, Venta put me in my outfit. The base color of the dress was a very pale blue. The left side of the dress ended at my thigh, but the right side swooped down to the floor. It was strapless and it had small diamonds all over it, and it sparkled in the light. The dress truly was breathtaking, but I couldn't imagine myself wearing it.
I put on the dress and my prep-team did my hair and light make-up. I walked into the room that Glow, Borax, and the mentors were in. Glow saw me and gasped. "Oh Amethyst! You look stunning!" I smile. I see Borax, he's wearing a pale blue suit and a giant diamond brooch. He looked kind of strange, it was like putting a big blonde gorilla in a suit.
"It's nearly time for the chariots, you two will be led downstairs to the horses." Glow explained. Two peacekeepers took mine and Borax's arm and took us to the chariots. We came into the room with the horses. Our horses were pure white with diamond stutted head-pieces. I hopped onto the chariot and waited for the ceremony to start. I noticed that everyone was staring at me, and I glared at everyone who did, except the boy from 4. I smiled in his direction. I laughed silently at everyone elses's outfits. They all looked ridiculous, except a lucky few, like me and Adrian, and the male from 11. District 2 was dressed up as vikings, and Alexandria was wearing a bright red beard, which I thought looked hilarious. The male looked alright. District 3 was wearing a black body suit that had computer wires running all along it, which was okay looking.
Adrian from District 4 wasn't wearing a shirt, so his golden torso was gleaming and beautiful. He was wearing shorts and had a trident. I noticed all of the girls looking his way, and I made a mental note to ally him first. The girl was acting like she was a mermaid that had gotten caught in his net. She looked ridiculous. From five were power-plant workers. They looked so boring.
The District 6 male was dressed as a taxi, and the female was a girl from the city trying to catch a ride. What were the stylists thinking? It's awful. Juniper from 7 was dressed as an apple tree, and the male was an orchard worker. He was trying to stay as far away from her as possible. Once again I wondered what she had done to make people resent her.
District 8 had peacekeeper outfits, which I really didn't get. District 9 was dressed as wheat, and I thought, how desperate are these stylists? Their outfits are really just sad.
From 10, the female was a cow, I laughed out loud at that, and got some weird looks. The male was a cowboy that had a lasso. How sad can you get? But from 11, William looked quite nice, even though he was dressed as a lumberjack. The girl was just wearing overalls, I'm assuming that she was wearing District 11's working clothes.
District 12's costumes were nothing special at all. They were just dressed as coal miners.
The ceremony was about to start, and a peacekeeper was making sure everyone was on their chariots. Once everyone was on, my chariot started to move. I put on my best smile and waved to the enormous crowd. The crowd roared, I could barely hear the announcer saying the names. People threw flowers at me, and I caught one and held it up in my hand. Borax was just standing there, not waving, looking off into the distance. I didn't worry about him though, I needed to worry about myself. All the chariots came out and stopped in a half-circle at the end of the run way. A very young President Snow came out on the balcony above us to welcome us. "Greetings, people of the Capital, people of the districts! Welcome to the 17th annual Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!" His announcement echoed through the large arena. It was met with thunderous applause. The president looked at me and smiled. His appearance resembled that of a snake, and a shiver ran down my spine...