AUTHOR'S NOTE:
okay so just so you know, I own no rights to the hunger games, or anything like that.
The whole day rushed by in a whirlwind of makeup, hair, eyebrow tweezing (ouch), hair dryers hair spray, flat irons, crimpers, curlers, hair clips, elastics, nail files, buffers, polishers, nail polish, topcoats, pedicures, creams of all kinds, a billion perfumes, uncomfortable shoes, and finally, the dress. Yes, I said it. THE dress, but I'll tell you about it later. First, how it came to be.
We were on our way to meet our stylists in our dressing rooms, when we hear Tom, who was slightly behind me and Quincy (Rick was leading), half gasp half scream, and when we turned around, he was gone, and a door was slamming. We all stood there, baffled and staring at each other's terrified faces for a good 10 minutes. I heard Tom's muffled voice behind the door, so at least I knew he was alive, but it sounded like he was far from the door, because his voice was a faint whisper, so faint no one else heard it. I was frantic. "Hey I hear him! TOM! TOM! CAN YOU HEAR ME?" Tom's voice got louder. It was still really faint, but not faint enough for me not to hear effort in is voice, meaning whatever was happening to him in there, he was putting up a fight, and I didn't like the sound of it. "he's in trouble! Can't you hear him?" Rick was the first to respond with a resounding "NO!" I turn to Quincy. "Can't you hear ANYTHING?" Quincy look at me with his blue, blue eyes. "Well I hear SOMETHING, but it could be anyones voice, but only someone who REALLY knows his voice, and spends a helluva lotta time with him and really REALLY cares about him would know that it's him, let alone the fact that he's in trouble!" Quincy turned and slammed his fist into the wall, alarming me. I've never seen him this upset. "Why, Caro? Why didn't you just tell me you're in love with Tom?" Rick started giggling and singing "Caro and Tom sitting in a tree, K-I-" He was cut off by Quincy hitting him squarely in the chest and winding him. Rick recoiled. "What the hell, man? You know I was kidding!" Quincy's face was grim. "Well it wasn't funny!" He turned back to me, his eyes a mixture of sadness, with some anger, and even jealousy. "Why didn't you tell me?" a sentence that started as a whisper, ended in a scream. He reached for me. I thought he was going to hit me. I flinched. Rick tensed up, ready to pull him off of me and keep him back if things got out of hand. He grabbed me, literally sweeping me off of my feet. My heart rate went up. "P-please don't" I was terrified. A billion questions ran through my head. What's wrong with him? What's he going to do to me? Is he gonna hurt me? Man, I hope he doesn't. Why is he doing this? He raised his hand. Rick was just a few inches away. I clamped me eyes shut, and cringed away from him, anticipating.
I was expecting for him to slap me in the face, but instead he gently stroked my cheek. I looked at him, and realized he wasn't going to hurt me. He pushed my bangs out of my eyes, and smiled. I just realized that my eyes were wide open, making an innocent, injured, scared puppy effect. The very look that made my daddy melt every single time, for all these years. "Hey! No fair! You know I'm defenseless against those eyes." Rick relaxed. I noticed he had a sizable rock in his hand. The volcanic rock I had hidden in the tunnel to my cove. It had a crack in it, shaped like a perfect R. The rock itself was in the shape of a heart. His district token. Would he really risk breaking it, and hurting Quincy, to save ME? Huh. Quincy puts me down. "Hey, you know I'd never hurt you, right?" I didn't know what to say. "Well I don't know, you gave me a helluva scare right now!" I pushed him away from me. He looked defeated. "Look, you can tell me, I understand." Oh jeez. What am I supposed to say? Of course I love Tom, but not THAT way! He's my best friend, the one person that would never judge me, and never hurt me. He's always there for me, and I trust him more than anyone. He's like my brother the universe forgot to give me, and ether way, he's NOT my type anyway. "Okay, look. Tom's my friend. JUST my friend. I care about him, but not THAT way! He's like my brother, and anyway, he is definitely not my type, ok? I'm not in love with him, I never really was, we don't have some sort of weird history, or anything like that. We're just two really good friends that have been friends for a long time. Like I don't get it! No one would be like this if my best friend was a girl!" This seemed to be news to them. Quincy just blinked. Rick just said "Okay...?" Quincy finally spoke. "Look I get it. I just thought... Nevermind. Now, lets get Tom, and get outta here, ok?" "Ok" We all turn back to the door that Tom was dragged through.
Quincy was trying the (locked) door handle, when we hear Rick scream, "hey!" We turned back around, and he was gone. That was the moment when we realized we were truly alone in the hallway, Quincy and I, and this hallway wasn't a normal hallway. What we thought was walls, was actually doors. Hundreds of them, all smoothly flushed with the rest, some with doorknobs, others with little handles dug into the door. Strange. Even more strange, they were all white, and had little labels on them, written in a beige-cream color. It was almost as if they weren't meant to be seen. Suddenly, a door opened, and we were both pushed through a doorway and tumbled down a ramp, landing in a cold, damp, dark cell. It had wooden floors, and stone walls. We were probably deep underground. There were small holes in the walls here, too. They were the size of tennis balls, and they seemed to connect our cell with about 70 others or so. To one side, I heard Elli crying, and Laurence's muffled voice consoling her. Through the hole opposite, We could hear Rick swearing under his breath and pacing. Straight ahead, I heard Tom pacing and periodically stomping his foot on the wood floor. I couldn't help myself. "Tom! Over here!" Tom's face appeared in the dim light through the hole in the wall. "Caro! Quincy! You're alive! Hey the floor heres hollow. I think it's the way out!" He was about to say something else, when he was cut off by 70 voices screaming. Suddenly, the floor collapsed from under us, turning into a slide, and sending us shooting down a tunnel. We landed on a platform in a long shaft. the platform started moving uphill. Slowly at first, progressively getting faster, and faster. When is seemed it couldnt go any faster, it stopped abruptly, sending us flying through the air, and landing in a pink, flowery sponge pit, in the middle of a studio.
