Gaaahh, I'm so sorry I haven't updated in ages! My inspiration and motivation to write has been completely gone (and school is killing me). I've tried to write sometimes, and I wrote like two sentences, then it just stopped. But today, when I tried to write, it was like BA-BAAM and I manage to actually write. More than two sentences. And right now I have tons of ideas what I want to happen in the arena, I'm just struggling through the "boring" part :P Anyway, if you have ideas, please give them to me, I need all the help I can get. Please review ;)


I must have fallen asleep, 'cause I woke up when Jonathan knocked on the door.

"Nyx? Are you sleeping?" he asked through the door.

"Not anymore" I whined and turned my face towards the wall.

Jonathan opened the door and sat down next to me.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" I asked and looked at him.

"You just ran off earlier"

"I just wanted to think" I sat up and leaned my head on his shoulder.

"Have you finished thinking?" He asked and I smiled at his attempt to seem funny.

"I don't know. I just realized that I might have to watch someone kill you"

"What? So you're saying I'll die before you?" he joked.

"I'm serious" I said in a giggle. "I thought a little about our strategy. If we go separate ways, we don't have to watch each other die, but if we work together, we might go quite far"

"Okay… Well, how about we work together, but when one of us is being killed, the other just look another way?"

"Stop joking" I giggled again and punched his shoulder. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine"

"I've only been sleeping half an hour? It feels like a lot longer…" I said with a yawn.

"No, it's nine in the morning. I came to get you for breakfast"

"Oh… So were almost in the Capitol then?"

"Yeah. Are you coming? Emerald will freak out if we don't hurry up" Jonathan said and stood up.

He walked out and I followed him to the diner. Kaila and Emerald had already started eating.

"There you are, why did it take so long?" Emerald complained. Then she looked at me from head to toe with a disgusted face. Probably because I had slept in the clothes I was wearing. But I didn't care at the moment.

"Everything looks really delicious" Jonathan said and Emerald immediately shined up at his enthusiasm.

Everything really looked delicious. There were many different types of bread and berries, eggs served in different ways and thin slices of meats that you were supposed to have on a slice of bread.

"We will be in the capitol right after breakfast, so make sure to hurry up and eat so you'll have time to get ready for the cameras" Emerald said as soon as I sat down.

Are you kidding? Hurry up? I would sit here all day and eat if I could. But she had a point; I didn't want to look sloppy for the cameras. And with cameras, I mean my family. I didn't care about the rest of the country.


After breakfast I decided to take a shower. There was a quite large bathroom connected to my room. On one of the shower walls was a screen were you could choose how you wanted to shower. Yeah, how. I didn't really know what I did when I pressed on the screen, but I somehow managed to get the water running, and afterwards I noticed that my hair smelled like lavender and coffee. You'd think that the shower would prevent mixing smells that really doesn't fit together.

I put my hair in a high ponytail and when I looked for some clothes, all I could find was a purple girly dress, a brown long cardigan and blue tights. I sighed. I couldn't decide what to wear by myself anymore? I put on the clothes and then went out to the dining room.

"I am not wearing this" I said when I found Emerald and Kaila.

"Oh, come on! You'll match your brother" Emerald said way too excited.

I looked suspiciously at Emerald and was about to start complain when Jonathan walked in.

"What kind of outfit is this?" he said and looked at himself. He was wearing a purple shirt, brown cardigan and a pair of jeans.

"No. I don't care if 'we'll get more sponsors if we look alike'" I said with an extremely strong capitol-accent. "I. Am. Not. Wearing. This."

"It's only for an hour, then you'll change for the parade. " Emerald said, still extremely excited.

"Uuuhh!" I freaked out and went past Jonathan and dragged him to his room.

"What is it?" he asked.

I stopped and turned around to look at him.

"I will not be seen in these clothes by anyone that's not on this train even if I die right this second! "

Jonathan bit his lip to stop himself from laughing.

"I'm serious!" I said and hit him on his shoulder.

"Okay… And what do you want me to do about that?" he asked.

"You and I are going to look through every single room on this train until we find our own clothes, before we get to the Capitol."

"Why do I have to help?!" Jonathan complained with a giggle.

"Because A; I'm sure you don't want to be seen in your clothes either, and B; it will go faster if we both look. So come on, I want my clothes back!" I said and stood in the doorway and looked at him.

"Fine" Jonathan sighed and walked after me to the back of the train.

"You take that side and I'll take this" I said and opened the first door at the end of the hall, while Jonathan did the same on the other side.

After walking in to a room full of alive chickens, some people I'd never seen playing cards and Emerald meditating I found a room full of clothes. Not our clothes, but clothes. Close enough.

"Jonathan! Over here!" I shouted at Jonathan.

"Finally! I'm getting sick of walking in while someone's sleeping." Jonathan said and we locked ourselves in the room.

There were a lot of clothes in there. Everything from fancy dresses and suits to sweatpants and simple t-shirts. I pulled out a pair of shorts, a slightly dirty t-shirt and a green jacket. Almost the same outfit I wore at the reaping. Then I made sure Jonathan's clothes were nothing like mine, just to piss off Emerald.


"What are you wearing?!" Emerald screamed at us when we were about to get off the train.

"Well, we didn't like the clothes you picked out, so we changed" I said and sat down on a small couch and put my feet up, just to annoy Emerald.

"Oh…Well, you don't have time to change now… What are we going to do, you look insane!" Emerald complained at us and pushed down my feet.

"Oh, come on. It's only for an hour, then we'll change for the parade!" I said in the same way Emerald did just a moment ago.

"But…" Emerald complained. She was really panicking. "Oh, fine. But you can at least give a good excuse for your looks, like…"

"That we don't give a damn?" I suggested and put up my feet again.

Emerald glared at me and sighed.

"Say that you… wanted to look like you did at the reaping to make it simple. Something like that, or anything, really" Emerald said and pushed down my feet again.

The train started to slow down, and then everything went dark. Outside the window, light flashed by repeatedly. We were probably going through some kind of tunnel. Soon everything went bright again, and where there had been trees just a while ago, was now tall beautiful buildings and a gigantic crowd of cheering people. As soon as they saw us the cheering got louder. They went crazy for us. Was all of this really that fun for them?

We stepped out of the train and on to a platform where the media waited for us. We had to get our pictures taken, and answer some questions. This time, Jonathan did most of the talking. Which felt quite good, 'cause I couldn't hear a thing over the crowd standing seven feet from us. He was really good with them. He charmed them. They loved him. Every time he opened his mouth, they started cheering even more. And I couldn't help to notice the row of teenage-girls standing in the front, that were cheering extra loud.

After we had stood smiling in front of a camera for what felt like forever, we went to a large building in the center of the city. Jonathan and I were separated, and a peacekeeper led me to a room at the top floor.

"Hi, you must be Phoenix! I'm Lavender, nice to meet you!" I was greeted with a high pitched, excited voice as soon as I opened the door. Lavender was a young woman with extremely long light brown hair. Even in high ponytails, which by the may made her look like a teenager, her hair reached at least to her waist. Most of the Capitol-residents had dyed their skin in a strange color, and Lavender's skin was, ironically, lavender-colored. Her eyes were clear blue, and her hair had highlights in the same bright color.

"Oh my god, what is that smell?!" asked another high pitched voice, belonging to a pale faced woman. Her bright red corkscrews framed her white eyes with 2 inch- red lashes, and on her neck she had a golden flower-tattoo.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that's probably my hair. I didn't understand the shower at the train, so it ended up smelling like…" I started to explain myself, but a third high voice interrupted me.

"…Coffee and lavender? It's amazing! How did you come up with that? It smells incredible together!" The third voice belonged to a man, but with his long wavy light green hair, he could easily be mistaken for a woman. His skin was oddly enough not colored, but quite dark, and his eyes was blue, but they looked natural, unlike Lavender's bright-blue eyes.

"Uhm… Smells like home" I improvised.

"Amazing! Anyway, I'm Valeria" said the red-haired woman "and this is Sable" she continued and pointed at the green haired man.

"We are your prep-team" Sable said and eyed me from head to toe.

"My prep-team?" I asked confused.

"Yes. We prepare you for your stylist, Eunia" Valeria answered and walked around me while examining my body with her white eyes.

"Go put this on and we'll start with waxing" Sable continued and handed me a white robe.

I took the robe and went to the door that said "Dressingroom", where I took off my clothes and put on the thin soft robe.

When I came back out, Lavender, Valeria and Sable had set up a table with strips of paper and a bunch of small tools. I lay down on a long table, and then started an extremely painful, and in my opinion; unnecessary, procedure to get rid of almost every single hair on my body.