A/N: Damn I'm getting good at this aren't I? Finally found a song that makes sense, got my chapter done on time again, things are looking up. Bit of swearing this chapter, just going to put it out there. I try to keep it to a minimum but I mean... teenagers in a deathmatch, its gonna happen. Anyways, thanks to everybody for sticking around and reviewing, it really makes my day to see people are enjoying my story, and makes it so much easier to write. On top of that of course thank you Tom137 for Zarach and Medicine cat of the Opera for Amara, and as always, hope everybody enjoys!
Zarach Eleazar, 18, District 6
Everything is fucked.
This was supposed to be my last year that I could have been in the games. The year where I turn into an adult, where I finally can move on from all the messed up crap in my childhood and start fresh.
Instead I'm sitting here on a train, ready to go get slaughtered for some random reason, and on top of that there's a stupid little girl sitting across from me with a dumb grin on her face.
Clenching my fists, I close my eyes, doing my best to calm myself down. Just relax, don't start connecting any dots, don't start feeling sad about how much of a horrible person you are, or how shitty your life is, just. . . . be calm.
"Hi." The voice squeaks out from my district partner, much to my surprise, with her nervously avoiding me the whole train ride before now.
My eyes shoot open and I shoot a sharp glare at her in hopes that she just goes back to before and stays away from me. I'm not going over all of this attachment bull crap, not again. We're tethered together in the games, but aside from that I don't have to get close to her whatsoever, and I'm going to make sure to keep it that way.
Surprisingly enough, she seems to get the message, shutting her mouth and bringing her legs up to her chest and burying her head. I let out a sigh and rest my head on my hand, eyes still glued out the window, patiently waiting to get off of this train already.
"Alright you two, sorry I'm late." The gruff voice of our 40 year old mentor Atlas calls out from the doorway almost on queue.
"What took so long, you left an hour ago." I grumpily ask, slowly making my way up onto my feet.
Atlas shrugs, pulling the door closed behind him. "Usually they slow down the trains that are closer to the Capital so everyone arrives at the same time, but District 12 was still a bit late, so everybody had to wait for them."
Turning his attention over to Amara, Atlas gives a warm smile. "Hey there Am, are you ready to go?"
Slowly bringing her head up, her bright blue eyes glancing over her knees, Amara squeaks out an 'okay.'
"Alright then." Atlas claps his hands together, giving a grin. "Let's go you two, we just have a 20 second walk to get to your stylists, there's going to be some people there with cameras outside asking questions, just ignore them and keep on walking, okay?"
This whole thing suddenly seems much more sketchy, and I shuffle my feet awkwardly, trying not to show any nervousness about being questioned by the Capital. "I thought that the Capital didn't see the tributes until the chariot rides.
"New thing they just added this year, it's super stupid I know, but just ignore them and it won't matter okay?"
Nodding my head, I turn to Amara, who quickly goes back to hiding behind her legs. I do my best to not roll my eyes at her irrational fear of me, instead ignoring it completely and heading towards the door. Before I can open it however, Atlas places a hand on my shoulder and nudges me backwards, not allowing me to leave.
"Amara, we're going now, alright?" This time he gets no response, and he lets out a sigh, muttering something under his breathe.
"Hey Zarach can you go ahead and go by yourself while I figure this out. You just go straight ahead through the roped-in area and into the building, your stylist will be right there waiting for you. Remember what I told you before, just listen to everything they say, don't argue with them. They know what they're doing, so just let them do their work."
"No promises." I mutter under my breathe, though whether or not Atlas understands, he doesn't seem to care, instead pulling open the door and ushering me through.
Not wasting any time I hop out of the train, and am Immediately blinded by a flashing of flights. I quickly send my arms up to shield my eyes from the bright flashes, and my gaze shoots back as the door slams behind me.
After a moment I regain my composure, and let out a deep breathe, glancing around to take in my surroundings. All around me odd looking people with cameras and microphones are shouting questions at me, flashes of lights coming from their cameras, with Peacekeepers ensuring they stay behind the ropes on either side of me. Up ahead in under a hundred feet is a long, one story building that stretches out for a long time in both directions.
Alright Zarach, just go straight through, don't pay them any attention. Its just some dumb Capitalites, who gives a fuck about them, just ignore them.
Clenching my fists, I do my best to put a calm look on my face as I hastily walk towards the building. Some of the questions somehow manage to pierce through the incomprehensible roar, with a reporter to my left screaming out what I think of the Capital, a question that I have to do my best to ignore, instead strengthening the grip of my fists.
Behind me somebody asks what my family was like, and I stop bothering to look calm, instead sending a hostile glare as possible, hoping that it will maybe get them to shut the hell up.
Instead it seems to get the opposite reaction, with a million more questions being asked about my family. Was I poor, do I have a family, what they were like. . . .
Right as I feel like I'm not gonna be able to hold myself back any longer, my fingernails already so dug into my palms that blood is trickling out of clenched fists, the door ahead of me opens, and I quickly dash in, the noise cutting off as the door closes.
Everything falls into a dead silence, and I allow myself to glance back up and un-clench my fists, letting out a deep breathe in the hopes to calm myself back down. That was nothing, it was just some stupid people asking some stupid questions, what did you expect from the Capital?
The real thing to be wondering about is how the hell the door managed to open and close, because right now I'm just standing in a room by myself. All around me are dreary grey walls with only a single light hanging above, nothing at all in the room except for the door dead ahead a few feet.
My first thought is that I should open that door to find where I'm supposed to go, but on the other hand if it's going to be anything like out there, I'd rather just cool off a few minutes in the calming silence.
Leaning back against the wall, I close my eyes and let out a sigh. All of those Capital reporters can all go to hell for asking me those questions. They think that I'm going to tell them about it? I don't even want to talk to myself about it, much less some freaks who are the reason why everything is so fucked in the first place.
If it weren't for them I would still be at home right now. I'd be sitting in my apartment having some breakfast, hanging out with my dog Kallie before I go to work at the airfield. Last night I would have been celebrating finally becoming an adult and being on my own. Soon my boss would have recognized that I'm not a kid anymore and realize with how hard I'm working I deserve a promotion. Before long everything from my past life would disappear. I'd start a new life that would help me forget everything I did wrong before.
And I wouldn't ever sit up at night hating myself for leaving Lorenna with our jackass parents, for not protecting her like I always had tried to before. How now she's probably still in that home, in a worse place then she even was before, and hating me because of it. All because of me. All because I was too selfish to protect the one person on this rotten earth that depended on me. The only one that actually cared about me.
I betrayed her, and over those next few months on the run I betrayed myself too. Who knows what I thought a 15 year old could do on his own? Why I thought that I could start anew and just forget about everything, escape from the responsibility I had.
The door ahead of me opens up, and I shake my head, purging any of the thoughts I was letting myself have. Everything that happened is over, it doesn't matter. Glancing up, I see a young looking woman walking. She has short, bright pink hair that goes down to her neck and hangs just above her bright blue eyes. She's fairly short and thin, and is dressed in a dark blue dress that goes down to just above her knees.
"Hello there." Her voice is sweet, sounding more like a teenager then an adult. "My name is Nikki and I'll be your stylist for this year, can you tell me a bit about yourself?" She extends her arm for a handshake, a supportive smile on her face.
I hesitate for a second on whether or not to trust in her, but she seems nice enough despite being from the Capital. And plus, Atlas' advice about how to deal with the reporters was right, so maybe I should listen to him here. For now at least.
"Alright." I take her hand and give her a light handshake before pulling away. "What do you want to know?"
Nikki shrugs, motioning be to follow her through the door. "I already know your name, age, all that jazz, and I doubt you want to tell me your life story, so why don't you just tell me some things that would be useful for me. I personally am someone who believes in last minute changes to outfits based on what the tributes want, so if you have any preferences let me know."
"As long as it isn't those half-naked outfits from last year I couldn't care less."
Letting out a giggle, Nikki leads us into a brightly lit room with all sorts of clothing and dyes all in containers spread across the room, with the only clear place being a bed and chairs at the end of the room. "Don't worry about any of that. I'm new this year to being a stylist, and I can guarantee that I won't be putting you in anything that would make you uncomfortable out there."
The two of us walk over to a drawer, and she opens it up, revealing a costume propped up on the wall. "This is the outfit you'll be wearing, so go ahead and take a look and tell me what you think."
On the wall is a completely brand new pilots outfit. On the top is a pristine white helmet, with a clear visor covering up the eyes. Right below it is the dark red pilots vest complete with the Capital and District 6 insignia. Next up there's the plain black pants and boots, as well as the dark blue gloves. Everything about it looks exactly how I remember it being back home.
"I've seen a real one before where I work, and it looks exactly like it." I say, keeping my eyes stuck on the uniform. Back at the airfield I wasn't in the same area as the pilots, so I didn't see them often, but whenever I did I couldn't help but be jealous of them. Just getting into a hovercraft and getting away from the rest of the world, flying away from any of the issues you have back home.
"So what do you think of this one, any changes you want to make to it, color, wear and tear, anything you want different can be done."
"Looks just like I remember it, they never let it get dirty or torn up."
Nikki flashes a smile and pats me on the back. "That's great, if there's anything you want to change though feel free to ask. Only things I care about when I'm making an outfit for you are that it looks good, and that you feel confident in it. If you have that then nobody is going to care about anything else."
Shaking my head, I peel away from the uniform and turn back to Nikki. "Nope, it looks perfect to me."
"Great to hear, then we can go ahead and go on to the prep work. Not gonna lie, it kind of sucks. You're lucky you aren't a girl, so you won't have to have all your hair pulled out of you, but you're eyebrows could probably use some trimming, and we're going to have to give you a bit of treatment to make sure you don't grow any facial hair in the games, though that's easy." She pauses for a moment, then shrugs. "Any abnormalities we should know about, scars, bald spots, anything like that."
"I have a missing tooth, but that's it." I reply, pointing to a gap in my front teeth.
Nikki nods. "Ya, I saw that earlier. . . . Hey guys!" She yells out down a hallway. "We have a missing upper right lateral incisor, just go ahead and replace it with a plastic filling, we can get a permanent replacement after the games."
"Appreciate the confidence." I mutter half-jokingly.
Turning back to me, Nikki flashes a smile. "Hey, it's my first year, I want to start off with a splash, so its a mutually beneficial victory."
Before I can stop myself I let out a quick burst of laughter, which I quickly stifle. Nikki returns the laughter, shaking her head. "Well, it's been nice meeting you, I'm going to go ahead and turn you over to my team, who will go ahead and do all the dirty work, and in the meantime I'm going to go ahead and meet up with your district partner."
"Why isn't Sebastian doing that?" A bubbly voice comes from the doorway, with an older looking woman- at least by Capital standards- walking through, a younger guy and girl behind her, all of them with dark black hair.
Nikki turns over to them and throws her hands up in the air. "I don't know, last minute call from the Capital that I had to take over for him for the remainder of the games. That's all that I know."
"Alright, well good luck, we'll get this guy all prepped up for you, you can focus on the younger one." The same woman replies, turning over and whispering something I can't quite catch to the man behind her, sending him scattering out of the room.
"Appreciate it," Nikki says, giving a thumbs up. "I'll see you again before we set you on the chariots, it was nice meeting you Zarach."
Giving a quick smile, I nod. "Nice meeting you too."
She gives me a quick wave, and jogs out of the room, exiting through the door that her team came through.
Once she leaves, the younger of the two woman folds her arms, eyes scanning over me. "Alrighty then, you ready?"
Hesitantly I nod, and after a few seconds of silence, the man walks back into the room, a small kit in his hand. He pulls something I can't see out of it and walks up next to me, a smile on his face.
"Hey Zarach, can you take a look at this." My eyes shoot to the left to the source of the voice, and I feel something plunge into my arm. My immediate reaction is to thrash out at the source, but find myself hardly able to move, my eyes heavy as the force themselves shut.
In the background I can hear a distorted voice speaking, though its impossible to hear what. After another moment my eyes close shut, and everything around me goes dead silent, my thoughts drifting off into nothingness.
With a groan I roll on to my side, my eyes fluttering open. There's a slight aching in my mouth, and my hand slides up, where I find the gap in my teeth that I had become so accustomed to now missing. Next to the bed I'm lying on is a small table with a mirror on it, and I grab it, holding it up to confirm with my eyes that I now have a tooth there.
Surely enough, when I hold it up it looks as if I never even had a tooth missing there. On top of that change, the stubble that I had grown is gone, and my once thick eyebrows look almost normal now.
Staring into the mirror is almost surreal. I don't really look much at all different then before though, just small changes. Almost as if someone painted a picture of me with the goal of making me look more attractive then I really am. It overall just looks odd.
"Enjoying the view there?" The mirror drops onto my lap and I glance over to the other side of the room to find Nikki grinning as she leans against the wall, arms folded over her chest.
"Actually, I think I am." I reply jokingly, setting the mirror back on the table.
Nikki giggles, shaking her head as she kicks off from the wall and walks towards me. "And I'm sure the Capital will too. Which speaking of that. . . ." She glances down at a watch around her wrist. "It's time for you to get dressed and head out to the chariots. I think you're old enough to dress yourself, so just head out the door right there once you're ready and me and Amara will be waiting for you, and I'll fill you both in on everything, alright?"
In return I nod my head, and she quickly walks out of the room, leaving me alone again. It takes me just a few moments to find the drawer from earlier, and I open it up, revealing the uniform, untouched from before.
It ends up being way easier then I would of thought to put on, with the vest and pants fitting perfectly, and the boots clasping shut instead of the laces I remember seeing the pilots at the airfield taking minutes to get done, and the gloves and helmets easily slipping on comfortably.
Unable to control my curiosity, I take a glance in the mirror, and can't help but grin when I do. With the uniform in full, I wouldn't even be able to tell I'm not actually one of the pilots from work. Pushing up the visor, I take one last look and let my smile stay despite myself.
A knock comes from the door and Nikki's voice shouts through, "Hey Zarach, are you ready yet?"
"Ya," I say, more to myself then to anybody else, sliding the visor back down, a smirk still barely evident in the mirror. "I'm ready."
~Take it from me, I've been there a thousand times
You hate your pulse because it thinks you're still alive
And everything's wrong
It just gets so hard sometimes
Be calm~