The Capitol

Natakunda Nasiche, 28

She couldn't believe she had been brown in the prison just a few days ago.

She cursed the day she had set foot in this country. Buganda's Peace Ambassador to Panem, right. It was a joke, but she was crying. Natakunda had never felt so helpless in her whole life. She had survived some rough things back home, worked hard to make her country a better place, and lived her dream of being a model. And now she was here, rotting in this hell.

She didn't know what her prison mate was going through or how she managed to remain so stoic. Her body was so bruised that it was hard to find even an inch of unharmed skin on her being. Her beautiful face was so swollen. There was pain in her eyes, but Ingrid Michalina refused to complain about anything that had happened to her. Natakunda had seen with her eyes what that monster did to her, the torture and humiliation that no human should go through, but Ingrid never gave him the satisfaction of seeing her shatter.

"What do they want from us?" Natakunda asked, her voice grieved, as she tried to tend to Ingrid's wounds with whatever she had, which was just some water. The younger girl resisted earlier, but she let her do it now.

"Nothing," Ingrid replied, "Nothing at all."

"There has to be a reason…"

"He wants to take over the country, and the whole world. The Five have already annexed my country, executed my family, and imprisoned me here. It's Panem's turn now."

"He? The others are not interested?"

"Not really. They're looking for their sister, and they'll leave after they find her. But he manages to convince them every time that they need to keep other nations enslaved."

"Don't they realise they're being played?!"

"How will they? None of them visits the prison, except him. They have no idea what's going on."

"But… how?"

"Blind trust."

Natakunda could sense the bitterness in Ingrid's voice. She didn't want to even imagine having her entire family getting killed, the mere thought made her shudder, and her eyes turned bleaked.

"We need to make a plan. To get away."

Ingrid laughed mirthlessly at that, her agonised eyes looking into Natakunda's dark ones. The older woman almost turned away, the gaze was of such intensity, but she looked on. Ingrid sighed.

"We're chained here Nata," she finally whispered, "We have nothing to break these chains with. Plus, as you;ve already seen, when you tamper with the locks, you'll get a shock."

"There has to be a way!"

"I'm afraid not."

Natakunda was about to argue, to tell Ingrid to snap out of it, but then she stopped. She was dejected, because she was aware Ingrid was right. Their case was hopeless. She curled her fists in rage and wanted to scream, but found it extremely difficult to perform even this simple function.

And then they both stopped moving.

Somebody was tampering with the locks of the prison door. Ingrid stared at it fearfully, her chest heaving, and she started looking around frantically to cover herself with. Natakunda tossed her a worn out blanket, the only thing one that they had between the two of them, and she curled it around herself tightly as if her life depended on it. This made Natakunda's blood boil in fury. Nobody, nobody deserved to face this!

The two women waited for the door to open, and Natakunda took Ingrid's hand when it finally swung inwards. But instead of their captor, they saw another woman, her hair tied in a ponytail, a stony expression on her face. She looked around hastily, unsure, then quickly stepped in.

And there, in a moment, she had freed them both from their chains.

"Who are you?" Natakunda asked, her mind unable to process the events. Ingrid tried to stand up, but her legs gave way and she fell down on her knees. The older girl helped her friend up and then turned to the newcomer.

"Put these on," she said, ignoring her question, "I've the orders to get you both out of here."

"Orders? Orders from whom?"

"We can talk on the way-"

"How can we trust you?"

"Okay then, just rot here."

"Wait!" Ingrid called out, panting hard, the effort of even standing up draining her body of all her energy, "Lisa, you're here?"

"Yes, you Highness," the girl said, "My emperor has asked us to help the immigrant prisoners get away."

"How will you manage by yourself?"

"Oh," Lisa smiled, "We have a whole team for that. We're going to take you away to Filipinas."

The next few moments were a blur for Natakunda. They had walked out, literally walked out, from the prison. There were guards everywhere, but they did nothing, as if the three of them didn't even exist. Natakunda saw that there were others too, prisoners who were so broken they couldn't even move, but they were being helped, one person for two to three prisoners. Their dark clothes made them harder to spot in the extremely dim lighting, and soon Lisa was leading them down a tunnel and then they were just led to something like a safehouse, all the while not going out into the open.

"How?"

"We'll move you tomorrow to the ship," Lisa said, "And you'll be leaving then."

"But how?"

Lisa grinned at Natakunda, but there was no warmth in it. She looked a little crazy, and that was scaring her. Lisa gestured at the two to sit down on. Natakunda noticed that there were five beds there, along with a tap and glasses and a box of food. It wasn't much and had been made in haste, but after that hell, she was delighted to be in a place where they wouldn't be bound by chains.

"We've made arrangements, most of the other countries, to escort immigrants from here."

"Wait, so there are more countries involved?"

"Indeed. We're trying to get as many immigrants away from here as we can within a week. We can't wait any longer."

"What's going to happen after a week?" Ingrid asked, even as Lisa poured them out glasses of water.

"Well… the other countries have decided that the Five are a big nuisance. They have a big military back in Europia and they can beat a lot of these nations. However, right now their army is busy with controlling the uprising in the annexed areas of Europia, and the Five are not as strong here as they could be."

"They're not strong?!" Natakunda exclaimed.

"They're honestly not. Why do you think they restarted the Games? They wanted a distraction and a method to scare the people here, to look powerful."

A light smile tugged on Ingrid's lips as she looked at Lisa, probably realising where this was going.

"So… the other countries are about to declare war?"

"You can say that," Lisa said, "And if they start losing, they're going to bomb Panem."

"What?!"

"Yeah. They believe that is the only way to save the world from the Five."

"But what about the Panemians?!" Natakunda cried out, "They're innocent! For years and years they have gone through hell, only to be blasted into dust?!"

"We can't do anything about that," Lisa said, "If we try to save them all, the Five will find out what's happening and then nobody will make it out."

"We can't just let them die!"

"I don't think it'll come to that," Lisa replied, although it sounded like a lie, "I mean, the world's army is against the small unit that the Five have here. Russia will be engaging with Europia along with the other countries they have annexed. They stand no chance."

"You don't sound convinced."

"You can never be too sure."

Lisa sighed, her shoulder slumped as she got up.

"Take care girls. However, before leaving… I want to know who captured you."

"The Five," Natakunda replied, "They captured all of us."

Lisa didn't look satisfied with the answer and turned to Ingrid, who looked back fiercely, as months of trauma and torture rushed into her memories.

"Who is it, Ingrid?"

Ingrid sighed and let out a weak, "It's Joffery, Lisa. It's Joffery."

Everleigh Marshall, 20

I sat down on the empty chair in my bunker, letting my face fall in my hands. This was the ninth bunker we had shifted to, because the previous eight had all been found out. Star was injured even, her leg broken, and no matter how much the three of us tried to heal it, it just wasn't working. I could get her admitted to a hospital, but Star had been famous, and the Five had reportedly killed all famous people. I couldn't risk her life.

At that moment, however, I was broken for a different reason. I had worked with Lisa to make those mutts… that weren't even mutts. I'd brainstormed and prepared some of those buildings, with those strange drugs being pumped in, because Lisa had not wanted me to use 'regular mutts'. And now, now I had blood on my hands.

I sobbed once but stopped myself. I saw Yunous feeding Star some soup so that she didn't have to put too much effort into getting up, and Rohan was just pacing the floor. I kind of felt sorry for the two men. They were caught in a fight that just wasn't theirs and I tried to imagine how frustrated they'd be. Rohan sometimes showed his annoyance, but not Yunous, not at all. He was always calm and collected, always sure of himself, and that kind of bothered me. How could one be so cool in crisis?

He stepped away from Star after she'd finished eating and went to wash the bowl although I saw no point of it. We'd have to leave soon anyway. I took a shaky breath and walked over to Star, smiling at her as I took her hand.

"You look worried," she said.

"I am," I sighed, looking away from him and absently watching Rohan pace in agitation, "I can't believe I helped in killing children."

"You had to, Everleigh. You needed to get closer to the Five."

"And I failed miserably at that," I replied, the helplessness of the situation maddening me, "I tried so hard to at least interact with them but that Lisa just didn't let me even get close! I didn't even see all of them! I go to the Games centre every day and I know absolutely nothing!"

"You do know stuff Everleigh," Star said kindly, "You know they're looking for a girl, their sister. You also found out that their sister is in Panem!"

"And that's just bizarre," I added, "How can the girl be here? We've nothing to do with Europia!"

"Maybe the child thief ran away with the kid and came back here?"

"I don't know," I sighed, "I just know that they're going to check everyone's DNA here to see if they are the one."

"You'll have to get tested?" Rohan asked as he stopped walking, sitting down cross legged on the floor beside me. I nodded slowly even as the frown deepened on his face. Ever since I'd told them about the sister business, Rohan and Younus had had some kind of silent communication with each other just by sharing a glance, as if they wanted to ask Star and I about something but were hesitant. I had reminded them both that they could say anything to us and we'd answer to the best of our ability, but neither said a word, frustrating me even more with their shared looks, slight nods and being able to read each other all the time.

"Everleigh, Star," he started, clearing his throat, "Yunous and I think, we think you two should really come with us. We can get away. We can all lead normal lives."

Star sighed and shut her eyes. I was honestly tired of this argument. Why could neither of the men see that we were not interested in leaving our country behind? This was our home, all we'd ever known. How could we leave our home behind? Yunous and Rohan just didn't seem to get it at all.

"I'm not interested. I've a crisis here to deal with."

"And what are you going to do about the crisis?!" he snapped back at me, "Can't you see that we won't survive much longer? Can't you see that they're hunting down everyone?!"

"I can't go!" I shouted at him as we both got to our feet, "Why don't you get it?! I've spent my life fighting for our freedom! And I'd just stop now?"

"Your best bet is that the Five find their sister and leave within a week!"

I was about to retort when I realised that he'd said something he'd not wanted to. He tried to not show it, but he looked as if he regretted saying those words.

"What's going to happen after a week?" Star asked, crouching up on her elbows.

Rohan paled as he looked at her and then back at me. He shook his head slightly, as if trying to assure himself rather than us.

"Nothing," he replied, "Just the way, you know, things are happening. I don't know whether we'll survive another week."

"You're lying," I spat, "Rohan, I'm asking again. What's going to happen in a week?"

"The other countries are going to declare war on the Five while they're here," Yunous spoke up nonchalantly, "And since the Five are in charge of Panem, the country will be involved as well."

"What?!" Star and I cried out at once.

This couldn't be happening… my home, a war zone? I'd only read about countries being at war and the things I'd read were terrible. Was Panem really going to be fighting other countries?! We were such a fragile nation… did we even stand a chance?!

"I know it's hard to believe and accept. But we need to get away before that happens."

I looked at him incredulously. Did he really believe I was going to ditch my home during a war?!

"You both should go," I said and I meant it, "This is not your home. You should go back, to your families, to your homes."

"We'll stay if you guys do," Yunous sighed, dropping down onto an empty chair, holding his head, "But at least do consider our offer with a cool head. That's all I ask."

"How do you guys have this information?" Star asked.

I frowned. It was pretty strange that they both knew this would happen and they'd not bothered to tell us. I wondered why that was and how they knew such a thing was about to happen.

"We got a message," Rohan muttered, "From home."

"So why don't you two leave?"

"We can't leave you two here all alone," Yunous muttered, his thumb slowly massaging his eyebrows, "We've been together through so much. I- we can't throw that away."

I smiled at him.

"And that's exactly why we can't leave either."

"Let's smash the Five!" Star cheered.

"Yeah!"

I saw Yunous and Rohan looking at each other again. The former looked defeated whereas the latter looked quite angry. In fact, he literally walked away from us on the pretext of using the bathroom, not meeting our eyes, and Yunous had turned away as well, even though he was smiling.

Well, maybe things were a lot deeper than they appeared to be…

Panem is in trouble! I loved writing this chapter so much! I'd love to know what you guys thought of everything that happened here. Did the other countries' action surprise you? And had you expected Ingrid's captor to be who he is?

Next chapter, we'll get back into the arena and hear from our favourite kids. Till then, stay safe and take care.