Train Rides
Marvel Silver, 18, District One Male
If my district partner is any indication, this is not going to be a normal year. She doesn't seem to be joining the alliance, for one thing. When the escort asked her, she just snarled and white-knuckled her fork as she ate her lunch.
"Oh, you must adore this food, don't you?" she asks us.
"Yes, it is the best I've ever had!" Honestly, it is the best I've ever had, but I've never been much of a food connoisseur, and I live in the luxury district, the least impoverished. What I consider a hearty meal those mongrels in the outer district would probably consider a feast.
"How do you do it?" I prompt Viviana, the escort.
"Oh, well, the Capitol…"
I'm not even listening to her as she rambles on about her nonsense. This is all part of my plan. Play suck up of everybody in the alliance, kill them all, starting with the Four girl, and then the Two boy. An eye for an eye, you know.
Turquesa seems to already be alert to my plan. She's a smart one. Probably an outlier threat. Anti-careers are a possibility this year even though they have fallen slightly out of style through the years since the 131st. I've seen her around the Academy, training. She's good with a sword.
One of our mentors finally enters, cutting Viviana off from her monologue about cakes.
"Jasper Saint-Everest, pleased to meet you." He stands up to shake both of our hands. The guy is in his thirties, possibly early forties, but is still handsome, with stubble and slicked back blonde hair and muscles protruding through his dress shirt, and when our hands touch, I can see he wears an expensive golden watch, and on his wrist a tattoo of something. A Bible verse? He sees me staring at it and quickly shakes his shirt cuff further down his wrist as his watch glistens in the rays of sun.
His female counterpart, a woman I recognize from only seven years ago from her signature pink hair strand in her blonde hair and incredibly petite figure.
"Glamour Roosevelt, your mentor." She sits down in front of Turquesa, and so Jasper take the cushy armchair before me from across the table. He looks slightly disgruntled. Good. Glamour won her Games by slowly manipulating and outsmarting her pack until they imploded and she killed the only other survivor, then proceeded hitch a ride on a mutt and kill the other four tributes. I want her as my mentor.
"Well," starts Jasper, "are we doing pairs by gender this year or do either of you want to swap."
"I do."
Glamour looks taken aback but intrigued. "Is that good, Turquesa?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Come on, Turquesa, lets go into the caboose and give the two of them some privacy." He had the sense not to ask if we wanted to be trained together, at least. Viviana scoots out of the room behind them with significant trouble maneuvering her enormous cerulean wig through the doorway.
"You aren't a typically District One tribute, are you?" Glamour asks me, in that typically merchant sector accent of Midtown, with emphasis on the vowel sounds and lacking the dropped Rs and slow speech patterns of the upper class. We are two birds of a feather.
"No, I'm not." I give her a dubious smile. "I don't think you are either."
She smiles and nods. "You are right about that. Now, let me ask you, what makes you so different?"
"I'm not going to be a typically, angry, aggressive career. At least, not for the camera. I'm going to be nice and bubbly—I am a good actor, you know—and stab them all in the back one by one. With pleasure."
"Now, Marvel, let me ask you this. Was your brother perhaps in the 153rd Hunger Games?"
"Yes."
"Is that part of the reason why you're here."
"Correct again. I want to kill all of the people that killed him. Starting with the Four girl this year, and then the Two boy, and then that Nine boy they were about to kill before he got away."
"Interesting. May I suggest you not be so driven by revenge, Marvel? It will only give you tunnel vision, and those people aren't the ones who killed Luxe. I know better. I lost my cousin two years before I won."
"No. I need to make this right."
"Your first motive is still winning, correct. Even if you and, say, the Six boy, are on top of the cornucopia while the Four girl is being mauled, you won't dive in to kill her yourself and let him have the victory."
"Of-course not. I'm clever, not stupid."
"That's what I thought." But she doesn't seem so sure, and neither do I. Have I found one person too smart for me to fool? Because really, the revenge would be the victory. I just want to kill them all, too see their blood cascading out of the bodies the same way Luxe's did.
I still see him in my dreams, taking me on his adventures, giving me advice, hugging me in the Justice Building and promising that he will come home. But each time he never comes home and my brief glimpse of what life could be like again morphs into that fateful day when thirteen-year-old me watched, horror stricken, as he died.
I'm not really even living without him. Mex is kind and sweet and loving, but she just simply isn't enough. I don't know if I will fulfill the promise that I made her. But Galmour can't know that.
"So, have we established your game plan?"
"Yes."
"Alright. Remember, don't be too vocal or upfront in the pack. May I suggest a nine as a score?"
"That's what I was planning on."
"It won't make you seem like a big threat but an eight would make you seem like the weakest of the bunch, and we don't want that."
And so, we continue talking as the train speeds to the Capitol rapidly. It's time for me to put my game face on. Because I don't care what anyone else says, the District Four Female is going to pay.
Viviana slides through the metal door. "Reaping Recaps, Reaping Recaps!" She chants excitedly. Glamour make way for Jasper and Turquesa on the couch. They both look visibly satisfied.
Time to finally see this Four girl. I may not make it out, but neither will she.
Konani Sowka, 15, District Five Female
"Now, you two best eat," says our escort, Ambrosia. "We can't very well have two skinny tributes represent our district, can we? Skinny means weak, and weak means boring, and boring means dead and dead not having provided the nation a good show."
She twists her hands around her long, flowy chromatic earrings. They look like stained glass raindrops. Ambrosia catches me staring at them.
"Oh, you like them?"
"Yes, they're quite pretty."
"Why thank you, Konani. My darling husband got them for me as an anniversary gift. Made from the forges in District One. Maybe if you win we can help… reorganize your fashion sense. Panem knows you mustn't wear that monstrosity ever again." She gestures to my dress.
"It was my mother's."
That shuts her up. How dare she insult my outfit after everything else I've already been through today. My mind flashes back to my tearful goodbye from all of them; Akira, Brecht, Ziv, Taiki, Robert, Sherwood, and Clara. I miss them so much already. I kiss my necklace. It says 'ABZKTRSC', all my siblings' first initial. I will never forget.
I try to suck myself in to hug myself but there is nothing to suck in. Maybe Ambrosia is correct about one thing. Even if she is, I'm not letting her take this dress from me. It may be humble, with its faded pale blue plaid design and small tear at the bottom, but I love it and it's mine.
"I think you look wonderful in it."
I turn to where Elior is sitting right beside me.
"Thank you. You don't look too shabby yourself."
His cheeks go red once again, and I hope mine aren't. I look up and down at his navy suit and yellow tie and compare it to my humble attire. Most people in the district are rude to the upper-class people, but I've never understood it. Elior seems perfectly nice, and he's kind of handsome too with his brown hair and deep green eyes. Maybe I can prove them wrong.
We look at each other for a while, and both realize at the same time that we're staring. I turn my head to the pastel yellow walls and the windows outside showing the passing expanse of stunning scenery. Hill after hill of flowers of all different sorts. I've always wanted to see a flower in person before. I never had a chance too before.
Ambrosia seems oblivious, and our two mentors seems a bit nervous and uncertain about what to do. At least, Atlas does. He won recently, I think, only four or five years ago, but he's always been so quiet. He was one of Brecht's classmates, but I don't think they ever talked. When I asked him about him all he could say was that he was quiet and the brightest boy in the class. Antimony just seems uncaring. She pours another serving of wine into her shot glass with the clear intend of getting herself wasted.
"Sorry about her," Atlas says with a quivering voice. "Electra was supposed to be my partner but her daughter broke her leg on the way to the Reaping." He glowers at Antimony in distaste, but makes no effort to stop her. Ambrosia seems to have given up too.
"Ummm… Would you two like to be mentored separately or together?"
I share a look with Elior.
"Together," we say in unison.
After our first bit of being mentored through this horrible experience, I decide to explore some. Ambrosia says that I should stay to eat some more, but I'm reluctant to and already feel stuffed. They said once in biology that the stomach shrinks if not fed properly.
The sunroom caboose at the back of the train is quite nice. Past the windows is darkness, but that is rather comforting, oddly enough.
I really, really miss my family. I need them right now. Now, the one time I can't be strong and tough like Mom dying taught me, to be brave and resilient and optimistic after all of these years living in poverty have taught me to be that way. It's probably because now, I don't have any family to go home to. No one to give me a hug and tell me that it will all be okay. Where before my hope was a raging flame ready to rise me to the top, now it is a tiny spray of embers falling to the ground where they will all get burnt out.
A metallic whooshing disturbs me from my thoughts.
"Hey, I just wanted to thank you for helping me at the Reapings." Elior walks in awkwardly as I wipe the tears from my eyes.
"No problem. Isn't it what anyone would do?"
"You don't know some people."
"I guess you're right there."
He takes a seat across from me on the opposite couch, cushy and velvet, it gives him the appearance of being used to clog a vacuum. I probably look the same.
The awkward small talk is painful. Elior stands up. "Well, anyways, I can leave if you want some alone time."
"You can stay."
"Sorry, I'm just missing my family right now."
"Want to talk about it? Whenever I'm worried or sad, if I voice my grievances, I feel relaxed afterwards every time."
"Okay. Well my oldest sister is Akira, and she's kind of like my mom. She died in childbirth for my youngest sister, Clara, who is really just adorable, and I have five brothers in between them. I'm closest with Ziv, though, he's seventeen."
"Was he the one who ran out when you got Reaped?"
"Yeah. It's not really like him to be like that, he's normally calm and funny. What about you? What's your family like?"
He hesitates, searching for what to say. "I'm not really very close with my family. My dad likes my older brother more because he sees more of himself in him. Mainly just because of our appearances. I'm skinny and short and he's big and fat and has strong features and doesn't care about reading and writing and stuff like that, but I do."
"Sorry. That really sucks."
"It's okay."
We sit there with little else to say and find each other staring into each other's eyes again. I feel something right now. Something that I've never really felt before. It makes my cheeks go red every time he addresses me and forces my eyes onto him like he is a magnet. What is it?
Could it be attraction? Maybe. I guess I've never really been infatuated with somebody like that before. Never had time. But he just seems so kind and caring, gentle and strong.
"Your father has bad taste," I say. "Do you want to be allies?"
"Yes!" He blurts it out the millisecond I finish and goes beet red after. "Yes. That would be cool."
"Good. Now, I think I need to get to bed. Good night."
He waves as I exit and head to my room, and now there might just be a little bit of hope left inside of me. Those embers are going to keep on burning.
Keeley Axel, 13, District Six Female
Don't break down.
Don't break down.
Don't break down.
It's what I've had to keep on repeating to myself since I boarded the train. All of these new emotions are tearing at my chest, bubbling up to the surface when they have been dormant for so long: Panic, rage, despair, and many more that I can't even describe.
All these years in District Six dealing on the streets have taught me to keep my head down, how to have a good poker face, to not let feelings affect the way they should a normal, decent person. This is Panem. We can't afford to go handing out charity baskets when we hardly have enough to provide for ourselves.
But now, I feel something I haven't felt in years. I feel the need to latch onto someone, to be comforted. I thought I was more hardened than this.
I made it through the Justice Building, because even though all I wanted to do was collapse into Daddy's arms, I wasn't going to give that bitch Victoria and her dumb, spoiled little daughter the satisfaction of seeing me cry for the first time. No one has ever seen me cry. No one ever will.
I can tell just from looking at my partner that he isn't strong enough for this. Skinny but still well fed, with the curly hair and tall frame of an upper class boy, and in a clown costume of all things. He probably has some easy, cushy, high paying non-labor job, while the unlucky majority has to choose between one of three options: Back-breaking work in the factories, begging resigned on the streets, and resorting to ways to earn money not necessarily supplied by or abiding by the law.
I chose the latter.
Maybe the reason I feel so… overwhelmed, that's the word, is that now it really is life and death. Before it was just me and Peter fooling around at night, trying to get all the drugs that we could to barter them off and trade them for a pay day. Sure, there was the risk of falling as I tried to train hop, or getting caught and whipped, but I didn't care.
But now I care. Caring is a weird feeling.
"There, there, Carroll. Sometimes all that anybody needs is a good cry."
Carroll's mentor, Honda, is comforting him on the couch. He bawls into her arms, all that was suppressed before finally emerging. At least the nation didn't see him do it. For that long.
Because Carroll and Honda bonded, and I guess I didn't really care and he did, I got Royce, the other mentor. He is sitting in the lush chair across from, high as a kite on whatever the fuck he's on. Probably morphling.
It doesn't matter. I can go it alone anyway, that's what I've been doing my whole life. Or at least, as long as I can remember since Daddy married Victoria and she wrapped him around her finger.
Maybe I should go help Royce. He looks pathetic. No. I've had enough time dealing with addicts. Don't hate the dealer, hate the drug.
"I'm leaving." My voice comes out hoarse from not talking in so long. Nobody makes any effort to stop me.
All I want to do is curl up my fancy new Capitol bed. It's so comfortable, I could never get up. I don't want to ever get up.
And then, I have no idea why or how it surpassed me or what, but I start to cry. I cry like I never have before. All the tears from the past decade of my life spill out onto the goose down pillows and blankets of fur.
Everything that I feel is so foreign, yet I just want to wrap into myself and weep. So, I do. My sadness and my sorrows and my fury all pour out of my eyes like waterfalls. I don't know what to do.
Someone raps on the wooden door.
"Keeley, are you okay in there?"
It's Carroll.
"Yep, I'm f-fine."
He must sense that I am truly not, because he barges in anyway and sits down on his bed beside me. I recoil as he gets near me, and he seems uncomfortable.
"Sorry, am I intruding? I'll—"
"Stay." He is intruding, but I think he needs this just as much as I do.
We sit in a tense silence now. Both of us have puffy eyes. Carroll puts his arm around me. At first I recoil, but then I accept.
"Everything is so different now," I tell him. "I've never really opened up to anyone like this, not even my family. I have no idea what to do other than just be angry and try to find a loophole. Normally I can just bat my eyelashes or say something witty or sneak off. But I don't think anything like that will work here."
"When I'm sad, the thing that cheers me up the most is laughter," Carroll responds. "It helped me through my sister's death."
"How did she die?"
I realize the second after the words leave my vocal how insensitive it must be of me to say that, but Carroll doesn't seem to mind.
"Struck by lightning."
"That's fucked up, dude. I'm sorry."
"Thanks. But we're getting off topic. Jokes, remember?"
"Well, say something funny then."
"Okay." He thinks for a moment. "Why shouldn't you trust stairs?"
"I don't know."
"They're always up to something."
The joke makes me cringe, but somehow, whether it be Carroll's funny delivery, or that crazy wink, or his whole attire, or the absolute ridiculousness of being transported on a train to my almost certain death in the fucking Hunger Games while being comforted by a clown three years my senior, or maybe it's because I have gone for ages without doing so, but I laugh. I laugh hysterically. I cannot stop.
After all of this time spent crying and bemoaning my imminent death, it feels so good to laugh. I haven't laughed in so long. I didn't recognize how much I missed it until now. Maybe I just told myself that I didn't.
But I can't be laughing. Laughing is for pansies. This is the time to fight. Besides, I don't really even know how. It's best just to push those emotions down.
"Oh!" Carroll exclaims. "I just remembered the other reason I came to get you! Dinner is ready."
"Good, I'm famished."
We leave my luxurious bedroom and stride down the hallway together in hurried paces. I pause as we get to the doorway.
"Carroll," I ask him, "what do you do for a living?"
"I'm a clown. I do it for the sick people, the kids in the hospital."
I decide that I like Carroll. I like him a lot.
And I'm right. I shouldn't be pitying myself. I need to fight. As we set down to eat dinner and the escort insists on praying to the Capitol, I feel the six pounds of drugs still in the baggy army jacket I forgot to take off. I let out a tiny chuckled inwardly. That just serves as an example.
I am not the Keeley Axel that cries and wears her heart on her sleeve. I am a fighter. I will sure as hell make my way out of that arena.
Rowan Hunter, 14, District Seven Male
"Dang! This train is going so fast we may just die before we reach the Capitol!"
Crickets. Sycamore glowers at me, still clutching his bottle of booze, while Lindsay comforts my partner.
"Jeez, sorry, just trying to lighten the mood."
"Why, Rowan, if you are interested in the trains, I could tell you some about them. I used to escort for Six, you know, and an escort must do his research."
"It's Hunter, and I think I'm good. If you did do your research, though, tell me some things about Seven."
"Oh, well, it's only my first year, but I'll try." Maurinella visibly reshuffles the notes in her brain. It's must be difficult with all of that empty space where brain cells should be. "The most common tree is the Douglas fir."
"That's correct. One more?"
"Trees can release carbon into the environment, and near the Southeastern edge of the district, District Five has a plant to harness it."
In actuality, trees release oxygen that we breathe and release in the form of carbon, which is what Five harnesses, everyone in Seven knows that. But I don't tell her. She's making an effort, which is much more than I can confidently say others in this train are doing. At least nobody else is paying much attention to us.
"Do you want to hear a pun? Sorry, they're cringy, but still my specialty."
"Sure."
"Why did the tree get scared of the lumberjack when all he wanted to do was talk? He asked if he wanted to dialogue!"
It takes Maurinella a second, but then she grins at me. "You're funny. I could try to get you some sponsors. I'll go and phone your stylist now, he may be able to do something about the costume that ties into that."
She exits, and the room is left in a grim silence. The only interaction is Tessa and Lindsay locked in a deep embrace, yet they have no need for words, and so we all just stare at each other awkwardly. Tessa seems a bit familiar to me. I can't place where I know her from, but she continues to avert my eyes. What is she thinking? Probably just sad that her death is impending.
This is the silence, that unbearable, torturous silence, that I cannot stand. I'm afraid every second that ticks by where the only sound is the whooshing of the train, I don't know why, I'm paranoid. And then it really sets in that this is what I must deal with in the coming days. Shit, this is bad.
Out of nowhere, Sycamore jumps up. "Damnit, screw this mentoring shit! Every year we get two nice little pansies who don't stand no chance, and even when they do, they still die! We haven't saved one yet, not in the twenty years since I won!"
He storms off.
"Sycamore, come back here this instant!" Lindsay totters off behind him in chase.
All of a sudden, me and Tessa are left all alone, her biting her nails and glancing furtively at me with her electric blue eyes.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Our conversation falls flat once again. And then I realize. Those blue eyes! That's where I know her from! She was the girl that stole the food when the blame got put on us.
"I'm sorry," she says, noting the memory click into place in my eyes. "I didn't mean for anything bad to happen." Her voice grows shakier as she goes on. Tears bloom in her puffy eyes and streaks down her dirt-stained cheeks.
"I should have listened to Remy. He was going to go off and make a store and try to hit it big with some of his friends who also wanted out of the ring. I wish I could do it with him."
"What do you like about Remy?"
"Well, he's tall, and handsome, and brave, and funny, and really, really smart. But he's five years older than me and I think he only sees me as a little sister. What about you? Do you have friends? Oh, wait! I forgot to tell you about my best friend Minnie, she's really rich and she has a year on me but she's also really sweet and she made me this bracelet, see?" She holds it up to the light.
"My best friends are Ash and Aaron. We work in the fields together. They like my jokes and they're funny too."
She is still remorseful, I can see. I don't hold it against her. It doesn't do well to keep grudges close to you. But she obviously remembers that Day, when they were chained to the post and lashed for stealing.
"You don't have to say you're sorry again," I tell her. "I forgive you. You didn't know that that would happen."
"Thanks."
"Wanna be allies?"
"Yes, very much!"
And then we continue with our small talk. It flows nicely and eases the pain. I even get Tessa to laugh a few times. Sycamore will probably be disapproving of this, seeing as now I have to protect this weak girl and my own life. Maybe happy too, now that Lindsay can do most of the work, not like she wouldn't be anyway. That old shitbag.
But as I find myself looking at this girl, with her kind smile and her innocent eyes, I know that I don't care which one of us makes it out.
Coleus Yarrow, 16, District Nine Male
Imperia is leering at me again. Sorghum tries to stop her but to no avail. He told Amber to take me since he wanted to "break some respect into her". From the looks of it he has not had that much success.
In response, she said that "she only gave respect to whoever was worthy of it."
"So, Coleus," Amber says, facing me from the love seat at the other end of the room, her back turned from Imperia, "I think we've established that we are mentoring separately this year, haven't we?"
"Yes."
My mind can't process enough right now to formulate a more elaborate response, and yet it is racing with all sorts of worries and yells and profanity. I am going to die. I am going to die!
Do I deserve this? An eye for an eye, that's the saying. But no, Pansy was mean, and nasty, she deserved to die. What am I saying? She didn't deserve to die?
"Coleus? Coleus?"
"Huh?"
We are in a completely different room now. I guess Amber leading me out went unnoticed. This one is more private, and cozy. It reminds me of the bakery, with its yellow walls with flowers and brown upholstery.
"How are you doing? Do you need some help?"
"I'm doing fine. Fine as I can right now, that is."
That's a lie.
"Well… If at any point you need a shoulder to lean on, I'm your gal."
"Thank you." There is an awkward, tense pause. I look into Amber's wet eyes. I know that she desperately wants to help me. But I don't know if I want to help myself.
No. I'm not a killer. I shouldn't die. I need to live. I can't die, I can't, I can't! I'm afraid I will, and I can picture it so easily in my mind, me dying. Being cut down with a sword, and struck with an arrow, or torn apart by some gruesome mutt. I'm panicking, I'm freaking out. What will Carina and Mom and Dad and Hedera and Laurel say. Will they say that I didn't try hard enough, that they were disappointed in me? Will they never get over it, will one of the girls get Reaped after me? "I don't want to die!"
I don't know where or when I started talking, all I know is that now Amber is hugging me.
"Nobody does, Coleus, nobody. Ever. And just believe that we are going to die all that we can to get you out of these Hunger Games alive."
But I know that I will die. There is no point in even trying. Nothing ever goes my way. By the end of the week I will most certainly will be lying dead, maybe still on the ground, or up in a hovercraft being put pack into shape to be sent home for a funeral, or maybe there won't be anything of me left to salvage.
That's a horrible thought.
But it's probably the truth. Nothing good ever happens in this fucked up world of ours, at least not to me. Good things happen to good people.
I'm a good person. I just did accidentally did a bad thing. Because that bitch Pansy Sikspoon totally deserved to get diarrhea and nausea from that water hemlock, and that is what was supposed to be the result of lacing her biscuits. And all the other girls got stomach troubles too. Serves them right for messing with me, poisoning Laurel's mind behind my back.
I don't deserve Laurel. Not Pansy, either. And I don't deserve Carica, because she's the only person who truly understands me and will always, no matter what, take my side. I don't deserve Mom and Dad, because they love me so much, and even though they don't truly understand me, they always try and will never stop doing so. I don't deserve Hedera, because she suspects what I did, and she doesn't care and just wants me to tell her the truth because she knows that I'm not a killer.
But I'm a killer.
They can't see me die. But I don't know if it's possible for me to survive. And I have no idea if I even want to that much.
Maybe it would all be better if it were just to end for me. But all my worries to rest like nothing ever could. Maybe it would be an act of mercy. Maybe it would be an act of justice.
But I still have to try, whether I really want to or not. Because I can't let them see me just lay down and die back in Nine. And I can't let Amber down, because I know she wants me to win so badly, and Panem knows Imperia can't win.
Rooker Hilt, 13, District Twelve Male
"Fuck you and your stupid Games, too!"
No matter how hard I kick and scream, the Peacekeepers won't let me go. Their metal gloved hands press uncomfortably into my rib cage as two take me by the underarms. A sharp and vicious pain snaps through my side.
"Owww!"
"Shut up!" one snarls at me and whacks me on the head with their gun.
"No!"
"You best not squirm, you'll just make it harder on yourself, string bean."
"Don't tell me what to do! And don't call me string bean either!"
I don't stop wriggling, because fuck them. I don't answer to anybody. And I don't care if they beat me up even more, because I've taken much harder ones than the ones that they are allowed to give me. I'm not going to relent.
The mentors (I haven't bother to remember their names.) and my partner (Hers either.), stare at me, my partner looking on at me in sympathy, the middle aged guy in contempt as he rubs his nose from where I just punched him, the old lady in disapproval, with the tut-tut-tutting of her tongue that I could undoubtably hear if it weren't from the blood rushing out of my face in sheer anger, as if to say, "Well, there goes another one,".
I'll prove that ugly bitch wrong. I'm not just another pawn in their game, another casualty in the masses.
The metallic door slams shut with a metallic clang as I leave the room in disarray and avoxes frantically clean up. Broken vases, defaced paintings, an overturned table. I wasn't even close to being done yet in there.
I wriggle once again, but to no avail. I get another smack, and the horrible, miserable pain from before pulses through my torso once again. Something must be wrong in there. Something bad.
But I won't have anybody look at it. It's nothing. Injuries are weakness. Injuries heal. That's one of the things living with Pa has certainly taught me. I'm not going to let them see me in pain. Not going to give them the pleasure.
For that same reason, I'm not going to stop pitching a fit until they do put me in my room. I assume that's where they're taking me. I don't care. I want to be alone right now.
I am right. The Peacekeepers toss me rudely onto the floor and lock the door. "You're only coming out for dinner, and then it's back in here for you."
"I don't give a shit! Fuck you!"
"You best not taunt the highest ranked Peacekeeper on this train. I can make your life a living hell."
"Do it, then! I have nothing left to lose!"
He merely chuckles and walks off, his boots clanking and clopping against the carpeted floor as he goes.
It's true. I don't have nothing left to lose. Nothing.
I guess I do have one thing to lose, though. Everyone alive has one thing to lose, at least.
But I probably am going to be alive for not much longer.
It just isn't fair. I punch the wall and my knuckles come pack dry and bloody with bruises formed and forming. My life is already shit, but who is to say that it couldn't be something better.
For the first real time since the dumb, gaudy escort pulled my name out of that damn bowl, my vision is blurry with small tears. Only a few are able to form. There's not enough water in me for the rest.
They aren't able to see me like this. I inconspicuously wipe my eyes, and spin around the room searching for some sort of camera, or whatever they told us they used to record stuff like the Games was called. I can't find one. I don't even know what it is supposed to look like. So, I just yell with my favorite fingers up in the air, "Fuck you!"
An audible squeak and gasp sounds from the doorway.
"Sorry, Rooker, I was just wondering if you were okay. Are you? Maybe we could talk or something. Maybe could be friends and have an alliance."
"Fuck off and go die, girly."
My partner, whatever the hell her name is, pauses, takes in a light breath of air, and starts to cry. She runs off and shuts the door of her room behind her, but her sobs come through the walls loud and clear. Her annoying, gross sobs.
I can hear the old lady knocking on her door now, begging her to open up. She didn't do that to me.
I don't care. I don't care about anything. In fact, I hate anything, everything! Just like life must hate me.
Whew, sorry, that was a long one! This one is by hundreds of words the longest chapter to date. I don't know why, but my chapters just are getting longer. I think it's a combination of there being more POVs, though I do try to make them a tiny bit shorter as most of the intros, even though some of them come in at over a thousand words, and my writing just getting better. I flows now more than it did when I started this story, and I am very proud of my progression.
Anyways, what did you all think of this one? I am very proud of this chapter and every single POV inside, and we also got to see some entertaining, heartwarming, and even steamy character interactions. Give all of your thoughts in the reviews, PLEASE!
Questions of the chapter:
What character interaction was your favorite between tributes, and on the same topic, do you have any alliance predictions?
What is the name of the male District Five mentor?
The next chapter should be out in two weeks or so, and it will feature six more tributes on the second day of train rides and as they reach the Capitol. The one after that will be the brunt of the prep rooms, plus the parades. Then, we will have an interlude with Viola, another one of our old friends all the way back from the second prologue, and she will watch the parade and also dish out some spicy Capitol subplot action. I'm really excited for this!
I cannot ask you enough to review and have a great day or night or afternoon or whatever.
-Mills