That night after first grouping with our male mentor, choosing to be trained separately, and watching a recap of the reapings, we were shown to our rooms. The rocking of the train had lulled me into a restless sleep. I am awoken early by our Capitol escort with her peculiar accent, tapping the wooden door with her long, sharp fingernails.
"Up, up, up! We have a very, very huge day ahead!"
I bury myself beneath the blanket, cocooning my face in the satin covers. Maybe if I pretend I'm not here, I'll cease to exist and they'll forget about me. Not a chance it hell. I drag myself out of bed. The previous evening was a blur and pains my head to attempt to remember anything other than making acquaintance with our mentor. I realise my discarded dress is not in sight from where I abandoned it last night. An avox must have taken it.
I tread over to the bathroom and view all the fancy controls for the shower. What the hell are all these for? I step into the glass space and push a few buttons that look appealing. First I am doused in a florally scented foam before being sprayed with water that looks like liquid silk and leaves my skin pearly.
It's a weird sensation, showering. It kind of reminds me of spring flowers and the daisy chains I can construct from the small blossoms in the meadow. The very same daisy chains I had given Tyde just yesterday morning. In the long summers we picked the meadow raw, leaving flowers sparse, far and few between. The daisies were all in our crowns.
I retreat from the bathroom back into my compartment. Upon opening the wardrobe, I discover it filled with all kinds of clothes. How were the clothes all in my size? Had they selected me prior to the ceremony and just rigged the ball? If so, how did they even have my measurements? I decide not to think much of it, slipping on some tight black pants and a dark blue sweater, the most normal and least revealing things I can find.
The fabric is soft, so much softer than any of my clothes back home that have been washed and washed again until they are threadbare. It feels like some kind of cashmere, but I'm not sure. Perhaps I should know if I hailed from somewhere such as District Eight. But I don't, so I don't know. I look down at the shimmering material against my shimmering skin. What a match.
I'm reluctant when I walk through the train sections into the dining carriage, where nobody even notices my entry until I'm sitting down and piling my plate with breakfast.
"Goodness, you're here. We were wondering if you'd ever come!"
I make no effort to reply to my mentor's comment, instead picking up my utensils to eat, but easily tiring to it and resorting to eating with my fingers. I catch our escort's eye and she purses her plump, purple lips at my eating demeanour. I ignore her disapproval of my habits simply because I don't care, plus because the meal is delicious. I catch our male tribute smirking as he puts down his utensils and begins eating with his fingers, which almost makes me smile. At least we're on the same team.
Sausages covered in a rich, creamy sauce, spiced ham and a thick slice of smooth, white bread spread with goat's cheese. I absolutely love goat's cheese. To wash down the food is a cup of orange juice in a decorative glass. Light conversation is attempted after the meal.
"Right, now, I'll be mentoring you through your Games." Says our mentor, Vincent, I now recall his name to be. We'd been told we would meet our other mentor, Helena, in the Capitol. Apparently she had some kind of "business" going on down there. "Here's what will happen. First you'll train and then you'll each have a private session with the game-makers to determine your training score and your odds of winning. Then you'll be in the arena."
Vincent has dark reddish hair and brown eyes. Even though he tries to look neat, he has a naturally dishevelled appearance. His eyebrows are thick and dark, and he always has fine stubble growing along his jaw. Some kind of permanent five o'clock shadow. A long, puckered scar runs down the side down his face from his temple to his jaw. I didn't piece it together last night, but today I realise his left leg is prosthetic from the knee down. His walking aid is crutch in the crook of his shoulder. I assume this is a result of his Games. People leave the Hunger Games with scars; whether physical or mental.
But wouldn't they be able to erase these scars and fix his leg after the Games?
Both the male tribute and I remain quiet. Vincent laughs coldly. "Quiet bunch, aren't you?"
His voice is thick and gruff, like most of the Industrial men. I decide I don't like it, coming from his mouth. He's filthy rich and not one of us anymore. My district partner looks over to me, but I only look down to the table.
After breakfast, there's a few more hours to kill before we arrive in the Capitol. Even though I feel like being alone, I know the boy's looking to me again.
"What's your name?" He says. I'm not expecting it and almost jump out of my skin with fright. Very eager.
After settling back down, I tense again. He does realise that familiarising yourself with the other tributes is sure to get you killed, right? Eventually he looks away, realising I'm not going to answer him. Oh.
"Finch." I whisper.
He turns back to me and a smile flickers across his reddish lips. "I'm Jayson." Jayson. I finally had a name to the face.
Growing up, I never really had many friends. I had Tyde, and I told myself he was all I needed. I'm lucky he never let go of me, despite my reluctance to meet people. And he did try to get me to make friends. Even his girlfriend thinks I'm weird, and has no idea why he continues to be my friend. I knew I would end up on my face if I tried; sparing myself the pain seemed the safest option at the time.
But now everything has changed. If I'm going to die, what's the point? I'll let myself get to know Jayson, for now. I think of Tyde, and of how he'd probably be throwing some kind of party if he knew, cue terrible Tyde voice, Finch is actually talking to somebody that isn't herself!
Jayson tells me his parents both worked in the old Nuclear Plant. You only have to mention the Nuclear Plant to pale anyone over thirty's face. It is a topic best left unspoken in most peoples' eyes. For as long as District Five had stood, the Nuclear plant had formed the foundation of our society. We built around it and despite the choking fumes we managed to live beside it.
Fission in the Nuclear Plant was resource-consuming and hardly efficient, but it got the job done. The chain reactions in the nuclear fuels were bordering on dangerous, but ceasing energy production would have been even more dangerous considering the workers. Without power, the Capitol would have crippled, and the blame would have been directly on those factory workers and their families. Over time, the Capitol allowed expenditure on a new factory and depot, except construction would have taken far more time than they had left before the entire plant blew.
Build-up of radioactive material threatened the sustainability of the air and living conditions of the people in Five, as there was no way nuclear waste could be managed within the district. The explosion was inevitable, in a way. Everybody saw it coming but nobody could bear to think of the consequences of such an occurrence. Even though my mother was working in the Solar Plant at the time, she said the impact could be felt miles away. She said the ground had shook like an earthquake and the people thought the sky was going to crash down upon them.
The explosion would not have caused such a quake if it weren't for the chain reaction between it and the Thermal Plant, which converts heat into energy. The effect was lethal. The dual electrical explosion killed hundreds of people working inside both plants, who were quite literally vaporised, and injured those within a mile radius via the shrapnel and burning material who were working in the solar fields. It's only a miracle the town had begun to shift further and further away from the old plant, filling the in-between with fields of solar panels.
Jayson and his younger sister live in the community home where there is never enough to fill everybody's stomachs. Everyone in those homes are forced to each take tesserae each year for grain and oil in return for the community home's hospitality. If you could call it that.
Jayson knows a lot more about our fellow passengers than I do, and so he tells me about them. Our escort's name is Petalla Garnet and has a strange fascination for anything sparkly. She's drawn to it like a moth to a light, in Jayson's exact words.
Vincent's full name is Vincent Audren and before he won the 51st annual Hunger Games he had worked in the solar fields, just like I do now. The solar fields are where any Industrial kid older than eleven works. Those fields stretch on for miles. His sector was partially destroyed by burning materials in the dual explosion and he was cut off from work and income, forced to enter himself several times for tesserae for each of his family members, who were all too young or too old to enter themselves. Having a total of fifty-seven entries into the glass ball, the odds were not exactly in his favour. Not at all.
He asks me if I want to watch Vincent's Games with him. I say yes, relieved that we wouldn't have to speak during the video. He brings out the tape for the 51st Games.
With odds of 22-1, Vincent was labelled a bloodbath tribute, but lasted far longer than he should have. He made it to the final five just by hiding out. He was attacked by muttations while hovering near the outskirts of the Cornucopia, in the Capitol's attempt to draw the tributes together. They were rabbits as white as snow with huge, razor sharp teeth. His left leg was left shredded and a large gash was opened on his face. It dawns on me that this is where his injuries are derived of. Freakish rabbit mutts.
What I don't understand is why he still has such prominent injuries when all other victors are remade after their Games. Had he refused? Did he want Panem to see his scars?
Claudius Templesmith had announced a feast at dawn, and he thought it might have been something to help his leg. To his dismay, when the table opened up, it was stocked high with nothing but weapons.
All four of the other tributes fought viciously, reducing one another to dust. Somewhere around the second death, he dragged himself out into the open and pretended to be dead on the ground; all he had to do was watch. The Capitol must have picked it up as his tracker was still recording a heartbeat. When a solitary victor was left standing, who believed they had just won the Games, Vincent mustered all the strength he had and threw a spear into the back of the off-guard tribute.
The last shot is of him being collected in a hovercraft, his face unrecognisable through the layers of caked blood and mud.
When the tape ends, we try to find Helena's tape but neither of us can remember what Games she had won. In the silence that follows is when we hear the voices.
There's that thick, powerful voice, quite muffled by the wall separating us. It's only obvious it's Vincent. "Look at them in there; we have no hope! I can see it in them! Won't make it two minutes in like this- happens every damn year!"
"They were reaped, Vincent. I can't change that." A quieter voice replies, urging him to hush. I can't quite place the other voice. It's odd, too soft and too mellow for our escort. But it has to be her, because who else is on this train?
"If they're too scared to speak to me now what chance do they have in the arena? Absolutely none! How am I supposed to figure out their strong points and weaknesses? Hopeless. Might as well kill them now before we let them get killed in there- would spare me my dignity."
I can't hear our probably-escort's soft reply, as she has urged him down to a harsh whisper. I exchange a look with Jayson, who is wide-eyed and obviously listening too. He gets up and goes to his room, and I to mine, not coming out until we see the bright lights of the Capitol looming in the distance.
Brutally long and boring, trying to cram all this information in! x x
