Chapter 3.

We've been riding the train for maybe two hours now. Johanna tells us that we need to sell everything we have to offer and she's right. Popular tributes always do better. So our aim is to become popular. Our names will be the talk of every citizen in the Capitol. We finish our lunch and Soren asks us if we would like to see the other district reapings. I don't particularly want to but there isn't anything else that I could be doing. Besides, it'll pass the time. We're lead in yet another compartment that's filled with big, stuffy couches and a flat screen TV. The reapings are already finished but the capitol plays them over and over for the rest of the day.

Nothing surprises me about the career district reapings. For district 1 a monstrous boy the size of an ox and a tall, sleek girl with a sneer on her face. A muscled boy from district 4 with black hair and onyx slanted eyes, a striking girl with a kind face from district 5. They pass over our district, me crying, Lucifer looking confused. The silence of the crowd. The reapings continue, a poor trembling girl from District 8. It's District 12 that catches my eye the most though. A small girl with eyes the colour of ice and blonde hair to match but it's the boy that causes the ruckus. As soon as his name is drawn he turns in the crowd, pushing a stocky, medium height blond boy to the ground. He darts through the crowd and somehow manages to get past the peacekeepers back into the town. The peacekeepers are right on his tail though and eventually they'll catch him. I want to know what's going to happen to the boy from District 12.

"Fool!" Johanna spits "They'll only make his experience worse now!" With that she gets up and stomps out of the compartment grumbling.

"She's right. The fate of that boy..." Soren trails off. Then he gets up and excuses himself for a beverage.

Lucifer sighs shaking his head. Nothing that's going to happen to that boy will be good. He looks at me and asks me a question that has nothing to do with what we watched.

"Did Corin tell you...?"

I blink. I have no idea what he's talking about.

"Tell me what? He told me good luck that's it."

His reaction is not what I expect it to be, crossed between a frown and exasperation.

"O-oh. Never mind then."

"What? Was he supposed to tell me something?"

Lucifer gets up and looks out the window of the train. Trees and mountains whip by at blazing speed.

"Er...yeah...but it's nothing, never mind."

This annoys me. If Corin was supposed to tell me something at least Lucifer could tell me because chances are I'm not going to see Corin any time soon. I ask him again but he brushes it off with a wave of his hand. I vent my feelings by aiming one the plush pillows from the couch at his head. It hits him in the back of the head.

"Tributes aren't allowed to fight before getting into the arena." He says jokingly.

"Bite me."

"Forsythia look!"

Lucifer abruptly has himself pressed up the train's window with a look of awe on his face.

"What?"

"Just look! There it is!" he's waving me over to the window hastily.

I gasp. There it is. The Capitol. In all its splendor of what it's described to be, towering buildings, crystal clear lakes, fountains. It's massive. The people here are something else. Soren's dress looks tame compared to what some of the citizens are wearing. Ridiculous hats and outfit pieces, some are even trailing pink dogs behind them. I laugh out loud at the sight of them. It goes pitch black as we enter the tunnel but bright light comes back into the compartment as we roll into the station. People swarm the platform. Hundreds of jewel coloured people, chattering one another eagerly, waving and cheering. They're so excited, so excited to see us die.

I try to win them over already though, smiling and waving back, winking and blowing kisses. They love it. Soren comes to collect us and informs us that we will be going straight to the training center and will not go to the remake center until tomorrow as many of the tributes will not arrive in the Capitol until tomorrow morning.

The training center is a huge skyscraper with a dome top that peeks over the rest of the buildings around it. We pile into the elevator. Soren begins to speak and Johanna turns her nose up and frowns.

"So-"

"Urgh, I hate this place."

Soren gives a look of annoyance to Johanna and continues.

"So, you will be on the seventh floor, for district 7!"

He presses the number 7 button and we shoot through the air at an impressive speed. I don't like it; it makes me feel like my stomach has just been shoved up to my throat. I groan when we land on our floor and I step out as quickly as I can into the hallway. Soren shows me my room and tells me that he will be back to let me know when supper is.

My room is something else, and probably has the same square footage of my house. I wish I was back home instead of here though. I think about how Lucifer said Corin was supposed to tell me something. What on earth could it have been? I can't even begin to speculate what it could be. I wonder about Corin, what he's doing right now, possibly sitting at the table in his little hut that could barely pass as something someone should be living in. Did he eat anything today? And here I am any amount of food available at my finger tips by the press of a touch screen remote on my bedside table. It's despicable, every aspect of this. And what about my family? What are they doing?

I fiddle with the remote to distract myself, pressing the various applications it has to offer; heat or air conditioning, music, a button that opens the closet and reveals every kind of fashion imaginable, or my favorite, different scenes that can be projected to the large floor to ceiling window. My favorite is a babbling brook with real birds singing in the background.

I occupy myself further by going through the extensive closet. Nothing really suits my taste that much as it is mostly Capitol style but I quite liked a few things.

Soren collects us for dinner, which is even more grandeur than our lunch on the train. We eat until there is no way we could eat anymore and then we retire for the night. Despite having the most plush, silky bed I have ever been on, I fall into a restless sleep until Soren is knocking on my door once more to wake us up and bring us to the remake center.

"We're going to make you look fabulous dear." Gushes Prospero, a funny man whose part of my prep team, his hair is dyed a deep maroon and he wears thick gold rimmed glasses. The glasses make his eyes look huge so he looks like this odd gold and red bug.

Teanna and Nori nod in agreement that's just as enthusiastic as Prospero's comment. Teanna is a tall, skinny woman with short blonde hair adorned with funny ornaments like fruit and stuffed animals. Nori is a short woman with a sheet of seaweed green hair and eyes to match.

The remake process is a little more intense then I would have liked, especially the meticulous shaping of my eyebrows which still burn. Any hair removal was painful though, surely they could have thought of a less painful way.

After what seems like hours of washing, buffing, shampooing, and hair trimming I am finally deemed fit to see my stylist. I wait for her on the cold table where my prep team had done their work.

"Hi there Forsythia! I'm Maria, your stylist!" says a high pitched voice.

I prop myself up from the table. Maria is a tiny little woman with long black braided hair with bright flowers tucked in-between. Her outfit is completely bright teal.

"Hi...wait you aren't the usually stylist I see for District 7."

"Oh I'm not, but Jewel had to take a mental health leave so I'm here instead! I am just so excited" She beams.

"Oh, I understand!" And I try to replicate her sweet smile back to her. She seems like a bit of an airhead but genuine enough.

"If you would please take that robe off just for a moment please?" She asks.

I hesitate at first as I am just about as self conscious about my body as another girl my age nevertheless I try to stand as tall as I can for her. She looks at me, nodding her head as she thinks.

"Hmmm...yes, body straight as a ruler...no curves..." she makes a clicking sound as she shakes her head back and forth.

Oh yeah. That makes me feel great about myself.

"But your face my dear is gorgeous, we must, must,must make this the center of attention!" She says, cupping my face and turning it side to side. "You can put your robe back on!"

She steps back looking very excited. "The tribute parade is tonight and I just really hope you like the idea Silvius and I have come up with!" she claps her hands together and makes a noise that sounds like 'squee'.

'We're not trees are we?" I ask, hoping that we aren't. The tributes from District 7 are almost always trees.

"Oh no no no!" she says "but we must get started!"

I smile again and say "Work your magic."