I'm baaa-aaack! Here's chapter five, and we finally made it to the capitol! Is your heart pounding? Are you nervous, scared, excited? If you're anything like Tobi, you're probably slightly numb from the neck up. Hopefully you can still read...

Also, if you're a returning reader, enjoy the edits! If you're new...well, it's better this way. Really. Not a whole lot changed, just a couple little hints and grammar/technical things. Anyway, it's all better now...unless you see more to fix?

Enjoy!

The morning we pull into the capitol, all my fears return with a vengeance, and I spend my first waking moments choking on them. The time on the train has been like a dream—most of my time was occupied watching the country go by and talking to Finnick, sharing stories-apparently he used to work on the King Fisher's rival boat, the Siamese Betta. And, of course, the occasional discussion of survival tactics. He's in the middle of telling me about how to kill someone with a fishing hook when Blye bursts from her chair and points out the window.

"Oh, look! It's the capitol! Oh, isn't is just beautiful?" And it is. I hate that it is—I feel like it should be ugly, a great scar on the world. But there it towers, glimmering in the sun like wet fish scales. It's breathtaking. I run to the window, ignore Finnick's chuckle at my childish behavior, even ignore the cynic in my head that craves hatred.

"Oscar, come look!" I call to the boy. He approaches slowly, and I grab his hand, pull him up to stand next to me. After a moment, a smile lights his face. At least I'm not the only one. We pass through crowds of capitol dwellers as the train pulls in—each a new color and shape—and Oscar begins to wave, hesitantly. I follow his lead, and we can hear the cheers through the train walls as the thing slows to a stop.

Once off the train, Oscar and I are ushered toward one of the many tall buildings, pushed onto an elevator along with Blye and Finnick, and whisked up to the fourth floor.

"Each district gets their own floor," Blye explains cheerfully. "Here we are! Isn't it wonderful?" I'm starting to think she has an extremely limited vocabulary—she uses the same adjectives for everything.

The place is wonderful, however. It's been furnished, apparently, with district 4 in mind. The color scheme is silver and pearly white and a few different shades of blue. The walls dance with light as though reflected off water, and the chandelier is strung with pearls. The layout is designed a bit like a boat, as well, with the dining space sunken into the floor, window seats and cubbies built into the walls. Oscar and I are shown individually to our rooms—Oscar by Finnick, myself by Blye—which prove to be similarly themed. I nearly cry when I see my bed, built into the wall, and wonder if perhaps they bugged the Bobber, did this on purpose…

All four of us skip dinner—we're too tired. So tired that even my fear, which has been a constant pressure in the back of my mind for hours, quiets. I sleep soundly.

Blye wakes us early, takes us down the elevator and into what must be the basement of the building, where Oscar and I are taken separate ways, led down one of many sterile, white halls. Moments later, I find myself, alone, in a white room full of metal equipment, heart pounding, until the sliding of a door announces the addition of three more people. I stare at them.

There are two women—one with flaming red hair and yellow skin, and a very tall one with silver skin and various colored spikes all over her head. The third was a rather rotund man wearing blue velvet, skin the lightest of purples and hair just a shade darker. They stop perhaps three feet from me, and I imagine I look rather like a clownfish outside its anemone with a barracuda staring my down.

"Hello, dear," the tall silver woman says, voice silky. "You must be Kuria." I nod slowly.

"Call me Tobi."

"Well, Tobi," the man says rather jauntily, "we'll be your handlers from today until the games begin. It's our job to make you look beautiful!" He sings the last word with a flourish, and I nearly offer an amused, quiet smile. Nearly.

"I'm Percei," The silver one introduces herself calmly. "This is Nitya," she gestures to the red and yellow woman, who smiles broadly.

"And I'm Rendwick," the man finishes. The three of them bow to me rather awkwardly before attacking all at once. Before I know it, I'm stripped naked, covered with a paper gown and laid out on a silver table. I feel like I'm about to be gutted.

The next three hours are the worst of my life. I am picked at, slathered with a million kinds of goo, plucked, peeled and pulled at. By the end of it, my newly hairless skin smarts, I smell like a million chemicals, and my face feels like plastic, so my times has it been attacked with tweezers. I lay on the table as Percei, Nitya and Rendwick ooh and aah over my new capitol-level hygiene before exiting the room with me in tow. I'm led down the windowless halls again, deposited in yet another strange room. This one is dark grey, with lush red furniture scattered over the space. Unfortunately, there's still a sterile steel table against a far wall, and it's on this that I am abandoned as my three handlers twitter themselves right out of the room. After another few moments of staring at the ceiling, I hear the door slide open again, sit up on my table.

"Hello miss Silverside," says the new voice. It's thin and soft. "My name is Flux." A man sweeps into view as my eyes readjust. He's much more human looking than the others; tall and pale, with intricate black designs over his bald head and very dark eyeliner, clothed in simple black and white.

"Hello, Flux." My voice is soft, tired. "Call my Tobi." He nods with the lightest of smiles.

"Well, Tobi…how do you feel?" he asks. I shrug, stare at the ground.

"Fine…a bit tampered with." He chuckles, but the sound is oddly apologetic.

"Listen, I know this isn't a game for you," he says slowly. "I'm sorry you're here under these circumstances. But I plan to help you make the best of this that you can." He takes a step back, offers an elegant bow before adding a bright smile. "While you are here, you shall receive nothing but the best from one Flux Herriot. Now, tonight is the tribute parade," he moves on, pulls me to stand before him. "We need to come up with an outfit representative of your district…" he looks me over, clicks his tongue. "I'm sorry—could you take off the gown please, my dear? I need to get a proper look at you." For a moment, I am flustered. And then he offers a reassuring smile, and somehow I feel completely comfortable with him. I have never been a self-conscious person-I spent many a childhood afternoon naked in the bay with Hiram, Mag and Brook-and he somehow manages to make this feel…not awkward. Finally he claps his hands, smiles. "I think I've got an idea," he says happily. "I'll just need to run it by Oscar's people. Here—you can get dressed again. Go on back to your room—I'll call you back in a couple of hours, and then," he claps. "It's show time!"

As he promised, I only kill perhaps two and a half hours, during which Oscar and I watch the footage of the reaping. I can't watch my own—its too strange—but the others prove informative. My heart performs odd acrobatics watching districts 1-3. Careers…all powerhouses. And the boy from 2…something in his face sends chills down my spine. Him and the 11 boy, both. And then there are the ones I think maybe I'll outlast; the boy with the bum leg; the girl from 11. My heart twists when I think about it, but that's just how it is, right? And then we watch 12. I almost cry…and then I wonder, is that what it would have looked like if Brook had volunteered? For the first time, a truly sickening thought crosses my mind: if Brook had volunteered, we would both be here. We'd be expected to kill each other.

When Flux finally calls me back down, I am taken to the same room as before. At first, only Percei, Nitya and Rendwick are there. I am given a full-scale makeover, back in the simple, paper shift, before Flux walks in.

"You look beautiful, dear," he says. I blink rapidly.

"I can't feel my face," I exaggerate, monotone. He chuckles—the other three, still standing against the far wall, titter.

"Now…are you ready to see your dress?" he asks. I nod hesitantly, hoping he won't pull out some sort of all-revealing netting.

I am beyond pleasantly surprised. At first, I can't make heads or tails of the thing, but after a full hour of dressing and more makeup—on a full-body scale—I am allowed to look in the mirror. I gasp at the girl staring back at me. The dress does involve netting…but it's certainly nothing like what I was expecting. The base is a simply, light blue silk, strapless, twisted around the knees and flaring out along the floor, with sequins climbing like the scales on a mermaid's tail. Over my shoulders, and attached to the bodice of the dress, is basically a fishing net, fine and delicate, threaded with pearls. The sequins from the bottom of my dress make a reappearance across my shoulders, up one side of my neck and over the right side of my jaw, to reach the corner of my eye in a single-file line, almost like a tear. My hair is left loose and wavy down my back, with a few pearls threaded into it, and my makeup is simple—just enough darkening that my pale skin and hair, and light grey eyes, pop.

"Oh, Flux…it's wonderful," I whisper. I'm starting to sound like Blye. Flux grins.

"I'm glad you like it!"

"You look like a mermaid!" Nitya exclaims, claps her hands.

"Something straight out of a magical lagoon!" Percei agrees. Flux holds out his arm.

"Ready to meet the world?" he asks. I nod, determined. Here we are at step one of the games…and I am ready to meet it head on.

So here we are, officially into the realm of the true hunger games. What do you think? Did the transition work? Is Tobi believable? Finnick is probably a little ooc...I apologize. I just don't know him super well..anyway, leave me some tips if you feel like it? I live on those things...seriously, and I need to buy groceries soon, and I'm all out of reviews...