I head down to breakfast and I am met with Symma and Eila, but no Corvin.
Avoxes carry food in on trays until the table is filled to the usual amount of food. I start in hungrily as Eila talks about how important it is to "give the Game makers a reason to remember me." When I'm finally finished eating some sort of pastry treat that tastes like cinnamon, Corvin walks in and sits down.
"For once I'm earlier than you," I mutter.
"Well, it is four in the morning," he contradicts me, and I lay my fork down on the table, reach for the orange juice, and pour some in a glass without responding.
"We have to be in the training arena by one o'clock noon," Symma clarifies, "because we are going last. Until then, you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't include getting into trouble." She casts a steely glance my way. I'm not sure what I did but that look never does end up making its way to Corvin.
I decide once I'm done with breakfast that I'll go back to my room and take a shower. I carefully navigate the dimly lit tile hallways until I find my room. I walk in, go to the bathroom and take off my clothes.
Back in District 12 we don't have showers, but I had heard of them before. Even though I have a mild understanding of how they work and how to operate them, this one is much more difficult than I had imagined. All kinds of dials and buttons line up on one side of the shower. I'm able to get some warm water running. Even though I'd like to make it hotter it just feels too wrong to use all that luxury when I know that there are still freezing, starving children at home.
Finally I end up finding out how to get some soap and it comes out in a rosy smelling spray. I rub it in and for another twenty minutes or so I just stand in the warm water and adjust the spray so it comes out like a massage. This is the first time I realize how tense my muscles are so I let them relax; it feels really good to just forget about everything and let go.
When I'm done with the shower I dry off in some towels that just have to be made out of clouds. I dress into the usual brown sweats and T-shirt. Feeling much more refreshed, I plop down on my bed and let a huge sigh escape my mouth.
I decide to explore my room a little and end up finding some interesting things. First of all there is a little tablet in the corner embedded into a table. I soon find that if you push a little blue button at the top then say someone's name it will call them and they can talk to you from wherever they are. I test it out by saying "Corvin" and in a moment I hear his voice ringing through my little room. While him and I are talking about other discoveries that we've made, I push a little green button and Corvin's image is suddenly standing on the little table, just smaller. Giving a shriek, I retreat to the bed, stunned. I've never seen anything like it!
"Corvin you- you're in my room!" I stutter.
"No I'm not," he insists. "I've seen that too. I'm using it right now! It is showing what you're doing to me right now. No offense," I can hear the shyness in his voice, "You kind of look hilarious."
"I will get you for that," I say, and turn off the tablet. By eleven o'clock, Corvin has showed up at my room holding a picnic basket and suggesting we have lunch on the roof, which has become a famous spot for tribute lunches over the years.
"Sorry, Corvin..." I say, remembering I was never supposed to get close to him. Even using the tablet with him pushed the boundaries of my promise.
"I already told the avoxes we didn't need lunch," he said with his infamous smile. Half of my mind was secretly happy; the other half wanted to punch him in the face.
"I guess," I say, trying to sound not at all excited. We walked to the roof, and luckily we were the only ones there. Corvin laid down a soft blanket that seemed to be made out of the same material as the towels in my bathroom, and I swear I almost fell asleep on it before he even got lunch out of the basket.
It turns out his "basket" wasn't a "basket" at all. It was kind of like a direct menu from the Avoxes. He just typed in what he wanted, and it would materialize inside the box. We had fun ordering ridiculous things like some kind of sauce called "reney" but in a huge bowl. Once we got it we realized how awful it tasted so we decided to sit out on that one.
"They say there's a force field here to keep tributes from jumping off the building," Corvin explains.
"Yeah," I say. "Wanna test it?"
He laughs out loud. "Yeah, if you want to be fried." He turned to me, suddenly serious. "Do you know how many tributes have eaten up here? Do you know how many of those tributes walked to their death the very next day?" I thought about it. Two hundred and sixty-four years. But surely this rooftop hadn't been discovered until at least twenty or so years into the Games.
District 12 has eighteen victors as of this very year. Eighteen in two hundred sixty-four years. That's not many. We didn't even have a victor, I hear, until the fiftieth anniversary of the Games. But I'm not sure if that's true.
Corvin and I kept talking. sometimes about serious things, other times laughing and joking. He wouldn't be my top choice of people to stay with in my last few days, but I didn't have much of a choice. It was either him or Symma/Eila. The lesser of two evils.
Eventually I got up enough courage to ask the dreaded question. "Who were those boys you were with at the Reaping?" I asked without looking at him. We were laying on our backs looking at the clouds.
He stared at me a minute before answering, "You saw us? Well, one of them was my... brother. The other was a friend of mine."
"No," I said stubbornly. "On the train you said you were an only child."
"Don't you think I was a little busy," he said, twirling another finger in my hair, "being in love with you?"
I didn't answer. I knew he was lying.
"Why does it matter?" He asked. "Maybe someday I'll tell you. Not now. Not when we're about to go to the Gamemakers." He pulled his hand back and continued to stare at the sky.
"What do the Gamemakers have to do with it?" I questioned.
"Nothing," he said quickly. Changing the topic, he said, "Isn't it strange that they haven't gotten rid of the clouds yet? In a city so perfect, don't you think they'd be tired of rain and shadows by now?" As if on cue, one of the smaller clouds flickered. A projection.
Again, I didn't answer him, but I didn't think there was really a need to answer anyway. For the rest of the time we stayed there, I didn't see any clouds flicker. I wondered where the projector was.
By noon, we were heading back down into the building to get ready to go meet the Gamemakers. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, told myself I was ready, and followed Symma to the training arena. This would be the last time I saw the arena. This would be the first time I met the Gamemakers.