This chapter is dedicated to Jammerock2000. Happy birthday, Jam.

This is just a little dinnery sidey chapter I wrote for Jam's birthday because he said he wanted a chapter for his birthday, so it's short.

It's also an update chapter. I know I seem to write agonizingly slow, and post short chapters. I get distracted easily. Spring Break is coming up, and most of the people who distract me will be away, and most of the people of the Forum I RP on will still have school... I'm not promising anything, but perhaps we can expect one or two updates next week? One can only hope.

Also, I really hope this doesn't make me slower, but in about two or three weeks, I'm starting up softball again, and track has been going on, as well as the final dash to the end of school (yay! summer break!), which I'm predicting will bring a lot of homework, if I can base it off the night I wrote this... So I may be getting busier, which means less time for writing, which displeases Wjj. At least it's not five to six hours of activity every night like some people I know. If you take school, sleep, etc., into factor, they have about twenty minutes of free time every night. I could not survive with twenty minutes of Internet and other things I do in my free time on a daily basis. I just couldn't. Maybe on busy nights. But not every day.

So this is my little happy-birthday/tell-everyone-what's-going-on-legally chapter. We wouldn't want to get this story deleted too, would we?

Enjoy, everyone!

D7- 16- (Damien Andrews)

Welcome to hell. It's glittery, sparkly, and full of creepy, laughing people who remind me oddly of the dolls my mother kept before she died, which looked like they were coated in makeup with the fanciest hairstyles and the nicest clothes. The buildings are tall and the colors do not balance each other. There are no mediums; all the colors are too bright or two dark. And at the center of hell lives the devil, also known as President Attica Jacobson.

Yes, this is hell.

Others call it the Capitol. I call it what it is.

In the midst of dinner, I think about how awful life is in the Capitol, the place I hate more than anything. I think about how ugly my prep team and stylist and escort is. I think about how agonizingly dull my district partners are and how idiotic my mentors are. All I can think of are all these negatives and everything that could go wrong and how terrible I am and will be and how the mentors' lives cost twenty-three other lives and how if I win, my life will cost twenty others'...

"Damien?" Tracy asks in her Capitol voice. I cringe, looking up, and suddenly everything's okay. Things suck, but it's okay.

"Yes?" I say, almost shyly, scratching my head.

"Ella's been trying to get your attention for at least five minutes," she tells me with a small, helpful smile. I nod and turn to my thirty-nine-year-old mentor Ella Acres.

She swallows down a spoonful of soup and motions to my plate. "Eat," she says when her food is down. "You need energy for training tomorrow." I find myself looking down at the mountainous load of food that has been placed on my plate without my knowing. I nod gratefully and take a small taste of meat. I find that it is good, and eat more. I look up to Ella, and she nods in approval. "Good. Enjoy it while you can. Bulk up as much as Damienly possible for the arena. She smiles a little and I look down at my plate, feeling the stares of three stylists, three mentors, two tributes, and an escort all on me, the one who wasn't eating. Anger boils up in my skin and blood again, but I shove it down and lock it away.

Calm, Damien... Eat, like Ella said.

I do. And so does Decon and Jae. It's an eerily silent dinner. We've all decided we don't want to train together or share training secrets, so mentors can't talk about training over dinner, and there's not much else to talk about. Nothing anyone wants to mention or bring up, at least. We sit in silence until dinner is over, and I'm happy to go off with Ella and actually engage in conversation, even if it becomes depressing, with someone.

"How was training?" is the first question she asks. We've come to my room. I sit on the edge of my bed and she sits on a chair near the window, which has thick glass that seems impenetrable.

This is easy. Not so bad is what my mouth opens to say, my lips forming the "not," but that's not what I say. Instead, what I spit out is: "Not good."

And then I realize it really didn't go good. I couldn't get my hands on any weapons I prefer to try to train with, I kept running into the Careers, they kept sending me death glares, and I couldn't for the life of me start a fire, which totally and completely embarrassed be. This is what angered me at dinner, I now know, and when Ella looks at me curiously, all of this tumbles out in a rant. I can feel the anger again.

I can't control it this time.

"Oh," Ella says as response. "It was like that for me in my first day too, Damien, but trust me, it'll get better tomorrow."

I narrow my eyes. "How do you know? You don't know anything!" I snarl, standing up and stepping towards my door, away from Ella, like she's a rodent or has a disease. "Nothing!"

"Damien, calm down," Ella orders. I can tell she's trying to be soothing. "Please."

I shake my head. "You're clueless," I snap. "I can't trust you. You'll... You will get me killed! I know it."

Ella sighs and sits back, staring at me. She looks out the thick-glassed window and pulls a cord so the curtain slides up and out of the way of the window, the Capitol's lights flooding into the dimly-lit room. Only a small lamp off in the corner by Ella brightens my room, and it's just so she can flip through some paperwork and questions she's written down, notes she's taken on what strategies we may take. I scowl. Plans to kill me might be in there. I'm useless to her. Why bring me home? Maybe she likes one of the other tributes better.

I storm out of the room and go to the kitchen, grabbing up a roll leftover from dinner as Avoxes lay out the decent leftovers as snacks and take up what we didn't eat on our plates and what looks sort of mashed up or too-eaten from dinner to throw away. I eat the roll angrily, my teeth chomping together violently with each bite as I rip the bread to bread-shreds in my teeth, reducing it to nothingness as I swallow.

The Avoxes stare, but I don't even care. I just sit down and eat at the snacks and extras the Avoxes are setting out. After about ten minutes, I return to my room and sigh, sitting back down at my bed. Ella looks up. "All better?" she asks, to which I nod.

We talk about training until we're both about to fall asleep.