"Oh c'mon, she must be kidding", I thought. "She has to be kidding, right?" but no, that was no joke. And it took two peacekeepers to make me understand that, since I hadn't moved since I heard my name. They brought me to the stage and I looked at the crowd with a goofy smile, but inside I was terrified. My eyes searched for me parents, which I couldn't find due two District Ten's ridiculously big population, and in a matter of a few seconds I was already shaking Ebony's hand which was looking at me with those big blue eyes, scared as hell. At that moment, "shit" was the only word that could came up to my mind.
The peacekeepers brought me to the Justice Building where I was told to wait in a small room. In a few seconds, my parents walked in; my mother was crying or at least pretending to, my father only had a sad look on his face. They both hugged me and for a second, noone said a thing. "You'll be okay sweetie" was what finally came in from my mother's mouth, but I knew none of them thought about the small-almost-non-existent-odd of me winning the Games. Seriously though, everyone in Ten knew how to AT LEAST use a fucking knife to slaughter an animal if necessary, but we were mere trainers. The most I could do was using a rope or a whip which could be easily cut by a knife. Pretty much, I was screwed.
Peacekeepers again entered the room telling my parents the time was over. No one came after them, not even my annoying girl Lexie. But I didn't care, to be honest. I felt like my mind didn't quite understand yet that I was going to die in a few days.
We entered the train, which was totally awesome - food everywhere, and not only animal derivated food. In other words, CANDIES. The train was full of candies and it was awesome. Not gonna lie, if I'm going to die at least I shall make my last days worth living. And the Capitol had thought about that well.
The escort kept talking about boring stuff about the Capitol while I was eating candies, only nodding my head pretending I was listening and interested, which I wasn't. Ebony was sitting down on the couch looking trough the window, she hadn't said a thing since we arrived at the train.
Our mentor soon arrived, an old cowboy who had won ageees ago. What was his name again? Dallas something, I couldn't care less about it anyways. If I recall well, he was known from taming this weird venomous snake mutts created by the Capitol, controlling the death rate by its venom; and had the strongest ever District 10 accent which was the cause of all the other District's making fun of our accent. But he was a good guy.
He sat on the couch next to Ebony, his legs imediatly on the table, and pushed him to her with a friendly smile. Asked her about how she was feeling, but she didn't answer. Dallas let a long sigh escape and turned to me. "What about you, boy?" he asked.
"I'm okay" I answered, shrugging. The look on his face told me he didn't believe me, but he kept going.
"What do you do?" He asked me.
"I train horses," I answered. "And dogs".
"Zero experience with killing, then. " he continued. "Not usual for a District 10 guy".
"You mean that it is a ladies work, then?" I asked, glancing at Ebony. "That's funny coming from a snake tamer guy." Dallas grinned.
"I like you" he told me. "But don't compare cute puppies to venomous snakes, please."
I laughed, and took one more candy. The escort was still by my side, her eyes were staring at me for too long. She was weird. Dallas seemed finished with his conversation with me, so I grabbed a pack of candies and went to my room, hoping that Ebony could freely talk to Dallas without me there.