A flashback:
My eyes see nothing but fire, thick spitting flames, and smoke. The pillars are engulfed in red and orange, and the flames continue to slither up the ancient vines of my house. The fire feeds into and the windows, and the house crumbles under the insurmountable weight of arson. Appreciative hollers dash between the men and women stampeding the front yard, and stab like a knife through the blistering hot air. Em's arms are clasped around my neck as I pull her across the dimly lit City Circle to a safe spot behind the bakery. She begs me not to leave her there but I am scorching, my legs are hot and tired and my face is red, so red, and my chest contracts searching for air and all I receive is smoke and I just kiss her forehead and order Onyx to stay with her and I run back to the house.
Mother and Father are dying next to the old oak tree. The crowd takes no notice, and keeps throwing things into the ever-growing fire. It is almost impossible to describe the feeling of pure heat. A woman standing amidst the crowd takes a wide stance, arches her back, and throws her arms behind her, screaming like a maniac. I notice the thick hardback book she grips, it's a copy of hundreds of letters that were written between my parents rebel group and District 13. She hurls it into the fire, her frail body stumbling forward as she does so. A gasp escapes my chest and forms into a scream that tumbles out of my lungs with a force that leaves me feeling breathless, like I've really lost myself. The woman turns around, takes in my appearance, and strikes me across the cheek with a small dagger. Warm blood oozes out of my cheek.
Before she can take another lunge at me I've crawled to my feet and escaped through the crowd, each step a struggle. There are Peacekeepers milling around the outskirts of the scene, but not one of them takes action. Their guns hang loosely in their hands. We are taught in school to look up to Peacekeepers, they keep us safe, but they are also corrupt. My parents didn't like the Capitol, and now the Capitol doesn't care for us.
Mother and Father are almost gone. I think about turning around, bringing Onyx and Em back, but I can't take the chance of leaving my mother and father abandoned during their last minutes of life. It is selfish of me. That is yet another hot, fiery feeling inside of me.
I can't believe I'm looking at my parents. Their prototype beauty is masked with pain and scar. The skin is gone on the right side of my mother's face, her snow-white bone visible. Her chest moves in small heaves as she lifts her hand to my lap.
"Is there anything I can do? Mother, do say something?" I ask in a shaking voice.
She nods to the green-jeweled ring on her finger.
"Take this? You want me to take this?"
She nods again.
Gingerly, I slide the ring off the majority of her finger. When it reaches the top of her knuckle she pulls it slowly to her lips and kisses it. She gives it to me, painfully slowly, and I grasp it tight in my hand, feeling the jewel pierce my skin. She closes her eyes. I place my hand on her forehead, my body flooded with her oven-like temperature. Her body is still. With a kiss, she dies.
My dad makes a frightful choking noise as his wife's breathing goes silent. White-hot tears drip down my face. I crawl on my hands and knees towards him. It is painful to look at him; his skin is charred and bleeding. His eyes look like they would be very, very happy to die. I touch his hand and he whimpers, unable to voice how much it hurts.
"My God, what has happened to us?" I say, mostly to myself. I wish I could have a special moment with my father before he's gone but the Capitol lapdogs are shouting and chanting and throwing things at my house as it collapses and turns our yard to char. Peacekeepers finally march in, but I don't think they are trying very hard to control the chaos.
My dad shuts his eyes and cries. Unable to touch him, I just kneel next to him pathetically and let the sobs wash over me. I pound my fist into the grass and say, "Daddy, daddy, daddy" until I don't hear a whimper anymore. He's gone.
Perhaps when the closest objects in one's life pass on, they sit in mourning and rethink the memories; like the way my mother's eyes would light up when Onyx wore her perfume, or the way my father's booming laugh echoed up the staircase, or the swell I felt in my chest when I saw the two of them flip through a wedding album. But I didn't. I sat next to the still bodies, numbly, and thought about the temperature around me. Heat specifically.
I didn't think I could ever be cold again.
...
But as I sit on a steel table in the Remake Center wearing a paper-thin sheet, I realize I was horribly wrong. It's been hours and I haven't seen Krates, my stylist. I curl up on one side of my freshly scrubbed, shaved, plucked, and moisturized body and hug my knees to my chest. I breath hot air on my raw skin.
"You probably get this a lot," Priscus, a man from my prep team, begins. I scramble to sit up in pure surprise, trying awkwardly to conceal what I'm afraid the shapeless dress is not. "But you are absolutely stunning. Easily one of the gorgeous tributes I've ever laid eyes on. Krates has a crystal clear vision for you, I'm sure. Your eyes take my-"
"What?" I interrupt in a moment of awe. "Wait, I was… er… Excuse me?"
Priscus is a young man, probably my age, and his voice sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the fact that I'm wearing a hospital gown and the Remake Center does not seem to have a proper heating system. His hair is powder blue and spiked gently over his forehead. He has dark almond shaped eyes with tired purple shadows underneath. His lips the same color of the dark circles. Why is it that he was born in the Capitol and I in District 1? Thinking about it is eerie and confusing.
"The golden blond hair, the emerald eyes, the thin body. I've seen dozens of tributes from District 1 but you are… different."
"Krates is going to have lots of fun with you!" Lucretia, a woman with silvery blond hair and long, orange eyes lashes, nearly shouts.
Are they making fun of me?
I scowl and turn to dangle my legs off the edge of the steel table, feeling flushed and shy. To make matters worse, Gloss barges in looking very important in a midnight blue tux.
"He isn't even here yet?" Gloss hisses at Priscus through gritted teeth.
"No sir."
Gloss stares at him incredulously, then to Lucretia, then to me. His eyes narrow and linger on me a minute longer then I want them to. I look back at him with a wide, innocent gaze, not matching his intensity.
"Could you at least start putting a little make-up on her?" Gloss scoffs condescendingly, and strides out of the door muttering something under his breath. I don't care for him too much.
Lucretia brings two other make-up artists in the room, both of whom have skin dyed a pale shade of lavender. Along with Priscus, they begin doing my makeup for the Opening Ceremony. The color palette seems to be silver, emerald green, and baby blue.
"The enhancement looks absolutely gorgeous, Q." Lucretia says as she spreads a pale pink highlighter across my eyelids and freshly moisturized lips.
"Doesn't it?" One of the purple-shaded girls with a nametag reading AQUILA responds, not even bothering to say thank you. I assume they're talking about her cheekbones that have so obviously been surgically re-made. They are extremely high and reach back all the way to her temples. Her face looks thinner, I suppose, but it isn't at all natural. She reaches her long, bony fingers to her cheeks and admires the work, I have a feeling Aquila has an obsession with being thin.
Anneless was the other stylist with a tinted purple skin. Her hair is wheat colored, and she had it braided and piled on top of her head in a complicated manor. She makes eye contact with me every couple of seconds. I feel it is rude to stare, but these people are so… fascinating.
"I really need to order the colored contacts, though," Aquila says, her voice cutting. Her eyes seem to be the only untouched element left on her body. They're a nice, deep shade of brown. No one has been seen in District 1 with brown eyes for a long time. "I need something that pops. A stunning shade of blue, perhaps?"
"Something like Glimmer's?" Anneless suggests happily.
Aquila nods, but avoids eye contact. She really means to compliment me, I decide, but she is obviously envious.
"I like them," I say as Lucretia drags a think, silvery pencil across my left eyelid. "The color. They're… unique."
Aquila clasps her free hand over her heart gratefully, but looks to Anneless and says something with her eyes.
…
"Glimmer… it's an absolute pleasure. I'm sure you know who I am."
It takes a minute before I'm fully conscience of my manners. I smile faintly and force my back to be stick straight.
"Nice to meet you, too." I nod gratefully. Oh, Krates. He has done work in the Hunger Games for years, of course I know him. He is a pathetically small and thin little man, but with some lean muscle I suppose. His hair looks, honestly, like Em could have colored it. It's quite fluorescent, mostly an ocean blue with flicks of purple or jade. His eyelashes are ridiculously long, and a twisty, white vine is drawn from his temples, to his cheeks, to his lips, separating one half of his face from the other.
"I just met with Marvel and we are going to make you look sensational," he promised, announcing every work very importantly. "WELL, aren't you excited?" Krates crosses his arms impatiently.
"Of course!" My voice goes up an octave in pure surprise.
He stares at me suspiciously for a moment, then drags me off the table out to, what I hope, is the closet with my outfit. I think my act is convincing no one.