Glamour coughed into his hand. The trains they used to bring the tributes to and from the Capitol were filthy, covered in dirty straw and animal residue. The dust was wreaking havoc on his lungs, and every breath was labored and heavy. Every time the train hit a bump, the cabin swayed and rocked like the earth was quaking around it. The trip was just as bad this time around as last, though substantially less crowded. He remembered the way that he and Ruby had been unceremoniously shoved onto the train like livestock and shipped off to die. The ride had been long and arduous, the two of them clutching each other, tears falling from their eyes. They hardly knew each other, but even a small connection to home was better than nothing.
After what had felt like hours, the train briefly stopped to board the rest of the tributes before heading to the Capitol. Glamour remembered the stench more than anything. Being descended from one of the oldest lineages in the luxury district, his family could afford a certain degree of personal care. Although nowhere near the splendor of the Capitol, Glamour had grown up in a large house with toothbrushes, shampoo, and soaps – all things the rest of Panem clearly didn't have access to.
The Gildenbrands were one of a short list of social elites to come out of the Dark Days intact and his parents intended to keep it that way. Siding with the Capitol had its benefits, and the gold mines that supplied wealthy Capitolians with lavish jewelry turned a significant profit that allowed their family to supply the Peacekeeper force in District 1 with arms and supplies. In return the Gildenbrand name had provided him with comfort and protection for his entire life up until his name had been drawn out of that little glass bowl. His family had never expected to be subjected to the Games, but wealthy District was still District and the odds weren't in his favor.
The train lurched and groaned, spitting black smoke out of its chimney. Glamour clutched his stomach gingerly, keeling over. The arena hadn't quite left him yet, and it was all he could do to keep the contents of his stomach inside. The trip had been three, maybe four hours? He wasn't sure. It felt much longer without Ruby to talk to. She'd put up a fight, made it to the top eight, but the girl from 7 had gotten her in the end. The tall, slender lumberjack had been this year's dark horse, taking out both tributes from Two with her mighty, powerful swings. She had made it all the way to the final three before being cut down by the monster from 9.
Glamour shuddered. He hadn't slept at all the night after the Games. His body still tensed at every breeze; his head spun around at the slightest sound. He looked out the thin slit that passed for a window on the side of the car. A blur of green and brown passed by him. It was difficult to recognize anything other than greenery; the train was moving far too fast and the slit was far too small. The cabin made him feel trapped though, and being able to see outside made him less train-sick. He blinked.
When his eyes opened, the trees outside were suddenly gone, replaced with the undead bodies of the boy from 9 and the girl from 6 standing, staring at him. Their eyes were glassy and white with blood coating their pale, bloated bodies, and Glamour decided that actually the inside of the train car was actually quite nice thank you very much and turned around.
He decided to distract himself with thoughts of what waited for him back home. His parents would be overjoyed, of course. The Gildenbrand line needed an heir, and as their only son Glamour would eventually inherit the gold mines that they had built their legacy off of. Gossamer and Gertrude would be happy too, if slightly disappointed at being knocked down the chain of succession again.
Games were not unfamiliar to Glamour. He had spent his entire life so far playing the social one, learning to uphold his family's name and status. Training on how to dress like a proper noble, who to associate with, when to spread rumors and when to hold one's tongue was mandatory from a young age.
Not that the training had been at all useful in the arena. When desperate and crazed 17-year-olds were running at you with knives and swords, knowing what a salad fork was didn't seem nearly as important as it once had. He had panicked, completely losing his cool, and ran around like a headless chicken for the first half of the Games. The Capitol audience had jeered and thrown popcorn at him as he peeled himself to the arena walls, desperately trying to blend into the concrete to avoid being seen.
The crowd had been somewhat disappointed when the trumpets sounded and the cowardly boy who spent most of the Games running away was declared the Victor of the 3rd Hunger Games. He had only managed two kills, one indirectly. The girl from 6 had adopted the same tactic as him, hiding on the edge of the arena, and after stumbling across each other, Glamour had shoved her into the path of 9, who promptly disemboweled her. The records technically counted it as a shared kill, but Glamour refused to let it weigh on his conscience. He had only pushed her; everything else that happened to her… that boy had something deeply, deeply wrong with him.
The train halted to a stop, screeching against the rails. The back door to the car slid open. "Maintenance on the front wheel, sorry." An engineer poked his head into the cabin. "Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes…" He hesitated. "I watched the Games. Lyman… Well, I think you really did the world a favor. Congratulations." Glamour gave a smile that was more of a grimace as the engineer left the cabin and shut the door. He sighed, then curled up into a ball on the musty hardwood floor.
Lyman. The boy's name was Lyman. He'd been so unassuming at first, shuffling onto his pedestal like the rest of them, head down. The moment the games started, however, it was like a switch had flipped. Wild-eyed and crazy, Lyman had sprinted to the pile of weapons at the center of the arena, reaching it before anyone else. Armed with a pair of knives and mumbling in tongues to himself, Lyman began stabbing everything that moved. After turning the male tributes from 3, 5, 11, and 8 into mincemeat, he set his sights on the girl from 8. The crowd loved it at first. How they had chortled when he stabbed her through the heart, giggled when he tore her throat open, bellowed with approval when he ripped through her arm. But when he pulled down her skirt, a hush fell over the arena. Still muttering, Lyman began preparing to do what only men and wild beasts did best.
Glamour shivered, suppressing another round of bile. Some things were too terrible to imagine, even for the already-desensitized Capitol audience. Thankfully, Lyman had been interrupted by Glamour shoving a new victim into his arms. A minute later, the girl from 6 was more mess than corpse and Glamour was able to sneak up behind Lyman and cut his throat. Exactly what the boy was doing to her body he refused to think about.
The train started again. Soon enough it had reached the station in District 1. The entire cabin shook as the train reached a lurching halt, and Glamour was knocked forward by the impact. When he hit the ground, he was instantly transported back to the arena. The crowd once again roared as he retched on his knees under the hot son. Lyman had come back for him; he hadn't killed him at all. Glamour heard someone screaming, heard the sounds of a young boy wailing and moaning and realized it was him.
The train doors opened and two figures rushed in. Glamour looked up and saw the girl from six, face bloody and mouth missing, eyes wide and accusing as she began choking him, squeezing the life out of him, moaning his name. "Glamour… Glamour… Glamour…" He closed his eyes, accepting his fate.
"Glamour, we're so happy you're back!" He opened his eyes to see Gossamer wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. Gertrude stood next to her, openly weeping with joy. Behind the two, his parents stood, his father beaming with pride and his mother tearing up at the sight of him. As Goss chirped in his ear, the rest of his family rushed in as well to hold him. In the arms of his loved ones, Glamour finally relaxed for the first time in three days. He felt the tension drain out of his body as he leaned against Gertrude for support. He closed his eyes.
In the darkness of his pupils, Six stared back.