Midnight Azalea-A Story of the 34th Hunger Games

Chapter 4-Goodbye

I shiver after recalling that Hunger Games.

"Excuse me, 'scuse me," a burly country District 11 voice speaks out, the owner sliding past me between me and Natiel. I don't catch him pass me but now I do. He has ashy blond hair and foggy blue eyes the color of water with a sheet of mist blanketed over them. He's tall but not giant. He could easily surpass even Natiel's height and he appears much stronger. The voice surely matches.

Then I notice he looks like a tired, more grumpy version of the victor of that freightening Hunger Games I watched seven years. The same bloody mess as before, except he has more scratches than gashes.

"Quorel," says Cashatra, folding up her hands like a normal Capitol lady would. It makes me angry seeing her so bubbly even over this bloody mess. "Why are you so...oh how do I say this? Discombobulated."

"I couldn't let them see me." He pants. "They could kill me you know. Tear me to pieces. So I made a run through the woods to the tracks and ran half a mile here."

Cashatra's face is one of confusion. She knits her eyebrows. "H-how did you do that...?"

Quorel just looks at her.

I lean in to have a private speech with Cashatra. I take a look at my mentor, who is bent over, on the verge of collapse. "Why is he like this?" I ask her. "All hunched over like that, went through the woods. Why?"

She has only a tiny speech. "The Games change you if you win. You're not the same person you used to be."

I look back at him, now feeling sympathetic. How does he live like that? In constant fear that someone...even a peacekeeper might kill him on the spot. But why? The Games made him believe so? I can't live that way. But I can't live also if I die. In both ways, the Games kill you.

I nod to agree. "That's Terrible."

The train starts to move, and I feel it. I'm pushed and pulled with the train, and I fall, because I don't know. I've never been on a train before. But when I see Quorel, I see he's been on this train too many times. He's sad. He's a mentor. He's a victor. I guess his entire life is on this train. And mine as well if I come out victorious.

He's our mentor though, and to be honest he's not bad. He has personality, but I see his a little whacked up.

I stiffen. I breathe as the train starts to speed up, and we don't stop. My district is left behind me, all to see being the cornfields. Then that's it. The Great Wall, and then whatever lies beyond it. Grasslands and wet areas. I see animals. Forests. Clouds gather in the sky and it starts pouring rain, my view blurring up. It's not blurring up because the raindrops have distorted my view to the outside, but that tears have welled up in my eyes, and I have the courage to let the tear go.

I sit up and watch Natiel follow Cashatra to the back. All is left is me and Quorel.

Hey, why not meet the guy? He seems...okay now.

I stand and walk up to him, my long dark hair fallen behind my shoulders. He's organizing the jade statues on the shelf partitioning the frontal area to the back areas of the cart. He puts them in neat rows and I guess it gives him content. Takes his mind off of the flashbacks. All the empty tributes he had to train. Then I notice there has to be a flaw to his plans in the past. The tributes were unsuccessful because he must've screwed them over.

"They look nice," I tell him, admiring his neat jade rows.

Quorel nods, taking a few seconds to notice me. "You said that?"

"Yeah," I answer. "They're beautiful," I say to reassure him.

"Thanks. They told me from the mentally disrepaired to do something to take my mind off of it," he tells me. "The Games. I'm a well organized guy, so I decided that's my option." He double checks to see if his rows are perfect. And they are. "I have to see..." he says as he walks around, touching the green gemstones that make up the little people they depict dressed in wild feathers that make them look like oversized birds. Some wear elaborate wedding dresses and masks. Their hats are gigantic and propped up on their heads at different spots. One wears a mini hat the size of their hand. One wears a top hat the size of their torso. "Perfect. Perfect calculations as well. They're all lined up in the same positions, the same distance between each one."

I begin to think this guy is a neat freak with his obsession with those elaborate jade people. "Who are they?" I ask him. It takes him a minute to process it. I repeat it again.

"Capitol people," he says.

Then I realize that. Cashatra wears less crazy fashion accessories and other disgusting articles of clothing. One wears a bird mask. It's ugly and looks like a vulture that circles in around in district eleven. "Gross."

"Yeah district eleven has more sense than these filthy rich people," he says in his opinion. He has a face of hate and extreme bloodlust. "I want my revenge."

At first I have no idea what he means by this. Then I catch on to his drift. I decide not to say anything. "Well, good talk." I let him catch my eyes. "They're beautiful, again."

He doesn't say thanks, but it's probably because he didn't process it. In hopes he won't reply in one minute I walk away.

"You're welcome."

I meet Cashatra and Natiel in the dorms. Four rooms. Two reserved for Cashatra and Quorel, and two rooms on opposite walls for Natiel and I.

"Oh, Azalea, we were waiting for you," she informs me.

I bite my lip. "Yep. So what now?"

She assigns us our rooms. I take the left and he takes the right, and I see my room is a cozier version of the central room. I have amirror and a desk. I have a nightlight, an empty wall. And a fluffy bed. I am tired so I jump on the bed with caution, because in district eleven our cots break. So I get on and sink in screaming when I think I'm breaking the bed but then it stops and I feel the most comfortable since before the Reapingg.

I close my eyes and let my thoughts break as I drift off...my last thought being of a knife and a girl with blonde curls.