Midnight Azalea-A Story of the 34th Hunger Games

Chapter 5-The Tributes

Today is the day we watch the Reapings. I get up out of my comfy bed ten minutes after Cashatra calls me. I dress. Then down to breakfast.

Once I'm in the dining room, which is what Cashatra calls it, but it's just the normal room. The first room I saw when I boarded the train.

Cashatra grabs a remote from the shelf of jade statues, and clicks the first of two buttons that are on it. Once she does, a nice table of fine wood with a glossy finish rises from the floor. Natiel and I both say "whoa" as we are utterly flabbergasted as well as confused. "How did you do that?" I ask her.

"Good question," she says. "It's a thinker."

Four chairs rise from the different sides of the round table, but what's on the table is the most stunning.

Plates filled with creamy buttered mashed potatoes, bread rolls, rice, steak, soup with lamb chops, apples, and many various types of salads ranging from some salad with berries and this weird white cream poured across it. Cashatra calls it ranch dressing. Natiel says it must be a District 10 thing.

The three of us take our seats, and we all notice the empty seat next to me and Natiel. Cashatra is the head of the table, introducing us to the different Capitol dishes, which some sound bizzare. Then we get to have a buffet.

I take a salad with the berries and ranch dressing, the weird white cream, and a few apples.

Cashatra snorts, as Natiel and I both have the same platter. "Both of you are such District Elevens! Dig in! Try something new!"

I am hesitant. I am also stubborn. I don't want meat. I've never had it. So I take a few lamb chops out of the giant bowl of soup.

I look at Cashatra. She snorts again, shaking her head. Her plate has a whole soup containing chicken and weird wiggly things made out of wheat, a salad with crackers and a bread roll with butter. She grabs a knife.

I stiffen. "Hey!" I try to make her stop, but she dodges my attempt to grasp her hand.

"What are you doing?" She yells. "I'm not going to hurt anyone, I'm using this to prepare my bread roll!"

I see her slice a line through the roll, and opens it. She scoops up some butter with her knife and spreads it across the bread . It glimmers in the florescent lights of the train. Then when she takes a bite the train starts to rattle. Then we stop.

"Maintenance problems," says Quorel, stumbling in as if his leg has stiffened overnight. "What is there to eat." He rubs his hands and prepares his plate.

"Please, sit." Cashatra demands him to sit down, flicking her hand in a sitting motion.

There's an awkward moment as Quorel and her both look at eachother. This lasts about fifty seconds then he sits.

We converse about the food in District Eleven versus the food in the Capitol, but I stick to not mentioning portions, because I think we all know the Capitol gives us the smallest amount then stuffs themselves until they explode. That's how I feel when I leave. I have to hold onto the wall to avoid stumbling but then I lose my balance and fall into the bathroom, crawl to the toilet just the right time before I vomit it all up.

Quorelcomes to the open door. "That's how I was when I first came on the train," he tells me. I look at him, give him a look like not helping, get me a towel! But he goes on with an anecdote about his first meal. "I stuffed myself too much, thinking I could take it due to the hunger in our district." He says this like we both are mutual, that I feel him, but in reality, I don't care. "But my stomach wasn't ready for that kind of eating, so once I was stuffed to my throat, I threw up all over the table."