The Hunger Games: Never Safe From Danger

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Nath’s POV

The parade was stupid. I’m probably the new joke of Panem. There’s a lesson in that- if you think that you are completely indifferent to what people think of you, you are almost certainly wrong. That’s what happened to me.

They put me in a jumpsuit made of bark, shoved me into a chariot and paraded me around the city. Oh, and it was mandatory viewing across the entire country. That’s enough to make anyone care.

I fold my arms across my chest as Ree and I are herded into the Training Centre. There’s an elevator, or lift, or whatever they’re called. They escort us to floor whatever, where we will be spending our time until the Games. I run into my quarters and suddenly start wishing that the doors could be locked from the inside.

Now I’m thinking about Jules Agran’s voice that sucks at being a voice. It’s all shrill and weird and he sounds like a mouse on helium. And now I have to listen to it again. He knocks on my door and squeaks my name. I’m not sure if my eardrums have the strength to hear him any closer.

He barges in and stands right in front of me. He gives an awkward, pathetic excuse of a smile. He just looks creepily into my eyes, brows raised, the corners of his mouth practically caving in on themselves.

“Nath,” he says, enunciating every last letter in my pathetic name. “I thought you might want to talk to, erm, your mentor?” he half-asks, running his hands through his hair.

“Who is my mentor?” I ask. I’m surprised to find that my throat has almost closed up. I touch my eyes. Not wet. Good. I haven’t cried in years and I don’t want to start now.

Jules seems surprised that I don’t know. “Romul Pinten…” he says, slowly. “Nath, were you list-“

“Get out.” While I utter the words, my hands clench into fists. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I add sarcastically. “Please get out, you insufferable, annoying Capitol puppet. Sir. Whatever. Out!”

Jules flashes me a quick injured-puppy look and leaves. I laugh. I may be going to die, but at least I am not him. I may be trying to refuse the Capitol, including the water, but I revel in victory while having a very quick shower.

Bit sad that I treat offending Jules as such a huge victory, but whatever.

I’ve been wearing my white shirt and green trousers for about two or three days now, but I don’t care. I stuff myself into them, again ignoring the clothes that have been laid out for me.

When Jules comes back in, he has clearly had time to recompose himself. He looks my clothing up and down, disapproval written all over his face, but he says nothing of it.

“It is time for dinner,” he tells me, and briskly walks for the door again. I decide against apologising to someone so stupid and follow him.

I will be dining tonight with Ree, Jules, Romul, Accal and our stylists. Mine is a slithering, sickly little creature that I’m sure not many people would call a man. His name is Aulus. His skin is dyed green and he has blue patterns tattooed all over himself. There is another young man, slightly taller and wider than Aulus, who must be Ree’s stylist. He actually looks human, apart from his hands, which have been tattooed with little golden and blue stars.

I notice some Avoxes standing by the food. I sigh inwardly and resist the urge to facepalm. How incredibly stupid. Cutting out a person’s tongue as punishment. You’d think people would have evolved a little more than that.

Dinner is served. There is some sort of red soup and meat I can’t name put in front of us and we are all given a mug of something. I am reluctant at first, but I try some of the liquid. It is delicious.

“Hot chocolate,” Romul mutters. “Tastes amazing, right?” I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to himself, but he is most certainly correct. It’s not like anything I’ve ever tasted before- rich, creamy, satisfying… I’m almost full and I’ve not even touched the food yet.

The soup and meat are nice, but the hot chocolate overshadows both. They both have a somewhat smoky aftertaste, which is rather unnerving.

I feel a little guilty for enjoying the food so much, but it’s hard not to. I sit back and analyse my team while Aulus scrapes together some words about fashion and speaks them. His opinion on clothes is pretty insignificant to me after the incident with the bark jumpsuit. Romul. Fairly popular victor. People sometimes consider sponsoring his tributes. Now all he has to do is sell me. Aulus. Definitely hopeless. To call him a stylist is an overstatement. Jules. If he’s supposed to serve any kind of purpose, it certainly isn’t working.

Ree’s team doesn’t have as many extremes on it. Her escort is obviously also Jules, but she has a stylist worth at least something and her mentor is a likeable person- the strong but silent type. I  have to say that I envy her for this.

Around half an hour passes, and when I silently slip away from the conversation, nobody but Ree notices. She looks at me and raises her eyebrows. I look at her apologetically and she relaxes and turns away. I creep out of the room, careful not to slam the door, and scurry up to my quarters.

I open the wardrobe and find high-quality nightclothes. I take some white pyjamas with blue stripes, put them on and curl up on top of the multi-coloured duvet on my bed. I don’t sleep, I don’t cry. I look for patterns in the plaster of my ceiling. I find one that looks like a happy face and one that looks like a dragon to me, and just after I find the one I think of as a boat, my eyes start to hurt and I turn to the blanket on the end of the bed. It’s multitude of colours provide me with a good hour’s pattern-finding fun, even if around ninety per cent of my findings are rainbows, one of which is the last thing I see before I fall asleep.

My dreams are filled with waves of colour engulfing entire cities, drowning all the inhabitants. There is such a thing as too much of something nice.