Culling

Part I • Chapter V

"Who?"

She had said his name with such reverence that I almost felt guilty about asking, because it was obvious she assumed that I would know all about this Adam person.

Alarm crossed her face.

"Darling. It's Adam. Adam! He's famous." She glanced at the other person - a green haired male with a giant mohawk and cat eyes - in shock and her hand left my face to rest on her chest over her heart.

He didn't look like he was faring much better.

It was almost as if the news of me not knowing of this Adam person was too much to bear; and I was pretty sure one of them might faint.

"I'm really sorry." I tried to smile sympathetically up at them. "I have no idea who you are talking about."

They both looked like I had genuinely hurt their feelings and I was just about to apologize again when the double doors of the room opened dramatically.

A tall man with neatly styled blonde hair all but swooped into the room and came to a stop next to the foot of the table.

"Alright people," He called out to the others, who had snapped to attention at his entrance and were ogling him with different levels of admiration. "It is now our time to shine!"

A cheer went up from the two.

Ok, now this was getting to be really weird.

I raised myself up on my elbows a bit, making sure my towel did not fall. "Shine? Don't you work with all the tributes?" I asked the man, whom I assumed to be Adam.

He was standing with one hand on his hip and the other on his chin as he studied me. The purple haired girl had left my side at his arrival and the two had moved to different stations around the room and were now a flurry of activity - mixing things, mashing stuff and pulling out strips of paper and rags.

"Oh, sugar dumpling. Not quite. I'm assigned to district six as a whole, but these two are just yours." He smiled at me, and for some reason it put me at ease a bit. "We are just super thrilled and honored. When word reached us that there was a woman in the games this year, everyone wanted a chance to get at you. I may or may not have bullied the person originally assigned to you into switching places."

"What?" My finger pushed my bottom lip to my teeth. "Why?"

Adam twirled his hand in the air. "Every year it is always male tributes. Which certainly is exciting, yes. However, they come to us with the same hair cuts, similar body builds and so on. Mostly we just wash up the men, trim their hair, add a bit of styling and dress them up. Have you ever tried convincing a man who fights for a living that it is more fashionable to wax his chest? I don't think so.

There's only so much I can do and I never get to really have fun. I just cannot show off my creative genius when there is no real challenge and a ton of limitations. I almost had to kill someone to get my hands on you - the first female tribute in the games. You are going to stand out like a beacon."

I frowned. "But I don't want to stand out like a beacon."

"Oh shush." He seemed nonplussed by my lack of enthusiasm. "You are going to stand out no matter what you do anyway." He turned serious for a moment and kept his eyes on mine. "Most everyone is going to try to downplay or ignore the fact that you are girl, because in the end it doesn't matter what your gender is when you are playing this game."

At this, Adam started pacing while he continued. "Sure, people will go on about it during the initial process and think you are just darling but when the games begin the odds will be against you. Your best bet at surviving is to own that fact the you are different and use it to your advantage.