Humanity- A Hunger Games fanfic

Part 12- Before The Games pt. 2

I jolt awake, tears in my eyes. I can move again, and it's light again. I would say it was all a dream, but it felt so real. I was awake, I know it. I get up and look under the bed. Nothing. Hesitantly, I open the door. Nothing. Then I see Bruce's room and I'm hesitant to open the door, but I stumble over, my heart thumping in my chest, my breathing heavy. I put my hand on the doorknob, twist it, and push it open. Bruce is just putting his shirt on when I stare at him, making sure he's fine, before running to him, and before i can control it, I'm sobbing, holding on to him for dear life,

"Hey, hey, what's up? Are you okay?" He looks at me, worried, but I'm too choked up to answer, so he takes me out of his room, into the main area, and Amanda, Lena and Beaufort are there. They all rush to me, asking what's wrong. Amanda gets an Avox to bring me tissues, and when I look up to see who it is, it's Rose, which helps a great deal

I calm down a little, until I can finally tell them what happened, and there's silence,

"Oh goodness," Amanda replies, and another long silence ensues, until Lena finally breaks it,

"We should pull her out of the games," Lena says, standing up,

"We can't, especially now!" Amanda immediately argues,

"Her mental state is too weak, too fragile! Remember last time we sent someone in with an unstable mental state? That was Annie. If you know what's good for you, you'd pull your little Capitol strings and get her out of the games,"

"It's not that simple, it's too late. And even if it wasn't, they probably wouldn't let her either!"

"Who cares!"

"Bruce, why don't you take Brianna into her room to change?" Beaufort says, and Bruce nods. As we go back, we walk past Annie and Finnick, who seem to have been woken up by the noise. We go into my room and Bruce hugs me before patting me on the back and leaving the room.

I see the clothes and I feel sick to the stomach. They aren't the ones I'll be wearing in the arena but still. I wash, and make myself clean as humanly possible. I take my necklace to remind me to pass it through inspection so I can take it in as my token. I sit down and put the necklace on the empty table, interrupting the screaming silence

"Oh honey, do you want me to go and pass it through inspection quickly now?" Lena says,

"Thanks," I say,

"Oh, could you do this too?" Bruce asks. He pulls a ring off his finger I never noticed before. It's silver and ornate. No special gems, no crazy patterns, just swirls, "It was my mothers,",

"Of course," She takes them both and leaves. I really really want my necklace as a token and I know Bruce wants his ring in the arena with him too. We eat in silence as I wonder what's going on in the rest of the training centre. Lena returns at around 8:15 am and a few minutes later the stylists are here. We all go to get on the hovercraft at 8:30. I climb up the ladder and I can't move. Someone comes up to me and injects what apparently is a tracker,

"Have you had your period lately?" She asks,

"No, I'm not due for another few weeks," I answer, confused,

"Okay, this will, as well as track where you are, postpone your period until it's taken out. If you were meant to have it during the games, it will start immediately after removal, changing your schedule. If you weren't, it will stay the same. You also won't grow any hair anywhere whilst this is in you," She tells me,

"Okay, thanks," I say. I'm finally able to move. I stand out of the way until everyone is up and an Avox directs us to another room with our breakfast laid out. I drink 4 cups of water and eat a feast, pacing myself. No way am I going to die of hunger or thirst on the first day. We're in the air and it's absolutely amazing. Everything's so small. I feel like a bird. After about half an hour the windows black out. We're approaching the arena. The nerves are getting to me and I think I'm shaking.

We land and step into the Stockyard. It's called the Launch Room, but the districts, no matter if you're from 2 or 12, call it the Stockyard. I think it came from district 10, livestock, as I think it's where animals go before they're killed for meat. In school we weren't taught much about other districts, just their trades and a short summary. It was an optional and apparently painstakingly difficult course and only 11 people took it out of the whole grade. Extended Panem Studies. We did, however, learn a great deal about the Capitol, Dark Days, and Hunger Games. We only had to do Math, English, History, Panem Studies, and District Studies. History and PS have always basically been the same thing, PS is just more modern. I always hated DS. Who wants to know every type of fish available throughout the year? I get it's useful for our entire lives, but still. I never thought I'd even have this cross my mind, but I miss school. If Wenda heard me say it, she'd check my temperature. It's boring, but I'd rather die of boredom than of a knife in the back.

Bruce and I hug goodbye,

"See you when we try to kill each other," Bruce jokes, before realising that was probably a bad idea for a joke after what had happened last night,

"See you then," I laugh, trying to break the ice We say goodbye to Amanda and the mentors before going into the separate rooms with our stylists. There's a small room off the side. Tristiana gives me the clothes and I change. There's a lot of clothes. A white cropped tank top, white cycling shorts, a black t shirt, black cargo pants with seemingly infinite pockets, and a waterproof, warm jacket, with again, seemingly infinite pockets,

"I'm burning in this," I say. It's insane with all of this on,

"Well it must be pretty cold," Tristiana says, "Lets just hope they don't have fun this year," Some years they decide to have fun with the games. One year everyone had only maces as weapons. Another year the arena was just a snowy plain,

Tristiana ties my hair up in a ponytail with two strands hanging down the front. It looks very good considering all she has is her hands and a hair tie. We hug goodbye and I feel tears in my eyes but I keep it back. I walk onto the platform and the glass cylinder comes down. We smile at each other for a minute until the platform starts to lift up. I emerge with all the other tributes and we look around at our new surroundings.

"May the 87th Hunger Games begin," The voice of Claudius Templesmith booms out over the arena,

They decided to have fun with it.