Quelling the Flames

Lucas Celsan, District 7, Task 1

After hours of hard scrubbing and and turning my skin raw they gave up on trying to get my clean. When I was five I watched as they took my mother away and I was forced to watch another tribute shoot her with an arrow and left her to bleed to death. The next year when I was six they took my father and he had the butt of a sword beaten against his head until it went through. The barbarians have had their fun watching us turn into murderers before their eyes. Now they are going to try to make me one too, I will not sink to their level.

The designer was female nothing special, usual long highlighted pick eyebrows and outrages clothing and the most ridiculous wigs ever. She never said a word only made hand movements which neither me or Lexi could understand. But finally I got a chance to sit down and look at the costume they made. At least it wasn't what they would usually wear.

Small rings of brown-gold metal made the pants all different shades and sizes to make it look like the inner rings of a tree. I was given a basic green tee-shirt that they threw some kind of dust making it have the look and feel like moss. They said the dirt they couldn't scrape off made it look more natural. They added silver leaves and sparkles to me hair and as they came at me with fake long horrendous eyelashes I fought them off and bit their fingers each time they tried to come at me with them, they were pinning me down so what else could I do? When they finally did get them on I ripped them off, probably not the smartest thing I have ever done but they gave up on it. They brought more gold metal as they attached a net of branches around my arms limiting their motion. What was the point of this anyway?

I looked over at Lexi, her costume like mine, wasn't too over complexed but if you just focused on her face and the silver leaves through her hair she looked beautiful. If we made it to the end together, for her mother, I would take both of our lives. Together we could start up our districts plan to fight the games unnecessary brutality. This was the year the rebellion began. We would have been better with a civil war.

As everyone got onto their carriages I looked around.The only people who looked happy to be here where everyone but the tributes. The shoved me onto carriage and chained our feet to the floor and our wrists to the top of the carriage. With a small pull we were led out to the parade, the light started to blind me until I saw it...