SACRIFICIAL LAMB... h.abernathy

chapter two

NOW THIS IS THAT WHICH THOU SHALT OFFER UPON THE ALTAR; TWO LAMBS OF THE FIRST YEAR DAY BY DAY CONTINUALLY

The Train speeds away from the district and I am, as always, trapped inside. I have always been trapped inside. Inside of my body. Inside of the Victor's Village. Inside of the arena. Inside, screaming, clawing, bleating. The scenery is a blur from the window of my private chambers, fields that turn to overgrown grass that turns to rocky edges.

It takes just over three hours to get from District 10 to the Capitol. Three hours from home to hell. Hell does not even seem strong enough for the cesspit that is that place, the crawling stares, the chipper giggles hidden behind hands. Eyes are watching everywhere, mouths yammering away about you behind your back. Nobody is safe.

There is a dress laying out for me on the bed I will not use. It must be from Halcyon, the stylist for the District 10 female Victors. The male Victors also get their own stylist, a pretty blonde named Dulcinia, with wide eyes that seem to stretch every time I see her. The tributes get a stylist to share. According to Zephyrus, they are new.

I shower quickly. I had never showered before my Reaping day. We only ever bathe in the South, big copper tubs full of tepid water to scrub the dirt from our skin. The shower in the train falls like rainwater down my spine and when I close my eyes I am not a citizen of Panem. I am a girl, far away, running barefoot down cobblestone streets with friends I have collected over the years, chasing down a man on a bicycle, shouting in a language dead to my ears.

I use soap that smells of cake and almost gag. It is too strong. Too much like the Capitol to make me feel at ease as I towel dry the water from my body. It clings to me. Sticks to the hair on my body. I have been doused in cake and nothing will rid me of the smell. I would rather the scentless soap of the South than this monstrosity.

Slipping on the pale yellow dress, I avoid the mirror in the corner of the room. It has become habit to turn my back on the glass reflecting the corpse standing in my place. Most of the mirrors in my house are covered in old blankets. When I do my hair in the morning, my hands move on their own accord, ghosts that lift and braid and brush what they know. When I change, I let my eyes close and the clothes brush my body. I barely look at the scar covering my face. I barely look at the girl who never left that arena behind.

Vito is the only one in the dining room when I get there. It has been twenty minutes since we took off and, knowing the tributes, they will be in their chambers for another twenty until Zephyrus kicks down the doors himself. They will be hyperventilating, crying, showering. They will stare out of the window as the world rushes past them and think only about the death they are walking into.

Only one can come out of this alive.

Neither think it is them.

Vito asks if I'm hungry and I shake my head, sitting next to him at the table. The train ride always starts with a meal. A meal we can never finish because the food is always too rich for our Southerner stomachs. He's changed into a fresh button-up and black slacks, held up by a thick dark brown belt, similar to those the men in the South wear. The buckle has a horse head carved into it, reminding me of the horses that graze too close to my backyard, that eat the grass I am meant to be caring for. I always think about getting into gardening, but my thumbs have always been too red and I do not think I am supposed to look after living things.