One Fire: A One Direction Fan Fiction

7

7

   The feast afterwards is held in the banquet room of the president’s mansion. It’s an elegant, lounge-like room, making it less of a feast and more of a party. I’ve already informed Simon of my failure, and he tells me now to not worry. As long as the other blazing boys are by my side, and we’re away from District Twelve, I can’t be hurt in any way.

   There’s more food than I’ve ever seen, even when we were being pampered before the games had begun. We dig in almost immediately, and continue to eat even between pictures with our many fans from the Capitol. Some of them had even worked to incorporate us into their outfits; Zayn’s quiff, Louis’s stripes, I even see an entire crowd of people in blazers like mine. But I have little interest in these Capitol people. I preferred the more real, down-to-earth people in the districts.

   The five blazing boys stay together, as Simon has instructed me to do. Well, at all times I’m with at least one, typically Louis. Zayn and Liam are together, and Niall breaks away from us to enjoy the food. He was flaunting his bottomless stomach. But I couldn’t eat any more if I tried. The remaining three agree with me.

   “You’re not eating, blazing boys?” a squeaky voice coming from behind us jokes. Evza appears in between Liam and me.

   “I don’t think I can,” Zayn jokes with a small laugh.

   Evza’s lips purse and she somehow manages to grab all our wrists at once, and drags us over to a small table where Danico and Lydia are standing with tiny, shining wine glasses filled with clear liquid. “Drink it,” she purrs.

   Just as Zayn is raising a glass to his mouth do they manage to explode in helium-high voices again.

   “Not here!” Lydia squeaks. Her thumb jabs towards doors that lead to the bathrooms. “There, or it will be everywhere!” Then she and Danico launch into a short burst of reminiscing, where we hear words that bring us to our conclusion about the purpose of the drink.

   “This will make us vomit?” Liam gasps with wide eyes.

   “It’s a feast!” Danico exclaims, “It’s no fun if you can’t eat!”

   “Niall seems to get it,” Lydia jokes, looking to the blonde boy, who could somehow still stand to gorge himself with the Capitol food.

   I look to Louis and he’s biting his lower lip uncertainly. I could tell he thought the same as me; throwing up wasn’t fun, whether or not it would allow us to keep eating the delicious Capitol dishes. But Zayn and Liam chose to be daring. Louis and I just stayed behind.

   But that wasn’t the only reason I decided to only take what I could. Back in District Twelve, Gemma helped to heal the sick and injured. She wasn’t exactly a professional, but she did what she could. Many times I had seen children pass through suffering from malnutrition. They needed food, and were as good as dead if they couldn’t get it, which was the case a good ninety percent of the time. And, here, they were throwing up the food they engulfed, only to have more and more of what could feed the entire population of Twelve.

   “Harry,” Louise Teasdale, Taylor’s stylist from the games, calls to me. She’s darting up to Louis and me with a slender man trailing behind her. “Boys, I thought you should meet Arpil Fans,” she purrs, “He’s the new Head Gamemaker.”

   Both of us shake hands with the man, who looks as if he’s only just approaching thirty years of age. Then, Louise steals Louis away from me for a dance, leaving me alone with the man who took Xanthius Naia’s job after his execution.

   He was young, only just a bit older than me and the other blazing boys – all of us being only around our early twenties – yet a bit shorter than I, closer to Louis’s height. His hair is dyed an artificial purple colour, and he has on a navy blazer, like the one I’d worn throughout the games, as something from my district to remind me of home.