The Hunger Games: Never Safe From Danger

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Nath’s POV

At the train station, there are all these media people pointing cameras at my face. I just shrug them off and get on the train as quickly as I can.

I’ve already decided on my strategy- don’t care. Don’t treat the other tributes as people, and the deaths will come easily. They are not human. They are not human. Okay, Nath, you just keep telling yourself that. They are not human. They are not human. I open the door to my private car and repeat it again in my head. They are not human.

Wait a second…private car? Ha! This just gets more ridiculous with every step. So far, I don’t know what the Capitol was thinking when it thought up the games. I imagine it must have went something like this:

‘Well…we need to think of something to punish the districts with!’

‘Hmm…how about we take their children into an arena and force them to fight to the death once every year, changing the rules a little every twenty-five years for a one-off?’

‘Sounds okay…needs more…irony.’

‘Okay, how about we treat them like royalty beforehand? And make the rebels treat it as a happy time, with dresses and interviews and friendly competition?’

‘Seems legit. I’m hungry, let’s go tell the president our ideas!’

I shake my head. Whatever happened, it was ridiculous. I take a shower. Hmm. Warm water. It would feel nice, but it is Capitol water. I don’t want that touching me. I suddenly regret taking a shower and get out.

When I get back into the main bit of my private car, someone has laid out clothes for me. Ha! You’re not going to get through to me that easily!  I grab my faded white t-shirt and green trousers, pull them on and just sit on the bed until I get called for dinner.

Jules Agran’s voice rings and echoes in my head. I wince and stand up, not sure where I’m headed. I eventually find the car with the food, and sit down beside Ree.

They give us plates of rich Capitol food. I don’t want to eat it, but in the end, I am a person, and people are idiots, so I awkwardly pick up a fork and poke at it until a piece sits on the spikes. It tastes good.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m eating, but there is meat and there are vegetables and it is delicious. I decide to forget about morals and beliefs and boycotting the Capitol for tonight…I need to eat to be strong enough to do something, right?

I now realise that all my life I have been hungry. I have been full a few times, but the mice here get fed better than that. What I once found satisfying feels, at this particular moment in time, like nothing.

Back home, a couple of loaves of bread and some wild berries was a feast. Here, that wouldn’t be considered substantial enough for an after-school snack. I just feel incredibly poor now. Back home, my family did alright by comparison, but one day in the Capitol and your life changes forever. Of course, if you come from the districts and you’re in the Capitol…this changed life is likely to be very short.

That makes me remember. I take a few sips of some sort of sweetened water and wait for everyone else to finish. Ree doesn’t eat much at all. I don’t care if she picked me- everyone has their reasons for everything- because, at the end of the day, she is twelve years old. She needs to be helped.

We are herded into a small, comfortable room with sofas to watch the reapings. I try not to analyse each tribute too well, because that would be seeing them as people, and that’s completely not what the strategy is, but it’s hard not to notice when it’s blaring from a huge television screen that you are expected to be glued to.

The classic careers from One, Two and Four. The kids from Three look about fifteen and scared witless. From Five, a big, muscly boy and a girl who looks about thirteen. An older girl and a frightened little boy from Six. Of course, me and Ree from Seven. A very short boy and a very scared girl from Eight. A floppy-haired, harmless-looking boy and a girl with the eyes of a snake from Nine. A little blonde girl and a boy of about sixteen from Ten- apparently, they’re siblings.  I’m too busy telling myself they’re not people that I don’t really take in anything from Eleven and Twelve.

Ree’s trembling, but I’m thinking of something else- our mentors. I’ve been so distant that I don’t know who our mentors will be. There are a couple of living victors in District Seven, I’ll be fine with any of them, really- they seem nice enough, if a bit disturbed. But these people have been with us through the entirety of dinner and I have not noticed them. I glance over now. Ah, I know them. Accal Tren, a female victor who won the games just last year at seventeen, and Romul Pinten. I’m not old enough to remember his games personally, but I’ve heard it said that he was fifteen at the time. He looks like he’s in his mid-thirties now.

Romul notices that I am looking at him, and smiles weakly. I wonder which will be my mentor and which will be Ree’s. I vow to pay more attention in the future. Ree probably knows. I would ask her, but she speaks first.

“I’m sorry I chose you at the reaping,” she whispers.

“It’s fine,” I tell her, though it’s really not. “I’m wondering why it was me, though.”

She looks down. “I panicked and just said your name, really. It was the only one I could think of when Jules told me time was up. I don’t know many people…I’m really sorry to put you in this position…you seem so nice…”

She’s definitely wrong there. I’m not nice.

“It’s okay,” I say, sitting back in the comfortable sofa.