The Maze Games

7 - The Games

I am woken up at dawn this morning and the prep team prepares me for the arena. Haymitch and Effie will not be following us, me, Gale, Portia and Cinna, to the arena. We will leave at the same time but they will be going to the Games Headquarters and try their best to bribe sponsors to send us gifts in the arena.

Although we are leaving today, goodbyes and advices have been given yesterday night.

Effie: took our hands in hers, with tears sparkling in her purple contact eyes, and wished us good luck.

Haymitch: "Stay alive."

I am dressed in a simple outfit; my final dressing will be done in the arena. Cinna leads me to the roof, where a hovercraft appears out of no where and drops a ladder down. I put my hands and legs on the ladder and tries to climb up but an electric current glues me to it and it contracts, lifting me into the hovercraft.

After I'm inside the hovercraft, the ladder doesn't release me as I thought it would. When I'm struggling to free myself, a woman in white lab coat goes near me with a huge syringe in her hand.

"Hold still, and don't move. This is your tracker. The stiller you are, the easier it is for me to plant the tracker," She tells me.

I want to roll my eyes so badly. Can't you see I'm frozen?

She positions the huge syringe on my forearm and injects. I thought I won't be able to feel it but when the needle inserts the metal device deep under my skin, the pain travels straight to my toes. As soon as the tracker settles in its new home comfortably, the ladder releases me and lifts Cinna up and we sit in the seats.

An Avox serves us breakfast and I eat as much as I can. This feeling is like when you are standing on a 5000 m cliff and look down to the endless darkness and your heart skips one beat every five beats as you imagine what will happen to you if you fall, and you can feel a rush of cold from your toes to your head. Not that I have height phobia. If you never had this kind of feelings before, it is like before you get an injection and you watch the nurse remove the packaging and positions the needle against your arm. Still haven't experience that? I don't care.

The food is delicious, but I can't really taste it, the stone lodged in my stomach make me lose all my appetite, but I still try to eat as much as I can.

After I finish, I sit back on my seat and look out of the window. I can only see the fluffy white clouds and birds.

The birds. They look so free and happy, flying in the endless sky with no worries. Unlike me, going to be sent to my death on a fancy hovercraft.

I lose track of time as the clouds wisp past me. The hovercraft slows down eventually and we land on a piece of land. The ladder appears again but it transports me to an underground catacomb that lies beneath the arena, I guess. Cinna and I follow instructions and make it to my chambers, called Launch Room in the Capitol and Stockyard in District 12, which refers to the place animals go before they are slaughtered. You get what I mean.

 I'm given food again. But I have the same stone inside me and my taste buds are not working. All the furniture in the chamber are brand-new, and I'll be the first and last user. After a Games end, the arena will be preserved as a historical site and become a tourist attraction, tourists can come explore and even visit the arena.

The bathroom in this chamber isn't as fancy as the one back in the Training Centre. I brush my teeth and take a quick shower. The outfit for the Games arrives and Cinna helps me put it on. He fishes out a Mockingjay pin from his pocket and pins it on my jacket.

"Where did you find that?" I thought I lost it long time ago.

"Off the train sending you to the Capitol," Cinna answers. "It's your district token right?"

"Yes," I mutter, slowly tracing the bird on the pin. I look up at him. "So what do we do now?"

"Do you feel comfortable now?" Cinna asks.

I run around in circles and jump around. "Feels great."

"Then we have nothing do but wait for the call," Cinna shrugs. "Except if you want to eat more." He points to the food on the table. Those food just won't finish, it's like a magical plate, that will supply endless food.

I shake my head but take the glass of water. We sit down on the couch and wait for the call.

The feeling is getting stronger and stronger and times passes. My palms are sweating and I keep twiddling the pin.

"Do you want to talk, Katniss?" Cinna asks. Even though I shake my head as I bite my lip, I still hold out my hand and he holds it between his hands. His hands feel so warm, that means my hands are cold.

We stay like this until a pleasant voice announce that it is time for launch. The voice that hunters like me use to lure scared animals to our traps. I clutch Cinna's hand tightly as I stand on the circular metal plate. "Remember everything Haymitch told you, find water. Run as fast as you can." He leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead. "I have faith in you, Katniss." He releases me and strokes my head. "Good luck, girl on fire."

Those were the last words I hear before a glass cylinder lowers around me and separates us. He puts a finger on his chin and pushes it up. I straighten my posture and hold my head high. Here it is. I'm going to officially participate in the Games. I take deep breaths as the plate rises.

I close my eyes and open them when I feel the plate stop rising. The first things that come into my eyes are just darkness but before I can move or speak or do anything, a stinging sensation hits my nose and white dots litter my vision and I fall into the dark oblivion.

***

It's like someone is waking me up internally. A jolt from inside my body wakes me up and my eyes shoot open. All I see is green and grey. Green from the vines hanging on the grey walls.

What the...

Before I can process where I have been dumped into, the legendary announcer, Claudius Templesmith's voice booms around my ears. "Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!"

I still have no clue where I am. And the weirder thing is, no one is in sight.