BORN TO DIE | CLATO (THG)

TEN

CLOVE KENTWELL

Enobaria was right. This is indeed hell. I'm laying on a cold metal table, stark naked, with a glaring fluorescent light shining straight into my eyes.

"You're almost there, sweetie," A woman named Antonia from my prep team coos into my ear, as she rips another waxing strip off of my bare thigh. I resist the urge to throw something at her. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth.

I've experienced things way worse than this—broken bones, bruises, cuts and wounds—and yet, I can barely stand this. I think it's mostly because of the fact that it's just so new to me. I've never had to be waxed before. I've never been familiar with the prickly, burning feeling that's spreading across my skin right now. I feel like a bird being plucked of its feathers. I can't take it anymore. I roughly pull away from Antonia's touch.

"God, is this really necessary?" I growl gripping the thin wax sheet underneath me.

"Now, now, there's no need to be unpleasant," Another woman called Marilla from my prep team clucks disapprovingly.

"It's just—" I sigh agitatedly. All I want is to be in the Capitol's training centre, actually training for the Games. At least that will be more useful than being waxed. "I don't get why this is necessary," I say coldly.

A man named Felix shakes his head patronisingly. I want to smack him across the face. "See, we need to pretty you up for tonight's tribute parade. You know about that, right?" He says gently, as if he's talking to a little child who can't quite understand words yet.

I crumple the wax sheet harshly between my fingers and fix him with my sharpest glare. "I'm not an airhead. I know what it is. I just don't see why it's necessary. People from the Capitol aren't gonna see my bare legs close-up, are they?" I snarl.

"Alright, that will be enough." A voice rings out from the opposite end of the room. We all fall silent and our eyes turn in the voice's direction.

Standing there is a young woman, probably only in her late twenties. She looks just like a Capitol woman would look like, surgically altered, artificially beautified. But in a very different way. She doesn't have Antonia's vivid pink hair and elaborate tattoos, or Felix's eyes that make him look like a cat, or Marilla's red-tinged skin.

She looks almost ethereal, like some kind of fairy. Her hair falls in a silken, pure white sheet down her thin shoulders, framing her delicate, beautiful face with its unnaturally pale skin and light purple eyes. The bright ceiling lights behind her cast some kind of otherworldly glow around her head, forming some kind of halo.

At her presence, my prep team scurries out of the room almost immediately, uttering hushed greetings to her on their way out. The door closes behind them with a sharp snap.

The woman glides over to me. I'm sitting on the table, shivering from the cold metal, with not even a robe to cover me up, with this strange woman assessing every inch of me. Something close to fear roils around in the pits of my stomach.

"Good enough," She says finally. Her words are clipped—affected by the Capitol accent, obviously, but a lot more refined. She doesn't take her protuberant purple gaze away from me. I wrap my arms self-consciously over my bare torso, searching the room for any piece of clothing I can wear.

I can't stand anybody looking at my body critically like this. I already disliked it enough. Every time I breathed, I could count every single one of my ribs. The scars, bruises and marks that crisscross my body. Back home, we're taught not to care. And usually, I don't. But sometimes when I'm alone, there's no stopping the thoughts.