The Journal

Ch12 - The assistants.

A simple red dress with a pair of matching shoes is all Clove is wearing when she walks out of the train and onto the huge train station. Camera after camera is flashing at her as she walks down the station with Cato, Enobaria and Brutus. Enobaria and Brutus is smiling and waving towards the camera, and so is Cato. She doubts for a moment, but as a camera man walks up to her and start to take a few pictures right in front of her, she gives him a smile. And then another one shows up, and another one, and another one. Her smile grows bigger and bigger, and before she knows it she is waving and smiling as well. She don’t want to be a part of this, but she already am. She knows that it’s her fault, she knows that she was the one who volunteered, but she still didn’t like this. Why would she? All she wanted was Cato to be safe, but now that they are here in the Capitol, soon going into the arena, the possibility he is going to survive is quite slim.

They reach a door that leads them into a huge room. Up against one of the walls there are 24 stretchers lined up beside each other, with drapes around each one of them. Two of the drapes are drawn around the stretchers to hide them from the others. When they walks inside, Brutus and Enobaria leaves them alone in the doorway and walks away. A woman with a ridiculous wig walks up to Cato and Clove with a huge smirk.

”Hello District 2! You have to be Cato and Clove I suppose?” They both nod at the same time and her smirk grows bigger. 


”Well, how lovely. So Clove, you are going there,” She says and points at one of the stretchers. ”Cato, you have the one right beside hers. Wait there for your next instructions.”

Without another word she walks off and leave them at the doorway. Clove looks up at Cato for a brief second, and then wonders off to her little ’sealed off area’. She has no idea what’s waiting for her, all she knows is that her stylist is now in charge of her completely.

After a couple of minutes, a man walks up to Clove. He has a bunch of papers in his hands and a pair of small glasses is resting at the tip of his nose.

"Clove?" He says with a uninterested voice.

"Yes." She answer surprised.

"From District two?" She nods and he looks up.

"Your stylist is going to be Lilium, and she is going to come and see you after your assistants are done with you." He walks away, still searching through his papers.

Lilium, it was a beautiful name. Clove had learned that Lilium meant Lily in a latin class she had a couple of years ago. The time when she didn't worry about the games, being reaped, the capitol or anything. Life was simply much better then. A sadness slowly flows over her, and she closes her eyes. She wished she didn't volunteer, she wished this wasn't real.

"I think she's sleeping." A friendly voice says as someone pokes at Clove's arm. She opens her eyes bemused and looks around. Right beside her stands three people, looking down at her.

"Hello love, I'm Luana." One of them says with a bright smile.

"I'm Kayala." The next one says and look at the last person.

"And I'm Lucas. Nice to meet you Clove."

"Is it okay if I take off your dress honey?" The one named Luana asks and smile politely at Clove. She nods sleepy, so Luana walks up to her back and drags the zipper down.  The person named Lucas, slowly and carefully takes off Clove's shoes while the girl named Kayala drags her fingers through Clove's hair. She is still a bit sleepy, but gets more alert as the seconds goes by.

A few minutes later, Clove is resting completely naked on the stretcher, while Luana, Lucas and Kayala is working on her. They scrub her skin, cut her hair, pick her eyebrows, wax her legs, paint her nails and all sort of different stuff. Clove isnt't used to all this, but she just lays there and stares up in the sealing. Even though her skin is hurting, she can't stop thinking about home, the games, her family and of course, Cato. How is she going to do? She wants him safe, the last thing she wanted was him volunteering. Even though she know this isn't going to work out, because only one victor is going to leave that arena, she have two options. She could either speak to Cato, tell him everything she has on her mind and expose her feelings completely. She could also keep her mouth shut, and hope that Cato does the same. It may be better if they stop sharing feelings, after all it's only one person that's going to go back home. Maybe the smartest thing is to leave everything behind, and simply stop being friends? A tear escapes from her eyelid. She don't know if it comes from the pain in her body, or the pain thinking about losing him.

"Don't cry love, I know it hurts but it will soon be over." Luana whispers at her and wipe the tear away.

"You have no idea.." Clove whispers to herself. She nods at Luana, with a slight smile and close her eyes, hoping that she will wake up in her bed back in District Two.