Capitol Pawns

Sleep barely comes tonight. I lay awake for hours, unable to find comfort in my large bed. I roll left and right, go through periods of hot flashes followed by periods of being absolutely freezing, and struggle with my imagination. By the time exhaustion finally wins out, it feels like mere minutes before Remus comes to collect me.

“Wake up, Scout,” He instructs, shaking me slightly. “Today’s a big day.”

I open my eyes and look at him, his perfectly manicured facial hair and his sharp facial features sit on his overtired face.

“I don’t want to.” I whine, closing my eyes and burrowing my head under the stack of pillows. “I don’t want to be here, I just want to go home!”

Remus places his warm hand on my bare shin and looks sternly at me.

“Scout, today is the day you begin your fight to victory.”

Then he smiles and I can’t help but almost smile, too, but it disappears when I remember what I’m agreeing to.

“I just want to see my family before I die.”

A frown replaces his warm smile. “Don’t say that, Scout. You have just as much fight in you as all of the Careers.”

It’s half true. I have heart, that’s something I’ve proven time and time again, but I still stand no chance against the Careers.

The smallest Career stands at 5’8”, an entire foot taller than me. Plus, they must easily weigh two times as much. That’s not too hard when you take into consideration I only weigh 84 pounds…

Still, Remus somehow convinces me to get up and I wallow in my fear and self-loathing while he manually undresses me and gets me into a simple cover-up to wear. I move like a snail to the roof where a hovercraft materializes out of thin air before a ladder is dropped down and I’m instructed by Remus to put my feet on the bottom rungs and to hold on.

It’s like I’m frozen as the ladder lifts me up to the hovercraft. I can’t move as a woman in a white coat comes and sticks a large needle in my arm.

“It’s your tracking device, Scout.” She says as searing pain shoots through my arm. When she pulls the needle out, the frozen feeling disappears and I’m able to move my body. I wiggle my fingers in front of my face and shift my shoulders, taking in the strange feeling I just had.

When I turn around, Remus is stepping off the ladder and an Avox directs us to a room where breakfast is waiting.

“Sit, eat, Scout,” Remus says, pulling out my chair for me and scooting it in once I’m seated.

“What about Colby and Prima?” I ask as he serves himself a generous helping of some sort of savory stew over rice.

He puts the bowl down on the table and his eyes meet mine. “They won’t be joining us. They have their own hovercraft. The next time you’ll see Colby is in the arena.”

“I can’t talk to Colby before we get dropped in the arena?”

He shakes his head and hangs it low.

Pain hits me as I realize I may never see Colby alive again. I’ve lost what little appetite I had and now sit at the table and fondle my hands awkwardly.

“Eat, Scout,” Remus encourages. “And drink lots of water. Who knows when your next meal will be?”

He’s right, but it takes everything in me to swallow spoonful after spoonful of stew. Remus keeps pouring me glasses of water and I keep downing them without thinking. I need to stay hydrated, but it probably won’t help. Besides, nervous peeing is one of my downfalls and drinking four glasses of water isn’t going to help.

After I clear my plate, he serves me another and I eat that, too. I’m more full than I’ve ever been and uncomfortably so.

When we’re done with breakfast, I watch the landscape below us pass by quickly. We’ve been on board for a good thirty minutes, but no one knows how much longer the ride will be. I’m hoping the ride last sixty some years, so I can at least say I’ve lived a long and enjoyable life before I’m forced to fight to my death.

Unfortunately, the ride doesn’t last any more than ten more minutes. The windows black out which I can only guess means we’re flying over the arena and I start to feel sick.

I sway back and forth, on the verge of passing out or throwing up or both, when Remus’s arms wrap around my waist and he eases me to the ground.

“Don’t worry, Scout,” He says, rubbing small circles on my back for comfort. “We still have time.”

When the hovercraft lands, Remus and I go back to the ladder, but instead of being frozen like I was the first time, we’re instead directed into a tube that leads to the catacombs. We find my preparation chamber and I’m allowed to shower.

I have to sit down twice during the duration of the shower and each time I stand up, a wave of nausea and dizziness hits all over again. If this is the state I’m headed into the arena in, I can bet I’ll be dead during the bloodbath.

Remus sits me down and towel dries my hair. He braids it into the fishtail pattern I wore when I was reaped a whole week ago. Then, he pulls out a package that holds my outfit. He didn’t design it, he warns me. Meaning he has no idea what it is or how bad it looks.

I don’t care at this point. I could be thrown into the arena in my underwear and I would be just fine. I pull on my undergarments and Remus helps me step into a brown pair of cargo pants. They’re thin, but the fabric is high quality and he tells me they retain body heat. I then layer a long sleeve grey thermal top underneath a navy blue zip up hoodie underneath a black thermal jacket.

“I don’t know why they’ve given you so many layers, but I can only imagine the temperature will shift dramatically,” He warns me.

I sit and pull on skin tight socks that feel almost like the pants. They’re thin, yet warm my feet immediately. Then Remus hands me a pair of brown boots that I lace up quickly. The boots are comfortable, flexible, and fit perfectly to my feet and have good traction to aid in running.

“Twirl.” Remus instructs like old times sake.

I twirl and for a few moments I forget about my impending doom, just enjoying myself and being silly.

Remus says there isn’t anything to do but wait now, so we sit on a couch and I wait nervously. The butterflies are back in my stomach, but now they feel like they’re in full-fledged panic mode. No longer does it feel like they’re just chilling out and fluttering about in there, it feels like they are stampeding madly to find a way out.

Even the butterflies don’t want to be here.

We sit in silence, Remus holding my hand the entire time. My palms are clammy and I’m sure I’ve lost all of my complexion.

When a woman announces it’s time to prepare for launch, I’m directed to a metal plate where I see tears streaming down Remus’s cheeks. He gives me one last kiss on my cheek before backing away.

“I’ll see you in a few days, missy,” He says as a glass cylinder is lowered around me.

The cylinder slowly rises and for a few moments, I’m in complete dark, but then the bright sun lights up the world around me and I look around me at the 23 other tributes standing on their plates.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games begin!”