Chapter 8: The Train

(Peeta Mellark POV)

Waking up after being knocked out by the Peacekeepers I find myself in a pitch black room. The reason the Peacekeepers could knock me out was that I willingly allowed myself to be damaged by them, if I had wanted to stay no one could do anything that would have made me. My eyes adjust to the darkness making it out a door and a closed, curtained window next to the bed I am lying on. I get up fumbling to towards the door, as I arrive at my destination I flick on the switch next to it. The light shines down engulfing the room, temporarily blinding me. The room is like a hotel there is a double bed with what seems to be a never used before memory foam mattress and breathable coils from what my mana sense can make out and there is also machine and a chute which must be one of the food delivery units especially used by the people in the Capitol to deliver their food. Both things are rare luxuries for even the bottom end of the Capitol, let alone the second best family from the worst District. Some of the poor families in the higher Districts had more money. All the other districts had more than 2 Champions at least whereas District 12 only had 2 and one of them had died decades earlier. This disparity leads to an even more uneven Game leading to the creation of what higher Districts call Career packs which are pre-formed by the lower Districts with more wealth and resources. It ia as the phrase goes - the rich get richer and the poor poorer.

Not wanting to stay in the place that reminded me that I am just a slave for those in the Capitol, I left the room to walk out into an even more luxurious corridor with both sides lined with digital wallpaper which changes every 10 seconds to another scene of marvellous places. On the opposite side there is a room labelled Katniss. I look behind to see the room I just came out to already signposted. I began walking down the corridor to a door labelled 'Community Room'.Entering the door, I look around to see a table with 3 people already seated. Facing opposite the door was the drunkard Haymitch, to his left sat the weirdo from the capital and to his right was my love Katniss.

"Guess who is awake? Hey, sleepy head come and sit down with us."

"What time is it?" I say.

"Its 9 at night and we are on a train, if you are wondering", he says sarcastically. I know that much already as my mana sense is blurry when detecting outside meaning either they have developed a way to block it or we are moving at such a fast speed it cannot act fast enough to capture the data of the surrounding area. While me and Haymitch were talking Katniss stood up and rushed over to me. She then proceeded to smother me in affection.

"Hey, you 2 loe birds better stop sometime soon as you are really starting to piss me off". Haymitch declared with as much courage he could muster in his drunken state. Most people in District 12 who had any power knew that I was the killer behind the death of the areas 'criminals' and that messing with me had a hard punishment.

"Shut it!", I respond, throwing a knife I had just picked up from the table while everybody was looking at him. The knife hits the sleeve of his grease stained, long sleeve shirt, causing him to be pinned to the table.

"Hello, I am Effie Trinket. Effie is short for Euphemia. Let us begin eating," aas the weird woman from the Capitol says that I sense servants coming in and serving us. I believe they are called are Avoxes and have had their tongues cut off due to their breathing patterns and sound. The food coming in is enough to feed even my family of 5 for at least 3 months. I then begin ravenously eating all the food I can get my hands on. Katniss follows my lead.

"What savages!" I hear Effie mutter under her breath.

The second course then begins, and the third and finally my favourite pudding. There is a spread of tiramisu, trifle, brownies, cakes and even little pots of finest yogurt.

Now the meals finished I am doing my best to keep the food down and I can see Katniss's looking a bit green too. Neither of our stomachs is used to such a rich feast.

Effie then escorts us to another compartment to watch the recap of the reapings across Panem. They try to stagger them throughout the day so a person could conceivably watch the whole thing live. We examine the faces of the kids who will be our competition. A few stand out in my mind. A monstrous boy who lunges forward to volunteer from District 2. A fox-faced girl with sleek red hair from District 5. And most hauntingly a 12 year old girl with dark skin and hair she's very like Katniss's sister Prim in size and demeanour. I can see that becoming a problem later in the games. Last of all they show District 12, Prim's name being drawn and Katniss racing to volunteer for her. There is me focused on slightly in the background looking like I am twitching because of irritation. No one will ever truly know other than me that I rigged that draw and that will be final . My name is drawn and I quietly takes my place. After me and Katniss are dragged away Haymitch falls off the stage and everyone groans comically. They then cut to the anthem again and the programme ends. The District 2 boy and District 5 girl look like decent competitors for any normal game but unfortunately for then there is me and my love, Katniss. I then start laughing maniacally in my head while maintaining my cool outer appearance. Our mentor and our Capitol escort remove us from the room and shepherd us back to our separate rooms.

_________________________________________________________________________((Katniss Everdeen POV)

The dying adrenaline, heavy caffeine use and heaps of food all combine in my stomach to form a painful monster that sucks away my sleep. To relieve myself of the burden of worrying I head over to the room of the 1 true pillar of my life, Peeta. He has been there since childhood always looking after and protecting me and in return I gave him a promise of a future. A promise i can never fulfill. So truly all I have given him is some nice memories and some kisses, any girl could give him those. Some girls even beg to be allowed to give him those, yet me I am so ungrateful for his help but wantonly abuse it when in need of it. I have decided I will sneak over to his room sneak into his bed and apologize to him right then and there.

Putting my plan into action I silently open the door to my room and tiptoe across to Peeta's doorway which happens to be open. I then sneak inside the pitch black room towards the bed. I then climb in.

"Look what the cat dragged in."

A whisper can from right next to my ear. I realize that he is behind me, grabbing me in a bear hug from which i cannot escape no matter how hard I struggle.

"There is no use trying, you know how strong I am do you not?"

"I can not help trying," I say hopelessly unknowing of how to respond.

"So you came to service me, did you?"

"NO! Like anyone would want to. I came to apologise to you for the way i have been uncaringly treating you all these years."

"Well the damge is done and I am already hurt beyond repair", he says in a shameless way.

"What can I do to make it up to you?" I ask playing along with his antics.

"Sleep with me."

"Sleep with you, you mean in your bed doing it." I say going a dark crimson.

"No, stop thinking of dirty things pervert."

"You are a pervert."

"Whatever, all I want is you to lay next to m while I hold you all night. got it?"

"I guess I can do that if it allows me to atone for the way I treated you." I say actually falling for the nonsense that started with an apology.

We then get into bed, him behind me, holding me tightly. The feeling of being hugged like this while going to sleep is really relaxing that I just want to fall asleep in his arms. My eyes than begin falling me, closing then reopening again only to close a final time before morning.