The 25th Hunger Games

The Final Interview

We walked out of the closet a few minutes after. My prep team had joined Virana and Angeline and looked at us with both suspicion and intrigue. Their eyes asked a sort of, "What's going on there?" As always, they all matched. Today, it was a classier ensemble made up of a navy suit jacket and sparking undershirts. They're tight pants were also embedded with sparkles.

"You two took your time, didn't you?" Angeline asked, but made nothing else of it. "We've got to get Noah ready."

Next to her, Varina nodded. "That hair alone is going to take up most of my day," she agreed.

I rolled my eyes to hide the fact that I was actually worried about the state of my hair. Getting here, Varina always left my hair down and curled it. Now, she would have to completely restyle it, and I would have to pretend to be okay with it.

"Don't worry, sweetie, we already had a look at you while you were recovering," Otis informed me. This made me feel worse rather than better.

"Any imperfections are already covered up," Edna added. I recalled all my gashes and bruises that had mysteriously disappeared when I woke up today. That had been them? I guess I should've been thankful.

"So, what's left?" I asked hesitantly.

Next to me, Sariel snorted. "Wrong question."

Galene sighed and answered the question. "Makeup, nails, waxing anything that grew back. It shouldn't be too bad."

"And when all that's over, you get to put on a pretty dress and meet up with Caesar for the recap video," Varina finished, well aware of the sarcasm behind it all.

To think I was starting to get worried about the interview the night after. But now, I also had the recap video to worry about. Previously, it had just been made up of video clips with a lot of people dying and a lot of the victor seeming extra cruel.

I turned to Sariel and asked a question with my eyes. He responded with an uneasy smile. "It's not so bad, just relax for now."

Somehow, I found that would be hard.

As promised, prep team fixed me up. I was a lot prettier when they were done with me, but my hair was still a soft spot. Varina promised to fix it, so I sat in a chair with my back to a sink with bottles of miscellaneous hair products all around me. When she arrived, Sariel was trailing behind her. It was an effort not to grin at him.

"Give me that hair so I can fix it up," Varina commanded. I tilted my head back as she turned on the sink. Although I couldn't see him, I heard Sariel take a seat next to me. When I tried to turn and look, Varina made a sound of annoyance.

"That's okay, I'll just watch," Sariel offered.

At first, Varina was simply washing my hair, something I knew it definitely needed. Then, she sat me up and took to cutting. There was a lot of snipping and a lot of tiny hairs covering me by the time we were done.

"You ready?" she asked. I glanced over at Sariel, but his face gave nothing away. Why was he so good at that?

"Okay," I muttered. She guided me over to the mirror, my nerves bustling. Would I even be recognizable after this?

Surprisingly, the answer was yes.

My hair was short. In my mind, very short. It came just above my shoulders at the longest parts and cascaded around. Each strip seemed to be all its own, as opposed to my old style, where everything functioned as a unit.

"It's different," I finally said. I toyed around with the bangs that came over one of my eyebrows. "But I like it. It's a lot better than before, anyway."