shut the door, turn the light off [open]

Emea had spent the day at a photo shoot that encouraged Tessera. Because Emea was one of the few Capitol people who didn’t have ridiculous hair colours or skin colours, she was often hired to model these types of roles. The people organizing the photoshoot wanted Emea to look younger, even though Emea looked young enough already. They had dressed her up in a pink button up blouse, and a red plaid skirt that flowed down all the way to her calves. The blouse was tucked in to the dress, and Emea thought it looked ridiculous. “Who would actually wear this?” She thought to herself, as she spun around in the make up chair. “Oh, Emea dear. You look lovely.” The hair stylist played around with her braid, as she looked herself in the mirror. He whispered something into her ear about looking like a district girl, but Emea couldn’t hear her. She was too distracted by the groaning in her stomach. She wasn’t feeling very well today. All she wanted to do was get this silly photo shoot done and go home, treating herself to some tea and comfort food.

“Model on set!” The purple skinned photographer called out, loud enough that Emea could hear him. A couple of makeup artists stood her up, and did finishing touches on her make up and hair, making sure she looked exactly like a District girl. The makeup artists ushered Emea over to the photo shoot scene, while directors whispered orders into her ear, like be fierce and do this, and do that. She nodded, acting like she understood them. “OK, 1, 2, 3, go!” Emea started posing for the camera, acting like a poor, weak girl that was starving, the makeup making her cheeks look very hollow. In one pose, she got down on her knees, with her hands behind her head. “Great, great. Keep on going!” The photographer encouraged her, and then finally said that they were ready to move onto the next scene, where the District girl got the tessera and was now happy.

Many makeup artists ran up to her and started wiping off what she guess was the makeup that made her cheeks look hollow. A pain ran through her stomach, and she clutched her stomach, letting out a small moan. Many ‘are you ok?’ ran throughout the room. She answered them all with yes, she just had a bit of a stomach flu, but she could survive. The make up artists called out that Emea was ready for the next scene, and this is where another model came in. It was a girl who was much older then Emea, so it looked like she was Emea’s mother. She was instructed to hug the woman, who wasn’t that taller then her. Although, they had the same brown hair and brown eyes. But, that’s where the similarities end. She had a long nose, high cheekbones, and large lips as if she got plastic surgery to change them. The photographer called that they were ready, and he began taking photos at a great speed. Emea hugged the strange woman, and they danced around, put an arm over each others waist, and other motherly stuff, that Emea doubted happened in the Districts.

When the photographer said they were done, it was like he activated a trigger, because Emea went running towards the closest bathroom. She had something bad in her throat, and obviously it wanted to burst out, because when she reached the toilet, she felt a sickly stench in her nose and a bad taste in her mouth, too. It all came out, right into the toilet. Vomit. It seemed that lately, she had been throwing up a lot lately. She finally finished, and sighed in relief. Sweat trickled down her face, as she got back up from her kneeling position. Did she eat something bad? Or was she just simply, sick? She couldn’t think of any other reasons. She flushed the toilet, and walked back to her dressing room. She took a sip of water, and got the sickly taste out of her mouth. The capitolite changed back into her regular clothes. Her cell phone rang, so she picked it up and realized it was her agent. “You’ve got another photo shoot today, you do realize that?” She sighed, and added, “I don’t feel very well. Could we reschedule it?” Her agent sighed, and hung up. Her cellphone rang again, and her agent informed her that it was possible that they could reschedule. She sighed in relief, and hung up.

When she left, she stopped into a small coffee shop on the corner of the City Circle, and sat down on a bench. She sipped her coffee, almost melting into the hot goodness of the beverage. It was almost like she felt better, right after drinking the coffee. She watched people go by, couples, families, and the occasional lonely person. She loved picking out the outfits flaws, and how good it goes with their face. In her mind, of course. It would be terribly rude to say it out loud. Not that she cared, really. All she wanted to do was nothing, get her mind off of work and eveout of her mind. She suddenly felt her stomach knot again, and eventually ran to the nearest garbage can, literally knocking multiple people out of the way. She never thought she could run so fast in high heels. Emea hurled into the garbage can, getting lots of looks from the strange people around her. Ugh.