Chapter 1
Glimmer's POV
I heard the songbirds outside my bedroom window. They wake me up every morning peacefully.
I sit up, stretch, and get dressed into my training uniform. It's just black yoga pants with a stretchy red t-shirt and my first and last name on the front and back. Glimmer Jewel. It is a pretty plain and boring outfit in my opinion but I don't care about how I look when it comes to training believe it or not. I mean I LOVE looking glamorous 24/7. it's just what I love, but when it comes to training, I just want to be comfortable.
Anyways, after I'm dressed, I go to the bathroom and go close up to the mirror to admire my clear face. "Ah Glimmer, your the most beautiful girl in the world". I say to myself. I grab my Olay acne cream and scrub my face with it and some water. I don't have any sort of acne on my face, (Thank god), but acne wash is perfect for preventing it. Also lots of water and healthy eating.
After that, I got my makeup out. Not only does makeup give me confidence, it is fun to put on. I always experiment with different lipsticks and eye shadows. Have you ever done rainbow smokey eyes with blue lipstick? I definitely would not wear it in public, but in the end, it looks really neat! I have my own makeup account on Instagram and do those little tutorials and videos over really out of this world makeup. I have 24.6k followers! Plus once I win the hunger games, I am sure I will get like 20 times that!
I just wear basic makeup out in public, like foundation, mascara, and clear lip gloss. All my makeup is from L'Oreal. It just works best for me. I don't know why but I don't like any other makeup brand. Anyways, that takes me 5 minutes.
Next I move on to my hair. I love experimenting with my hair just as much as makeup. I do different kinds of ponytails, braids, and other up dos. That also goes on my Instagram. I sometimes post my makeup and hair stuff on Pinterest to, and my best on Facebook for all my family and friends to see.
Anyways, for now, I just put in 2 fishtail braids, which is my favourite basic hair style. It is fun, easy, comfortable, stays out of my face, and suits me. After my hair is done I smile and do a few poses, then I head downstairs.
"Hey everyone I'm off to training." I say as I give a nice wave and smile.
"What about breakfast?" asks my mother
"Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me." I love healthy eating. I rarely eat anything unhealthy. I go to the fridge and pack a lunch to eat at the training centre. I pack a green apple (My absolute favourite), a banana, a carrot, cucumber slices, left over garden salad from the night before, a chocolate protein shake, (with only 1 gram of sugar!) and my water bottle and I am off.
"Bye." I say as I head out the door. I am a 5 minute walk away from the training centre. I walk there and I think to myself how grateful I am to be in a career district, especially 1. We have everything I need, a training centre, lots of food, nice houses, running water. I smile the whole way there. I also take out my apple and eat the whole thing by the time I am there.
When I get to the doors, I throw out my apple core and head to the back where the picnic tables are for lunch. "May as well sit down here for breakfast" I say to myself. No one is seated at any of the picnic tables, just how I like it. I like to be quiet and eat rather than be social, which is weird because any other time I am the biggest social butterfly you will meet.
I open my lunch bag and eat my banana. Once it is gone, I go on to sip some water and eat my cucumber slices. I love fruits and vegetables like no body else. I drink more water after the cucumber, and pack up and head in. I always eat some in the morning and the rest at lunch.
I walk in and put my lunch bag in my personal locker. The training centre is filled today, but then again, it is everyday.
The training centre is only open on Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays because they still want all of the kids there to get a good education and go to school a few days a week. I do great in school. I get mostly As'. School is easy. I'm 17 so I'm almost finished school. After that, I go to the games, win, and go to college.
I want to go and learn how to start up my own beauty company called "Glamour". I will have all sorts of makeup, hair and nail products. Maybe, if I am successful enough, I could start selling clothes and making jewellery. Infact, I already do make my own jewellery. I never buy any jewellery. If you ever see me wearing any, I made it. Plus, I am learning how to knit and sew. I will make millions and maybe someday, move to the capitol and even bring my whole family with me. Maybe, even have my beauty company there.
I sigh a sigh of happiness thinking about my success. A hunger games victor with her own beauty company. I zone out for a minute but then I snap back into reality when I hear the head trainer start announcing what's happening today.
"Today, you will be learning a new skill today. Preferably a new weapon. One that you know absolutely zip about. There will be a trainer at every station teaching you the proper techniques with it. Ok? Let's get to it."
Geez, I don't know what weapon I should do. I know mostly every weapon here. Archery is my favourite, not to mention my best. I am also good with kukris, crescent swords, normal swords, and am still working on throwing knives, tomahawks, and cleavers. I could work with throwing knives, but he said something we know nothing about. Maybe an axe? Or dagger tricks? Maybe a cross bow, but if those are ever in the games, it isn't often. I don't know.
Suddenly, I see Marvel, my crush walk by with his friends. I for a fact know that he is best with a spear. So if I am good with a spear, it may impress him and make him pay more attention to me and maybe like me. So a spear it is.
Most people in this place must be good with spears, because there are not to many other people here. A group of tall muscular guys look down at me and smirk as if I was a gazelle trying to scare or intimidate them and they were big bad lions. I just gave them a dirty look back.
"Ok so you want to get better at spears? Pay close attention and you will be hitting bull's-eyes in no time." said the trainer. So he demonstrated how to do it. He showed us how and where to hold a spear and how much force to put on it when we are throwing it and everything like that. After his explanation, we got to each try for ourselves with our own spears and dummy. I hit the edge of the left shoulder the first time, just barely hit it.
"Damn it." I say under my breath. Then the next ten times I kept getting the arms and the sides of the stomach. I only completely missed a couple times. Oh well at least I was actually hitting the dummy for the most part. After 10 or so minutes, the trainer helped each of us perfect our skills, told us what to do more of, and told us what to do less of. We practiced there for a good few hours. By the time 4 hours had past, I was hitting lots of almost bulls eyes. I got a couple but not many. Most at least got to the edge of the targets. Still huge improvements from this morning. What are those bitch boys going to say now.
After I hit one right square in the head, the boy beside me looked at me in shock. He was short, scrawny, and looked to be about 12.
"Uuuhhhhhh". He looks at me in shock. Like am I impressing you or something? He kept staring at me.
"What is wrong with you?" I ask in a snotty tone.
"uuuummmm, do you wanna go out or something?" he asked in his high pitched little boy voice nervously.
"Um, ok your like 12"
"11" He interrupted
"Great, 11, even worse, I am 17, that is a little fucking weird. I said. Everyone spear throwing finally stopped and watched. He started sweating and his face turned as red as a tomato. He look around frantically at everyone staring at him and his walked away quickly.
Anyways, after that scene, I went back to doing spears for the next half an hour. It was about 2:30 now. I figured it was time to move on to something new.
I walked around to see what there was. I then see marvel over at a survival station, he was practicing complicated ropes. He was also alone, maybe we could get to know each other a little better.
I head over to where he is and take the table right next to him. Honestly, I find ropes easy, but maybe I could help him out to.
"Hey Mavel." I say. He looks over at me and smiles.
"Oh hey Glimmer, How's it going?" He says.
"It's going great. I just finished about 4 and half hours over at the spears." I tell him. Please be impressed.
"Wow that's a long time. Have you had any experience with spears before that?"
"No, I haven't even touched a spear before today. They are actually kind of fun." I say.
"Yes they very much are. They are my favourite weapon. Well, and my best. So are they easy for you?" He asks.
"They are kind of hard for me to be honest, but I am getting better. I am at least hitting the edge of the target and not getting way off." I say.
He chuckles. "That's good that you are improving." He says.
"Thank you." I blush a little. Then there is an awkward silence for about a minute until he asks something that made my heart race faster than it ever has before.
"So, you wanna hang out sometime? Like maybe after training?" He asks kind of nervously. Oh my god. I don't believe he really just asked that.
"Yes I would love to." I say with the biggest smile on my face.
"Great. So what time do you normally leave training?" He asks. Just an FYI, we can leave anytime after 3. The place closes at 6 and we can stay any time after that.
"Just whenever I feel like it. Maybe do you wanna go at 4?"
"Yeah sounds great." He says. We then continue tying ropes and making small talk. I even helped him out a little bit to. We talked about everything from home life to school to past hunger games and even funny stories from when we were little kids. I looked at the clocvk a few hours later and it read 4:06.
"Hey Marvel it is 4 now, you wanna go?" I ask.
"Yeah sure let's go." He says. We walk to my locker and I get my things. Then we go to his locker to get his stuff.
"Well I guess I didn't get to eat my lunch today." I say.
"Neither did I." He says. "Wanna go to the picnic tables and finish them?" He asks.
"Sounds like a good idea." I say, and we head over to the picnic tables.
Marvel's POV
Wow, I have always known Glimmer but never paid much attention to her. How did I not see how beautiful she was. Her golden blonde hair, shimmering green eyes, glowing complexion, and pearly white smile. Not to mention she has a cute voice to. I love her personality the most. She is so nice and outgoing. She is a girl with ambition and loves to learn new things. It is like we were meant for each other. I don't wanna get to a head of myself here. I just wanna become friends first. Then best friends, then maybe we could get married some day.
We come to a table and sit down. I take out my cold grilled chicken breast and cold baked potato and chow down. Glimmer starts eating a carrot. I find it cute when girls eat carrots I don't know why. Most of the time we are quiet, but we do make some small talk.
"So, what do you want to do?" I ask.
"I don't know, maybe, um, go for a walk in the woods?" She suggests. I love exploring the woods. It will be especially fun with the girl of my dreams.
"Yes, I love walking in the woods." I say.
"Great." She says. So we walk about 30 minutes until we get to the woods.
"I should have brought my bow and arrows to shoot trees and stuff." Says Glimmer. "Well, that sounds like a good idea for tomorrow." I say with a smile. She smiles back and we stare into each other's eyes for a moment.
"So, shall we go in?" I ask.
"Yes we shall." She chuckles. We spend a good hour going around the woods just having fun, not only talking, but finding cool bugs and mushrooms, and we even raced up trees a few times. We made our way to a large creek.
"So you wanna sit down here for a while?" I ask.
"Yeah sure." She replies as she skips a stone into the water.
"See I don't understand how you skip a stone. I have always failed at it as a little kid, and still do." I say.
"Oh it's really easy. Just make sure your hand is low enough and kind of flick your arm, like you would your wrist." She said. "Look, like this." and gave me a demonstration.
Then I tried myself. It didn't work out to well. She made me keep on trying again until I got it. She really pushes you to succeed, I love that in girls.
So by the time we are done skipping rocks, I have almost mastered it. Glimmer thinks I'm really good at it.
"So should we head back?" asks Glimmer.
"Ya sounds good." I tell her. So, we make our way back talking and laughing about today.
"Look, I see the edge of the forest, race you to it." Laughs Glimmer.
"Ok, go!" I shout happily. Just as we about there, Glimmer slips backward on a pile of mud. She lets out a quick shriek, and thank god, I am right behind her and caught her, like we were ball dancing or something.
I look into her eyes, I am dazed by them. She stares back into mine. We both smile for a second and she lifts herself.
"Well, thanks for saving my ass." She chuckles.
"No problem." I reply, and we continue our way through the forest. It is so temping to just hold her hand and continue, and maybe even kiss her, but I know it is to early for that.
We continue to walk until we are right near the training centre.
"Well, I guess I will see you tomorrow." I say.
"Ya, see you tomorrow." She says with a grin. We start to head our separate ways, until I remember, I was going to get her number. I wanna text her all night. I have become crazy about her within the past couple of hours.
"Hey Glimmer, I almost forgot, what's your number, I wanna add you on my phone." I say running up to her.
"Oh yeah, here, it's 234-555-9067." She says cheerfully.
"Thanks. I will text you later." I say with a wave. We once again, go our separate ways. I think about her and the day spent with her the whole way home. I can not believe this just happened. I added her number to my phone and text her as soon as I get home. It is about 6:30by the time I get home.
"Hey Marvel, how was training?" Asks my mom cheerfully as she comes over and gives me a hug.
"It was great. I learned some stuff with archery and rope tying. I also met someone." "You met someone? Oooh is it a girl?!" Asks my mom excitedly.
"Well I didn't really just meet her, I have known her for a while but we got talking today and we are pretty good friends now." I explain.
"Maybe you could ask her out." Says my mom teasingly. She is good at embarrassing me infront of my 19 year old and 12 year old brother.
"Haha I bet she doesn't even like you idiot." Laughs Daltonpointing at me. Daltonis my 12 year old brother. He is very immature and whenever anything is brought up about dating, he takes off screaming "EEWW".
My older brother Jordon on the other hand is a total player. He gets all the girls. Almost every girl we know wants him, even though they know he cheats and uses them for a booty call. They can't resist him. His longest lasting relationship was probably like 7 months, when he actually tried. When mom found out he was dumped because he cheated on his ex, my mom was pretty pissed. She screamed at him that she never raised him to be like this and that she loved him and al that, but he was 17 at the time to, so my age. Now that he is graduated high school, he doesn't get all the ass that he used to. I don't see a bright future for him.
"So what is for supper?" I ask.
"Roasted potatoes, steak, and green beans." Says my mother getting me a plate.
"Thanks mom."
"Your welcome hun." She says as she hugs me. I hug back. I may be a big tough guy and all but when it comes to being lovable, whether it be with a girl or my mom, I am just a giant friendly teddy bear.
I eat quick, very quick and I head to my room right after. I am so excited to text Glimmer. I go in and lie on my bed and quickly get my phone out.
"Hey Glimmer it's Marvel." I text. Within the next 2 minutes I get reply.
"Hey Marvellous Marvel (with a little winking emoji)."
"So, do you want to meet somewhere tomorrow?" I ask.
"Ya sure, how about at the picnic table where we ate today. Maybe meet there around 10:30?" She suggests.
"Yes, perfect." I reply. WE continue texting for an hour or so until Glimmer has to go look after some errands. She didn't specify, but I am very satisfied with how today went. I am so excited for tomorrow, every time I think of her my heart wants to fly out of my chest.