Disclaimer: Still not Mrs. Collins, sigh. Also, the whole fear simulation is from 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth.
After Blaine and dad died I had no excuse not to join training as a tribute. My mom was extremely proud of me, of course, boasting like any mother from district 2 would.
The academy could hardly be compared to a school. It was a large building made entirely of cement with on only a few large windows spaced around. The first time I walked through the front door, my eyes burning from the bright lights and white walls, I pondered how anyone could live in the place. I soon found out that most of the rooms were downstairs, like they would be in the Capitol, I was told. The main floor was only offices and elevator stations. The next level down were all dormitories, down one more was the cafeteria. I realized this about the floor plans; every story down got wider and wider, the base of the building starting out small, around the size of a house. The dormitory level was 20 feet wider, then 20 feet wider after that, and over and over again until we reached the bottom floor, which fanned out to be 2 football fields. It was all an underground pyramid.
I shared a room with the boy of the class, Marl. I've heard about how district 1 and 4 train their tributes, and I've discovered that District 2 takes it more seriously. Instead of choosing one girl and one boy and training them until they're 18, District 2 chooses two girls and two boys to train. One year before their games they fight each other using all the strategies they've learned at the academy. The winner gets to volunteer at the reaping, while the other stays home and watches their fame pass them by. Losing the fight is a complete embarrassment and I've heard rumors that most people commit suicide after. I'm not sure if these are rumors to get us to work harder or are actually true. I can't say I've encountered many losers, though.
The transition from my normal school to the training academy was difficult. Changing any school would be difficult, but I assumed no average student had the trouble us tributes had. I went from coloring maps of Panem to running 10 miles before breakfast. At first, I fell behind everyone else on our runs, my 8 year old legs were short and I stumbled by. Of course all the kids my age had this problem, but I distinctly remember a girl in my year, Britten, keeping up with the 18 year olds.
I'll admit, I always was a friend to jealousy, and Britten definitely got us closer. I couldn't understand how she could go so fast and keep up. All of the victors who trained us praised her, including Driff and Thornia. I couldn't believe a girl was beating me. I imagined her winning against the other girl, Clove, and me winning against Marl. I'd have to go into the games with her, be her ally. I knew if this came true all our mentors would prefer her, their favorite, to win. She would get all the gifts from our sponsors. She would lead the Career pack. She would kill me, win the games, and return home as victor. No one would remember the puny little Cato who got beat by a girl. I wouldn't let it happen.
It was around the time I had this revelation that we started introduction to combat. We started off easy at first, just throwing punches, but soon Driff let us throw in some swords.
Driff set me up against Britten because, as he explained, I was going to have to get used to hurting little girls. We were positioned on a square, cushioned mat with a red circling outlining the boundaries. Our swords were placed on the inner edge of the circle. I should say that we were both 11 by this time and had already had a few years of training down. The object of this duel was to some what harm your opponent, leaving them with just enough scrapes and bruises to yield.
I threw the first punch, knocking right into Britten's jaw. She stumbled a moment before making a fast turn to gain momentum and splitting her foot into my hip, throwing me onto the ground. I have to admit, it was a good hit for a girl. I grabbed for the sword behind me and sprang to my knees. Britten was on the other side of the mat with her weapon at her hands. She was fast, insanely so. She started barreling toward me with her sword pointed at my shoulder. Right as the tip nabbed my arm I pushed the sharp edge of my blade into her side just enough to open a cut. She screamed, released her weapon, and started to collapse backward; onto the side she had been struck. Before her body hit the cushion I threw my sword on the ground under her spine. Blood gushed and her cries were curdling. The mentors rushed to her side and helped her to the informatory.
No one blamed me—at least not to my face—for Britten's injuries. She was in a wheel chair for a long time, but I remember her starting to use crutches to walk a few years later. Britten would not be able to be a tribute with a severed spine. She wouldn't be able to kill me. I destroyed the threat she presented and in stowed a new one to Marl and Clove: Do. Not. Up. Cato.
When Britten left, the mentors decided that getting any other kid to train from the beginning would be too much work, so Clove had no competition for volunteering. I didn't find a huge threat in Clove. Our mentors had decided she would focus heavily on knife-throwing while I would train hard in strength. I've always felt this gave me an advantage in survival because strength was the key skill to almost everything—throwing, fighting, building, hunting, killing…
Although I thought she wasn't a threat to my victory in the games, I wasn't friends with her. I ate lunch with her and Marl, because we tended to stay away from the older tributes—they had a tendency of hurting the younger trainees to prove it didn't faze them—but that was about it. I wasn't at the academy to make friends.
When we were 14 the victors introduced a new training technique that attempted to obliterate all of our fears. We were the first year to try it out. Marl was the first to try it out. When he came back to our dormitory after the first run through, he looked horrible. Nauseous, scared, and sweating profusely. It was disgusting, really. He explained, through slight gasps of air, what it was. They called it a fear simulation. He said they put you in a small room and sat you in a chair, hooked you up to cords that connected to a computer, and injected some liquid into your neck. Then they started the simulation.
It was like reality, Marl had said. He was in field of grass with gray sky and he could feel the warmth of a setting sun and heard birds chirping above him. He leaned down and touched the grass, feeling it brush against his thin fingers. He smiled and wondered how this could be a fear, but then he heard the flick of fire behind his back. He turned quickly and was faced with a wall of fire so high he could no longer see the sky. Marl started running but the blaze was faster than he was and surrounded his skin. The pain was so intense and authentic that he cried out and fell to the ground, immobile. He screamed and cried until his lungs filled with smoke and he passed out. When he woke up he was in the chair in the tiny room with Thornia taking the cords off his body. I didn't understand the simulation at all, wasn't it supposed to remove fear, not produce it?
I was the next one to try out the simulation.
A/N: Thank you SO much for reading! Please, please, PLEASE review so I know people actually like it and I should keep writing. If you haven't read Divergent I definitely recommend you do! Please let me know any critics you have and any suggestions in how you want the story to go in. Next chapter will be about Cato's simulation experience. The reaping will also be coming soon!
