Chapter Two: Training Begins

I was running, the trees were behind me, to my left and to my right. There was nowhere to go but forward. I skid to a stop in front of the massive lake that stood between me and the Cornucopia. The shrieks and cries of the beasts sounded behind me, they were getting closer. I heard the crunching leaves beneath oversized paws and the labored breathing of others trying to escape the same fate that I was.

I had no choice, I dove. The water froze me to the bone and for a second I sunk, the water shutting off my brain. Then my instincts kicked in and I swam for the opposite shore, my fingers and feet numbed first, then my arms and legs. I heard the screams coming from the beach and I swam harder, finally I felt the sandy bed of the beach, gasping for breath I pulled myself out of the water, and right into the path of a huge monster.

Its feet were the size of dinner plates and hunched over it probably would have reached my shoulder, had I been standing. Its eyes were glowing and purely evil, I swallowed a scream and slowly dragged myself up, I wasn't going without a fight. The thing threw back its massive head and howled, then it lowered its gaze back to me. Cautiously I looked for an escape route, there was none, any way to kill this thing before it killed me, there wasn't anything but sand, water, and the Cornucopia. The Cornucopia. Of course, if I could only get around this thing.

I shifted to the right, it growled menacingly. I moved the left, it growled again. Desperate, I feinted left and then sprinted right. Digging my feet into the sand and taking off at full speed, I didn't let myself think about how much bigger it was than me. Then I was knocked to the ground and tasted sand in my mouth, felt hot breath on my neck, and the fangs as they started to rip into my neck.

I bolted upright in bed, a cold sheen of sweat covered my entire body and every muscle was so tight that I could barely move. I forced myself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. The clock there glowed a happy blue 12:00 back into my face. I'd only slept two hours?

I gripped the counter in one hand, shoving my hair out of my face with the other. I needed to get a grip. I was not going to die in there. I was going to win, and come back, see my family, find someone that I could love, have kids. I don't care if everyone there despises me because I'm from the Capitol, some of the district people have moved here now, of course, they'll claim that since they weren't born here and we were that we're different.

I just want to live, I wanted to cry, Dammit Luana, get a hold on yourself! You are not crying! You are going to hold your head high and win this thing!I took a shaky breath and clambered back into bed, at that point it felt like sleep was hopeless but I had to try.

Someone was shaking me awake what seemed like minutes later, but light was filtering through the window to my right and I blinked sleepily.

"Get up girl! We're going to miss training!" said the girl who was shaking me, the girl I shared this floor with, she was already dressed and ready. I wondered why she bothered getting me up at all, one less person at training meant one other person not prepared and another easy opponent. I certainly wouldn't have woken her up.

I pushed the blankets off and pulled on the first thing that I saw, which happened to be some sort of training suit. Too tired to do anything elaborate with my hair I just pulled it up and left it at that.

"An announcement just came on a few minutes ago and when you didn't come out I came in to see if you were up. Training starts at 9:00." we simultaneously looked at the clock, 8:50, I sighed, we would be on time.

"Come on," I murmured, heading for the elevator. "We need to get out there."

Training was a disaster, and that was putting it kindly. I went through the stations and learned everything that I possibly could, but Capitol children are just not grown up in the same tough environment as the tributes before us were. The Career children even started training early in their lifetime, though it was supposed to be against the rules.

I couldn't even draw back the string of a bow, let alone aim and shot it. And don't even get me started on the weights, those things were impossible. I did find a few things that I was good at though, climbing, camouflage, and traps. Traps, traps, traps.

I loved those things. They didn't take any physical effort, other than putting them together and they worked with twice the strength I would ever have. If I was going to have any hope of survival it would be because of traps. I also wasn't half bad at knife fighting and throwing, aiming was easy enough when the weapon wasn't fighting you all the time. I had no idea how Katniss got to be so good at using those things, they were so difficult! Training was mainly uneventful except that two guys got in a fight, I think it was Derex and Keran, Kelan, Ketan? Something like that.

They were all up in each others faces over god knows what. The one kid punched Derex in the nose and at that point one of the supervisors came running out. "Stop that!" she had shouted, "You'll have plenty of time to finish that out in the games!" they had avoided each other for the rest of the day.
When we finally got back to the room I was ready to crash again, last night's sleep had not done anything for me. But something was bothering me, "What's your name?" I asked the girl I was sharing this level with. She smiled at me.

"Alyn Engel, it means Pretty Angel, isn't that nice?" she said, still smiling. She was pretty, if you liked that fake almost electric look.

"What's your natural eye color," I asked, staring hard at her, picturing, no, she couldn't be...

"It's brown," she frowned at me, "My eyes are prettier now that their green aren't they? My sister on the other hand, she didn't need to get her eyes colored even though she did anyway. I tried to tell her that purple is a perfectly fine eye color but she hated..." that's why she seemed so familiar, the bright cheery smile, the delicate facial structure. She was my best friend's little sister.

I remember Jacie telling me at least twenty times that she hated her normal eye color. "Normal people aren't born with purple eyes!" she'd said adamantly, even when I tried to tell her that I loved her eyes. This was just wonderful, I couldn't let her little sister die! I had to keep her alive. I just had to.