Okay this is a filler chapter, and the next real chapter will be up momentarily...
Age 7
When I was seven years old my mother lead me to the training arena. I was shocked to find out I was going. Money was tight, my dad wasn't great and we had a new baby on the way. I didn't know then that I got a scholarship only because I had demonstrated great athletic ability at the school's gymnastics performance.
MY dad had worked in the quarries for 10 years, when he and my mom were 21 they got married and had me. After that things kind of got worse. The Capitol cut funding and the wages of the workers were cut, they knew full well that we couldn't just walk out. My dad got angry a lot and the earliest memory I have of him is him sitting in the corner, while he was watching me, drinking. Then he just got up and left. I was alone for four hours before my mother came back. I was four.
We stood in line behind a boy, he had been in my class last year. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was much bigger than me. I looked around. There were a lot of new people here, all around my age. Each one in a different line for a different class, I was standing in the longest line there was, Swords and Knives.
The boy turned and observed me too. I waved, he waved. This was the only interaction we had until later that day and if I had known then that this boy, Cato, was either going to be the biggest pain in the neck ever or my whole world I would have turn and run out the door.