I had 1 review on the first chapter! Oh, the joys of being a new author.
Anyways, review, review, review. I'm doing 5 different POV's each chapter until we get into the Games, then YOU get to pick which 5 POV's I'll be doing each chapter, until we get to the bare minimum ;)
Review who's your favorite so far. Don't just read!
Hugs, ForeverAdrian.
Juanita Alba POV.
Training. This is what I've been waiting for. This is the only time I'm going to have to prove to these little bitches that I am to be feared. Right here, right now, they will learn that Juanita plus a sword, equals the Victor of the 24th annual Hunger Games.
Everyone is accumulating into their own little groups now. The weaker ones are going to the Camouflage and rope booths. The alright ones are going to the spear throwing and wrestling booths, and the ones like me, the ones that actually have a chance of winning this thing, are going to the sword training and everything else than involves a weapon the size of our arms.
Maximillium and I approach the sword wielding booth, but I notice there's someone already there. Penelope was her name? Well, whoever that girl is, she's going to have to move. I must make the first impression. I have to make everyone in this room look at me and fear me; first thing.
I walk up behind her and poke her in the shoulder. She looks back at me for a second, but then looks away. The man holding the sword approaches her and sticks out the sword for her to grab, but right when she stretches her arm, I grab her shoulders and twist her around.
"Mademoiselle, move away from ze sword." I say in my perfect little French accent. I wonder if anybody has caught on that its fake. Oh well. My whole foreign girl in distress thing is so going to rack up the sponsors, or so I hope. I haven't been studying French for five months for nothing.
"Uh, what?" She asks in a confused tone.
"I say, move away from ze sword now." I say in an angrier voice. I need to be careful not to lose control and somehow slip my Panamese accent. Then my plan would be ruined and all my sponsors will be lost, and we all know the humiliation that would bring also. "The girl with the fake accent." I can see it now.
"Uh, no sorry. I was here first." She says, and turns back around.
I can almost feel smoke blasting out of my ears. Nobody defies me like that. I have never been told no in my life, and I don't expect it to be now from some random District 9 girl.
I grab the back of her hair and slam her down to the ground. She rolls around and tries to get herself back up, but I just easily kick her in the ribs, and send her back down.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She screams, clenching on to her ribs for dear life.
The entire room is silent now.
"Better now, oui?" I smile and turn back to the booth. All eyes are on me, with either a shocked or scared expression. Even the man holding the sword appears a little stunned. Wow, this is more than I could have ever asked for.
"You hand me the sword now, oui?"
Derek France POV.
Damn. That French girl is beast! The way she threw and kicked that Penelope girl! Hell yeah! The Games haven't ever started yet and people are already starting to get into fights! Man, this is awesome! Oh, and the fact that she's French blows my mind, because my last name is uh, France!
I'm in the edible plant booth with Glenn Elizabeth. She's pretty much my only friend as of now. But hey, I'm not complaining, Glenn is actually really cool. I can't believe what her District did to her, I mean, I know District 2 has a reputation for being the cruelest District, but that's downright awful. If my District did that to me, I'd just kill myself.
"Are you listening?" Glenn asks while the instructor is showing us all the different poisonous berries.
"Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking about other things." I say, half smiling.
"Okay then." She says, giggling to herself.
She has such a cute smile, and such a soothing laugh. She's so pretty too. With her bright red hair and pink fair skin and hazel eyes, she's a beauty!
We've already made an alliance. I asked her right away too. I asked her within five minutes of knowing her. One thing I don't want to do is fool around. My goal was to get an alliance right off the bat and I did. I guess I can put a check next to that. Now, the next thing I have to do is look stunning during the chariot rides and have a successful interview, and of course, the last thing I have to do is, well, survive.
"Hello?" I snap back into reality and see Glenn staring at me, laughing. "You have no idea what he just said, do you?"
"Nope. Not a clue." I say back, laughing.
Now both of us are laughing, and I don't know why because nothing we said or did was particularly funny, but I guess were laughing because were so in shock, and were so scared, we have nothing else to do but to laugh alongside our only friend. And that is very hard to come by in The Hunger Games.
This moment is truly priceless.
Penelope Starr POV.
I'm so angry. That Juanita girl had no right to do that to me. No right at all! I wasn't asking for any trouble, I just wanted a simple sword lesson! Is that too much to ask?
I left the training center. Fuck that, I am not by any means staying in a room with her. And nobody even defended me either! I had to stand up and walk out of the room, by myself. Selfish brats.
I'm up in my room now, sitting alone, eating a Benedict Burger one of the Avoxe's brought me. My revenge on Juanita is going to be quite simple. Make it to at least the final 10 with her, and when it seems like sweet victory for her, I'll kill her. Simple as that.
I look out the window and notice that it's raining. Rain. What a beautiful thing. I don't know why, but rain always seems to comfort me. It reminds me of home, oddly enough. I wonder what the arena is going to be like. I hope there's rain, lots of it. There's nothing more comforting to me than rain to me. The way the cold drops just splash onto your skin, soothing you instantly. Promising another day, promising life to all the plants and animals out there. Ah, I love it.
I hear a knock on my door and immediately drop my Benedict burger on my plate. Startled, I walk up to my door and lay my ear on it.
"Who is it?" I ask, with a slightly nervous tone.
"Hazel and Cookie!" Hazel says, with her sweet little high voice.
"Oh, come in!" I say, unlocking the door.
I sit on my bed and lay my plate aside. Cookie and Hazel walk in and start expecting the room.
Hazel and Cookie are the only people I've actually tried being friendly with. They're both really nice, but they have completely different personalities. Cookie is a crazy, out-going girl, that doesn't even know what's going on most of the time, and Hazel is this petite Asian girl, who knows everything about anything. I wish I could be as smart as her. She's incredibly shy though, but sometimes that's a good thing.
"Are you okay?" Hazel asks, her usually dull eyes making a worried expression.
"Um, yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?" I ask her, obviously knowing why.
Juanita.
"Well," Hazel trails off, trying to find the words.
"Because Juanita beat your ass!" Cookie screams while a chunk of my Benedict burger hangs out of her mouth.
"She didn't beat my ass, Cookie, she pulled me down to the ground, and kicked me once. Okay? That's it." I say, slightly annoyed.
Cookie shrugs her shoulders and takes another bite of my Benedict burger. Ewh, that's so gross.
"Did you see a nurse or something? It looked like she kicked you pretty hard." Hazel says. If it's one thing that I've learned about Hazel since I met her a couple days ago is that she worries about absolutely everything.
"I'm not hurt Hazel, thanks for your concern though." I say. I stand up and look over at Hazel and Cookie.
"Well, what booth should we go to first? We're going to need a lot of training if we're going to even make it past the first day." I say, putting my hands on my hips.
They both smile.
Alliance confirmed.
Arnaldo Armani POV.
I've been in the Rope and Axe handling booth the whole time. I don't know why either. I just have this sudden fascination with Ropes and Axes all of a sudden. It kind of makes me feel like my old childhood hero, Indiana Jones. God how I looked up to him. He was literally my everything. I would watch his movies hours and hours upon end, and then I would act out my favorite scenes in front of my own family. Ha, it was great. I miss those times so much.
I think that every tribute here has a chance to win, but some, of course, aren't taking this seriously, and aren't paying that much attention to the training sessions. Like that Penelope girl who left right after she got kicked by Juanita. That shows weakness. Now everybody in this room will know she's an easy target. A target I plan on hitting if I ever see her. I am actually planning on killing, but only to the ones that deserve it. Like Penelope.
"Attention, Attention please." A slim, sick looking man says as he walks in through the French doors.
"This concludes today's training session. You will have another one tomorrow and a brief one the next day for those who wish. After that, the chariot rides and interviews, and, at last, the 24th annual Hunger Games." He looks around. His hands are on his back and his chest is sticking out noticeably. His though looking physique doesn't flatter his bleach blond hair and snow white skin.
"Do we have any questions?" He says again, looking around the room. Looking at every single one of us. It's like his eyes are looking into our very souls.
"Very well then." He says. He takes one last look at us and starts backing away. He whispers something to the guard next to him and they both start laughing, and with one last cruel smile to all of us, he's gone.
I can feel my skin crawl right up my back. That man is noticeably evil.
All the men and women at the booth immediately start cleaning up and closing their booths. I start walking towards the doors when I hear a familiar voice shout my name.
"Arnaldo!" She says, coming up from behind me and putting her arms on my shoulders.
It's Cookie!
I turn around and give her a big smile and another hug. It's no secret Cookie and I like each other. We just haven't told anybody, or admitted it to each other in that case.
"What's up?" I say casually, noticing that the only people in the room now are Cookie, Penelope, the Asian girl from District 8, and me.
"I need to have a serious talk with you about something." She says in a semi-flirtatious voice.
"Well what is it?" I ask.
"Be in an alliance with Penelope, me, and Hazel." She puts her arms around my neck, but now since we're facing each other, she leans up close to me, like if to give me a kiss.
"What?" I say angrily, pushing her off. "Alliance, with them?"
"Well, yeah." She says quietly. She lifts her hand up and tries to touch my cheek but I push it away. Cookie and I agreed since the Reaping that it was going to be just me and her. That was it. Nobody else. But of course, knowing Cookie, it went inside one ear, and came out the other. And of all people, it had to be them?
"Arnaldo." She mumbles, taken back.
"There's no way in hell I am going to be in an alliance with those two!" I scream at her. I look behind Cookie and notice Penelope walking towards us with an angry look on her face.
"We're through Cookie. Good luck in the Games." I look over at Penelope and Hazel. "It looks like you're going to need it."
Cookie, my dear friend, you have just put a giant target on your back.
If there's one type of person I can't stand, it's a traitor. And that is what she is.
Sarah Morford POV.
I hear a lot of shouting behind me but I don't even bother looking. I'm completely apathetic to everything that's going on around me. I've already made myself throw up three times today. And I'm not stopping there. Throwing up makes me feel like I'm cleansing my body from all the anxiety and all the depression I have welled deep inside my brain.
God, I am so screwed up.
I know putting on a good weight now is vital to my survival in the Games, but I just can't bring myself to eat one single thing. If I do, I'll throw it up. Like that Capri Sun I drank earlier, yeah, six minutes later it was down the drain. Sixty calories in that bitch!
I did fairly well in remembering all the poisonous bugs, plants, and fish that I might come across. And I think I know my fair share of edible plants too. I didn't even bother going to any of the weapon booths. They were flooded with all those douche bags from District 1, 2, and 4. I didn't feel like wasting my time so I thought I might as well go to something just as useful.
I'm not going to be in an alliance with anybody. I think that's just a whole bunch of bullshit and that people should just get over themselves and give up hope. There is only one winner, and there will always be one winner.
I know I won't make it long, but I'm sure as hell not going to die in the bloodbath. If I'm going to participate in the Hunger Games, I'm going to make myself noticeable. I don't know how, but I'm going to do something no one else has ever done before. Hey, you never know. I might even rack up some sponsors by doing so; because I'm sure as hell I have none as of now.
I don't know what the arena will be like this year. They never give hints, so it's always a surprise. Last year they did a frozen wasteland, so will this year's be a scorching desert? It's hard to tell. Very seldom do I ever guess right. I just hope it's somewhere manageable. Like a forest of some sort, or a jungle or something. It would be total hell if I had to be in a place where it was cold or boiling hot 24/7.
I'm pretty sure my mom would be happy to see me die. She treats me like garbage beneath her feet, and always puts my brothers before me, even though I'm the oldest. Just thinking about her makes my blood boil. Basically, she's just a really big bitch and I hate her. And I don't even know why I'm thinking about her now, because I shouldn't. Thinking about her makes me angry, makes me wanna kill someone. But of course I'd never do that. Unless I had to.
You know who else I hate? Joaquin Scardino. I just wanna bomb his house, that's how much I hate him. I hate the way he walks, the way he turns his head to the right and presses his tongue against his right cheek, I hate the way he talks and, and his laugh. Yuck, it makes me sick. It was pretty much a blessing that he got chosen as my district partner, because now I'm going to have the satisfaction of killing him ever so slowly.
"Hey Sarah, I like your shoes." Joaquin says as he passes me in the hall.
I run to the nearest trash can and puke.
