Chapter 6

*Positive tension*

WHAM! I was sprawled flat out on my back by a capitol trainer. Luckily, the floor was matted, so the fall was somewhat cushioned. "On your feet!" she barked at me. I failed to comply quickly enough and she pinned me down to the floor, her knee jammed in my throat. "This is just training, tribute," she said down to me. "Out in the arena, do you really think your opponents will give you time to rest? Recover? Not if they want to live. Killing you is their mission. Now, c'mon, show me you want to survive."

She released me and I raised myself to my feet. I clutched the four-foot metal sword in my right hand. It was just a practice weapon. Though it had the same weight and feel as the real thing, there were no edges to it, but I'm still sure I could do some damage with it. I turned my body sideways the way she showed me, to make myself a smaller target. She launched herself at me, expertly swinging her practice weapon, I managed to parry one, two, three of her blows, before the last one caught me in the stomach. I doubled over but didn't go down. Then she took me from behind and pretended to slit my throat with her weapon. "That'd twice I've killed you," she said. "You better learn fast or you'll be dead again tomorrow. Times up. Another tribute is waiting for a lesson." I replaced the sword on the rack and made way for the next student. Looking at their jumpsuit, I learned that it was the district ten male. Up close, he was shorter than me, but he was solidly built; wide shoulders and a broad, strong chest. He didn't even look at me as he started his lesson.

I moved on to agility. There was a course of strategically placed shallow holes in the floor that you were supposed to run as fast as you could through. I mastered this soon enough and then moved on to rock climbing. Then I did monkey bars, and finally just ran laps around the gymnasium.

An hour later I was seated on a bench gulping water from a plastic bottle, trying to ignore how sore my body was. I took a slow look around the gym. The careers were showing off, handling the deadliest of the weapons with practiced ease. They ran the obstacle courses with flying times and just generally seemed to be better than everyone else. The other tributes looked less sure with the weapons, and struggled with the endurance training. There were a few learning at the survival stations, one of them was Bella. She and the girl from district four were trying to light a fire. Upon success, the girl gave Bella a laugh and smile, which she returned without hesitating. 'Jesus Christ' I thought, 'She's trying to make friends' My thoughts were broken by a spear that landed right at my feet, driving itself into the thick foam matting. A tribute ran to retrieve it; the district two female. "Oh, sorry about that," she said with a sneer. "Didn't see you there." The bitch was being sarcastic of course. She can take that spear and go fuck herself with it.

The three hours of training was up and were returned to our quarters. I flopped down exhaustedly on the couch in front of the television. Bella joined me. She had a pen and notepad in her hands and was scribbling furiously. "What are you doing?" I asked her.

"Trying to remember everything I learned today," she said back. "We're not allowed to take notes in the gym, they'll think we're scoping everyone out."

"What did you learn?"

"The best things to make shelter from; starting fires with dead wood so it doesn't smoke too much; what wild flowers are safe to eat…"

"Sounds like fun," I said.

"Did you learn much in combat training?"

"Don't ask," I said back. "And on that note, it's your turn tomorrow to get your ass kicked. I'm going to take a shower."

The hot driving water of the shower worked my muscles loose, which had packed themselves into hard knots after the day's training. I flopped down on the bed with my hair still wet, and though it was still early, immediately fell into a deep black sleep.

…...

The second day of training saw me at the survival stations and Bella in combat training. Since she already learned fires and edible plants. I started with camouflage. I was shown how to coat my clothing with mud and bits of dead plant life to avoid detection of human eyes. I glanced over at Bella's progress to see something incredible. She was a whiz on the obstacle courses.

She simply flew through the agility bit; she scaled the cargo net without missing a beat; and when she reached the monkey bars, she opted to swing herself on top of them and run along them, using her forward momentum to carry her strait across. She leapt off the end and did a neat tuck and roll onto the floor. She was definitely getting some stares from the game makers.

My last lesson of the day was learning to rig snares to catch both animal and human prey. Rigging the thick branches together was a challenge; they were difficult to keep in place because they were drawn taught and kept snapping back. But after thirty minutes of constant work, I managed to leave the trainer daggling ten feet in the air by one foot.

Training ended and we retired to our floor. I recited everything I learned to Bella as she copied it into her note pad. "So tomorrow is the last training day, followed by private showings," Bella said. "I think we should stick together tomorrow; build on what we learned."

"You know, I like a take-charge girl, even if you are annoying as hell," I said back to her.

Before Bella could retort, Madilynne waved us into the dinning room with a chirping "Dinner is served! Come, come now!" Me and Bella went to dinner, still quietly discussing our strategies.

…...

We worked together on the third day, staying at the same stations. Despite only three days worth of learning, I had improved greatly with the sword, though I was still no match for the careers. Bella chose the spear as her weapon, and was sparring with a trainer. She managed to use the weapons' length and her uncanny agility to keep her opponent at bay.

Then we moved to sure up our survival knowledge. I watched as Bella expertly coaxed a blaze out of two sticks and some dead grass. I copied her example, but with poor results. We took a final rundown on how to separate toxic berries from edible ones, and then lunch was called. We sat together at a table in the far corner, discussing what we would show the game makers in the upcoming private showings. "Well, I'm faster than a lot of our closer competition, so I'll try to focus on that," Bella was saying. "If they see how agile I am, then maybe-" her words were cut off by the appearance of another tribute. It was the girl from four that worked fires with Bella. She stood sheepishly at the edge of the table for a moment before Bella said, "It's okay, you can sit down."

The girl sat down across from us and gave a quiet, "Hi…Bella."

"Oh, Alexandre, um…this is Gloria-"

"I don't give a fuck who she is," I muttered. Bella stared at the tablecloth. "I guess you really don't seem to realize what is going on here, do you? She is an enemy; we all are. We all may be human in this together, but we're all in it for ourselves in the end. This same bitch you're making friends with now is the one you're going to have to kill later. And people only die once, Bella, remember that." I got up and left the table. I pulled up a chair from an unused table and seated myself in a remote corner, isolated from view. I made the sign of the cross over myself. "…They'll be bringing us all the eternal flame; they'll be bringing us all immortality…" If you win. And that's a big if.

Soon they began to call the tributes one by one for the private sessions. I stared at the wall and listened to the districts scroll by. Soon me and Bella were told to leave the lunch hall. We sat together in a darkened corridor as we waited to be called. Though She was sitting right next to me, Bella felt about as close as the moon right now. There had been somewhat of a rift in our relationship since lunch; a kind of positive tension had formed between us, which wasn't really surprising.

Bella's hands were knotted in her lap as her leg jangled up and down. "Nervous?" I asked her.

"About what?" was her answer. "About all of this? The training, the Games? It's not like it's anything we can do anything about. It's not like we can ever run or ever escape; we can't run or hide it away…"

An automated female voice chimed in, "Bella Fortune"

She rose from her seat. "But I'll tell you this. Even if I have to use my teeth and my claws…I'm gonna make it happen." Then she disappeared through the door.

…...

An hour later we were eating dinner with our stylists and our escort. Bella was talking quietly to Medusa; probably about what she showed the game makers in private. She hasn't spoken to me since then. I was halfway through my second serving of strawberry pie and vanilla ice cream, when Dazzle gave me a sideways look, asking without words how my session went. As much as I liked Dazzle, I found myself unwilling to share that information, even with her. It's not like I was very impressive anyway. Knowing I had no one outstanding skill, I chose a more all-round approach. I picked up a sword and hacked the limbs off a few dummies, then climbed the vertical cargo net, and scaled the uphill treadmill. I struggled a little on my last demonstration on the rope wall, which I'm sure lost me points.

"So," chirped Madilynne. "The scoring program is on in bit, shall we partake?"

"Sounds good," Dazzle said.

We all pushed back our chairs to go to the viewing room, but Madilynne stopped us. "Now, now. No need to uproot yourselves. Observe!" she gave two sharp claps of her pink-nailed hands and an oil painting at he head of the dinning room slid upwards silently, revealing an enormous flat-screen television. "Ta-Da!"

We settled back in just as Caesar Flickerman took the screen.

…...

"Hello, good evening, and a Happy Hunger Games to you all! Now once again it is time to see just how our tributes sized up in training. After three days of careful and skillful observation by our game makers, the final scores are in! All you sponsors out there take note! Maybe you can pick a winner from the lot. Now without further ado, let us begin!

From district one. Eureka Hearthstriker. Score of nine.

Diamond Sutra. Score of nine.

From district two. Ilene Southworth. Score of six.

Trigger Suresight. Score of ten.

From district three. Persephone Redfield. Score of eight.

Fiddler Goodman. Score of six.

From district four. Gloria Tidesender. Score of four.

Sullivan Highwind. Score of five.

From district five. Roxanne Maestro. Score of nine.

Julian Zephr. Score of seven.

From district six. Meredith Wingstar. Score of five.

Kaiser Viridian. Score of six.

From district seven. Compass Rose. Score of eleven.

Juniper Fade. Score of six.

From district eight. Sunny Undershade. Score of three.

Italy Vespa. Score of five.

From district nine. Lily Amberseed. Score of six.

Rye Waverly. Score of five.

From district ten. Wynn Parish. Score of five.

Toro Hornstead. Score of ten.

From district eleven. Conifer Daily. Score of seven.

Cypress Dogwood. Score of eight.

And finally, from district twelve. Bella Fortune. Score of six.

Alexandre Deacon. Score of seven.

And there you are folks, our tributes' scoring. From casual viewers to heavy gamblers alike, I'm sure you can all find someone to put your hopes on! And do be sure to tune in tomorrow at 8:00 pm for the re-airing of the thirty-second Hunger Games, and then at 11:00 pm for this years' tribute interviews. It's sure to be an exciting night for all of us! See you there!"

*End of chapter 6*