Aurora

Health and I head down from the District 2 floor to the basement level about 15 minutes before training is scheduled to commence. True enough most tributes do arrive early, most earlier than this, but there's little point seeing as the doors always open at 10am and not a second earlier. Nonetheless Heath wants to head down early and scope the competition some more and he's in a right royal pissy mood because everyone is talking up Thane as the favourite male tribute. The best description he's got out of Flickerman is 'a stereotypical District 2', which isn't so bad, but it's not exactly a glowing report like those thrown around about Thane.

By the time the elevator doors open Heath is practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation, he went on all night about how as soon as we get in there he's going to show everyone that he's the one they should be scared of, not Thane. When we walk out of the elevator into the entrance room I notice that almost all the districts were indeed earlier then us. District 1 are here but are standing on opposite sides of the room and we head towards the girl, Amber I think her name is? Anyway it looks like the kids been kicked from the careers before they were even formed, but seriously, he would have just been deadweight anyway.

'Hi there I'm Aurora, District 2,' I say to the District 1 girl with my most delightful smile as I offer her my hand. She gives me an equally glowing smile in return and shakes my hand a little too firmly to be friendly.

'I'm Amber.' She states after releasing my hand. 'So I guess we're the beginnings of the career pack then. I'm pretty sure District 4 will be joining us but I've made it very clear to Halt that he's not going to be with us, anyway it looks like he's already making friends with District 12, he's such a disgrace.'

'He obviously knows he won't survive very long alone then doesn't he,' Heath pipes up. 'Are you sure he won't be of any use to us? I've heard stories about why no one volunteered for him.'

'Absolutely not, anything you hear is most likely just rumour, he's nothing special trust me.' Amber responds definitively.

I scan the room and notice that a couple more districts have arrived and that most are just standing awkwardly either in there pairs or alone, Amber was right though Halt is over in the corner chatting away with both tributes from district 12 and the girl from 7. It looks as though they're arguing about something and Halt as well as the boy from 12 are getting quite fiery at each other, albeit in hushed tones.

The elevator opens one final time and someone I've been hoping to get a better look at strides out with her district partner in tow, the girl from 3. She's already what everyone's calling the dark horse in this games, and that's just from her reaping. It's funny though, she does give off a strong vibe that she knows exactly what she's doing here, and yet she's shown nothing other than volunteer to give people that impression. I'd say that at the moment she's probably the only one in this room other than Thane that I'm a little worried about, but I guess we're about to find out what she can do aren't we? Unless of course she decides to stay mysterious, which would complicate things a little.

The wall directly opposite the elevator slowly starts to separate down the middle and roll to either side, opening up a wide grey hallway where the door was. At the end of the hall I get my first glimpses of the main attraction in the training centre, the gymnasium.

Silence hits the room and we all line up in our district pairs and begin marching towards a very intimidating dark skinned woman at the end of the hall.

'Welcome, tributes, to my training centre. My name is Atala and I am about to tell you what I tell the tributes every year. In this gymnasium there are many different stations where you can be taught a variety of different skills, some will teach you to kill others and some will teach you to stay alive. There are three compulsory exercises at the end of each day that everyone is to complete in but other than that you may go to as many or as few stations as you wish. Also before you run towards the weapons remember I need to warn you, 10% of you will die from infection in the arena and 20% from dehydration, just keep in mind that it won't necessarily be another tribute that kills you out there.' She pauses, allowing us all to soak in what she just told us. 'If you require any assistance with training you need only ask, it is everyone's job here to help prepare you as best we can. Finally, at the end of today's session you will all be running the gauntlet over there to my right and you will be timed, now go train.'

We all stand there a little awkwardly for several seconds until Heath breaks off and heads briskly to the wrestling station. Everyone slowly disperses to separate stations after that with almost everyone at stations by themselves, making it clear that there are none if any other alliances formed as yet, even Halt and his possie have divided to different stations. All the careers are gathering around the wrestling station as Heath requests to fight the biggest trainer available. The tributes from District 4 introduce themselves as Wolf and Nyx and as Health's trainer arrives Amber, Nyx and myself all head towards the knives station, it's never too early for some friendly competition after all.

I go first at hitting several dummy's with throwing knives as they appear from obstacles and just as I feel as though I'm nailing it I get a glimpse of the District 3 girl watching me and mistime my final throw, having my knife miss the dummy's head by mere millimetres. Amber gives out a tiny but clearly audible chuckle as I look back at the District 3 girl, who isn't actually at any stations yet, she's just standing there watching all the other tributes. Annoyed I take a step back and allow Amber to have her turn and to my dismay she hits every one perfectly, just like I would have had I not been distracted.

As Nyx takes her turn I notice 3 (I really need to learn this girls name) looking up at the roof. Following her lead I look up also and notice the boy from 7 meandering swiftly above us on the rope apparatus that covers a lot of the roof. Fuck I completely forgot that he volunteered as well up till now, although in my defence he's definitely been getting less publicity about it then mystery girl from 3, Thane and the cowboy from 10.

Nyx finishes her turn with 2 close misses, although from the look of it they weren't just unlucky ones like mine was. Clearly she's just not up to scratch with Amber and I, not that I'm complaining. I take another survey of the room and see that most tributes are just at survival stations and not doing anything terribly exciting, although the District 3 girl has gone and actually started training now at the snare setting station with several other lower district tributes.

I notice the girl from 9 over at the archery station and she seems to be doing alright, nothing special but she can handle herself by the looks of it, however Amber sees this as an opportunity at humiliation and heads over there. She picks up a bow, stands next to 9 and fires three shots, hitting the dummy in the forehead, the chest and in between the legs, all close to perfect shots.

'And that's how you do that 9,' Amber says with a bow. The girl from nine grunts and then picks up a crossbow from the weapons table as well as three bolts. She loads first bolt and turns to face us, away from the dummy. Then, to my surprise, she turns around quick as a flash and fires the first bolt, loads, fires, loads and fires again. I've seen crossbows used before but never have I seen one reloaded as quickly as that, and I could have sworn she barely even aimed at the dummy before firing each shot.

She turns around to face us without even examining her shots and remarks, 'You'll have to do better than that to impress me Amber, where I'm from shooting your target in the perfect spot every time is something we learn to keep us alive. You quickly learn to nevermiss in that environment, because you'll only miss once. Oh and my names not 3 by the way, it's Cherry.' She walks away, still not looking at where her shots landed.

Amber stands there in absolute shock, confirming that it's not just my vision playing tricks on me and each of her shots did actually split Amber's arrows. Maybe not cleanly in half like people say the perfect shot would hit (not that I even know anyone whose seen it happen) but she definitely hit the end of each of Ambers arrows, and she did it with a lot of finesse to say the least.

[]

As the training session comes to a close Atala calls us all to towards the gauntlet, where we will be required to run and jump in the quickest time possible between several platforms of mixed elevation whist being hit by the trainers with padded clubs. Earlier in the day all of us careers ran through it several times for a little practice and got a feel for it although some other tributes also attempted it after us and were pretty hopeless. It did serve as some good entertainment though.

First off the block is Halt and he runs through it in what is a slightly impressive actually, by the looks of it he beat any of our practice times and also very skilfully dodged a club on the last platform that would have otherwise knocked him straight in the gut and off the platform onto the floor. At least now we know that the trainers definitely aren't going easy on us.

Next Amber takes her turn and as expected does well but still takes a couple of seconds slower than Halt, Heath then runs it in several seconds slower than Amber. After my turn I notice that I manage to run the course exactly one second faster than Amber much to my amusement, eat shit you pretty blonde bitch.

Overall the times were pretty much predictable, Thane actually just ran straight through the course taking every blow from the trainers without even flinching, much to Heath's dismay. A couple of other stand outs were the monkey boy from 7 and the girl from 11 who I actually hadn't even noticed until now, she wasn't one of the volunteers or anyone whose gotten any sort of publicity though so why should I. Overall I managed the 3rd best time behind monkey boy and Halt, which did worry me a little seeing as how willingly I went along with ostracising Halt from the careers, fuck I hope that doesn't come back to bite us. The girl from 3 did do above average but not by a huge amount, so at least we can cross her athleticism off the possibilities of why she's a threat. Who knows maybe she has just been bullshitting this whole time and actually isn't all that remarkable? Wouldn't the Capitol hate that after all this publicity they've been giving her?

[]

Following the gauntlet we all head to the dining hall for lunch, after which we will have the rest of the day to prepare with our mentors. It's kinda funny how I've adapted so quickly to Capitol life when it's clear that most of the lower district tributes still think they're dreaming judging by the look on their faces at the amount of food we have to choose from, and also the fact that we can take as much as we want. Although I guess they're just still getting used to the feeling of a full stomach.

Following my mentors advice I'm careful to take less food then I would normally eat, so that I'm not still used to eating heaps when we get into the arena and burn through my supplies to quickly. Heath of course forgets this advice the instant he sees food and piles his plate up as high as he dares, nearly spilling it all as we walk over to the table where it looks like us careers are going to be sitting.

We are the last to arrive at the table and judging from the day so far the career pack this year is going to comprise of just Amber from 1, Heath and I from 2 and Wolf and Nyx from 4 as none of the more skilful tributes from the other districts have grown the balls to ask us to join. Other than us Halt and his possie are sitting together and judging from the way they are chirping away at each other they'll be an alliance in the arena, so in that one there's the pair from 12, Halt and the girl from 7, who looks way to smiley for someone whose facing the prospect of almost certain death within the fortnight. Seriously she looks like she doesn't have a care in the world and is having a gossip about boys or something, like what the fuck?

Most other tributes seem to be going at this alone and not talking at all and in many cases not even sitting with their district partner, however I do notice in the corner the boys from 7 and 10 talking away almost excitedly. I'm not too worried about Halt's alliance but those two both volunteered and are giving me the feeling that they are going to be contenders in this and are not two to be underestimated. I already know the boy from 7 is a fucking monkey and according to his mentor has a serious brain to boot, and the boy from 10 is definitely hiding something, I'm pretty sure he never even touched a weapons station once today, which is suspicious to say the least.

As the others all argue about tactics for the arena, most of the friction being between Amber and Heath, I notice a now familiar mountain getting up from his finished lunch and head towards us. I signal to the others to shush as he approaches and we all stare at him expectantly.

Obviously in no hurry to say what he came over here to say he places his two monstrous hands on the table while looking at each of us one by one, before speaking in a barely audible whisper.

'I want in.'

And with that he stands up, turns around, and walks away.