Sorry for the out-of-context spree I went on at the end of the last Chapter, I was just kind of practicing for when these Games finally start. I hope my story isn't too boring, thanks for reading! Oh yeah, and I do not own the Hunger Games!
Surprise, surprise. I had a terrible night's sleep last night. I mean, I've obviously watched The Games before, but not in the setting with me going into them in a matter of days for a Quarter Quell. C'mon now, give me a break!
We all force down our breakfast and head to the training room together. The tributes from 1, 2, 4, and 11 are already in there when we arrive. We decided to distance ourselves away from the Careers from the get-go and situate ourselves comfortably next to the District 11 Tributes. I start up a conversation with the sixteen year old boy tribute, Mallow. He seems really nice and laid-back. He starts talking to us about his home and asks us about ours. The conversation is flowing real smoothly until it is interrupted by the Head Trainer as she informs us that all the Tributes are currently present.
She goes on her spiel about how we aren't allowed to fight each other until the arena and how we should become well adapted to the survival techniques since many tributes die of exposure to their environment. Once she concludes, we decide to split up in pairs and test out some of the non-combat stations. Dani and I head over to the edible plant station and Ryann and Vi test out the knot tying station. Dani quietly teaches me what plants are safe to eat and which ones to avoid. She's a whizz when it comes to edible plants because of her parents' business. After she teaches me, I test out my knowledge and end up only missing three out of 20 plants. Not bad! She avoids taking the test to prevent from showing off her skills and then we move over to the trap setting portion of the training room.
The little Tribute from 11, Mack, is already there testing out one of his traps. When it successfully activates and easily crushing and killing whatever animal would have fallen into it, we approach him and ask him for advice. He's a sweet kid. It's sad because that's exactly what he is… a kid, and he'll be fighting against tributes twice his size in a few days. But anyways, he seems to be very knowledgeable about survival skills as he teaches us the basic maneuvers for setting a small animal trap. After working on the traps for a good hour and a half, we say good-bye to our new friend and head over to where Ryann and Vi started out, the knot tying station.
The two younger tributes from District 6 are already there, but they are two of the most annoying people I have ever met, so we decide to leave them alone. The girl is complaining about every little thing that goes wrong and the boy keeps bragging about his very unimpressive, sloppy knots.
We decide not to spend too much time at the knot station, mainly due to our annoyance and our fear of breaking the rule of not killing another Tribute before the Games. We pass up the fire starting station since we are already very accustomed to it and head over to the camouflage area. The quiet girl from District 7 is there painting a picture. A very beautiful picture at that. She must have been here all day working on it. Strange. Well, we try not to seem distracted by her awkwardness, so we learn how to properly blend ourselves in to our environment until we are dismissed from the training room.
When we get back to our floor, we shower, get into comfortable clothes, and meet up with our team for dinner again. Monikka starts the conversation ,"So lemme hear it. How was the first day of training? And I want to hear specifics. If you leave me with just a 'Fine.' Then I'll throw myself across the table at you." After Icirrus stops "tsking" and shaking his head at Monikka, we begin our day's summary. Ryann and Vi started at the knot tying station, proceeded to the edible plant section, then spent most of their day in the swimming lesson station (which has been a reoccurring station in the training room ever since the Tributes requested one after they saw the start of the 3rd Quarter Quell) of the training center. They admitted into taking an interest in Harper and Rayven the two girls from District 11, and said that they could be trusted.
When it was Dani and my turn to go, we admitted that we were already experienced swimmers, something that we randomly took up with Dani's brother back home in 10 and went through the list of our training experiences for the day. We told them about Mack and Mallow, about the annoyingness of the District 6 tributes, and about the strangeness of the District 7 girl.
"Yeah, her name is Shelbee. Old Johanna told me she's having trouble coming through to her. It's a good thing that being 90 has calmed her nerves. If she was anything like the bitch she used to be, the poor woman's heart would have given out from shouting at her constantly," Monikka points out.
We wrap up the dinner saying that we're going to test out our combat skills tomorrow and we all leave the table pleased with our training day and the partial alliances we may have made.
As crazy as it may sound, we decide that watching another Games would be best for mentally preparing ourselves for our Games. We stick with the watching of past District 10 victors, so we pop in the second District 10 winner, Apryl Rhoads, in the 41st Games
This time, the camera focuses on the Girl from 1's point of view as she cruises up her tube. She has a smirk on her face as if she's ready for anything. The Cornucopia isn't in that much of an impressive spot. Just a meadow with some flowers here and there. The gong echoes and we watch the entire Bloodbath through the eyes of a Career girl from District 2. She grabs some knives and almost immediately hurls them at her fellow tributes. She takes out the Boy from 5 and the Girl from 9 with repeated hits to the back. The screen splits in sections so we can see the other deaths in the Bloodbath. The Girl from 1 is brutally stabbing the Boy from 6. The Girl from 3 is clubbing her district partner to death. Guess they didn't get along very well… The Careers proceed to take out the Girls from 3, 7, 8, and `12 and the Boys from 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. That leaves 13 tributes dead in the Bloodbath.
The camera man zooms out to show the entire arena. That's when our jaws drop. It is the smallest arena I have ever seen. Ever. It cannot even been a half mile in diameter. The circular edge of the arena drops off into a 400 foot fall to the death. It makes sense though. The 40th Games lasted 3 weeks. I doubt the Gamemakers wanted another bore-fest like the one they had last year.
The Careers confiscated three different Tributes camps that night: the Boy from 12 and the Girls from 5 and 11. The next day they quickly find the Girl from 6 and they decided to finally split up their alliance after unsuccessfully finding Apryl, who has burrowed her way underground with the tools she got from the supplies at the beginning of the Games. She has used her camouflage skills to hide her secret area from the others. Right when the Careers split up, a fight breaks out between the Girls from 4 and 2. This draws all the Careers back into the middle for one gigantic fight. The crowd has to be loving these Games, no matter how short they are. In the end, the Boy from 1 is the last one standing from the Career pack. But he's hurt. Very hurt. Apryl wasn't far (obviously) from the scene and she heard the commotion. She approached the Boy from 1, he surprisingly dropped his weapon and put his hands up as he became a sitting target. He knew he stood no chance, even if he could somehow overpower her. Apryl grabbed the bow next to her feet. And sent an arrow flying right through his chest. The screen went black. End Games.
We were still shaken up from what we just saw, just not as much as last night. It was all so surreal. That had to be the shortest Games ever to occur. I couldn't even imagine things escalating that quickly.
Once again, we headed off to bed for an OK night's sleep before our next training day.
