Capitol Training Center
He was always with her.
Not that she minded in the least, it was just surprising to her that he would willingly want to be with her. After all, most people tended to avoid her, because back home, all she was was the girl that wanted to sleep all the time.
Ashton Meeker, though she slept more than anyone else she knew, didn't do it because she wanted to, it was because she had to. She was forced to sleep against her will. If it were her choice, she would have liked to only sleep eight hours a day. Instead, she slept considerably more than that. So everyday felt short. Especially when you didn't, or couldn't, get many things done in the span of a day.
She tried to find ways around it. At least, things that wouldn't hurt her in the long term. She tried coffee, exercise, sleeping well at night, the safe things. Much to her misery, none of those things worked. Even that one sugar and caffeine rush failed to work, even if she did feel her mind charge up for a little bit and have her body feel more jittery. And when it was over, she was more tired than ever, and was sick for days.
There were more powerful things available, but the things that she heard that worked were harmful to her, and she didn't want to do those things. District Twelve was already harmful enough in her mind.
She looked to her district partner and saw the damage that she could have suffered from if she had given in.
Ryan Burnout was smoking yet another cigarette and was blowing foul, pungent smelling chemicals from his mouth. She hated that smell, and it seemed to linger in the air where ever her district partner just happened to be. He also looked more aged than an eighteen year old should be. But then she told herself that many lamp stamps looked older than the dime shines the same age as them. She guessed that it was because of their living conditions, and the ways that they dealt with it.
And along with what she had seen and heard about Ryan, Ryan was more than likely just like her. A loner. A person that was hard to be around. A blackout.
Ashton had seen first hand that Ryan was a bitter person with emotional problems, but she didn't hate Ryan. If anything, she enjoyed the company of the unstable teen because she just wanted to be around someone and not be alone. It made her feel as if she was worth something.
Sure she had Fay and her parents back home, but that was it. She would have liked it if more people would just hang out with her and not judge her because of her condition. But that was wishful thinking.
She could hear the comments of the kids back home. 'She cares more about sleep than about us.' 'She doesn't care about being with others, so why should we bother?' 'If she wants to choose sleep over being with us, we should let her.'
So her friends left her. They all left her until all that was left was Fay. And Ashton wondered how much longer their friendship would last until Fay disappeared and left her alone in the world. Everyone else had left her, why not her? And when that happened, would she beg and try and explain that her one and only friend left was important to her, or would she let Fay walk away? Begging and explaining didn't work with her previous friends, why would if work on Fay?
Ashton tried to remember exactly what she had said to her previous friends, but all that was a blur. She couldn't remember anything clearly, only fragments of the conversation. She remembered saying to them that she'd try to stay awake more. Did they respond? She couldn't remember. There was shouting, but she couldn't remember if it was from her or her former friends that did that.
She had to wonder if she was really such a bad friend, all because she slept more than the average person? Because when her eyes became heavy she would plant herself down where ever and sleep? Yes it was rude, but was it something that her friends used as an excuse? Was it her condition that they couldn't tolerate, or was it her? Did they not want to be friends with her anymore because of something she said or did? Was she just an unlikable person that just so happened to sleep a lot?
Would she end up like Ryan? A loner with a sour attitude?
If she hadn't ended up in the games, would she eventually turn to the very same vices that Ryan and the other lamp stamps consume? Destroying themselves inside and out because that was the only way they could gain some kind of serenity?
"What do you think of the Capitol?" Ashton asked her district partner, wanting to break the silence between them. And to get away from her thoughts.
"I hate everything about it," Ryan venomously spat out. "And they hate everything about me, so we have that much in common at least."
"Who has that in common? You and me? Or you and The Capitol?" Ashton calmly asked.
"Do you hate The Capitol as well?"
"Well I don't hate everything about it but-"
"Then just myself and the Capitol." Ryan interjected harshly. "If you don't hate everything about them, then we don't have that in common."
Ashton would have liked to tell him that not everything in the Capitol was so bad. After all, they did supply them with food and had made her look better than she ever had in her life. She liked seeing how The Capitol lived and how much her life might have changed if her family hadn't needed to spend money on her medication. People besides her parents and Fay were there to take care of her and help her if she needed any.
But on the flip side, she didn't like that she was going into a deadly game where she'd have to fight for her life, all in the name of entertaining the very people that her district hated. And the reason that they were feeding her and the reason that they were making her look exceptional was because they wanted her to look her best and preform her best for the games. After all, the games were only as entertaining as the tributes competing in it.
There were some pluses to going to The Capitol, but she could think of a lot more negatives.
"You can't hate EVERYTHING about The Capitol, can you?" She curiously asked, wondering if all Ryan could see were the negatives.
"I can." Ryan answered bitterly as he crushed his cigarette in his fist. He winced a little, but that was it. Ashton wondered if he was used to crushing burning cigarettes with his hands. "And I do. The food they're serving us? We're just turkeys being stuffed before the festival. I ain't going to love The Capitol because they're stuffing us for slaughter."
"Well you should eat something so that-" Ashton started, but didn't finish as Ryan directed his anger at her.
"So that I can be a Capitol bitch like you!" He yelled, causing several heads to turn towards their table.
Fear washed over Ashton as she looked at Ryan and his intense grey eyes that were burning with anger. Anger that hadn't subdued since this morning. She had wondered how he could be so angry for so long, and right now, she wished she hadn't said anything to him because of that anger.
She had been shouted at before. She had made people angry before. But for the first time ever, she saw that someone other than a peacekeeper wanted to harm her. She didn't know what to do, and she tried to work something in her mind as she slowly processed what could be the best course of action. But of course, her delayed response only fuelled Ryan's rage. "Answer me!"
Ashton felt pain erupt in her left cheek and found herself laying on the floor. She cupped her cheek and looked up at Ryan in both fear and surprise. Ryan was holding up his right hand and looking down at her with pure, unadulterated rage. It took her several moments to realize that he had slapped her. And had slapped her hard.
She had been slapped before, but it was gentle slaps to try and keep her awake or people trying to wake her up. What Ryan had done had done was something an attacker would have done. All Ashton could do was stare at him in stunned silence, and all that seemed to do was make Ryan angrier.
Ryan looked down at her for a couple more seconds before he pulled back his right leg. It took Ashton time to see it coming, and she wasn't ready to defend herself.
She moved her arms too late, and Ryan's kick hit her square in the ribs, causing her to gasp out in extreme pain before she curled herself tightly into her chest. Agony spreading through her chest as waves pulsated through her ribs.
Ashton expected another attack to happen. Instead, she heard the sound of a younger boy screaming like a mad man.
He hated abusers.
As soon as he had heard Ryan shouting at his district partner, Falco Naylar felt himself get triggered. He didn't see Ashton Meeker getting shouted at and getting hit, he saw his sister getting shouted at and hit. And that infuriated him.
In general, Falco hated those that picked on the weak. He especially hated when someone picked on someone that couldn't, or wouldn't, fight back to save their life.
Like back home. His sister, Hilly, was strong and stuff, but she was unwilling to fight back, especially against people that she cared about. That made her open to abuse, because if she cared about you, she wasn't going to hurt you back. That was what he hated about her friends, especially her jackass boyfriends. They thought that they could take pony her up physically and mentally.
She would say that everything was fine and dandy, but he knew better. It was that feeling. That feeling so intense that it couldn't be wrong. Screw what other people said. Screw what other people would show him. He knew what he knew, and nothing was going to change that.
Hilly was his only sister, and while she was his oldest sibling, it was still a brother's job to defend his sister. That was one of the first things that his father had taught him, and he was going to follow through with it, even if that made him a villain in Hilly's eyes.
Paranoid. They said that he was paranoid, but it wasn't paranoia if the threat was real. Nobody believed him though, they said that he was just imagining things, that he worried too much. Because of that and the lack of evidence, because people usually only believe what they see unless someone else vouches for you, Falco had been labelled as crazy. And when that damn diagnoses and those stupid pills came, it only made things worse. Because of those two things, nobody would believe him when he would say things, thinking that he was just being paranoid again.
Falco hated that. He hated that people refused to trust him when something was happening, all because they wouldn't listen to him in the first place. Because everyone somehow knew better than him. Because he was just a fucked in the head kid. One that was apparently into incest, according to many.
And having nearly constantly thinking of his sister since he had gotten reaped, those thoughts toyed with his mind. So he wasn't completely coming to Ashton's rescue, he was more coming to Hilly's rescue.
He didn't come to Anna's rescue because he had been too spaced out thinking of his family, and when he had learned what happened, he was mad at himself.
And now that his full attention was on the current abuser, he was more than ready to act.
Falco jumped out of his seat, grabbed the metal chair he had been sitting in, and charged towards Ryan while shouting like a demon straight out of Hell.
Before anyone could even comprehend what was happening, Falco got within striking range of the older teen and, with absolutely no hesitation, swung the metal object with force behind it. Ryan only had enough time to look at Falco before chair striked him across the face. Ryan fell right to the ground with a thud before Falco smashed the chair into Ryan's face a second time with burning hot rage. The attack sent a thick spray of blood from Ryan's mouth.
"Think you're tough because you can push a girl around?" Falco screamed at him before slamming the chair into Ryan's ribs, causing Ryan to howl out in agony. "Do you! Do you!"
Falco was three years younger and shorter than Ryan, but while Ryan was severely malnourished, Falco had a muscular frame from working at a farm. That, and Falco was used to fighting people bigger and stronger than himself.
The boy from Ten raised his chair again before he felt immense pain erupt in the vulnerables between his legs. It caused him to wail out in pure agony before he dropped the chair and fall to his knees.
"Fuck you!" Ryan screamed before he shoot another sharp kick into Falco's balls. That attack caused Falco to fall onto his side as he clutched his heavily tingling testicles.
"Cheap. Shot." Falco managed to squeak out as both boys laid on the floor, unable to function properly as they both grabbed whatever body parts was hurting. In the back of his mind, Falco wondered how someone as skeletal as Ryan could stand up to him after getting smashed in the face and chest with a blunt weapon?
"What the fuck is going on here!" A loud and authoritative voice yelled as several pairs of heavy boots approached the two boys. Falco looked up and through the tears he had shed, noticed that it was the head trainer, Thorn. The guy that had punched Anna, broke Thor's arm, and zapped Carver. Falco really didn't want something bad like that to happen to him. Not when he had already been kicked in the nuts twice.
The man looked down at the pair of boys and the lone girl before he sighed aggressively. "A squabble between tributes, huh." He stated calmly, like he was looking at two toddlers arguing over a toy. "I said it once, but I'll say it again for the benefits of all you retards! No fighting in the fucking training room! Save your energy for the arena! We don't want you too injured before you enter the arena!"
Silence came over the training area for a moment before Thorn ripped Ryan to his feet. "On your feet. Get on your god damn feet!" Falco rubbed his eyes with his shirt sleeve and looked to see what he had done to Ryan. He saw that Ryan was bleeding from the mouth and side of the mouth and that he was clutching both his face and his ribs. Falco felt pride rise from within. He hoped that it would at least teach that asshole from Twelve not to hit a defenceless girl while he was around.
Thorn looked over Ryan and instructed him to go seek medical attention. Thorn looked down at Falco and roughly pulled him to his feet as well. Thorn looked at him up and down before he was instructed to seek medical attention as well. Falco followed the order partly because he was assured that Ashton wouldn't be hurt by anyone, but also partly because he realized that while he cared about her well being, she wasn't his sister.
Falco was dragging himself to the medical attendants when he heard Thorn order Ashton to go seek medical attention as well. Falco looked back and saw that Ashton was following him. And for the first time, he noticed that the three of them were being escorted by peacekeepers. The uniformed thugs kept the three tributes a reasonable distance away from each other thanks to body blocking them as best they could. That reassured him some, but not enough. After all, Ryan could perhaps break through their defences and get a single hit in if he really tried.
Falco quickly walked towards Ryan and got up in his face, or at least as much as he could as the escorting peacekeepers kept the two boys at a distance.
"If you even think about doing that to her again, I WILL end you." Falco threatened. Ashton might not be his sister, but he still hated people like Ryan. People that thought that they could get away with picking on the weak. Especially if that someone was a girl.
Ryan spat a thick stream of blood from his mouth that splattered on Falco's face. It felt warm and tainted.
"I'd like to see you try." Ryan growled back.
She wasn't like most tributes.
Even among the uniquely picked ones of this year, she was not like them.
For one, when the shouting between Ryan and Ashton occurred, she didn't pay any attention to it. To her, they were just annoying voices that were much too loud for her. She covered her ears and ignored them. And when Falco showed up and started to beat Ryan, she didn't very much care for that either. They were just distractions. Noisy distractions. And her attention was towards something else. Her ropes.
If there was anything in the world that Marsha Trent loved in the world, it was ropes. There was just something so fascinating about ropes to her, but it wasn't like she could explain it though. She could try, but nobody would understand her. Nobody could understand her. Only herself and the invisible people that nobody but her were able to see.
People thought that she was crazy and stupid. She didn't think that she was crazy and stupid, and neither did her invisible friends. So why did the so called real people think that she were those two things? She didn't know, nor did she really care. She wasn't interested and them, and they weren't interested in her, simple as that.
Sure when she was younger she would interact with them, and they would do the same, but it was never the same. She didn't know what was up, but she somehow sensed that she and the other kids she interacted with weren't on the same level. That there was always something that she couldn't see, and couldn't understand.
They said that she didn't understand the situations in front of her, that she didn't understand people. Maybe that was why they avoided her. Maybe that was why nobody wanted to be with her. She didn't know. But screw those people, she had other people. Better people. People that would listen and play with her and not be assholes about it.
Assholes who didn't do things to her because of reasons out of her control. And things within her control.
Like the man in front of her right now. He was telling her that maybe she might want to learn something else other than just ropes. But no, she didn't want to try out anything else. She wasn't interested in the other stations, just the ropes, so she was going to stay there.
Her family didn't appreciate it, just like the guy in front of her. But she didn't notice that he was trying subtlety to get her to try out another station. She was absorbed the in the world of ropes, knots, and ways of making traps and other things you could make with a rope. And she loved it.
Wasn't there something there something that mommy and daddy had said to me and Cruise? Marsha thought as she tied a knot around a fake stick. If you love something, you should peruse it? I think that's what they said. And right now, I love this.
Others back home had tried to get her to try other things at the academy. They tried to get her to spread out her interests. Tried to get her to train like a proper career, but Marsha would quickly lose interest most of the time and had a short attention span on many things. Ropes were where her interests lay.
Marsha was in the middle of completing her trap when a bright light shone in her face, causing her to feel a stabbing pain in her eyes and face. She screamed and covered her eyes before she started to spin around in a squatting position.
"Girl, I've been calling your name for the past three minutes. Why aren't you answering me?"
Of course, Marsha wasn't concerned about the woman's question, she was more concerned about her face and eyes. She wondered if they had been melted or something. She continued to scream and spin until she finally fell and started to roll around in a panic, wondering if she was going to be blind for the rest of her life. "Oh please," the woman said in an annoyed tone. "It's not like I actually hurt you or anything."
Marsha then felt a hand grab her, and it felt like some kind of wild animal with very rough skin had wrapped it's hand around her wrist. She yelled out in terror before she started to shake her body violently, wanting to remove the hand. The hand removed itself immediately before Marsha rubbed her wrist and looked to see what had grabbed her. She saw that woman who had drew her name from that shiny bowl. Marsha hated her voice. It was loud, high pitched, and felt like daggers were being clawed through her brain whenever she spoke.
And the woman did speak. And she spoke a lot. Rapidly. And loud. Marsha hated that, and it hurt her. Covering her ears helped a little, but all the woman did was speak louder. She wanted her to stop. She just wanted her to stop talking.
"Sthap." Marsha pleaded with her damaged speech.
"What was that?" The woman asked, not in the least quieter.
"Sthap." Marsha repeated.
"Look girl, if you want something, just say it properly and-"
"I suid, STHAP!" Marsha yelled before she started to cry. She detested it when people didn't understand her. And right now, she really, really wished that the woman could understand her just enough so that she'd stop talking. "Plse. Plse sthap thaking."
"I don't know what you're say, so if you could just take a second to collect yourself and-"
Marsha couldn't handle it anymore. Normally she could handle people being loud and stuff. But the combination of her high pitched voice and the loudness of it was too much for her. Marsha risked the noise, and released her hands from her ears before she slammed her palms into the woman's mouth so hard that the woman lost her footing. Both she and Marsha fell to the floor as Marsha repeated the same broken phrase over and over again.
"Shtut up! Shtut up! Shtut up! Shtut up! Shtut up!"
The Capitol woman struggled, but Marsha was a lot stronger than her. The escort let out muffled screams with scared, wide eyes as she struggled to breathe. The struggle only last a couple seconds, because when the Capitol woman started to shout for help, a couple of peacekeepers ripped Marsha off her and locked her arms behind her back.
"Get her up to her room!" The escort ordered the peacekeepers with her as she caught her breath. "It's past time that she be up there anyway."
Tribute Floor #2
He hated that woman.
She kept on telling him what to do and how wrong he was for whatever he had done. She thought that she was more superior than him just because she was born and raised in the Capitol while he was raised in a district. She especially thought that she was better than him and could order him around because he was from the district that had been dubbed the Capitol lapdog district. But if the escort thought that she could order him around like a dog, she had another thing coming.
She would find, just like how the prep-team and the stylist found out, that no matter what they say or do, they couldn't control him. They had to strap him down to the operating table to do their modifications on him.
Rubbing a hand across his face, he remembered those bastards scrubbing him so hard that it felt as if they were rubbing his flesh off. And when they shaved his face. Oh, when they shaved his face so close with that razor, he felt that burning sensation for hours after it was done.
They had also clipped and shone his nails as well as shaving the calluses off his hands and feet. They had also ripped out any unwanted hair, which was just about everything except the hair on his head, his eye brows, and pubic hairs. What was he? A prissy woman like Sabrina?
Thor Houghton had let her ranting, raving, and complaining go on as long as it did because he knew that the escort was valuable. But his patience was wearing thin, and he found it harder and harder to not act every minute he was around her.
She babbled on and on about how he should try and act like a proper career, how he shouldn't have fought Thorn and how he should respect the Capitol and his home district by winning the Hunger Games. That he should stop making a fool of himself by sabotaging his chances of gaining support.
Thor felt his anger bubble dangerously inside of him. Unlike the vast majority of his district, he had no love for the games, or The Capitol. The Capitol liked to portray itself as the district saviours and how they were granting them mercy and that the Hunger Games punishment could have been much much worse if they desired. He had heard that one of The Capitol's original plans were to round up people year after year and execute them by firing squads. Instead, they came up with the Hunger Games.
He himself felt that the firing squads would have been a more merciful punishment. Instead, The Capitol wanted to flaunt they're power over the districts and give them some sort of hope. Only so that they could snuff it out almost immediately. And he understood it perfectly.
Hope may be what gives people strength, but it's also what crushes them.
Thor had hope, but he never held on to it, because it always slips away in the end. He found that out. His parents found that out. And soon, the Capitol was going to find out as well.
"So why don't you be a good little boy. Run to your room and think abo-"
Thor couldn't take it anymore. The Capitol had picked him to die, they had broken his arm, which still hurt like a fucking bitch even after they fixed it. The arm, thanks to the Capitol medicine and advanced machinery, had mended his bones back together for the most part, but it would still take a while for it to completely heal. But worst of all, they were always controlling his life. Controlling it then and controlling it now. He didn't want anymore of it. He turned swiftly towards his escort and threw a powerful punch towards her.
Sabrina gave out a horrified shriek as the teenager's fist went through the combination of drywall and cheap wood. Thor ripped his fist out of the wall, sending a cloud of dust and fragments of the wall flying.
"How about you shut your fucking mouth and leave me be." The teen snarled as he pressed his forehead roughly into his escort's. Their eyes were locked into each other and their noses were touching. If either one of them moved inches closer they would have been kissing, but that was the last thing on either of their minds.
Sabrina looked at her male tribute with absolute terror while Thor stared at her like he was feral and going to murder her. "I'll do what I want. You just do your stupid job and get me some damn sponsors to send me stuff in the arena. Are we clear?"
The Capitol woman just shook in terror and didn't respond. She uttered something, but Thor couldn't understand it, even though he was mere inches from her face. "Hey! I asked if we were clear!" Thor then slammed his fist into her kidney, and the woman's legs instantly buckled before she fell to her knees, falling forward until her face was on the floor, beside Thor.
The escort struggled to inhale and exhale as she tried to come to terms with her pain so that she could answer her assaulter. She wasn't doing a very good job of it.
The non-dedicated career might not of been the biggest or the strongest tribute Two had produced, but he still had career training. He had learned how to fight and knew how to fight well. And while nothing special back home, he was greatly more powerful than a Capitol escort.
Thor gave her ten seconds to recover before he grabbed a fist full of her artificially coloured hair and pulled her up to her knees. "Answer my question." He hissed as the adult weakly Pried at his hands. "Are. We. Clear?"
"Cl-" She coughed weakly as she answered just as weakly. "Clee...Ear."
"Good." Thor said with mild satisfaction and released the woman before he bent down and grabbed a fistful of drywall dust. Thor threw the dust at the escort, a thin layer lingered on her clothes as Thor turned and walked away from her. "Grab a drink and chug it." He ordered. "You're drunk and the hole in the wall is because you lost your balance and fell. If you tell a peacekeeper, or anybody else what happened... Well... You can't kill me, but I can end you. After all, you're replaceable."
The teen noticed that a boy a little older than himself was peeking around the corner of one of the rooms. Thor rushed towards the older youth and grabbed him savagely by the neck, yanked him out of the open doorway, and slammed him into the wall. "That goes for you as well. If you try to tell anyone what happened here, I will turn your skull into a goblet and drink out of it. Understood?"
The frightened avox nodded rapidly before Thor let go of him.
Thor brushed the dust off his clothes as he walked to his room, grabbing a bottle of Capitol whiskey and taking a deep pull on the way.
A/N: After all this time, I'm back.
News you might care about: Chapters might get longer when we finally get to the arena. I will try to produce good chapters throughout though.
News you might care less about: The links in my profile have been taken down. So if anyone cares to see the non-cannon pictures of the tributes, google search: shades of normality blogspot and click on the link.
News you might not care about: Finished Tomb Raider at last. Epic. Also finished The Walking Dead Season Two video game. Also epic. For those that appreciate a good story and isn't one of those six year olds that play M rated games to kill things and see violence, I would highly recommend seasons one and two. For those that have a PS3 or PS4, I would also highly recommend playing The Last of Us if you haven't already and like a good story. Its like The Walking Dead, but with better game play.