Uriah Chance (18) D1M
All of the Careers agreed that we should split up during training in order to cover a lot of ground. Some of us were less willing to do that than others, since it wasn't a completely standard Career activity, but nothing was standard Career activity. I was one of the eager ones, happy to be able to learn whatever I thought was necessary without having to fight someone else for the right to do so. I just had to hope that whatever skill I learned didn't end up being completely useful, or it would likely be off with my head.
Being a servant back in One, I hadn't had time to learn too many weapons. I had learned some decent survival skills, but weapons were a blank, past the boomerang. I doubted how useful the boomerang would be in the Arena, especially if I had to make one on my own, so I thought learning a new weapon made perfect sense. The spear seemed like a wise choice, since it was simple and I could easily construct it, but it could still cause decent damage.
As it turned out, spears were a bit less simple than I had expected. I knew how to aim, and I knew that that was important knowledge in the world of spears. I hadn't realized how hard it was to aim a spear if you were throwing it, or how few places there were to hit. A simple stab with a spear was, well, simple, since anywhere you hit you would cause damage, but if you threw your spear you had to hope to kill, or you lost your weapon. The assistant spat all of that information at me at the speed of light, and I wrote it down as fast as I could. I was lucky that I had brought along a pen and paper, though it was a bad decision to use a pen.
Little by little the assistant finished his spiel, and after making sure I had heard everything he said, he let me practice my aim. It was noon by the time I started, so I had to work fast if I was to get much useful training done. Luckily for me, I was used to working fast, so my predicament was hardly a challenge. Unluckily for me, it was hard to practice anything fast. All I could do was throw the spear a lot, memorizing kill points and trying to perfect my aim. Memorizing kill points hardly took any time, but there was no rushing aim perfection.
I kept throwing spears all throughout the training day, slowly improving my aim. I was frustrated by how slow my process was; slow work was hardly better than no work, but hardly better was still better. As the training day drew to a close and I threw my last couple of spears, I realized that I was getting near kill points with every shot. I was only getting near them; hitting them rarely happened, but it was a large improvement, and I allowed myself to be happy with my progress.
Annika Knight (18) D1F
The Training Center closed for the night. Everybody knew that. Most people, myself included, never thought about how boring those hours when we couldn't train would be. Compared to our last days of preparing for a fight to the death, even the best attractions the Capitol had to offer didn't seem like much. I decided not to spend my time lurking in my bed, waiting for sleep to come hours before it was supposed to, or goofing off in the Capitol playing area, trying in vain to have some fun. Instead I just wandered aimlessly, thinking about my future and looking at my surroundings. The Capitol was beautiful, and I enjoyed looking at it.
Even once the training time was over, Capitolites walked through the building, either hoping for a glance at one of the tributes or simply enjoying the view. The entire Capitol was beautiful, but the Games Building was somehow different than the rest of the Capitol. The crowds were thinning when I was wandering, but there were still plenty of people for me to look at and think about. Their lives were all clearly different from mine; they didn't have to think about death in the near future. Most of them only worried about their next outfit. I almost envied them for it, despite being a trained Career. As much as I hated to admit it, I was getting cold feet, as I expected every Career did.
My gaze usually only rested on any particular Capitolite for a second before flittering off to the next. Each person drew my eyes for one reason or another; it could be their hair, or their mouth, or their height. I was freaked out, understanding that I only fleetingly considered each person as a person. None of them seemed real to me; they were all just characters for me to talk to or play with as I wished. I didn't talk to anyone, but I could have, and they would have engaged as excitedly as if it were their only purpose in life. It wasn't every day that a tribute graced them with their presence.
Two Capitolites drew my gaze for more than their alloted second. They were just walking together, laughing and drinking smoothies. I stared at them, and they noticed. They stared right back at me, pointing at me and talking to each other. I kept staring, noticing that they looked almost exactly alike, that they were wearing the same outfit, that their hair was done the same way. I noticed how they walked at the same pace, how they understood each other without words, and it made me want to scream.
Finally, their importance clicked in my mind. They were sisters. These Capitolites, who didn't have a care in the world, got to have sisters. Meanwhile, I didn't get to have a person I loved like no one else. I didn't get to have that one special person who understood me how nobody, not a parent, not a husband, ever could. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I stared at them, my brain forcing me to remember the night I had left my sister. It shoved the old guilt back into my mind, telling me for the thousandth time that I should have stayed home with her, that I was the older sister, I was supposed to be responsible. It put the image of the pool of blood into my mind, the failed searches, how my best friend and the best person in the entire world had disappeared without a trace.
I tried not to cry. Tears were weakness; I couldn't be weak. I left the area; if I was going to be weak, I couldn't let people see it. Once I was out of sight, out of earshot, I fell apart. Tears flowed down my face freely as I screamed. I let out all of my emotions on anything near me: Trash cans, benches, statues, everything got smashed around. I kicked and screeched, wondering why I had lost everything when so many people had everything. My throat got raw but I kept screaming, still kicking and still crying. I couldn't take it; Jade should have been in the District, Jade should have been waiting for my Games. Jade should have been training, learning how to fight to carry on the family line. I didn't stop kicking until my body made me, and even then I kept crying. The screaming finally stopped and I leaned against a wall, crying until my eyes ran dry. I couldn't stop myself from hugging my knees to my chest and sobbing. I didn't have to get up for hours, and I didn't plan to. I just wanted to cry.
Chao Chiang (18) D2M
As the Training Center closed and the tributes started milling around, wondering what to spend their time doing, I wandered off to see everything the Capitol had to offer. I waved at Annika as I walked off, happy to have her in our alliance. She didn't wave back, but I didn't care. She seemed less talkative than some, but to each their own. I was too busy looking in all of the fancy Capitol stores to bother trying to talk to her.
There was more to the Games Building than I hoped to see, but I peeped into each store for a second to see if it was worth my time. Most of them were full of random doohickeys, like snowglobes or windchimes, and I didn't bother going into those. I couldn't bring any of those things into the Games with me; I already had a token and they could easily be made into weapons. If I hardly had any time, I needed to make sure to only use it on things that really interested me.
One entire floor of the building went by without me stopping in any stores. I felt kind of bad, leaving all of those stores without much by which to judge them, but I figured the other tributes would make up for how judgemental I was. The outer District tributes sometimes spent their entire time in the Capitol goofing off in the stores, and I could see why. Most of them didn't think they could win even if they trained, and most of them were right. Only one tribute out of the twenty-four won, and training hardly increased their odds.
The second story of the Games Building was considerably less overdone than the first. The stores got to be more calm, and it wasn't as exciting. I didn't really mind that; I had already had enough excitement for one day. The shopkeepers all swarmed at the doors as I walked by, and I figured that I was one of the only tributes to get past the first floor, which made sense. The first floor had a lot more to offer than the second floor, but the second floor offered quality over quantity.
One of the stores stuck out from the rest, mainly because it wasn't a store. It was decorated differently from the rest, having stone dragons and jade walls instead of the diamond or gold walls and sparkling fountains the other stores offered. I was instantly drawn to it, since I recognized it for what it was. The lettering on the front, one set in Chinese and one set in English, proved to me that it was exactly what I expected. "Ancient Chinese Museum- Find out about your roots," were the words that drew me inside the section, staring at all of the exhibits and touching everything I could.
The museum didn't have much to offer of true Chinese roots. It had some old silk clothes, which were a much-appreciated breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the Capitol, and a couple of rock gardens. There were some samurai outfits, which I disapproved of, and there was a Buddha statue. The calligraphy drew me in more than the rest of the exhibits; I was enamored by the deliberately placed strokes that spelled out the history of a country. A lot of the history was incorrect, and I figured the Capitol had made it's own "ancient" writing, but I still admired the writing. I also liked the fans with calm pictures painted on them, and I stayed in the museum admiring them until it closed.
Marlin Hasvak (18) D4M
Once the Training Center closed, I decided to learn a bit about the future. I didn't know every detail about where my future was going to go, but I knew one place where it had to end up at one point or another, and I wanted to find out about that spot. Lots of other people had already gone through it, but I still didn't know what it was like, since they never talked about it. I knew I should ask someone what they thought, but no one who went through what I was curious about survived, and I didn't think Talaysa would be of any help, so I was left without a clue as to who I should ask.
Sitting in my room for a good fifteen minutes provided me with the correct answer to my question. Shale was the mentor who had gone through the closest thing to what I had gone through; she probably had the best idea of an answer. Even if she didn't know what happened, which she probably didn't, she would be able to have a rational conversation. She was also one of the most human of the Career mentors, and I was certain she wouldn't blow me off for being from Four, so I found her in the Two section and asked her, "What do you think happens after death?"
Shale looked at me in surprise, probably partially due to my being from Two and partially due to the fact that I was bothering with talking to her. She considered for a few seconds, then invited me to sit down beside me and talk with her. "I understand why you're curious. You're going to say it's because death is inevitable, but it's really since Serena died. I need you to get over your grief. I don't want you to win, but I need you to be a valuable member to the Pack, so I'll help you." Her bluntness upset me a bit, but I just nodded to show my understanding and waited for her to continue.
After I nodded, Shale continued, "No one knows what happens after death. I'm not religious, partially because it's illegal but mostly because I don't think any of the religions are right. However, I do believe in something a bit like Heaven. I expect that if you were a good person, or if you were too young to be a good or bad person, you go to Heaven. If you were a bad person, you just disappear. I don't believe in a Hell like many people do."
I had no way of knowing if Shale was right, but I wanted to believe her, so I did. "Do you think Serena was a good person?" I could hardly force myself to ask the question, my voice was shaking so hard. There was a chance that I would get to see Serena once I died. I didn't realize right then that I had volunteered to murder children and was probably going to disappear. I was too excited to worry about being logical.
"She deliberately murdered children. She volunteered for it, even. Most of the time I would say that makes her a lost cause, but she was an unusual case. Serena was a product of her environment, for one thing, and I consider anyone in the Games too young to simply disappear. Yes, I think she's in some sort of Heaven."
I let out a sigh of relief after Shale finished talking. She started off so cruelly, making me expect that Serena had just disappeared. "Thank you," I barely whispered, excusing myself from the room. I went back to my room, happier on the inside than I could express. I couldn't be sure that I was right, but my state of hope was better than my previous state of nothing. The day was a success.
Luna Irika (18) D4F
The Careers wanted to split up in training, and I was fine with that. That meant I got to spend my training time doing whatever I wanted, not just following the crowd. I took note of what all of the other Careers were doing, making sure to learn my own thing, and was surprised to see that none of them went to the bow-and-arrow station. I figured the bow would be a practical weapon, since it was long-distance but the arrows could easily be used for stabbing, so I went over to learn a bit about it.
The assistant didn't seem surprised at all when I headed to her station, and I assumed she got a tribute or two who showed interest every year. She smiled at me and explained the basics, like which stance to use and how to hold the bow, then let me show my understanding. I did so with ease, since the basics were simple. After that she moved to more advanced stuff, like how to aim perfectly and when it was worth taking a shot. To my surprise, it was unwise to always shoot at a good target. As I quickly realized made perfect sense, it was best to wait for a kill shot, unless you could easily kill using two arrows. I nodded as the assistant explained, eager to get to training.
After finishing an hour-long explanation of every single detail there was to know about how to use a bow, and how to make hours, the assistant stepped back to let me practice. I took aim at a dummy and missed by a mile, relieved that the other Careers didn't notice and that I hadn't accidentally killed someone. I wasn't sure what the repurcussions were if I killed a tribute before the Games, and I certainly didn't want to find out. It wouldn't have surprised me if I exploded on the spot and the Capitol just got a new Four female.
Little by little, my aim began to improve. I started to hit the dummy one in four times, then every other time, then every time. The only thing slowing my training was my need to gather my arrows after every twelve arrows, since that was the maximum amount of arrows I was allowed at any given time. I thought that was a dumb rule, since it just meant I wasted time, but I wasn't about to tell the Capitol that. Instead, I gathered my arrows every time, counting how many times I hit the target in a kill spot before I had to gather an arrow. Just like hitting the target at all, the numbers grew slowly, starting at once a gathering, then hitting twice, until I could finally hit close enough to a fatal spot to probably kill someone twenty-five percent of the time. I was no pro, and I needed more practice, but it was better than nothing, and I figured it was a good amount of growth for the time I had.
Even if a tribute is not written training, they are given whatever training their form asks for.
I'm not sure if the Capitol would have a Chinese museum, but if they did I doubt it would value the culture very much. They got things wrong whenever they felt like it.