I do not own The Hunger Games.
Finnick Odair is precious.
The Girl With The Green Eyes
The Tribute Training Center, Just Another Kind of Train
Atala certainly had her speech down pat.
"In two weeks, twenty-three of you will be dead."
She never deviated a single syllable from it.
"One of you will be alive."
So far as Finnick could tell.
"Who that is depends on how well you pay attention over the next four days."
He didn't know if she couldn't.
"Particularly to what I'm about to say."
Or if she wouldn't.
"First, no fighting with the other tributes. You'll have plenty time of time for that in the arena."
If it was for the same reason he astutely never cared one iota for Annie, just another piece of battle fodder for the Games.
"There are four compulsory exercises, then individual training."
Or if it was because she actually was just another cog in the Hunger Games Machine.
Either way, . . .
"So let's get started."
. . . The Machine churned on.
He didn't know what Annie chose to do in there all day.
He didn't care; he couldn't.
He did know she came back to the District 4 apartment the first day in hysterical tears.
"I can't do this! I don't know how to fight! I'm no good with weapons!"
"The Careers laugh at me! They look at me like I'm a piece of meat!"
"I'm going to die!"
Yeah.
And he wouldn't have even have bothered to say anything against it.
Please don't.
If not for Mags.
Don't make me lie to her.
Mags, holding the head of the shaking, sobbing Annie in her lap.
Stroking her red hair.
Silent as the stroke that took her voice.
Eyes gazing up beseechingly at Finnick.
To speak.
To console.
To mentor.
And Finnick . . .
Why? It won't help.
. . . heaving a sigh.
"Well, okay. So you can't fight. We know that."
Starting off wrong, he supposed.
The way Annie flinched away in refreshed despondent misery.
"Lots of victors haven't."
And Mags pressed her lips together at him in disapproval.
"So focus on survival skills."
And they lived.
"Shelter, foraging, first aid."
Not that their lives are any better for it.
"Focus on staying away and staying alive, okay?"
And neither will yours.
"Mags can help you learn to make fishhooks. They're useful."
And it working, his tepid, half-hearted help.
"I can help you with knots."
She was calming down, Annie was.
A little.
Green eyes huge and bloodshot and still weepy.
There, okay, Mags? I mentored.
But with a sliver of hope. A silver of possibility.
And Finnick Odair bit back a sigh of discontentment.
Not that it's going to help anyway.
Turned away from them both.
It never does.
And walked away.
It's the last day and they're required to work with their tributes.
Avil, District 4's male tribute, the sullen one, the one who refuses to acknowledge Annie's existence because he knows he's going to have to kill her or allow her to be killed, is off with Calvert and Bothroy, victors from somewhere between Mags' time and Finnick's.
Seems to be working over a combat dummy with an axe pretty well.
Mags is showing Annie how to make her first fish- . . .
It looks just the same.
. . . hook.
And Finnick . . .
God, I hate this place.
. . . is perusing the Tribute Training Center.
The Archery Station, The Weapons Station, Camouflage.
Survival Stations, Edible Plants and Insects, Firestarting and Shelters.
Nets, Fishhooks, Knots, and Traps.
The Gauntlets, designed to beat the crap out of you before The Games even started.
Well, teach you.
The Ropes Course.
Weight-Lifting.
Wrestling.
Every conceivable skill that may or may not help the tributes survive in whatever hellscape The GameMaster contrived for them.
And above it all, The Loft.
Where the aforementioned accursed GameMaster resided.
Possible sponsors.
All above them, chatting, reclining.
Feasting on Capitol delicacies and delights.
Gods atop Mt. Olympus.
They hardly ever actually paid attention to the tributes down below.
You could at least notice the children preparing to die for your pleasure.
And when they did . . .
On second thought, . . .
. . . it made him feel like they were all prize pigs . . .
. . . don't.
. . . in the holding area . . .
It just makes it worse.
. . . of a slaughterhouse pen.
And of course, The Hunger Games Counter.
A huge electric monstrosity taking up an entire wall at the end.
On the left, The Countdown Clock, days, hours, minutes, seconds to the beginning of the upcoming Games.
When the Death Cannon began to boom for twenty-three children of Panem.
To the left, The Scoreboard.
Listing each pictured tribute by district, gender, height, weight.
Age.
And of course, . . .
Oh. Well.
. . . the odds of their survival.
That's not good.
Nothing mentioned the tributes as human beings, as people.
Nothing spoke of their value to their families.
The hopes and dreams they might have had if they weren't trapped in the Hunger Games, didn't live in Panem.
Their favorite color or what they did to ease the skittering fear in their lizard brains when they realized they were marked for death.
It was all just numbers and unimportance for anything but The Cause.
Glory and Honor to Panem.
The Careers were there at the top, as always, from District 1 and 2.
Trained for glorified murder since childhood, volunteering when they aged into eighteen.
Depending on your perspective, either crueler for their stolen years.
Or kinder that they had never known anything else in the first place.
So, the Careers.
And everyone else, names put into the pot by families in desperation.
Avil's there, his numbers.
District 4.
Five foot ten inches.
One hundred sixty pounds.
Seventeen years old.
Odds, 14-1.
Decent ranking somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Not high enough to be an early target, not low enough to be a laughingstock to the sponsors.
And then there's Annie.
District 4.
Five foot, five inches.
One hundred eighteen pounds.
Eighteen years old, so close to never having been Reaped, so close.
And of course her odds.
28-1.
Only beating out two younger children, each no more than twelve.
It was a bad score, very bad.
Very undesirable to possible sponsors.
Nobody wanted to lose money . . .
I'm going to have to call in some 'favors'.
. . . on a losing horse.
Ugh.
I know in the book District 4 produced Careers too but Annie just doesn't strike me as Career.
Of course, neither does Finnick or Mags.
And you know, it occured to me that her male counterpart in the Games could have been have been a little boy, similar to Rue.
But between being a fourth grade teacher (no matter how much they annoy me) and a mother of three boys (no matter how much they annoy me, just I wrote that twice on purpose, yes), two of them quite young, and me knowing the male tribute's fate, I couldn't, I just couldn't.
I apologize for avoiding what I acknowledge could have been such a very powerful,heartfelt storyline.
But my soul couldn't handle it.
Hope you're not too disappointed.
:)
