Cheyenne Talor, District Three female (17)
The electronics station was covered with all sorts of equipment and gadgets I didn't know anything about. All the same, I went over and messed around for a few minutes. Yep, better add the fluxinator to the voltron sensor, I narrated to myself as I put random items in piles and tapped them together. As long as I did it with confidence people would assume I was a Very Smart Three Genius and would spend the rest of training wondering what horrible invention I had just made. If they were too afraid to test me out they'd never find out it was all fake.
Bluffs aside, I needed actual ways to protect myself. After spending some time at the water purification station and the shelter-making station, I found myself forced to pick a weapon for worst-case scenarios. As someone with no training, my options seemed pretty limited. About the only things I could hope to master were the knife or the spear. Take your pick- short pointy stick or long pointy stick...
Since I was a coward, I chose long pointy stick. Self-deprecation aside, it was just the obvious choice to want to be farther away from the person I was trying to kill. I was inexperienced and also squishy. Also spears were really easy to make. There wasn't any Arena I could think of that wouldn't have some sort of stick in it.
I started out throwing the spear but it didn't go very well. Even with a balanced and properly weighted spear, I couldn't throw it with much accuracy. It would do some damage just by hitting the body at all, and I did always hit the mannequin from the short distance I threw from, but I wasn't about to be putting out someone's eye from fifty meters. It also seemed unwise to throw my weapon at someone else, especially when my aim was so unreliable. The better choice seemed to be using the spear melee-style- up close and keeping my grip on it. It still extended my reach and made it harder for my enemy to reach me.
How hard is a person? My throws so far had lightly dented the ballistics gel mannequin before glancing off, probably to cut down on how many mannequins they needed every year. Actual people had bones. I wasn't sure how much power it actually took to drive a spear through bone. To find out I ran at the mannequin and shoved the spear right into its face with both arms.
I wasn't expecting the crumpled face to leak red fluid everywhere. I drew back with the irrational sense that I'd hurt a mannequin. I cringed at the thick red goop on the tip of my spear and flecking my cheek. It's just dye, I told myself, but that really wasn't it. This was just red dye. In the Arena it wouldn't be.
I was practicing to kill someone. Once I thought about it I couldn't get it out of my head. The mannequin in front of me was designed to look like a person. Whether or not I ever actually did, I had practiced and prepared with the intent to kill another human being. The crumpled face in front of me had little tendrils of ballistics gel hanging from the crater in its face. That would be there in a real person, too- bits of flesh and blood from the human whose body I ruined.
I glanced up and looked around the room. My eyes fell on Maizie at the sword station. I looked back at the mannequin and saw her face. Or Preji's, maybe- my own District partner all broken and ruined because I drove a spear into it. To anyone walking past, the mannequin's face was blank and impassive- just a lifeless object. That wasn't what I saw anymore.
Bess Carver, District Ten female (17)
Oh my gosh he's so cute.
There was just something about Dionysus' face. I couldn't stop peeking at it. And whenever he laughed I laughed along even though I couldn't hear what he was laughing at, since he was all the way across the room. I'd never seen someone just so pretty before. It was making me feel all silly and tickly.
Oh my gosh. Am I having my first crush?
I'd never even thought about boys before. Most people my age were already thinking about whether they wanted to marry and who they wanted to marry and I was still in the "I like turtles" stage of development. All my friends had talked to me about their crushes and we'd planned out weddings and everything but I'd never had one myself. Dating just seemed... I don't know, weird. Doesn't it give you cooties or something? But something had come over me, that's for sure. For Dionysus, cooties would be worth it.
It made me sad in a weird way. If this had happened just one week ago I could have explored it and found out about this new part of myself. But I was in the Hunger Games. Romance was impossible, and it was just plain silly to go after a Career. No, I'd have to look from afar and be content with the butterflies I got from my stolen peeks. Nothing could ever, ever come of this. It was nothing but one more opportunity lost to the Games.
I needed something to distract myself. I checked around the room for anyone who might make an actual good ally. I saw lots of possibilities but then I got sidetracked by the boy at the knife station. He was plainly trying not to cry. He looked sick, honestly. No one should have to be miserable all alone.
"Hey, are you okay? You look sick," I said as I walked up to him.
"I'm not sick, but I'm not okay," he said, his voice and eyes flat.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "I'm Bess from Ten, by the way."
"Just... life," the boy said. As an afterthought he added, "I'm Morty."
"That's true," I said. "I guess we have to make the best of it or something. I think people who say that haven't been through things like this."
The boy shrugged halfheartedly. There was something just beaten-down about him. He seemed like he was eighty years old. He reminded me of my friend Sookie. Every winter she got super tired and sad. It took a ton of encouragement for her to leave her house.
"Hey, it'll be all right," I said soothingly. "You want to come be allies with me? We can train together and motivate each other."
"You should get someone better than me," Morty said.
"I don't want someone better. I want you," I insisted. Surely Morty wasn't as bad as he thought. He just needed some pepping up.
"I guess," he said. I was expecting more argument but he must have just been so tired he didn't even care to try.
"Great! I've been at the weightlifting station but I think I should probably learn about fire and stuff, right? What are you good at?"
"Knives," Morty said. He still didn't seem enthusiastic but at least he was responding.
"Well that's good," I said. "If you're really good already, though, maybe you should take a break. You seem really tired."
Samantha Von Hindenburg, District Twelve female (13)
After detailed examination of the computer files available to me, I had concluded that I had landed in some far-future version of America. It seemed they'd descended into anarchy- probably as a result of fighting against my glorious homeland- and in overcompensation they instated a violent ritual based on the story of Theseus and the minotaur. It all made little sense to me but almost nothing about my life did at this point.
My "mentor", a man with the bizarre name of Bellerephon, was doing his best to guide me through all this. I couldn't tell him my real situation. Even if he believed me I'd just end up getting sent to some lab for testing and probably interrogation. He had no idea what I really was, but coincidentally his advice matched up with my needs. If I was really going to be forced into some outlandish Arena and forced to fight with actual children, I would need to learn to defend myself.
It's the Hunger Games, weirdo. You've never heard of it?
I stopped, looking around for the source of the voice. It seemed to have come from inside my head, like someone put a speaker there. But that didn't make any sense. Why would a normal little girl have a speaker in her head when no one else seemed to have one? But the only other explanation was...
Well one of us is definitely insane.
"Who is this?" I asked. I swept an arm out at nothing, trying desperately to bat away what I knew wasn't there. "Who are you?"
Samantha von Hindenburg. You stole my body, remember?
"You're still here?" I asked. One of the other kids from the parade- I remembered someone calling them a "career", whatever that meant- stared at me and smirked. She was from one of the other states. Districts, I think they called them here.
"Faking insanity? Nice," she jeered.
"No one asked you," I said.
The young woman drew back in shock. "What did you just say?" she asked, clearly outraged and indignant.
"This doesn't concern you. Go away," I said. I really didn't know who this impertinent girl thought she was. Back where I came from, people respected scientists.
What are you doing?! the voice- Samantha- talked over me.
"Listen here, you-" the woman said, and then her face straightened. "Wow. You're good." She turned and walked away toward her friends.
That's a Career! Don't make them mad! Samantha said.
What's a Career? I asked in my head.
They're people who train for the Games so they can kill people, Samantha answered.
They what? You people are barbarians! That must be how you won the war.
Whatever, just don't get us in trouble, okay? If you get me killed I'm going to haunt you.
I just want to get back home.
I want you home, too! For now just try to train and learn some things to keep up alive, okay?
I'm a doctor. I really don't need a little girl telling me what to-
I swear to heck I will sing children's show themes twenty-four hours a day if you don't try to make this work.
Samantha and I ended up at the trap-making station. It was unbearably beneath me to be weaving together sticks with the intent to ensnare a fellow child like a hare. It was also a most uncomfortable sensation to be sharing a head with someone else. Have you been here this whole time?
It took me this long to figure out how to get you to hear me. You are in so much trouble if I ever figure out how to move myself.
DID is under-researched and varies widely but I'm pretty sure it's definitely impossible for an alter to have an alter of themselves in their own body? Idk man Samantha's got some weird illness that is yet undescribed in medical texts. Best I can guess is that Samantha's Edward alter has an imaginary friend named Samantha based on herself? Idk I'm not a doctor this one's beyond me.
