Inyo Recreational Cortex, District Five
March 8th, Year 118 ADD
Daniel Holt, Victor of the 117th Hunger Games
The hiss of sand slipping onto the cold, hard concrete yanks him sharply back into reality. His own sweat is sharp in his nose as he spins the bag towards him to take a look at the seam, split again even through the duct tape, frayed edges moving slightly in the stale air conditioning. Sighing and cursing softly, he unhooks it from the ceiling, tosses it across the room, and rips the hand wraps from his red fingers. The salty sweat stings in the cuts on his newly busted knuckles, grounding him in the present, but he still jumps, inhaling sharply, when a hand grabs his shoulder from behind.
Jules is standing there staring at him, a glint in her green eyes and one eyebrow arched in amusement. He smacks her lightly in the shoulder as he strides past to grab the water bottle that sits on the cracked plastic chair in the corner, scrunching his eyes closed as he squirts cool liquid over his head, face, and neck.
"Punching out your feelings again?" Jules' voice is practically dripping with teasing sarcasm, but Daniel's known her long enough to hear the concern simmering underneath it. He flashes her half a reassuring smile as he pulls a sweatshirt over his formerly bare chest. He's aware that she wants him to talk about the Games, to process what happened before he has to start mentoring the next pair of kids, but it's been less than a year. He's not ready to remember it, to admit it, at least not out loud. Saying it out loud would make it all far too real. For now, he'll stick to the nightmares; at least he can wake up from those.
"I've been thinking," he starts, avoiding her question as well as the pointed look she's giving him,
"Well that never ends well; don't strain yourself, Danny," she interrupts drily, earning herself another gentle wack to the bicep as he continues.
"I was thinking of trying to get some renovations going for this place. A better gym is going to raise our chances of taking kids to the Capitol who are athletic, who have some sort of useful training background, and that's going to give us a hell of a better shot at getting them home safe. We have kids with tons of potential; all they need is access to resources, and now we have the money to give them that."
"Daniel, we've talked about this, you know we have to-"
"Make the winnings last, reserve them for necessities, I know, but we need to stop thinking only in the short term! If we're not putting the work into having kids who can make it out of that arena alive, who knows how long it'll be before we have another Victor, Jules? I'm not suggesting we train like Careers, but we need some sort of edge. You know we do." Jules sighed heavily as the two Victors trundled up the stairs together, a pained expression on her face as her eyes swept across the main floor of the gym, pausing momentarily on the goliath of a boy powerlifting in the center, a small crowd gathered around him. Maybe Daniel was right; maybe it wouldn't hurt to put some of their resources toward drumming up a little bit of hope and inspiration.
A/N: Hello from beyond the void, lovely readers! This was a pretty short little chapter, but things'll start picking up and get a hell of a lot longer once we get started on intros, so please keep subbing kids, it means the world to me! In the meantime, I thought I'd give you guys this little snippet to meet our District Five mentors, along with a little cameo of one of our tributes, as a treat. See you all soon, Mae.