Lanie Mather, District Nine female (15-16)
A lot of Tributes never realized the Arena was made of food. The tall grass gave enough cover for us to hide almost endlessly from the Careers. The deaths trickled out one every few days after the initial Bloodbath. It wasn't until about three weeks in that that number started climbing. Not exactly three weeks, of course. Things aren't so precise in real life. It wasn't as precise as how my mother told me "You can live for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food". It wasn't that neatly even in real life. But it was reasonably close.
Three weeks isn't a long time to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow. But it's better than no time, and it's better than three days in the Capitol. Someone in the Capitol liked me, since the thicker stalks of grass were sturdy enough to make arrows. They were straight, too, and neatly broke off when you bent a stalk. Almost like someone wanted us to have weapons...
It was disconcerting, trying to learn how to shoot. All I was shooting at was stalks of grass but I couldn't make myself believe that. I was training to shoot a human. I looked at the swaying grass I was using as a target and all I could see was something that represented a person. Every hour that passed I was practicing to get better at shooting people.
It was so much easier than I thought it would be. When the moment came I didn't even think about it. I'd never known how I would react in a life-or-death situation before. Would I panic? Would I act? Would I simply freeze? It turned out, I acted. Before I'd registered that it was Elver running out of the grass at me, I'd already shot him. I sat staring at the arrow in his chest wondering how it had gotten there when I realized it was me. My practice had paid off. I was good at shooting people.
After the Games there was one thing I remembered more than anything else. It wasn't the Bloodbath or the moment I won. It was Elver's body. I'd never seen a dead body so close, having run away from the Bloodbath. Elver looked small and still and so much younger than he had a moment ago. And so helpless. So limp and helpless and just... vulnerable. That was what happened when someone shot at a person. That was what it meant to practice to get good at archery. It was a sad, empty little body where a human soul had been severed.
The next person I shot was Tariq, the final one left with me. I hadn't known how I would react if someone else approached me but with only two people left the choice was taken from me. It was easier than I expected to shoot him, too. I looked right at him as I did it, most of the Arena being burnt up in the fire two weeks ago. I had time to know I was lining up a shot to kill a human. But Tariq was so bent, so delirious, so warped, that he didn't feel human anymore. I felt like I was putting down a rabid dog when I shot him.
I waited with a stone face as the hovercraft began to descend. When it was halfway down a thought brought a smile to my lips. I'd grown so much in three weeks. My life before the Games seemed like a distant memory. I could hardly call myself a child after what I'd seen. But the thought that had come to me right after winning the Games was a child's.
It's my birthday today...