Training Day 1

You didn't go down to training with Peeta. Katniss offered to escort you down, but you told her that you would prefer to go with Effie. She nodded and turned to Peeta, asking if he wanted her to go down with him.

"Sure," he said. He took a step towards her as Haymitch was rounding the corner, fastening a loose button at the top of his shirt. He looked up and his eyes narrowed in on Peeta. He swiftly stepped forward and closed a hand around his upper arm, causing him to stop and look back at him.

"I will be escorting him down to training," he said firmly, and Katniss turned a little red.

"Okay," she said. Haymitch began to pull Peeta towards the elevator, thrusting him forward slightly and letting go of his arm.

"Walk," He demanded and Peeta obeyed him. He made his way to the silver doors and stopped in front of them as Haymitch reached behind him to press the down button. As they waited for the doors to open, Effie began to speak.

"Shall we be on our way as well then?" she asked and you looked at her, avoiding Peeta's gaze from across the room. You nodded.

"Yes, let's go." You took a separate elevator down to the training room then Peeta, wanting nothing to do with him today. The elevators were close to each other though, separated only by a thin wall, and you could hear Haymitch yelling on the other side. It made your stomach churn slightly, but you averted your thoughts to the training room and what was going to be inside. Weapons. The ones that you all were going to have to use to kill each other. It made you feel sick to have the thought in your mind.

"Here we are," Effie said as the doors opened, and she touched your elbow lightly, prompting you forward. You stepped out of the elevator and jumped when you saw Peeta right beside you. You wondered if Haymitch and Effie were trying to keep the two of you in sync. You walked a little faster than him.

"Hold on," Haymitch said from behind and you turned, thinking for a moment that he was talking to you. But he was walking towards Peeta with a smug expression. You began to walk again, but slower. You weren't eager to get to training. "You remember that little threat I made you yesterday?" you heard Haymitch say and there was a pause.

"Yes," Peeta answered.

"I meant it." You heard a bang and turned to see Peeta with his back against the wall and Haymitch back in the elevator, the doors closing in front of him. Effie had already gone back up as soon as you left. Peeta looked at you and your stomach lurched; you turned away quickly and continued the rest of the walk to the training room alone.

When you got there, you were one of only 6 Tributes who had shown up. This made you feel a little better, knowing that all 24 had to arrive in order to begin. Peeta appearing beside you would make 7. You sidestepped away from him and busied yourself with making sure your laces were tied tightly as he sighed and walked away. You glanced over your shoulder at him as he made his way to the back of the room, observing the camoflauge station but not touching anything. He began to speak to the man standing behind the table, but you couldn't hear what they were saying. You didn't really care anyways.

"What is his name?" someone asked behind you and you jumped, turning quickly and standing up straight. The 12 year old girl you saw from the Tribute parade was standing in front of you. She was so small compared to you. She looked scared.

"What?" you said, catching your breath from having been startled.

"What is his name?" she asked again. You raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Who's name?" She turned and pointed at Peeta across the room. Your heart sunk in your chest. You didn't want to talk about him.

"Peeta," you said dully, turning from her and walking to the bow and arrow station. You imagined picking one of these up and putting it through Katniss's chest. A morbid thought, but one that made you smile until the little girl followed you and stopped by your side. You looked down at her. "Why are you following me?"

"I can tell you're having a bad day," she said kindly and the frustration suddenly flowed out of you. You crouched down before her. "And you seemed angry with him." You breathed in and out slowly, thinking of what to say to that, but you decided just to change the subject instead.

"What District are you from?" you asked.

"Eight." Your mind went back to last year's Games, when 12-year-old Rue was chosen from District 8 and killed. You wondered if the reaping ball for that District was rigged. Or Maybe there was just a lot of 12 year olds to choose from. You sighed.

"I'm sorry," you said and an instructor promptly cleared her throat, staring daggers at you. You apologized, standing up. She nodded and walked away from you. You looked back at the girl. "What is your name?"

"Lacy."

"I'm Jacklyn."

"Your name is pretty." You thanked her.

"Not as pretty as yours though." She grinned, flashing a gorgeous smile, and your heart couldn't help but melt for her. She looked back at Peeta.

"Why are you mad at him?" she asked and you sighed, looking at him and then just as quickly away when you noticed that he was looking at you too. You shook your head.

"I'm not. We just don't want to get to close. You know." She nodded.

"I know." As the two of you stood there in silence, the rest of the Tributes filed into the room and your heart sunk. You didn't want to train. You didn't want to go into the arena. You didn't want to be part of the Games.

"Everybody line up!" yelled the instructor and your insides squirmed, but you took your place in line beside Lacy and another Tribute from District 2. You only knew she was from 2 because of the fire in her eyes and the determination that was radiating off of her. She could only be a Career Tribute. The instructor stood in front of you all. "Welcome. In 3 weeks time, 23 of you are going to be dead. There will be one Victor this year." You hated how she emphasized the word 'one'. "Everything you need to survive is in this room, it is just a matter of whether or not you can use it." Everybody was silent. You hated silence. You wanted to scream. "You have 2 hours to familiarize yourself with the weapons. Starting now."

Everyone scattered. You watched Lacy dart to the knot tying station and Peeta made his way back to the camoflauge. You stood like an idiot in the middle of the room while the instructor glared at you again, and you walked over to the bows and grabbed one. You took an arrow as well, placing it on the string and drawing it back. You aimed for the target in front of you and released, surprised to see that you had hit just the outside of the bullseye.

"Nice shot," someone said behind you and you whipped around, another arrow in hand. A boy from District 3 was standing before you. You remembered him from his chariot. He was one of the better looking Tributes. Besides Peeta. He raised his hands in defense, his eyebrows raised. "Woah," he said, "I was just complimenting you."

"Why?" you snapped, turning around and shooting another arrow just above the one you had shot before. He stood beside you, picking up the other bow.

"Because that was a good shot. Can't I just be nice?" he asked. You looked up at him and shook your head, setting down your bow and walking away. It disgusted you that he thought he could just "be nice". You can't just be nice to someone that you're ultimately going to have to kill. You're not supposed to make friends during the Hunger Games. Because eventually, your friend is going to die. Then what? You began to walk towards the knot tying, and then remembered your last thought about not making friends. You sighed and turned away, heading towards the rope net that was hanging from the ceiling for Tributes to climb.

You positioned your hands on the rope, pulling yourself up onto the net and you began your ascent to the top. As you climbed, the net swayed back and forth from your movement, and even flipped over once. You gasped and threw your arm through a hole, grabbing hold of a length of rope a bit farther down and steadied yourself. You began to swing your body back and forth, trying to flip the net back over but instead you just decided to climb around it. When you got back on the other side again, you noticed a few of the Career Tributes avert their gaze back to what they were doing. They had been watching to see if you would fall. You were glad that they saw you pick yourself back up.

You continued to climb as fast as you could, thinking about where in the Games you would actually use this climbing skill. Trees, most likely. You would spend a lot of times in trees. You did when you were home anyways, it was the one place no one bothered to look when you had gone missing. You skipped out on a lot of chores this way.

"Keep going," you heard someone say below you as you slowed down and you looked to see the instructor peering up at you through the holes in the net. She had a timer in her hand and was giving you a thumbs up. You smiled slightly and began to climb again, faster than you had been before. The net barely swayed as you went, and you made it to the top within the minute. When you were holding onto the last length of rope, the instructor beamed at you.

"5 minutes, 18 seconds," she said. You grinned down at her, feeling accomplished. "Fine work, Miss Richards." She walked away and you breathed out slowly, lifting your foot to begin your descent but it got stuck inside the net and suddenly you were upside down again. But this time you weren't able to steady yourself and you fell the 25 feet to the floor, landing hard on your back. It wasn't until you heard the snickering that you realized the other Tributes had been watching you climb. You shut your eyes against the pain and embarrassment. Footsteps came towards you and stopped by your head. You didn't look to see who was there.

"Are you all right?" the person asked and you recognized the voice right away as Peeta. You opened your eyes slowly and looked up at him. He seemed genuinely concerned. You shut your eyes again and he crouched down beside you. "Hey," he said, touching your shoulder.

"Mr Mellark," the instructor snapped. "No touching the other Tributes." He looked at her and nodded.

"Yes ma'am," he said, "sorry."

"Please return to your station." He sighed and stood up, looking down at you sadly. You opened your eyes again and the rolled onto your side slowly, groaning in pain. You were sure your back was broken. But you could move, so it wasn't.

"Are you all right?" he asked again quietly. You pushed yourself onto your knees and pressed a hand to your back with a painful sigh.

"Yeah, Peeta," you said, annoyed, "I'm fine." He nodded and looked away from you, turned and headed back to his station. You felt bad for snapping at him, but you just fell 25 feet. No, you weren't all right.

You pulled yourself to your feet with the help of the net, and looked around. Nobody was staring at you anymore. Except for Lacy: she was watching you like a Hawk. You felt odd with her looking at you that way, and you brushed your pants off before heading to to the knives. All you could think about was Peeta as you examined them, choosing the one you thought was the sharpest. Since day 1 all you had wanted was him, but he kept going back to Katniss. You understood it was to preserve both of their lives, but you were taught that in life you had to give and take. You were given this chance to work so closely with Peeta, and you had to take him while you could.

I f*cking hate you, Katniss, you thought and, pretending that the dummy in front of you was her, you threw a knife straight at it and hit it square in the chest. The room was silent. You looked around to find yourself the center of attention again.

"She's probably not too fond of you either," said the boy from District 3 who tried to talk to you earlier. Your eyes shot to Peeta at the very back of the room, who looked hurt. You didn't realize you had said the words out loud. You looked back at the dummy and a sudden rage flooded your veins. You began to scream, loud.

"Ms Richards!" you heard the instructor shout but you didn't listen to her. You covered your ears with your hands and continued to scream. You squeezed your eyes shut as you felt hands on your shoulders, shaking you and someone was yelling something but you didn't hear. About 30 seconds passed of you screaming, when you felt a couple more pairs of hands grab you and force you to the floor. Your arm was pinned down and you felt a sharp point penetrate into the crook of it. You gasped and began to struggle, but more hands held you and you began to scream again.

"Help me!" you called out but no one came. You suddenly felt dizzy and you tried to scream, but nothing came out. You felt dazed and confused. Oddly relaxed. You started to slip in and out of consciousness as you became aware of 23 pairs of eyes on you. You looked towards Peeta who had walked to the front of the room. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head and you shut them.

"Carry on, Tributes," said the instructor as you felt your body lifted into the arms of a peace keeper, and you were carried from the room in your sedated state.

So much for making a good first impression.

End of chapter 6