KITRO TOKEN – DISTRICT 5
The crowd's cheering is pleasing, but I manage to ignore it all as the tributes scatter, being escorted towards their rooms. They make a habit of using several different lifts to avoid awkward confrontations, so this is likely the last time I'm going to see the other tributes until tomorrow, when training starts.
Walking around in this costume is considerably more difficult than I thought it'd be. We're dressed in a bizarre mix of yellow and blue, probably to represent lightning or something. I was told it'd be striking and the crowd would love it, but I'm skeptical. They were more focused on the gigantic axes the District 7 tributes were holding.
Having been brought up in District 5 I'm very interested in science and chemistry, so the Capitol has been a fascinating place so far. I'm barely given enough time to observe my surroundings though, so I've been focusing on people instead, mainly my district partner, Sheila Lirette. She's a very upbeat girl but something seems off about her. It's as if her happiness is a mask and there's a beast waiting to tear up the arena inside.
Regardless, I'm stuck with her for the training period, so we'll see how her personality develops. In the time I've been thinking about that, we've almost walked all the way to the lift that'll take us to our home for the next few days. When we arrive there, however, our escort seems pretty frustrated, and is staring at the lift with a scrunched-up face.
"What's up, Mirrian?" Sheila asks.
"The damn lift isn't working! This is truly unacceptable treatment for you two! If they're expecting us to take the stairs, they have another thing coming!" she yelld, storming off to find a guard.
"Yes, absolutely unacceptable," Sheila replies, skipping after her. I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not. She soon comes back, and grabs my arm. I think she's trying to attack me for a second, and I almost retaliate, but instead just snatch my arm away.
"Relax, big guy, I'm just taking you to the stairs. Apparently they are crafted out of pure mahogany, so I'm sure we can ascend in dignity, metaphorically and literally speaking." Sheila grins and leads me towards the stairs.
When we reach the fifth floor, Mirrian leads us towards our living quarters. Upon stepping inside, I'm overwhelmed by the scent of new furniture. They've clearly made everything here out of scratch, which is surprising because they usually recycle furniture from the previous year. Naturally, everything is exquisite. Sheila seems completely overwhelmed, and is jumping in excitement as she leaps from sofa to sofa, window to window, as if she wants to touch absolutely everything in the room.
"I suggest you get some rest. A duo of such fantastic tributes ought to be ready for rigorous training," Mirrian advises before she leaves. I can't rest right now, though, I have too much to think about.
I step through a glass door into one of the bedrooms, where I'd presumably be sleeping – there's two bedrooms, and the other one has a bright pink bed, so that one probably isn't mine. I crash on my navy bed, and stare at the ceiling. A fancy ceiling fan is spinning slowly. I'm about to fall asleep when Sheila bursts into my room and tries to leap onto my bed. Awkwardly, she misses and hits the floor on the side of it. I scramble over and peer over the side, looking at her still body, face-down on the floor. If she's passed out then that's the first pre-games injury we've had in years.
But that turns out not to be the case, as she rolls over and stands up, seemingly uninjured. "Kitro, what're you doing lazing around in here? There's a ton of food on the table and you're sleeping?" she inquires.
"Food doesn't quite spark my interest," I say, getting up, "but I'll come if it'll stop you injuring yourself again." She seems to ignore that remark and simply skips back out of my room.
We're soon all sat around long, green glass table, eating in silence. That is, me, Sheila, Mirrian, a few stylists and Conrad, our mentor. He only won the games two years ago and is a young Asian man with spiky black hair. He's stuffing his face with food – he took quite an indulgence in it after he won the Games.
The silence is awkward, so I decide to break it by asking Mirrian what's happening tomorrow.
"Don't you know? Tomorrow is when training starts! How can you be 16 years old and not yet know the order in which everything happens before the Games?" I shrug. I do know, I just wanted a reason to break the silence.
"So we get to stab things with swords and show off in front of everyone?" Sheila asks, seeming pretty excited.
"Pretty much, yes, although I should hope you have at least a little strategy planned," Mirrian replies.
"I do," Sheila states, leaning forward slightly, "I'm gonna play weakling."
There is a long chorus of sighs as everyone leans back in their chair, pausing their eating just to lament Sheila's decision.
"Sheila," I address her, putting down my fork, "that's been tried so many times before that nobody is going to fall for it."
"Oh, don't worry about that, I've thought of a twist," she quickly responds.
"And just what might that be?" I ask.
"Hehe… haven't decided yet."
I look away from Sheila and stare straight at the wall. The problem with people like her is that they're so stupid, they don't know how stupid they are.
After everyone's done eating, I resume lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. I would go to bed, but sleeping any less than two hours after eating causes loss of appetite and weight gain in the morning, which certainly isn't favourable for the Games. I still fall asleep pretty quickly, however, not even bothering to get changed out of my clothes.
I wake up presumably before everybody else, as it's barely dawn outside, and if Sheila were awake she'd have woken me up by now. This gives me more time to just lie down and think about things – namely, what I'm going to do in the training centre today. I want to make sure I don't establish any negative bonds between any of the other tributes. Being targeted as dead meat in the bloodbath isn't a plan of mine.
Sheila wakes up some two hours later, and we're both fully dressed and ready to head to the training centre by 9:00am. We're escorted there by Mirrian, but she leaves us at the door and simply lets us wander in by ourselves.
To our surprise, we're the last two tributes to arrive – everybody else is already here, testing out the equipment scattered all around the room. Wherever there's not some sort of obstacle course filling up the floor, there's a weapon stand. There's barely any floor space left to walk, other than the areas specially made for sword practice.
Sheila immediately runs off to god knows where, so I'm left alone to wander through the centre. I'm hoping we've missed the long lecture at the beginning where we're told not to be violent with the other tributes and all that jazz, but my hopes are shattered when I hear a loud whistle coming from the middle of the room. Everyone stops what they're doing and rushes over immediately, save for the District 12 male, who seems far too occupied with a heavy sword to pay attention. He's tall and bulky, with olive skin and dark hair, typical District 12 look, except he appears to be well-fed.
"Hunter, please stop, you can get right back to the swords in a moment," a woman calls out. He doesn't even stop to look, however, as he continues slashing his blade through the air. Upon closer inspection, he appears to be terrorizing his district partner, a skinny girl with long black hair. She looks unusually calm, as she shuffles around his feet to avoid his threatening sword swings. Usually this kind of behavior is just teasing, but I'm starting to get worried he's actually trying to hit her. Luckily, the District 10 male, I believe his name is West, comes to intervene.
"Hunter, come on, now's not the time," he says, attempting to take the blade. Hunter reacts violently, however, and tries to struggle away, almost slicing West's face off in the process. This gives Hunter's district partner enough time to escape and hurry back to the crowd. I hear someone call her Olivia as they commend her calmness. One of the guards has to break up Hunter and West's mini struggle eventually, as he restrains Hunter, forcibly taking his sword and passing it to another guard. He is then forced to walk back to the rest of us, noticeably disgruntled.
The typical lecture soon begins and we're advised not to hurt each other, to preserve our strength and to work on our weaknesses… the usual stuff. I'm not interested in listening to her so I just look at the other tributes around me. Interestingly, this year lacks the token fat kid that always gets killed first, meaning there's no easy target for the careers to pick on. Unfortunately that means I have to try harder to blend in so I don't become the target instead.
Eventually everyone disperses and goes back to what they were doing before. I look around for somewhere unoccupied and eventually settle for the short knives and daggers. I don't have a fantastic aim so I'm better with close combat. I seem to spend more time admiring the intricate design of the knives than actually using them, but I still have a good go at stabbing all the targets with them.
I'm on my own for a while until a girl gingerly walks into the same area as me, presumably District 10's female tribute. She has strawberry blonde hair that's styled inwards and appears to imitate her collar bone. She turns to look at me with a pair of light brown eyes. By far the most innocent-looking person I've seen so far, she's even kind enough to ask permission to use the knife I'd just put down.
"Heh, of course," I say, laughing, "but you might wanna drop the kind attitude if you want any hope at surviving."
"Oh, I've already given up hope on that… I didn't expect to live as soon as I heard my name…" she sighs, picking up the knife. She stares at it for a second, running her finger along the sharp edge, before she puts it down again and leans against the wall with her eyes shut.
I'm not great at dealing with emotions like hers, so I just pick up that same knife and say "Here, let me show you."
I sidestep to a human-shaped target near to us, and then throw my arm around its neck, getting it into a headlock. I slice it along the side of its neck, attempting to hit where the jugular vein would be. I let the decoy fall to the floor and spin the knife in my hands. "If you're ever in a one-on-one knife fight, try that. They'll be dead in seconds and won't have any time to complain about it," I explain.
She looks a little horrified, but soon returns to her poker face, taking the knife off me and trying the same thing on another target. She seems instinctively gentle, and it's almost painful watching her face as she attempts to cut something that isn't even a living creature.
"I'm really not cut out for this," she murmurs to me as she hands the knife back. "I'm Jaily Burwell, by the way."
"So you're West's partner?" I ask.
"Yes, that's right. We work in the same fields back at home… or should I say, worked. He's a strong guy. I hope he can win."
Pausing for a moment, I take a bold move and reply with "I bet you could win just as easily."
She shakes her head and laughs a little, easily shaking off the compliment. "Didn't you just see me attempting to attack that decoy? I have too many morals that are simply going to get in the way of me killing anyone."
"Then perhaps you should play the survival act, and just pull a few cool stunts to keep the Gamemakers from shoving you into combat. There's plenty of ways to indirectly kill someone. I'm Kitro, by the way."
"Nice to meet you, Kitro."
We spend a little longer both practicing with knives, before we move on to the plants section. She seems to know more about plants than I do, but that's understandable considering the districts we come from. We keep circling the centre together, trying out each and every training station, and it's not until we get to the large swords section that we run into somebody else.
Christopher Young, District 1's male tribute, is slashing relentlessly at the decoys around him, with one of the largest swords I've ever seen. However, he seems approachable enough, so I decide to talk to him.
"Hey, nice to meet you, my name's-" I begin, before I'm interrupted by Chris.
"Woah, sorry dude! I didn't even see you there! Are you okay?" he exclaims, looking very worried.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" I respond.
"Kitro, he's just whacked your arm with his sword," Jailey answers for me. I look at both my arms, and sure enough, there's a red line on my right arm where Christopher's sword must have made contact. There's a little blood but I'm able to wipe it away with my sleeve.
"Jeez, aren't you in pain?" Chris asks, bewildered.
"No, I can't feel pain in my right arm," I reply while wiping the blood off my fingers. "It got electrocuted a year ago and all the nerves were completely killed. That's why there's a lighting scar all the way down it, because that's where the nerves used to be."
Chris looks at me oddly and then laughs a little. "You're a funny guy, Kitro. First you save that little District 11 girl from Suriel, and then you tell me you're immune to pain in your right arm. I sure hope you don't have guns installed in your palms."
"Nah, although I can't say I'd complain if I did," I say, chuckling. "You're one to talk, anyway. Look at that giant sword you were holding just a second ago. I haven't seen anybody else lift that yet."
"Hah, I'm not the strongest guy in this building by a long shot. Just take a look over there," he says, nodding to his left. Not far from us, there's Hunter and some other guy each holding a giant axe, even bigger than the ones the District 7 tributes had in their chariots. They're both raising their weapons in the air, and it looks as if they're about to behead each other, but Chris tells me it's actually a lifting contest. A crowd of around 5 or 6 tributes, mostly female, had gathered to watch their little competition.
"That's Hunter Venezia and Shadow Noctus. Everyone thought Shadow was going to be the emo guy who commits suicide before the Games even begin, but he's proving to be quite the warrior," Chris explains.
It's easy to see why, because Shadow has a typical emo hairstyle, black with red highlights, and a pale complexion. He almost looks like a vampire. The two muscular guys eventually drop their axes and do some sort of fist-bump, seemingly friendly with each other already.
"What district is Shadow from?" I ask.
"Two," Jailey replies.
"He's a career then," I think out loud. It's clear that the Careers are starting a clear alliance already.
I spend the rest of the day with Jailey and Chris, touring the training centre and helping each other to improve on our skills. Jailey is a food and shelter specialist whereas Chris is a combat-oriented person, whereas I'm a mix of both, so it's a good combination so far. However, I begin to become wary of their motives or why exactly they're sticking around me, so I spend the rest of the training period doing things alone for the most part.
By the final day of training, it's become apparent that alliances are forming quickly. The Careers have mostly grouped together, but even they appear to have split into two separate groups, which is very intriguing. Despite being from District 12, Hunter has gotten fairly involved with the careers and they seem willing to accept him for now.
As for myself, I'm not really acquainted with anyone except Sheila, Chris and Jailey, and Sheila definitely isn't at the top of my list for allies. She's been spending most of the time gossiping with other female tributes and watching Hunter and Shadow's lifting contests. I've tried my hardest to lie low, but I'm not sure if it's worked because Chris is constantly telling me how much potential I have. I sure hope he hasn't been telling everybody else about me.
Training comes to a close after four long days, and we now turn our attention to our performances to the Gamemakers tomorrow. As usual we're being told to make a good impression and whatnot. I have no idea what I'm planning to do, so I'm completely isolating myself from anyone today so I can think about it in advance. I need to showcase my strength without becoming an obvious threat. And I think I've just about cracked how to do it.
Sheila is almost bouncing off the walls in excitement prior to her performance, because she just can't damn wait to show off her weakling act. There's a little television screen in the waiting room where I get to watch what she's doing, and it's painfully obvious that she's acting. She runs into the room and immediately throws herself at the floor, pretending to have an injured knee and limping to fetch a bow and arrow. She misses the targets so badly that even a blind person would have gotten closer. I'm still waiting to see what her little twist will be, and I find out at the very end. She suddenly falls to her knees, tears streaming down her face, and makes up a sob story about how she's lost her many siblings to the Games and that her family simply couldn't deal with the pain of losing her too. She has one brother who isn't even old enough to be in the Games. It's kind of embarrassing to watch.
After she's done, not surprisingly, she thinks she's done well and has the Gamemakers convinced. We'll just see about that. Unfortunately, the Sheila show is over and now it's my turn to make an impression to the Gamemakers. They have a system nowadays where you can request beforehand what props you want to work with while you're in there, and I'd asked for a variety of daggers, short knives, and poisonous herbs. It's a strange combination, but I fairly sure I can pull it off.
I enter the room, introduce myself to the Gamemakers and make my way over to the knives. They've evidently seen through my plan and given me some unusually blunt knives, so I have to make do with a machete instead. I observe the plants I've been given, and pick out all the poisonous ones I know, collecting them in my left hand. I then throw them in the air and slice through them as precisely as possible with the machete, and the severed remains of the plants fall to the floor around me. I kick them aside and take a nightlock plant. Everyone knows that nightlock berries are poisonous, but what many people don't know is that the stems and leaves are not, and are even fairly nutritious. Many people avoid the plants altogether after the many deaths they've caused, but Jailey taught me this little secret about them.
Taking the machete, I slice off a decent chunk of it and pop it in my mouth. The Gamemakers look shocked, and one is about to rush in and save me, but another urges them not to. I pull the plant out of my mouth, making sure I bite off all the poisonous berries. I then spit them out, being extra careful that I don't actually bite into them. With the remainder of the plant in my hand, I smile at the cameras before biting off a section of it, chewing on it quite willingly. Most people are probably expecting me to be dead right around now, so I get a pretty good round of applause from the Gamemakers afterwards. I don't want anyone else knowing that actually chewing and swallowing the plant is safe, so I spit it out, hoping that they instead got the impression that I'm just immune to poison or something. Hopefully, some people are naïve enough to believe that. I finish the performance by stabbing the machete through a decoy's chest.
Back in our living quarters, I get quite a scolding from Mirrian for almost killing myself, but the District 5 crew are generally pleased with my performance, and strangely, Sheila's too. At around 5:00pm, Panem is shown the official scores, and we all sit around the huge LCD TV mounted on the wall.
My heart is beating unusually fast at this point, as a slightly high or slightly low score could mark me for death.
"Welcome, Panem, to the Hunger Games, where we are here to tell you all of our tributes' training scores! It's been a heck of a week, and the Gamemakers have had to make some tough decisions, but they're finally in! As usual, we shall start with District 1..."
I shuffle in my seat as I wait to hear Christopher's score.
"Christopher Young – a score of 8.
Elizabeth Prower – a score of 4."
Eight, not a bad score for a career, but I have to say I was expecting a little higher from Chris. I feel sorry for Elizabeth, whoever she is – a career hasn't scored that lowly in a while.
"Shadow Noctus – a score of 5.
Elspeth Plummer – a score of 8."
Shadow mustn't have many abilities outside of giant-axe-lifting to get that kind of score. It looks like his district partner, Elspeth, is considerably more threatening right now.
"Daniel MacCleod – a score of 7.
Roxanne Lionheart – a score of 8.
Suriel Raffolk – a score of 10.
Rochelle Amphora – a score of 10."
District 4's tributes are looking pretty scary this year, with double 10s. Suriel is a beast with heavy weapons and Rochelle is one of the fastest and most agile attackers I've seen in a long time.
My heart is almost in my throat as they come to District 5, and Sheila is practically bouncing in her seat.
"Kitro Token – a score of 7.
Sheila Lirette – a score of 3."
Damn, Sheila's weakling tactic actually worked. I'm relieved to hear I got a seven, because that's just about middle ground. High enough to be somewhat fearsome yet low enough to avoid being an immediate target. Now that the build-up to our scores are over, I'm able to focus more freely on everybody else's scores.
"Kevin Kane – a score of 6.
Cadence VonKoche – a score of 7.
Leon Kafei – a score of 8.
Laura Kingswood – a score of 9."
That's worryingly high for District 7, especially that nine. I'll have to look out for Laura. I don't know much about the District 6 tributes, but that's about average for them.
"Silas Edwards – a score of 8.
Luna Wolfe – a score of 6."
Silas is definitely the sly fox of this year's Games, and that eight means he's probably going to be a little bit of a trickster in the arena.
"Speck Field – a score of 10.
Mimi Duloc – a score of 9."
Come to think of it, Mimi had been spending a lot of time around the Careers, and was one of the stronger girls during training. Speck is more of a lone wolf however, so that high score makes me feel very uncomfortable.
"West Arkain – a score of 6.
Jailey Burwell – a score of 4."
Poor Jailey. I guess she really couldn't find it in her to make a good performance in front of the Gamemakers.
"Knott Seneko – a score of 7.
Lolly Gledhill – a score of 7.
Hunter Venezia – a score of 11.
Olivia Nyne – a score of 3."
Great, so the highest scoring person in the arena's going to be Hunter, from District 12 too. I don't think District 12 has scored this highly since the infamous Katniss Everdeen. I'm glad to see Lolly, the girl I saved from Suriel, got a somewhat high score.
Mirrian immediately turns the TV off, clearly uninterested in whatever else the presenters have to say.
"Well, I'd say we have a fairly good set of scores there, don't you?" she asks, glancing at everybody around the room. Everyone seems to nod in agreement except me. Sure, I'm happy with my score, but I'm not sure how Sheila's 3 qualifies as a 'good score'. If she's that intent on being the weakling then I suppose it's acceptable, but I'm still skeptical, because she has to make sure she gets sponsors. Mind you, I suppose her emotional plea is enough to secure a few gullible Capitol sponsors.
Mirrian, Sheila, Conrad and the rest of the District 5 crew spent the rest of the night celebrating with drinks and food while I retired to my bedroom yet again. I'm exhausted after the past few days – I've been waking up early constantly and it's been very frustrating. I'm hoping tonight I can sleep properly, because it's the interviews tomorrow and that's something that's so easy to screw up. I have to make sure I make the right impression. I can't make it look like I'm desperate for sponsors. I have to stay true to myself, in a way. Ugh. Nevermind the Hunger Games, at the moment it's the damn Mind Games. Predicting how the Capitol will respond to you is unusually difficult, despite their shallowness.
As I lay in bed, my mind actively wanders, thinking of tomorrow, the arena and beyond. I never look back, because the past is the past and it cannot be undone. What I've done before in my life is locked away in the realms of time and is not something I want to dwell on. Despite the true grimness of the Games and the fact that I'll probably be dead in a week or less, I can't help but grin to myself as I fall asleep, ready to face whatever the Capitol decides to throw at me.