ASTRID CALLOWAY
She's watched this a thousand times. The axe falls in slow motion, tearing her stomach open. She can hear the ripping sound as blood rushes out, staining her skin red. She doesn't fall quickly, no, she staggers back and forth, pained moans escaping her lips. Her death isn't quick. She falls to the ground, raising a limp arm in defense against the inevitable. The District One boy is laughing, a mad light in his eyes. He laughs as she dies, bleeds out, as if this all was some magnificent joke. The cannon, it seems to split the very air as it booms out, signaling the end of the Games. The boy, a skinny, bony thing is dancing around, howling, thrusting his arms up to the sun like he didn't just murder a girl.
The painful thing is that the girl didn't even put up a good fight. She just bowed to death like she didn't have a family and friends and a fiancee back home. The Games tore her fiery spirit to pieces and left her a hollow shell of her person.
Then, the Capitol cheers. The boy was a favorite. People stream out on the streets, with fake hair and fake eyes and fake everything, dancing around like the boy did after he slaughtered her sister, so happy, so cheerful, so free. As if death was nothing. As if her sister was just another tribute.
Astrid screams and it echoes around the empty house. Her parents are absent, probably in the Capitol again, laughing with those who slaughtered her sister and didn't care. She runs a comb through her orange hair, and braids it with nimble fingers before tossing on a t-shirt and walking the halls of her empty house. Several maids bustle around, responsible for upkeep but they are the only ones who ever seem to set foot in the house anymore.
Astrid presses her lips into a thin line and walks downstairs. When Attila decided she would train for the Games, she demanded her parents install training equipment. I have to catch up. Some of those Careers have been training for their whole lives. I have to keep up.
They acquiesced; the girls could get anything they wanted, and training equipment had been set up in the basement. After Attila died, Astrid couldn't bear to set foot down there. She had often sat there as Attila poured her heart and soul into training, often screaming at herself when she couldn't wield the sword just right. Astrid would hug her, holding her sister close. Attila sometimes taught Astrid to throw knives, that was her specialty. Astrid can't touch those knives anymore, so she picks up a sword, testing it.
But the only other option was the Academy. More and more brutes were taking over. The type that would make a fool out of their prestigious District. She exploded at this one girl, threw a punch at her, breaking her nose and was thrown out for a day, for a lack of District pride. Humiliated, fuming, and angry, she refused to come back.
She spins around, almost feeling her sister there, guiding her.
I'm gonna gut the throats of some outer district kid. I'm gonna come home, Astrid.
The Career lunges forward, pressing the tip of the point to the dummy, right between it's ribcage. It was one of the high end models, designed to mimic the human body as perfectly as possible.
I've trained so hard. I have to volunteer. There isn't any other option, sis…
Beads of sweat begin to appear on Astrid's brow as she swings the sword again and again, closing her eyes, relishing how the hard outer covering tears open. The dummy is battered from side to side as Astrid trains, her thoughts becoming heightened, sharpened. In her mind, the world is nothing more than this battle between her and her enemy.
Oh, Astrid, you couldn't possibly understand the feeling. You think it's crazy but I really love this.
She whirls around, bringing the sword above her head, delighting in the ache in her muscles. It meant her body was learning, that she was one step closer to victory.
I'm getting stronger every day. You know what, Astrid, I can do this. I can actually do this.
The dummy's head clatters to the floor. Astrid looks at it dully, the rush of battle gone. There is nothing left to fight.
I guess it's time to move on to axes now. That was what Atilla would say, with a girlish little giggle tacked on to the end of her sentence.
Astrid fiddles with the handle of the axe, staring at it intently. The burn in her chest, the ache in her muscles all drove the thoughts of grief from her head, even as her body was slipping into Atilla's routine. She had fantasized about winning the Games for years, it was simply what District Two kids did. But now, she was closer than ever.
I will be the spark. She closes her eyes. The Capitol will fall under my sword. Power was what Astrid craved most. Power, power and vengeance.
She takes a deep breath, brings the axe back and thrusts it forward. It embeds itself in the target and the blunt sound echos through the basement. Atilla, Atilla, Atilla.
MARO LINWOOD
No damn time for anything. Maro wields the mace like it's an extension of himself, bringing it down on the dummy with full force. He pummels the defenseless thing with all the rage he's felt all day and it leaves him exhausted and panting. The other Careers are still going strong and anger sweeps through him, giving him a new strength. He lets the mace fall and heads off to the swords section.
You never know what there's gonna be in the arena, Franco always told him, urging him to try something other than the mace, which just felt so right when he held in in his hands in the training center. Franco, himself, doesn't take training seriously, claiming that it just wasn't for him. Maro kept silent at that, biting back barbed comments. He can't understand his friend sometimes. Why on Earth wouldn't you fight? Are you weak?
Training has done him good, Maro thinks as he circles the dummy, carving gashes in it, almost toying with the thing. He has learned control, and it has given him a world beyond the tiny town he has spent his whole life in. If it wasn't for the Games I would have lived and died in my hometown.
It's given him something beyond the odd jobs he's worked in, something beyond the rocky soil that seems to make up everything. At four, his mother died and everything fell apart. At twelve, he crawled through vents, where the air was made of dirt and he had to struggle to breathe for a few coins a day. At thirteen, he swung hammers to crush rocks in an endless, never ending struggle. Then, he discovered the Games and gloried. He could sneer at the people who spit at him as he pressed the hilt of a blade to their neck and both of them knew that he could crush the life out of them. He finally could make use of the strength he had gained, working day in, day out.
I, Maro Linwood, will win. I will take this family back.
The Hunger Games offer him respite. Finally, finally, he won't have to walk through the streets with the glitzy lights and the Capitolites that stream through the streets with fake faces and fake lives and the richer people following them around as if they were the Messiah. Finally, finally, he won't have to keep holding his tongue as his peers boast of how they will be the ones who will win the Games, how they will be the ones to take over the family business, how they will be the ones to be a slave to the Capitol.
He and Franco see through all this shit. He nods as Franco speaks on everything under the sun, the mayor, the Games, the Capitol, the Dark Days, District One, District Twelve. Most of what they know is speculation, nothing more than rumors, but they pretend to understand. It's all they will ever know.
Maro pants as he lets his arm fall and the sword falls to the floor. His brown eyes flutter shut and his close cropped black hair drips with sweat. It's the first time he's allowed himself rest all day. He runs down the streets at midnight for training. Then, he runs to his job as a bricklayer. He doesn't know many people there, mostly keeping to himself. The others there are too depressing to talk to. Like him, they threw their lives away to training, but they never got to the Games. Maybe they weren't fast enough, weren't strong enough to get up to the stand. So, without family connections, they spent their lives doing odd jobs, maybe with alcohol to make the pain ebb away each night, drinking to the bottom of the glass.
Well, my story will be different. That is his maxim as he works away at his job. He runs away, clutching a few coins in his strong, calloused hands, turned hard from work. Then, he trains. He pours his heart out into training, washing everything away in sweat, in the dull thud of swords and maces and clubs, in the roar of knives and swords as they speed towards the targets like birds.
He'll slip back home in the middle of the night, chest rising and falling, heart pounding against his ribs. He wants to allow himself sleep, to wake up to birdsong, with Angeline and Cody and all the other birds and strays she's brought home by his side.
It doesn't happen like that. His father is passed out on the floor of their shack they call home, an empty bottle they call home. He can't hate the man, despite his many failings. He was too weak and his mind snapped. It happens too often. But Angeline is always there, holding the mangy Cody in her birdlike arms, sitting at the table, maybe with a book.
Maro wants to whisk her away, Angeline is sweet and kind and somehow still innocent. That won't happen unless he wins the Games. She's tough enough for the dark underbelly of District Two, but still compassionate, somehow. She brought Cody home, along with countless birds and cats and other dogs. Most of them, she sets free once they've healed, but Cody stayed, their silent companion.
Maro is surviving on the adrenaline from training, Angeline's soft smiles, Franco's impassioned speeches, a desire to save his father from passing out on the floor, blood poisoned. Most of all, it's his rage at everything that lends him the wings to complete this impossible routine, keep walking this tightrope of survival and success. He will prove the rich wrong. He will prove the workers wrong. He will prove the government wrong. He will crush those that spit on him.
All he has to do is win. And keep surviving in the meantime.
He strides out of the Training Center, casting a dark look at the brats who are huddled by the door, wearing designer clothes and are clutched bejeweled swords, probably custom produced and given to them by doting parents, pretty mother and powerful fathers, all of whom drift around their golden mansions.
Author's Note: I have almost all the tributes, check my profile for the list but I NEED more before I can move on for District Three. If you haven't already, please submit a tribute. I DO accept guest submissions, so leave one in the review section and we can finally move on with this story :D Also, I'll be updating my other story, In the City of Ghosts, so check that one out. :)
~The Unsilenced