Chapter 29: Training Day 3: Trial & Error

~You know that you can't live without me

Got caught in the game that you play with my mind~

Consus Cormone (15), District 9

It was the last day of the training day, and Consus was getting desperate. A lot of people were already allied with someone else. It was probably his fault, considering the fact he spent the last two days studying the other tributes. There were some that stayed in the background, keeping their head down, eyes filled with tears, barely talking to anyone. Of course, there were some that were loud, obnoxious and some that would probably give him the run of his money.

But there was none that really caught his eye too much. There was none that screamed desperation or anyone that was willing to give him the benefits of being able to survive the Hunger Games. He wanted to find the ones that had the skills to be able to survive the Hunger Games, and find the ones that can be easily exploited.

Granted, there were always the tributes from two and four that were always there, or even the tributes from one who were off to themselves, already allied with some other tributes from another district or by themselves. But he heard a lot from the tributes from those districts, how because they were on the Capitol's side during the war, they were able to get special advantages for the tributes to be able to win. They were most likely able to win more than anyone else who came from the outer districts, who were more on the rebels' side than anything.

It shouldn't have mattered that some districts were able to enjoy the Capitols' benefits, while other districts were suffering. It almost reminded him of back home, where life just seemed much more simpler, where money talked. As long as you had money, you were able to reap the full benefits in your own way and live a luxurious life, where you were the one on top, and looked down upon by others

And yet, it was always nice living in that kind of lifestyle.

Consus headed towards the knot-tying station, hoping to learn some more knots that were able to trap other tributes or even find someone who were also getting desperate like him, to find an ally. The instructor stood there, explaining and showing him the knots and Consus attempted some of them, most specifically how to tie a knot that would be able to get caught onto a tribute's ankle and get them trapped.

He listened, and kept his ears open to anyone around him, hoping that maybe someone might voice their desperation out loud in finding allies.

"Ugh," he heard someone say. It was a feminine voice, that much he knew. "It shouldn't be this hard to come up to people and approach them." He heard them continue on.

He set down the knots that he made onto the table and approached the young girl. She looked like she was around his age, with a spray painted white five marked on her black t-shirt, on the front and back of it. Her hair was tucked back in a low ponytail, but the wisps of her curly, dark hair came out of her low ponytail.

"Hey, I couldn't help, but overhear your situation," He started. His voice sounded like he was worried about her.

"Oh, right," the girl from five said. "Yeah, sorry. Guess the nerves must be getting to me…" she said in a rather rushed voice. She offered a smile towards him, which he gladly took. The girl talked a bit, but he wanted to remain polite, to make it seem like he was offering friendship to her.

"You know, I'm also looking for allies," Consus said to her, "The last couple of days have been hazy, and I've been trying to grasp onto the fact that I am in the Hunger Games, and need to find someone."

"Oh," the girl from five murmured, surprise written all over her face. "I didn't realize that you and I were in the same boat."

"I guess we are," He chuckled. "Allies?"

"Sure," the girl from five said. "It's clear there is no one else really too much."

~My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine~

Auster Worthing (16), District 8

Auster rushed over to the edible plants station, hoping that he would be able to get the memorization down. He spent the last couple of days, mainly in the survival station, specifically around the edible plants. He likes spending time, memorizing and taking in information about all kinds of varieties of plants. The ones that were edible, the ones that you can typically find in everyday life, and the ones that if you weren't careful, meant that you were going to lose your life.

Plants were either the key to your survival or one of the reasons you could die.

"Back again?" The instructor over at the edible plant stationed asked, looking at him. The instructor was clearly South Asian looking with his dark brown skin, and black hair cut to where his bangs fell beneath his eyes. He was in a dark black outfit, but he always had a smile on his face. He was very easy going and easy enough to talk to, which made it easier for Auster to make sense of his situation, and that sometimes, these people were just like the people back home.

"I have to make sure I really know this information," he told the instructor, with a small smile. "In a couple of days, I'd be heading into the arena. Besides, plants make a huge difference in your survival. I want the best survival possible."

"You're correct on that," the instructor said.

Auster gave him a beaming smile, and noticed from his peripheral vision that others were already gathering around the table. There were a couple of them that were familiar as he had seen them around, like the girls from ten and eleven who were often hanging around the survival stations, and keeping very close to each other. It was like they were never seen apart from each other, and Auster briefly wondered how they were very close to each other already.

"Alright, let's begin… Plants can be the reason or you don't. It's one of the things that can aid you while you are in the arena, and I hope that it can aid you in your survival," the instructor said. "I have a group of cards with pictures and words on them that you need to be able to match which ones are edible and which ones aren't."

Everyone remained quiet as the instructor passed out flashcards that were laminated. He passed it out to the two girls along with two small buckets that had a label of 'edible' and 'poisonous' on them. Auster took his, and he sat next to the table of the edible plants station and began sorting through the cards. He focused on pictures as it seemed easier.

He quickly tossed the paper in the buckets which the plants correlated too. Some of them were obvious like the shrub with dark green leaves and purple bell-shaped flowers, underneath it in bold letters read Belladonna, that took him a few to be able to understand what it was. He knew that was poisonous, even something like Katniss and Dandelions were safe to be able to eat.

There were some of it that he spent a few studying the aspects of the planets. Some of them looked exactly alike. There was a shrub that grew upright with long ranches and had red berries on it. There was one nearly identical with a shrub with shiny evergreen foliage and contained clusters of red-orange berries on the shrub. He looked at the one with long braces and looked at the name. Some of the letters were off in some places, and the letters mixed around the page, but he tried to focus on the name of it, before it looked eligible, Cotoneaster. The letters kept moving around and jumping around on him that it made it hard to see how the word was really spelled, but eventually he was able to see that the first couple of letters were Pyra.

Auster knew one of these were edible and one of them was poisonous, but sometimes he got them mixed up. So he simply guessed, he put the shrub with long branches in the poisonous section and shrub evergreen foliage and red-orange berries in the edible section. He hoped that it was, but he focus on that subject more as he made his way through the cards, sometimes with some difficulty but he managed it.

He came back to the instructor who looked at his work.

"You did a good job!" The instructor told him. "There were some mistakes that you made." He held up a card that came out of the edible bucket that had bright red berries and leaves that contained sharp points to them. "This plant… It's called the Holly plant, and is one of the poisonous berries. Eating more than three berries can give you severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea."

"Oh," Auster said. "That makes a whole lot of sense now."

The instructor gave him a small smile, and told him about some of the other side effects if the ones he got wrong were poisonous, or if the ones were edible. It really helped him, and he hoped that he could use this to his advantage when he went into the arena.

~Step one, you say we need to talk

He walks, you say sit down, it's just a talk~

Jasmine Blanchard (14), District 11

Jasmine held hands with Reese as they were inside the training room. It was the third and final day of the training, and then in a couple of days, they would be in the arena. More likely than not, Jasmine and Reese would be forced to say a long hard goodbye to each other in case something went wrong where one of them survived and the other didn't. But right now, they could live in the moment and be really close to each other again.

"Where do you want to go?" Reese asked. "We can go to the edible plants station again, or we can do something else?"

"We just did the edible plants, but maybe we can redo that to make sure we know it with at least a ninety percent accuracy, or we can do something else," Jasmine told her. "Like after lunch or something.

"Maybe we can go to the long range weapons?" Reese suggested. "We really haven't been over there yet, and it could help us in the arena."

"With the tributes from two and four, along with the girl from one?" Jasmine pointed out, using her pointer finger to point across the room where the girl from two, and the boy and girl were practicing throwing spears over at the target, with the instructor nearby. "I don't know. I really don't want them to be laughing at us or make them target us while we are in the arena."

"True…" Reese trailed off. "I mean there is always the bow and arrow station. There's really not much if really anyone over there… Maybe we can learn to shoot?"

"Okay!"

Reese and Jasmine headed over to the bow and arrow station where an instructor wearing all black greeted them, with a warm smile. The instructor was a Black woman with micro-braids pinned up in two space buns.

"Welcome!" the instructor told them.

"Do you know how to shoot a bow?" The instructor asked.

Both of them shook their heads no, as the instructor grabbed a bow and arrow from the rack. The instructor began to show them how to nock an arrow into a bow. The instructor grasp the arrow with her right hand, explaining the difference between what right and left handers to to nock an arrow (right handers grasp the arrow between the thumb and index finger while a left hander will hold the bow parallel to the ground, around the waist height with the string towards your body). She showed them where the arrow shaft goes onto the bow's arrow rest, and pulled the string back to make sure that the arrow is aligned up properly on the bow.

"Okay, you got it?" The instructor asked.

"Kinda," Jasmine admitted, still a little lost on how to actually nock an arrow.

"Here," the instructor said to them, each handing them a bow and an arrow. "Maybe doing it yourself would make it easier for you to understand."

Jasmine took the bow and arrow into her hand, she grasped it between her thumb and index finger and tried to nock the arrow onto the bow's arrow rest. She tried doing exactly what the instructor had done, but couldn't nock the arrow properly in. The instructor helped her move her fingers to where she heard the arrow nock into place with a small snap, before moving onto Reese who was already a step ahead of her, who made sure that the arrow was nocked properly on the bow.

"Alright, the next step is shooting the bow. You're gonna want to want your feet to be perpendicular or at a ninety degree angle from the target, with your feet shoulder width apart."

Jasmine quickly put her feet shoulder-width apart, her feet facing sideways from the target ahead.

"Your non-dominant hand should be on the bow, right there." The instructor helped position their hands in a relaxed position on the hand of the bow, "Using your dominant hand, you will use three fingers, the pointer, middle and ring finger, to pull back the string, being careful not to grab the arrow. You'll want to draw the string back until it touches the corner of your lip."

Jasmine did just that once the instructor corrected the position on the bow. She drew the string back, feeling the heaviness of the bow, and the strain of the string of the bow near the corner of her lip, and the strain it had against her body. She saw Reese holding the bow like she was, and she was grateful that her friend was also having some difficulty with the bow, also.

"Okay, you don't want to keep the string drawn as your muscles will get fatigued. Now, you're going to use your dominant eye, to align the arrow to the target and you'll want to shoot," the instructor said, drawing the string back until it reached the corner of lip, she let her fingers slip backwards, and the arrow flew until it hit the target with a thud. She remained in the shooting position once the arrow left the bow. "Now you try."

Jasmine did what the instructor did, and aligned the string of the bow against the corner of her mouth, and let her fingers slide backwards. The arrow fell on the ground, a couple of feet away from hitting the target. Reese's arrow managed to hit the arrow on one of the outer rings.

"Not bad. You want to try again?"

"No."

Jasmine and Reese put the arrows and the bow back onto the rack, in place to find something else.

"Okay, that was much harder than it looked," Reese said. "I applaud anyone who is able to do that with ease."

"I guess that's the difference between us outer districts and the inner districts. We don't have the experience, so the odds are already against our favor," Jasmine told her.

~There let the way appear (in articulo mortis, caelitus mihi vires)

Steps unto heav'n~

Dorothea Winifred (17), District 8

Dorothea quickly headed towards the hand to hand combat stations. It was one of the things she still had yet to learn or even grasp. She had already been through the spears, the bow and arrows, tridents, sword and even decided to go throw heavy weights around, to get a feel for what she was up against. She knew her grandmother would probably be throwing a cow, if she saw how unladylike and improper she was being now.

"Are you in line to go against the instructor?" A small timid girl asked. The girl was only a couple of inches shorter than Dorotha was. She had her brown hair in a ponytail, and was very muscular. She had a six spray painted in white across her shirt. This must be the girl from six, the one who wore a fireman outfit along with a firetruck on the bottom.

"I am," She nodded with a small smile. "I'm Dorothea."

"Joette," Joette said. "Honestly, I'm really glad they have a hand-to-hand combat station here… It reminds me of home."

"Oh, you have experience in this?" Dorothea asked. "I thought no one but one, two and four only had it."

"I'm a boxer," Joette told her, and it made complete sense. "I competed several times, and was one of the best things I loved. My dad is my coach."

"Oh cool," Dorothea said, "I never had the chance to do anything. At least really anything that can be unladylike." She put air quotes around the word 'unladylike' and she knew it was the truth.

"It was nice talking to you," Dorothea said, when she realized the boy from one was already done sparring with the instructor, and was walking off the mat.

Dorothea stepped onto the dark blue mat to face the instructor who was wearing all black with his hair put up in a small ponytail, at the nape of his neck.

"Alright, I'm going to show you some moves to block your opponent. Once you get those moves, I will attack and you will defend yourself, okay?"

Dorothea nodded.

"Oftentimes in a hand-to-hand combat, your opponent will want to strike here…" pointing at her stomach, "And here." pointing at her head. "These two positions are where you will be more vulnerable, got it so far?"

"I think so,"

"Okay…" The instructor said, "For blocks to your head, with a straight punch…"

He showed her the way to block her opponent, he tested this by raising his gloved fist, and did a slow-motion punch towards her head. She raised up her hands with her palms touching her forehead, and her arms touching each other, to where the slow-motion punch hit her forearms instead, softening the blow slightly.

"Good. For the most part your opponents are not going to do a straight punch, instead they will try to come at you from the side. This is a little different." He showed her the way to block the strikes that would come from the side, by using her elbow high with the palm of her hands touching the top of her head. She tucked her chin down to her chest, and moved out of the way.

"You got it?" The instructor asked.

"I think so," Dorothea said in a small voice.

"Okay, let's test to see what you learned."

The instructor began coming at her with a gloved fist from the side of her head. She wasn't fast enough to move her arms above her head and move her body, so that the punch was going to hit her shoulder or arm. Instead, she felt the impact of her glove by the side of her head, and pain radiated down the left side of her head. Nothing too bad, thanks to the gloves, but it hurt.

"Ow," she hissed, rubbing the site of the impact with her hand. "That hurt."

"You weren't fast enough," the instructor told her. "Let's try again."

"Okay."

This time, the instructor came at her in the front to where Dorothea was easily able to block it, preventing it from hitting her face. Instead, it hit her forearms and pain radiated from her forearms, but she ignored it. She continued to block the instructor from the front and the side. Occasionally, she wasn't quick enough to block the instructor from hitting her and the pain that brought it was a reminder that she still had plenty to work on.

Once the instructor was satisfied, they moved on to blocking your opponent from the stomach, and attacking your opponent using kicks. The kicks were a little bit harder to manage, but she got the basic concept of it.

She learned enough and thought she had a decent chance at hand-to-hand combat. She passed Joette, who was walking on the mat, and gave her a small smile. She knew Joette was probably going to find this easy, if it was true what she said.

I had a lot of fun with this chapter, because I didn't really focus enough on the stations, but it's fine. Different characters, different interactions and such. I'll try to get a chapter up sometime next month, but it might not be until May, when school gets done.