I felt a sense of great unease wash over me as I walked into the training center. It was more of a large, open expanse than it was a room really, or at least it was to my mind. There were several different stations; tables laid out with items as though they were goods for sale at some sort of open air market, the type I felt they must have had in other Districts, but not mine. These wears were not for sale however, and the attendants behind the counters and stalls were not looking to make a profit, but were rather waiting there to demonstrate some strategy, tool, or weapon we might use in the Games.

Watching the room extend out beyond me half filled with Tributes shuffling about, some with broken steps burdened by a sense of defeat, while others strode with confidence, or even indecisive wanderings. Still though, I could make them out, the Careers. They were all well fed, strong, and wild looking, already they had seemed to form a cluster near the weaponry, a formidable pack in the making. I felt my stomach knot, sinched up tight, and immovable even as I tried to swallow away my discomfort.

So, this was it, the place where I would learn to kill so that I wouldn't have to die. A shudder ran through me at the thought. How did Ed do this?

As I stood with the nagging self absorbed notion that my life, and only my life hung in the balance, my mind trickled away to half clouded memories of watching him on TV, only it hadn't even seemed like my brother at the time. He was dirty, thin, animalistic, and only twelve. I remember being terrified, and disgusted watching him crawl through the underbrush of his Games' forest, eating worms, beetles, and other crawling things just to survive. No one had dared to believe in the boy from Three, not a soul, and not a sponsor risked the embarrassment of backing him either. Yet somehow he'd done it, somehow he'd won.

We never spoke of it, not once since he'd come back to us. I think it was because he'd come back different more than anything. Deep down he was broken it some small way that would go easily unnoticed by the untrained eye, but he was my big brother, my idol, and best friend growing up. Besides, I had seen him kill, and knew well why the scent of cooking meat made him uncontrollably sick, or a clap of thunder could bring him to tears, or why at night he still scanned the heavens for one face or another.

It almost felt dishonest, and unfair that he had to be so open and candid with about it all now. He was our Victor, the only one my District had seen since, ...well in a very, very long time. The instant we were in the room to vote he'd elected himself, telling the others that if I died it would be his fault entirely as he was now not only my brother, but my mentor and the only real lifeline I had in hellish nightmare. Everyone else through some argument inevitably agreed, a unanimous vote.

Boarding the train there was a cold disquiet walking past my counterpart. He was tall and thin with curly blond hair and greens eyes, but the second he'd tried to speak Edward had been there. Looping an arm around my shoulders he stared hard at the boy, "Sorry kid," he shrugged, reminding me that death no longer held the same weight for him as it did everyone else. "You're on your own."

That was the last I'd seen of Cable Ryam until the chariot ride, and then again when we'd been shown where we would be staying, kept, was likely a better phrase for it though. When I, feeling guilty had tried to explain myself to him, he just smiled and said "Family comes first." That was the moment I realized how hard this was really going to be. All this time I'd thought foolishly that my fight would be against other kids struggling just to live, somehow, someway it had slipped my mind that we were all fighting for loved ones, maybe I just hadn't liked the idea, or maybe I was just trying to protect myself from the truth. Either way, that was my moment of revelation.

Taking a deep that smelt somewhere between bleach used to clean the gym like arena, smoke, and the sweat being worked up on it, I set my jaw forcing myself to be at ease, and stepped in.

"'Find empty stations, no matter what they teach there learn it, learn it until it becomes instinctual.'" Edward had said. "'Even the most mundane of tasks can be used at a great advantage, if you're the only one who knows how to do it.'"

Glancing about as I walked I took note of my surroundings, and the locations of my adversaries. Predictably, the weapons stations were full. The Careers I had seen earlier and a few individuals bold enough to train beside them were rotating through the weapons, the favorite killing instuments causing arguments breaking out, as time with each device was limited. Peace Keepers were there to keep things from getting out of hand though, grim faced, and rifle wielding.

Aside from their rowdy group there was a boy and girl duo practicing how to build fires. The first equal alliance I'd seen they were both from Eight, and whispered intently as the boy used damp green sprigs to make a smokey little blaze.

"Low heat." I caught him saying, holding his hand close to the smoldering wood as I made my way further back.

Climbing, scat identification, nocturnal training, and tracking were all empty I noticed, where edible plants, fishing, trap making, and shelter building had only one or two Tributes a piece. I'd been distracted, trying to pierce the veil like darkness that was the "night room" when I'd walked into someone.

"I'm so sorry!" I smiled out of habit, turning to see a girl with wide dead eyes. I was jolted by the horror her face held as she watched the Careers hacking and tearing at the dummies with ferocity.

My brain refused to make sense of her terror. Yes in a mere matter of days those dummies could be any one of us, the reality that only one of the twenty-six gathered children here would survive more brutally apparent than ever, but still, we all had a fighting chance why she was so clearly resigned to her fate was beyond me. Besides, wasn't fear the real enemy at this point?

Then I managed to tear my gaze away from her hollow expression, my eyes trailing down her form and to the stump where her leg should have been. My stomach clenched tightly, tinging my tongue with the acidic taste of bile. Refusing to dwell on the doomed young woman I elbowed passed and made my way to the first open station.

"'Don't get attached,'" Edward's voice rang clear in my head. "'Don't feel sorry for them.'"

Reminding myself firmly that pity would only make me weak I forced my mind to focus, looking up at the obstacles before me. There was variety of tree trunks, ones with long craggy bark, others that were smooth, and a great range of branches and the distances between. Just left of the trees were long narrow walls of rock faces, some with clear handholds, and others that looked freshly dusted with loose soil. There wasn't any other person in sight, except for the middle aged man who stood by readily, a table of various possible climbing tools including damaged and rusty knives beside him.

"'Never wait for others to act first, in the Games, in the interview, pre-arena, ever. Being a leader, being ahead of the others, that is what makes the difference between winning and dying.'"

"I'd like to start on this one." I said motioning to a mock evergreen.

I was strapped in a climbing belt that wrapped about my waist, and thighs, it pulled tight and made my underwear dig in uncomfortably as the instructor tugged on the lead rope. This was a completely foreign concept to me, there was little call for climbing in Three, and as a result my hands were soft, the palms and fingers quickly, scraped, stubbed, and bloodied as I tried to ascend one platform or the next.

It felt good though, not necessarily the cuts and scratches, and most certainly not the harness, but doing something. The dull weary ache in my muscles that found a home in my arms and the long tendons that connected my shoulders to my back started to go deeper, a fire igniting in the fibers beneath my skin. That was what felt good, felt right. For the first time since the Reaping I felt like my future, my odds were not just in my favor, they were in my control.

"Steady your breathing." the instructor would call up to me periodically, or "Put more work in your legs so your arms don't give out." while I was climbing rock wall.

Trees came easiest, with natural places to perch and catch your breath there was very little to worry about, where the stoney slabs were each trials of their own making. That was until I came to one particular tree with smooth black bark, and a rubbery texture under hand. This beast of a plant required much more effort, and a sharp utensil to bury in deep and hull yourself up with. Even then the sap was thick and over abundant. It harded quickly on both tool and body parts making the climb next to impossible.

This sap that the man explained was called resin, had stopped me, only a few feet off the ground, quite literally stuck in place. Normally things like this wouldn't have bothered me as much as it did, but stuck there, on that tree unable to go any further, I felt suddenly trapped, and a desperation slipped in.

If I got trapped here, what was to keep me ffrom getting trapped out there, where it really mattered? These trepidations gave way to the overwhelming sense that I was being watched. What if they were all sizing me up, watching me fail, and discounting me as an adversary or ally?

Taking a breath, and commanding myself to remain calm I closed my eyes, my forehead resting against the trunk. Everything, I reminded myself, was going to be fine, besides, hadn't being underestimated been a key point to Ed's survival in the Games?

After steadying myself I began a slow descent, my hands sticking periodically on the way down. Once on solid footing I looked at my hands, intent on getting them clean. It was then that I noticed the seal the resin had created and became transfixed. It was like a natural bandaid, once the sticky top layer had been removed it left a clear semi-strong coating over my formerly bleeding palms.

Intrigued I walked to the little wash basin that lay ready should this very thing happen while scaling trees before moving on to another station. Submerging the appendages up to the wrists I wiggled my fingers about. Sure enough the dry sap remained, tight and perfectly waterproof while the wet portions floated away.

Already uses, and ideas were flooding through my mind, this could be used not just to stop bleeding, but to repair clothing, waterproof shelters, protect matches from moisture, really the possibilities were endless, and just as I was turning to get back to work, that's when I saw her, the other girl getting strapped in. Walking confidentiality towards her I felt that Edward would have been proud of me, even if I wasn't necessarily proud of myself.

"'Remember,'" he had said. "'Never ally yourself with someone you can't over power physically.'"

"Hi," I smiled extending my hand to shake. "My name's Ida."

"Oh," murmured the girl shuffling a bit awkwardly. She was about my height and weight, but there was a soft hue to her complexion that made me think of someone who got sick often, though I couldn't say why. "My name is Carrie, I was watching you climb, you're good."

"Thanks," I shrugged leaning in to adjust her foot where it rested on the first hold. "Here, let me help you."