Prompt: Day 6: Shaking Hands
POV: Alt Kingston (D3)
Alt Kingston couldn't get his hands to stop shaking.
Troy's advice echoed in his head.
Choose a weapon during training. Train with it. Master it. Then, you can end the Games early and go home.
When training started, he'd made a beeline towards the weapons area. Unfortunately for him, the Career tributes had beat him to most stations, and he didn't want to be noticed by them, so he stayed away.
One of the only stations not occupied was the archery station. Alt wasn't strong enough to handle most of the big weapons, like the maces and swords. Archery was perfect for someone like him, who had average strength and who didn't want to get too close to people. So he went over to the station and let the instructor teach him archery.
He practiced hard at it. He shot arrows over and over. Some hit the target. Most didn't. His stupid hands wouldn't stop shaking. But he didn't give up. He couldn't. He had to master archery. Then, he could end the Games early and go home. He could see Ma and Eta and his sweet Anti again. He could laugh with Edison and Coil again. And then maybe Dad and Router would finally respect him. Be proud of him. Just the thought of it brought a smile to Alt's face.
He let an arrow fly, the string slapping against the armguard strapped onto his forearm. The arrow careened off course, flying by the head of the girl from District 4, before burying itself in the wall.
The girl shrieked, then whipped her head around and glared at Alt. Her eyes — dark and angular, like those of a snake — burned holes into Alt.
"Why the shell did you do that?!" She yelled, clutching the trident she was holding. All the nearby tributes, including the Careers, stopped what they were doing and stared at Alt.
Alt's cheeks flared hot with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry! That was an accident! I didn't mean to do that!"
"An accident like your existence, obviously," the girl retorted. The nearby Careers chuckled, and Alt's face grew even hotter.
He whirled around and went right back to shooting. It was no use antagonizing the Careers even more than he already did. Thankfully, they too decided not to antagonize him further, although Alt still felt the girl's glare even minutes later.
By the time the day ended, Alt's shooting hadn't gotten any better. His hands still shook and messed up his aim. He promised himself he'd practice more tomorrow.
His aim wasn't any better the next day. Majority of the arrows still missed the target, and of the ones that made it onto the target, none hit the center, regardless of how carefully he set up his shots. His stupid fucking shaky hands. He was starting to get pissed off.
The instructor suggested he might have better luck training with a slingshot. Alt scoffed at his suggestion. He had already trained for a day with a bow and arrow. If he were to quit now, he'd be wasting an entire day of training and starting from scratch. Plus, he couldn't exactly kill people with a slingshot. Troy would laugh at him and then slap him again if he found out Alt was training to kill people with a fuckingslingshot.
He kept shooting. And missing. Before he knew it, the second day of training was over, and he had only marginally improved. He calculated his success rate in his head. He was always good at statistics. His teachers always said he was good at it. Before the Reaping, he wanted to eventually become a data analyst, like his dad. Now, he just wanted to live.
He crunched the numbers. At the beginning, he got one out of every ten arrows onto the target. Now, he got three out of every ten. A start, but he wanted ten out of ten.
Part of him wanted to keep training with the bow and arrows in the morning session of the third day, but he also wanted to do the survival stations. His district partner, Maze, had spent most of her training at the survival stations. That made him laugh. Like a small, young girl like her would survive a singledayin the arena. The Careers would go after weak tributes like her first. He imagined she'd have a blade through her body before the end of the bloodbath. Plus, Troy was right – she was annoying. That, and too cocky. Acting like she was such hot shit during the chariot parade. And acting like she actually had a chance during the Games. For whatever reason, Beetee and Philomena went along with this delusion of hers. Everyone back in Three knew Beetee had a few screws loose, anyways. And Philomena was just airheaded and dumb, like all the Capitolites were.
That night, Troy talked with him.
"Well? What weapon did you train with?"
"Archery," Alt answered.
"Are you any good?"
Alt didn't answer that question. He couldn't answer the question. His mouth froze up. He couldn't lie to Troy, but he couldn't tell him the truth either.
Troy just sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Just do the best you can, kid. Show off what skills you have."
The next morning, Alt realized that Maze might have had the right idea. There were so many survival stations — too much to learn in just a few short hours. Alt rushed through most of them, not managing to retain much, before he was called in to his private session.
His hands trembled as he stood before the Gamemakers. Trembled like they'd never trembled before. Not even when he had his first kiss with Anti.
"You have ten minutes," one of them said.
Alt nodded, grabbed a bow and quiver off the walls of the gymnasium, and showed off his skills.
Three. Three out of every ten arrows made it onto the target once again. In the ten minutes he shot — or maybe it was less, he couldn't tell — only one arrow made it into the center of the target.
It was not impressive enough to the Gamemakers. No. They looked down upon him with faces that were all too neutral. Their apathy practically dripped from them.
"Thank you, Mr. Kingston," droned the head Gamemaker whose name Alt forgot. "We've seen plenty."
Alt stiffly bowed, before quickly putting the bow and quiver away and rushing out of the gymnasium. He was starting to feel sick again, like he had the day of the Reaping. Ma once said he had a delicate constitution, whatever that meant.
He barely made it back to his room before he lost his lunch. He knelt in his bathroom before the toilet, his shaking hands gripping the side of the toilet, and vomited.
He ended up getting a 3 as his training score. Three, as in three out of every ten arrows hitting the target. Three, as in his district. Troy yelled at him for it. His hands trembled.
His interview. As Maze wrapped up her interview, his hands shook. They didn't stop shaking until the topic of Anti came up in his interview. The thought of her, watching from a thousand miles away, gave him confidence. Maybe the entire Capitol would decide they hated him from his interview, but at least Anti would still love him.
He made a heart with steady hands for her.
The next time his hands shook, it was the morning of the Hunger Games. They shook from the moment Philomena woke him up, and they only continued to shake. They shook the entire hovercraft ride to the arena. They shook so badly that his stylist had to zip up his jacket for him. They shook as he emerged into the arena, blinking in the bright light.
They shook until the prongs of a trident pierced through Alt's heart.
After that, they finally went still.