Hunger Games (DNF)

Part 1, Chapter 6: the training centre

George POV.

Getting out of bed early in the morning was never a fun thing for me, any time before at least 9 or 10 in the morning made me a terrible person to be around. It took Wilbur forever to coax me out of bed in the morning on the day of the reaping and look where that got me.

Still, getting up that day with some dignity rather than being dragged to the square by peacekeepers was a lot better, and if I did get any sponsor’s while in the arena at least turning up would hopefully help.

Philza woke me up, shaking me vigorously until I let out a groan, signalling I was up.
“Finally,” he muttered under his breath before putting on a smile, “you need to get up for training in half an hour.”
I sat up and swung my legs off the side of my bed, “if I only have that long why didn’t you wake me earlier?” I questioned the Advisor as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
A two word reply was all I got as he left the room, “I tried.”

For a moment I just sat there, taking in the morning air of The Capitol, before heading into the shower. It took me longer than I thought it would, I never knew a shower could have so many settings and that one person would need so many soaps and hair products.

After getting accustomed to this weird Capitol shower I climbed out and dried my body, not bothering with my hair before putting on the ashy black coloured uniform with my district number on the back, and heading out of my room.

I didn’t bother grabbing a proper breakfast and instead grabbed an apple which I ate as I walked into the elevator where a pair of peacekeepers were waiting to escort me down to the Training room, probably there to make sure I couldn’t try running off. The elevator got sent down several levels below ground before the doors opened to a brightly illuminated corridor with walls made of stone.

Both peacekeepers stopped following me as I started walking down the hallway and was eventually met with a large room. It was about 50 feet high and about 500 square feet of space filled with stations to train with weapons or get better survival skills.

The other thing I noticed was there was a platform where game makers were gathered around talking and drinking and watching the arriving tributes intently. We were separated from them with a blindfold, which Beetee taught me to identify and was there thanks to District 12 again.

My eyes stayed focused on them until one of the gamemakers, a man named Sam turned to look at me. I broke eye contact instantly and walked over to where the tributes were gathering around one of the training instructors who was giving a speech.

“In two weeks, 21 of you will be dead.” She stated bluntly. “One of you will be alive, who that is depends on how well you pay attention over the next four days, particularly to what I’m about to say.
First, no fighting with the other tributes, you’ll have plenty of time for that in the arena.

There are four compulsory exercises, the rest will be individual training. My advice is don’t ignore the survival skills. Everybody wants to grab a sword, but most of you will die from natural causes. 10% from infection, 20% from dehydration. Exposure can kill as easily as a knife.”

Once she finished talking that seemed like a sign for us to start and everybody started running off in different directions to train with different things first. I looked around to see Darryl there, trying to decide what to practice on first until he spotted me and smiled.

“I thought you weren’t going to be here, that I’d have to deal with this alone or that peacekeepers were going to have to drag you done here,” he let out a small giggle before his expression saddened.
“To be honest I’d probably still sleep through that,” I replied half-heartedly as we began walking towards a station that replicated a forest, for climbing practice I presume.

I looked over to Darryl, “do you want to try this first?” I asked him, gesturing towards the tall trees.
He looked up at the tree and nodded, stepping up and onto the recreated forest floor.

I followed him and we looked around at the trees, I looked at the tallest one and wrapped my arms around the branches. In past Hunger Games I’d seen tributes from District 7 and 11 climb them easily so it can’t be too hard, right?

With one arm on the lowest branch I looked up at one that was close to it and using all the upper arm strength that I did not have I pulled myself up so I was sitting comfortably on the lower and wider of the two branches, then I continued making my way up from there. In the tree beside me Darryl was doing the same thing and we made our way up the trees together.

Eventually the two of us were as far up as we could be, both of us had a view of the whole room and at all the other male tributes training or talking. When Darryl looked over to me he gave me a look that said we should go down and try something else, but I told him that we had four days so we could rest up here where it was quieter for a while. So we did, resting our backs against the tree trunks and letting out a quiet sigh each.

Clay POV

Nick and I wandered around for a few minutes, trying everything for about 30 seconds before deciding together whether we should stay or find something else. Finally we got around all of the empty training stations and just gave up before going to train with some tridents since we both knew how to use those at least.

Both of us held the tridents were extremely unlike the ones we used back in District 4. Back there, they were all large and made out of scrap metal, so generally heavy, however these were made of something much more lightweight and we weren’t used to that feeling.

I stood leaning against the wall and just attempting to get used to the feeling of the trident by waving it around lightly back and forth. Nick was beside me as he continuously threw his trident as some targets, all silhouettes of people and all of them getting hit in the head or the chest by my best friend.

“Do you want a turn?” Nick asked as he retrieved his trident again.
I just shook my head, “I’ll try soon, you can have another go and I’ll watch,” I replied, and Nick just nodded.

“Okay if you insist Clay, I just wanted to remind you that we’d do better with an alliance with the careers, so you’d want to be useful or they might just kill you the second you get into that arena.”
“Thanks, you are making me feel so much better about this,” I spoke with a slight chuckle.

As he spun back around and threw his trident again my eyes trailed around the training centre at the faces of the different tributes, all trying different things.

All of District 1 and 2 were training with knives or bows and arrows. District 5 were both off trying different survival activities and 7 were training with axes.
Most of the other Districts were all just walking around, seemingly unsure of what they needed to train on.

I counted 18 tributes, excluding myself and Nick and I laughed, maybe two had been able to escape. I quickly composed myself after getting questioning glances from the other tributes and gamemakers.

Then to distract myself from their weird looks I glanced up at the roof, and that’s where I saw the other two, both were leaning against a tree trunk on the highest branches.

It was easy to recognise the two, they were the  pair from District 3. My eyes met with George, the one with the brown hair who always seemed to meet my eyes when I looked at him. We gave each other small smiles and kept our eyes focused on each other until the boy in the tree beside him turned to talk to him.

After watching both for a few more moments I turned to face Nick who was walking over with his trident in hand.
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1445 words.