The Hunger Games: The Crankiplier Story

Training Day 3

Today was our Individual session. Mark and I sat in the a small room alone. Neither of us wanted to speak.

I was still pretty stoked about last night. Sure, what Mark did was a nice friendly gesture but it still meant a lot to me.
Maybe I'm thinking about it too much but I actually felt something that night, the way Mark was acting made me believe that he might've felt it too.
But I couldn't think about that now.

Later, A computer voice turned on, calling out Mark's Name.

Mark got up, and began to walk to the door but looked back at me.
"Good luck out there." He told me.

I smiled.
"Thanks, you too."

I was alone again, and had to wait a few minutes for Mark to finish his session. Then I was me.
I didn't know what to do. The only thing that I thought was impressive was throwing knifes dead on, maybe I could improvise that somehow.
I paced around the corner of the room and noticed something handing from the wall.
It was a black cloth that I managed to rip out.
It reminded me of Mark yesterday during training, I could probably do the same, the only problem was was that I never even attempted that before.

After what felt like hours, Mark returned to the room and stared at me.

Ethan Nestor

I felt my body shake once they called my name.

"Tough Crowd out there, make them remember your name." Mark said.

As soon as I walked out the room, I hid the black cloth in my shirt. I made it the the large room and saw the sponsors sitting in what looked a VIP section, eating and cheering. They're attention sparked towards me.
I was afraid but I tried to ignore their looks.

I stared back up at them with a blank expression, trying to put on a brave face.
In front of me was a rack of throwing knives.

As soon as I grabbed one, the targets around the room, lit up then dimmed back down.
One lit up and pinged loudly. I swung towards it hitting hit dead on. I barely event processed what was happening. I just heard the ping and somehow reached a bullseye. That spark my confidence even more.

I stared at the sponsors, who some were still unimpressed. That was until I yanked out the black cloth from under my shirt. I wrapped it around my eyes, using it as a blindfold. I lifted it up for a second to grab a handful of knifes. I prepped myself, hearing a ringing noise knowing that a target was about to ping. Seconds after it did.

I turned around and threw a knife towards it. I heard the impact of it hitting the board, but I couldn't tell how far off I was from it hitting a bullseye.

The next ping came from in front of me, then to my right. I did the same. I threw around 4 more knives until I had only two more left.
Two targets pinged at the same time, they both came from different directions to my left.

I held both the knives above my head and threw them like they were axes. I heard the both hit two different targets. I took a final breath and removed my blindfold. I looked up at the game-makers who looked terrified and shocked. None of my knives were swung in their direction which was what I feared. I then looked at all the targets I hit.
I got a bullseye on almost every single target. One or two of them were close, but didn't count as a bullseye.

That was the first time I threw knives blindfolded, and my heart was frozen once I saw my results.
What were the odds?!

I stared back at the game-makers and tried to act like I've done that before. Of course I haven't, it was hard to hide how shocked I was. I walked out of the room not saying anything, giving a smug wave towards them.

~Time Skip~

Mark and I sat in our dorm room waiting for Kass and Hansel. They entered together and stopped in their place.
Hansel sat down and smiled towards me.
Kass stood still and crossed her arms.

"What?" I asked.

Hansel giggled slightly which scared me a little.

"What do you mean what?!" Kass shouted. "That was incredible."

I sighed in relief, thanking that I wasn't in trouble.

"You threw seven knives blindfolded and got nearly all bullseyes." She grew louder the more she spoke.
"No one has seen something that skilled before ever."

"I didn't even know that I could do that."

I looked back at Mark who originally sparked my idea of throwing blindfolded.
"I'm sure they loved you."

I thought he was being sarcastic but he wasn't, in a way he seemed proud.

~Time Skip~

"The scores are in. And as you know, the tributes are rated on a score of 1-12 after three days of careful evaluation."

We all sat around the couch, Mark noticed how fidgeting I was getting and placed a hand on my leg. I froze for a second as he began rubbing it lightly.
Mark smiled softly; I felt more comfortable by the second.

We focused our attention on the television and listened to the scores other tributes got.
I was mainly focusing on the tributes that I already new.

From District 1:
Luis, with a score of 8
Silvia, with a score of 9

From District 2:
Xavier, with a score of 10
Anika, with a score of 10

From District 3:
Wesley, with a score of 7

~~~
From District 7:
Grant, with a score of 7

It was our District next, I couldn't help but feel antsy.

From District 8:
Mark...

Mark perked up as the room went quite. I stared at Mark to catch his reaction.

With a score of 9

Mark smiled and sighed at the same time as Kass and Hansel did the same, cheering slightly.
"Great Score." Hansel said.

Then it was me.
The silence that the room went back to was almost bone chilling.

Ethan, with a score of

12

My heart dropped down as I began panting in excitement. The room cheered loudly. I got the highest score. I looked over at Mark who looked more proud than ever.
"Well done, you deserved that score." He said.

We waited for the scoring to end, to realize that I had the highest score out of all the tributes.
But that also means that I would be a bigger threat to the careers.
I'm weak compared to those guys.

How the hell am I going to kill them?