Cato and Clove: Scared

Beginnings and Misconceptions

CLOVES P:O:V:

I sit on the steps of the building, running my fingers across the smooth, marble, surface. I wonder how humans could have made something so beautiful, when, in my experience, all they seem to do is destroy everything, including each other and more pressingly, each other's children. 

Or at least the Capitol destroys district children by making them destroy each other. After all why get your own hands dirty when you can get other people to do your dirty work for you? 

And as an added bonus, The Hunger Games definitely succeed in making the districts hate each other enough to stop an alliance forming for long enough to spark a rebellion. 

I never understood my district, District 2, and its allegiance to the Capitol. We are both builders and destroyers. We are the home of the Capitol's military base, but are publicly displayed as masonry workers. We do make gorgeous buildings, like the one I'm sitting on right now. I wonder how long the structure will last before turning into dust and rubble? 

Nothing built can last forever, just like no human has eternal life. One day, the very ground beneath my feet will have ceased to exist. I will have ceased to exist too. Humans and buildings are the same in the sense that they are built, and one day will be destroyed.

 The only differences are that humans are not made of slabs of bricks, and houses can't breathe. 

Also, I've never seen a house in the games.

I wonder how long the Games will last? 

After all, just like nothing built lasts forever, surely the Games can't last forever either. But then, why not? Every Capitol citizen enjoys seeing the bloodshed of district children, and it keeps the population figures low. In the districts anyway. 

I wonder how many more children will die for the entertainment of the Capitol? Thousands have died already, and millions more will probably die for the same cause. One thing worth dying for is the cause. But only if it's a cause that you're passionate about, and I personally am not passionate about how happy the Capitol is. 

I don't even care about the Capitol at all. 

Why should I?

Why do they expect district citizens to kneel down in front of them and do their evil bidding? Why do they expect us to be their willing slaves? The only things I care about are right here in district 2. My family, and my friends.

 And Cato. 

If I had to choose one person on the whole planet to save, it would be him.

It's strange how much I love Cato now, because I absolutely despised him when we first met. He was too cocky and always criticising others, especially me.

 We are both 18 now but we were only four when we met. Another thing that happens when we are four years old is that we start school and that age is the same in every other district too. The only difference is that in 2, we train for the Games. The only other district that does that is district 1.

 So we were all lining up, getting ready for training, and I had it all planned out. Even then, I did not see the point of complying to the Capitol's whims. So I would train, and pretend to be terrible at everything so that I would never be picked to volunteer for the Games. 

I was amazed at the structure of the training building, so that's what i focussed on during the first few days of training. That, and imagining taking one of the real spears on the side of the room reserved for teenagers to train in, (we were only allowed to use fake ones with suction cups at the end of them, as we were too young to be trusted with real weapons,) and throwing it into the heart of a particular boy I had spotted being cruel to one of my friends on the first day, and had later called me "a useless little squirm" when I missed the target in spear training. I heard the training instructors praising him to each other later that afternoon. 

They said that his name was Cato Hadley.

Each night, after everyone else left the training room, I would stay behind and practice alone. I did want to know how to use weapons. Not that I thought I needed to, but just in case. 

One night I had just thrown - and missed - a spear, when I felt like I was being watched. I turned around and saw Cato in the doorway, staring at me,watching me intently, like he was staring into my soul. He came over and stood right next to me, so close, I could hear him breathing. 

"What do you want?" I snapped out at him. I was really not in the mood for his attitude, and sarcastic comments. But to my surprise he looked me in the eyes and said,

"I saw that you were struggling earlier and I wanted to help you." 

Of course, I did not believe him. This was the same boy that was cruel to both me and my best friend. So I said to him, " oh really? Are you sure you want to help a useless little squirm? Especially one that's best friends with a hopeless baby!" This was of course a reference to all of the mean things that he said to us. I thought that this would catch him out, but he just said evenly,

 " look, I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean any of those things. But my parents have high hopes for me and I don't want to let them down. They said to me that I should just go in there, and make everyone else scared of me. Because if everyone else is scared of me then I can't be beaten. But I don't want everyone to be scared of me. I especially don't want you to be scared of me."

 He gave me a shy little smile, and just like that, I believed every word he said, and I didn't despise him at all.