The 122nd Annual Hunger Games: The Anti-Careers

Tense Training, Day Two

XV, i - Nicholas Lambrecht, District 6 Male

The knife plunged into the dummy's heart. It was the only one I had landed so far. The rest either impacted with the handle rather than the blade or missed completely. I vigorously lunged another towards a dummy; that time it stuck inside the stomach. Some meters behind me were my mentor and one of the trainers, a nicer one than the head trainer. I listened in for a moment after just using my last knife.

"See? I told you I'd get him under control. You just gotta put his emotions to work. Like in the knives."

I retrieved all ten knives and started over. The first one sucked. The second one hit the shoulder with the blade part, but the force was weak and the blade simply fell away. I was about to throw the third knife, readied in my hand to be forced towards the dummy until the weapon was stolen from my throwing hand.

"Hold it like this," the trainer lady said. She gracefully flung the blade towards the dummy and struck the dummy's face spot on. "Your hand position was a bit awkward. Try it again."

I tried again. That time, the knife stuck itself on the upper chest but wasn't as deep as I would have liked.

"Hmm."

"What?" I asked, curious after waiting five seconds.

"You're not built for knives. Follow me."

"But I at least hit the dummy. Isn't that pretty good?"

"Kid, honestly, anybody can simply land a knife on a target. Besides, you were only three meters from the dummy. Range is not your thing."

She led me to the weapons rack, short range. She handed me a battle axe.

"Try your luck with that for a moment on that dummy. I'll look at these and find more you might like."

I took a swing at the chest area and made a cut through the chest. I felt uneasy about it, the blade's weight shifting my control of the weapon. I tried it again while noticing the lady taking looks to the rack and back at me. I quickly figured out how to adapt to the imbalanced weight but I felt like I hadn't made any progress with myself after a while. I considered returning to the knifes but the trainer brought me something more interesting, the tomahawk as she called it.

"It's in between a knife and a battle axe, practically. It's a thrown axe. I see you've figured out the unbalanced weight. You just work with that for a while." She pointed to one of the dummies. I threw it one time and landed it in the right leg, barely. "You're a natural!" she exclaimed, as if trying to boost my confidence. "Just spend your time feeling and understanding the science behind the weight and how it moves the tomahawk faster. I'll be back, eventually."

I continued as she said and I couldn't thank her enough. She helped me figure out my specialty was based on short range, medium sized weapons. I just needed to find more weapons I could potentially use.

-o-o-o-o-o-

XV, ii - Festus Aretino, District 5 Male

I wasn't particularly good at anything, at all. At one point, I just wandered for an hour around the stations look at everything and just thinking, should I just kill myself right now? Instead of waiting for the games?

I walked to the weapon rack specifically, not to kill myself, but just to simply consider all the ways I possibly could. The simplest way came to mind when I picked up a special looking knife. I could have just stabbed myself in the heart, easy, but I didn't do it, of course. I heard someone approach from behind, their foot scraping the ground which startled me. I whipped around frightened for a second, the knife flying out of my hand into the air.