stronger

part 5

My personal training went well. I threw knives again and was able to urn the score of 8. That's a good score, most of the tributes urn a little 6 or 7. But that doesn't count for the careers, for them a 10 or 11 is usual. I was kind of surprised when I found out about my score and I felt relieved too. The personal training was kind of fun but the arena is going to be awful.   I think of my father and brother. About what they are doing now. I guess they are at home, sharing tears and wait for me to represent myself in front of the capitol. Or to not represent myself.. I am probably going to die fast.   The boy from my district interrupts my thoughts.  He comes walking in.   "Hey" he says.   "Hi" I reply.   We don't talk much and when a peacekeeper brings us to the arena-hovercraft we  follow him without struggling running away only makes it worse.  A strong women comes walking up to me.   "Your arm please"   I give my arm without saying anything and only sniff a little when she pulls a tube into the flesh of my arm. It was my tracker. They use them to follow us in the games, if I could have the change I would rip it out of arm. It sounds strange but the tracker makes me feel like my body isn't all mine. Like I can't control it.

  The trip feels like hours, but we are under the arena in 20 minutes. I'm dropped of in a small dressing room for district 12.  The arena outfit is simple. I'm wearing a black shirt made of soft material I guess it's satin or something. On top of that I have to wear an army-green coat with fleece material  on the inside. It's kind of comfortable,  My legs are covered with a black warm jeans. The shoes are black. they look like the shoes which you have to wear when you're climbing a mountain or hill.

My stylist is waiting for me in the corner of the room. He brushes my hair and than breads it. I rather do it myself but I let him because I'm to stressed.  I almost fall when suddenly a weird robot voice says:   "30 seconds" .   My stylist makes me ready for the tube and the waves me in it.  I give him a last look when I'm going up. Up into the arena.   The plate is zooming and makes screeching sounds while I'm pushed into the arena.  The fresh and cold air around my mouth feels good, but I can't enjoy it. I'm in the arena, there's nothing here I can enjoy.  I look around. In the middle of the tributes the cornucopia is blinking. Next to the tributes on the other side a lake is spread.  Behind me I see woods and on my right a big mountain from which the top is filled with snow, I think.  The other sides of the arena are also filled with trees. 

We only have thirty seconds left before the startsign. When the sign goes off I start to run. I don't run away from the cornucopia like my mentor said but I'm running straight torwards it. Boys and girls attack me but I don't stop running.  Cannons go off, people yell but I still don't) stop. I'm so close now. When I'm at the cornucopia I grab some weapons and supplies but  when I turn around a girl is standing after me.  I don't think of what I do but I grab a knife and within seconds the girl falls to her knees with the knive still in her body.  I think it was a reflex.  I run away from the cornucopia as hard as I can. Every time I hear a canon I think of the girl who died because of me.. she was young, too young, a couple of years older than me but still too young to die like that. It was my fault.  What if I win? Then nightmares follow me every night and I would never be truly happy again, because of what I did in this stupid arena.

I'm almost at the mountain when something hits me in my shoulder. An awful pain stretches over my body. I look around and see the boy from 2 30 meters away from me.  I make him believe he killed me because I fall to the ground and he walks away.  A grimace fills my face but the pain makes it go away fast.  I climb the mountain for about two hours and then I'm unconscious because of pain and drying.