The Twisted Tale of Clove

Reaping Day

Just like every other day, I wake up exhausted, crack of dawn and begin my few chores. I feed the fish and empty the dishwasher. After a short, boring 10-15 minutes, that's done with.

I dont get up at this early for the chores like, seriously. That's just stupid. I do 'em that early to get them out of the way.

I get up this early for the training.

I live to train, I train to live. Soon, I will be going into the hunger games and I will show off my fury and skills. And I honesty can't wait. I mean, everybody will know what I can do and that's awesome. Besides, how hard can it be?

I walk over to the training center and I'm he first one here. I check my watch and I got here earlier than usual.

I'm useless with bows, horrible with spears, terrible with a trident and okay with a sword. Then what am I good at, the average person would ask, if they didn't know, which most people do.

I'm an expert with knives. I am awesome at hand to hand combat, as long as I have a knife. But that's not even the appetizer. I am legendary throwing the knives, and everybody in district two knows, Clove throws knives.

After a little while, Thalia shows up. We make small chat about life and I realize the reaping for the games is today. Then Cato shows up. He's so cocky and arrogant and always butts into any sort of conversation I try to make so we just stop talking after he arrives.

In about a long lasting, dreadful, two minutes spent near Cato, the worker shows and unlocks the training center.

I push the doors open and rush inside the very familiar looking room, eager to get away from, him. I'm always here from opening to closing, leaving for small meals but returning almost immediately. I head over to the knives and begin throwing.

Bullseye

Bullseye

Bullseye...

As soon as I'm about to throw the next knife but I get tapped on the shoulder. I see none other than Cato.

"What do you want," I spit , hoping with all my might, this doesn't last long.

He says two words I was never going to expect hearing, "teach me."

"I look over to him confused, "Me, teach you? But your the wonderful, fabulous, Cato who doesn't need any help," I sarcastically say teasing him a bit.

"Well, I'm not a knife thrower, and I need to be successful in more than one weapon to survive, there's not going to be many swords or spears out there, but there most likely will be knives. Just please teach me, no trainer could teach me better than you could, your the best of the best, and I could learn so much more from you than I could from a trainer. What'dya say?" Cato pleads.

His pick of words take me by surprise. 'Your the best of the best''. I mean this is Cato we were talking about. This thing didn't happen often.

"You got yourself a deal. One hour only. Then I have to get ready for the reaping," I agree, hoping this hour doesn't totally suck or take forever.

We begin immediately. I demonstrate first. I hold the knife like a dart and shoot it toward. I easily got the middle, this being a simple drill.

Cato repeats after me and just misses the bullseye. I hear him groan. He tries again and hits the outer target. I come over. And guide his arm. This time, he hits.

Then I let him go by himself. He successfully hits the target's bullseye, and gives me a high five then says "thanks Clove. Your an awesome teacher. Maybe you can work here someday and help other kids too. What's next?"