Flooding Panem: The Hunger Games

Chapter Nine: Scoring

When I wake up the next day, it's five o'clock. Just as well- it gives me time to go swimming again. Barely ten minutes later I'm diving into the pool, hurtling towards the bottom. Today's the day when we show the Gamemakers what we can do. I'm finding it hard to enjoy swimming on a day like today.

As the girl from Four, I don't have long to prepare for my ideas for what I'm doing. I pull myself out of the pool after only two hours- I say only, I spend four or five hours a day swimming at home. But I needed to focus on what I'm going to do, and to be perfectly honest, while being in the pool mimics the sea slightly, it irritates me that the water is so clear that it practically feels like I'm moving around in an air bubble, which takes all the satisfaction out of it. So I rinse off in the shower and pull on my tunic, thinking back to the Games and the most memorable moments, the moments that were kept in the highlights every year. But it's no use- it's always the epic final battle between the last two tributes, or else the Cornucopia dash. Its nothing I can use.

By the time I'm heading down to the training rooms, I still have no clue what I'm doing. I know what the Careers will be doing- throwing weapons, amazing feats of strength, displays of stamina. Well, I could do that last bit, but that basically means me running away and postponing my death. No, I need something better than that. I go to the throwing knives station- which is empty, thankfully- and start aiming for the targets. To my relief, and slight surprise, I'm hitting pretty close to the bullseye every time. Looking around, I can see that I'm not alone in my improvement. Having a full week to train, some of the lower district tributes have actually started looking pretty formidable. Violent, even. It's amazing what a week of luxury combined with hard exercise can do.

I need to figure out what I'm doing. At nine thirty the tributes start to leave. I'm eighth overall, so I really start to panic. I look around desperately as I see the Gamemakers enter and clear out everyone except for Jupiro. I walk past him as we move into the dining room; he gives me a nasty smirk as we move out, leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach. Even though I've known that we've been training so that we can kill each other, this is the first time we've really been pitted against each other. The first time we'll see who's ready and who isn't. The first time we'll know if the Gamemakers consider us necessary for the big finale.

If not? Well, I'd rather not think about that.

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There's a gap of fifteen minutes between tributes being called in, and they all go straight back up to their rooms afterwards, so I'll probably end up eating lunch upstairs. I sit on my own in the corner, trying to figure out what to do. Climb? Nah, they'll be too easily distracted from that. Knife throwing? I'm nothing spectacular, but it could work. Archery is out of the question. I can only just handle a spear. Fire making? Nothing massive or interesting there. I could make some snares...

I'm too deep in thought to notice Parox coming up to me; when he taps me on the shoulder I let out a weird yelp. Needless to say that that set Austea sniggering. I look around the room to see who's gone.

"The guy from District Three just went in," Parox says; it must have been written on my face what I was trying to figure out. "You've got forty five minutes."

"Thanks," I reply, wiping my face clean before smiling at him. I guess I was right when I marked him at the start of the week. He'll be a help. He sits down next to me and offers a handful of grapes, which I gladly accept.

"What are you worried about?"

"Is it that obvious?" He smiles at me and nudges my shoulder. Well, he'll figure out what I'm good at in the Arena anyway. "I don't know what to show them. Survival skills are nothing spectacular are they?"