Volunteers: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter 4: Training

I get shown to my room by Thespie and the door closes heavily behind me. The room is gigantic, but gray and cold. There's a bed in the middle of the room, covered by a blue, velvet blanket. I walk towards it and feel the velvet with my hand as if it were going to bite me. I'd never seen velvet in real life before. I sit down on the bed and it immediately begins to heat up. I think about what Felix said. I don't want to believe him. There's no way that Careers could volunteer so confidently if it's not what they wanted. But then I think of the Career that chickened out years ago. He was killed in a mob of his own District. This made me believe Felix for a fraction of a second, but I pushed the thought from my head. I couldn't believe anything anyone said if I wanted to stay alive. I could only trust myself from now on. I woke up before the alarm woke me. I'm conditioned to wake up when the sun rises, even though there's not a single window in this room. There's a fake window. It's just a glass screen that shows an image of a sandy beach, though. A voice began speaking that made me jump, but then I realized that it was just over a speaker. "Report to the thirteenth floor in... ten minutes... for day one... of training."

I saw Ben as I was leaving my room. "Good morning!" he calls, waving.

"Hi." I reply, solemnly. It wasn't a good morning. We would never have another good morning. We're both probably going to be dead within the week. If we even got that far... We take the elevator down to the thirteenth floor and are met with the faces of the 22 other tributes. This is the first time I've seen all of them in one room. We're in a tiny, dark blue room with no windows and no doors. Even the elevator doors have disappeared. One of the twelve years olds looks as if she's going to cry. I make eye contact with Felix and he immediately looks away as if I've burned him. This makes me angry. He started it. Even though I was mean to him, he was mean to me first. "Training: Day one will commence in five... four.. three... two.. one." The wall in front of us, splits in two, revealing another room- much bigger and brighter. There are windows at the top of this room. There are things going on in every direction already. I have no idea what's going on. There are three signs. One says combat, one says defensive and the other says living. I want to go to living so that I don't embarrass myself, but I know that that's not what I need. I drift slowly towards combat, hoping no one's watching me, but of course that's not how it works. Everyone is watching everyone. And everyone is showing off what they're best at. Maybe heading toward combat was the wrong decision. I know I'm just going to make a fool out of myself. Ben left immediately toward defensive. When I got to combat, it was exactly what I expected. The majority were careers who were showing off knife and sword skills. A group of careers sat together on top of crates, laughing at one of the twelve year olds who was trying to figure out how to hold a knife properly. I look for Ben, hoping for some reassurance, but I can't even see him from this far away. My best bet was a sword- it was the closest thing to a machete and that was the only thing I knew how to swing. I drifted toward the twelve year old while I practice swinging techniques. "Hey," I muttered under my breath, hoping that it was loud enough for only her to hear. She looked up with wide eyes. "What's your name?" I asked, without looking at her.

"Gem." she answered, looking at me. Clearly, she didn't understand that I was trying to fly under the radar. I didn't want anyone else to know that I was talking to her. It could make both of us a target.

"Wrap your four fingers around the back and your thumb around the front- not the other way around. It'll give you better control of the knife." I said, quietly. She did what I told her to and a few of the careers stopped laughing. I don't know if they noticed me, but they saw that she had figured it out.

"Thank you." she whispered like she understood now.

"You're welcome." I said. I finally lifted my eyes and saw Felix staring at me from a distance. He wasn't with the careers that were laughing at Gem. He was on his own, showing off his skill with a spear and a bow. I looked away quickly and tried to shove off to another area where he couldn't see me. I knew that Felix was picturing my head as he plunged his spear through a dummy. I looked up at the glass box that held all the mentors and met eyes with Octavia. She was shaking her head like she was disappointed. The second we were done with training for the day, I found Octavia as quickly as I could. She was already talking with Ben and she seemed please- that is, until she saw me.