I startled myself awake in the early hours of the morning, as I checked the time I groaned and rolled to the other side of my bed. I knew sleep wasn't coming, the nightmares of death have become so vivid that sometimes I don't know if dreaming or awake. Instead of lying in a bed that's going to do nothing but taunt me, I find myself in the shower.
After washing myself with some weird mango scrub, I brush my hair and wave it into a single tight braid that goes down to the back of my head. My training clothes sit hanging on the back of my chair, a simple pair of navy-blue leggings, a matching sports bra and a thin navy-blue shirt. I pull off my clothes and fasten a pair of shoes to my feet, deciding to locate the library.
Instead of training myself to the point of exhaustion, I had come up with the idea of familiarizing myself with edible plants and trees. I would save the combat practice and the lighting fires to our scheduled tribute training. Instead, I read up about how to find water, what berries I could eat, what kinds of snakes are venomous, how to warm myself up without lighting a fire. I wanted to prepare myself for anything, I couldn't just rely on the cornucopia for all my supplies.
I sat on one of the comfortable sofas overlooking the city with a book of survivalist skills in hand. The sun had only just risen, highlights the ungodly hour I have woken at. I had just finished the part of the book on tree climbing when I feel the weight of the couch shift. Mags sits beside me holding two mugs of coffee, she passes me the fullest one and greets me with a kind smile.
"You should still be asleep," She points out in a concerned voice, "You have a big day of training ahead of you,"
"I can catch up on sleep when I die," I respond darkly.
Mags chucked and shook her head, "I think you mean if you die, which you won't, Finnick won't let you,"
"But I have to die if I want Thorn to win, he has to go home," I point out determinedly.
"Because you feel like you owe him something?"
"I do owe him something, he saved my brother,"
"He saved your brother so that you had a chance of making it home so that one of you didn't have to kill the other." Mags cut me off, she did have a point but it didn't change the fact that I felt like I owed him something. Mags was clever when it came to people and their feelings, she seemed to know what everyone was thinking before they spoke. It makes me wonder how she won her games and if she used her observational skills to her advantage.
"How did you win your games?" I ask her, crossing my legs and turning to face her properly. I wasn't sure if it was her kind face or her bright smile but Mags has a subtle beauty toward her that I couldn't help but appreciate.
"It was a very long time ago," She taps her chin and pauses for a brief moment, "I did many things that I regret to this day, but you have to understand- the games will hit you where home is, they break you to pieces," She lets out a short sigh, "Aurora you must promise me that you won't linger on what happens in there,"
"You make it sound like I'm going to get out," I chuckle.
"You're going to win, I know you will, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you come home to your family," The older woman places a hand on my cheek and I pull her into a hug. I found it hard to fathom how someone as kind as her could have the ability to kill people in the games.
I hear a creak from inside, signalling that somebody else has woken up. Mags and I leave the balcony and make our way indoors where she takes a seat at the dinner table. Finnick greets us from the bathroom door, heavy bags decorating his eyes, he looks bloodshot, like he hadn't slept in months.
I stand up and make my way over to him, placing a hand on his cheek, his face is cold, him clearly washing it in attempts to wake himself up. "You didn't sleep last night?" I ask him, my hand still on his cheek.
He inches away from me tentatively, "Don't worry about me Rory," he responds softly.
"It's my job to worry about you Finn, you know you can always stay with me if you can't sleep," I give him a short hug before turning back to the dining table where avoxes serve several platters of breakfast food. I pile different fruits into the plate in front of me and begin to dig in.
Sylvia and Thorn join us halfway through the meal, Sylvia's hair askew and Thorn disgruntled about the fact he had to wake up before midday. He sits beside me as Sylvia runs through our itinerary for the day. Thorn also looks tired, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked pale, I guessed he was just nervous for the day ahead. Mags and Finnick begin to go through strategies as we eat our food, "Don't show the rest of the tributes what you can do, you'll give them an advantage towards your strengths and weaknesses," Mags explained.
"Save your special skills for the individual assessments, that means no trident for you," Finnick points his finger in my direction. I grumble in acknowledgement, knowing he's right, "Go around, find some allies, people that go it alone usually get picked off pretty quickly." He continues, I grumble again, everything he's saying makes sense but I desperately wish to disregard it, allies make it harder to kill- harder than it already is.
After we eat, Thorn and I are sent straight down to the training centre. We are placed in a line in order of our District and the Game makers begin to mark us off one by one, they call out my name, directing me to the front of the training centre with the rest of the tributes. Clovis, Opal and the District Two tributes stand huddled in a small group whispering about the other tributes and possible allies they could have in the arena. I think nothing of it until I notice Thorn move over in their direction and begin to speak with them.
My jaw smacks to the floor, I couldn't think of a reason he would want to be allied with them, it must be some form of strategy. He has to know that he'll be picked off first, as far as careers go, Thorn's pretty scrawny, they'll eat him alive. A woman named Atala welcomes us to the Capitol in which almost every tribute responds with an unamused expression, she lays down several rules that must be obliged, strictly mentioning the 'No fighting with the other tributes' rule. After running over the stations and advising us to pay special attention to the basic survival tables, she dismisses us, leaving us to our own devices.
I'm lost in terms of where to go, there are so many stations to choose from, but I snap back to reality and realise that if I keep standing around all of the openings will be gone. I wander over to the rope tying class, something I was actually good at, sitting cross-legged I begin to tie knots to my heart's contempt.
"You know the purpose of these training days are for you to work on skills you don't know, right?" The girl across from me points out, I remember her reaping, she looked as though she was ready to kill someone right then and there. She was from District Eight; her fiery hair colour reflected her personality, she had a deep scar running down the left side of her face, slashing through her eye and stopping just below her jaw.
I don't want to say anything, I'm not to reveal anything about myself, instead, I shrug my shoulders and blatantly lie to the girl in front of me, "I know everything," I say cockily, I hate the amount of confidence I said it with, it made me seem like a jerk, but it seemed to work. The girl shrugged and turned back to tying her knots, "You've got an admirer over there," I point out, nodding my head over in the direction of Tiberius, District Seven's male tribute. He sits by the axe station without a shirt, his back is covered in large scars running in long thin strips, they were clearly from a whipping.
I had never seen a whipping in person, in District Four if anyone was to be punished, they took a long walk off a short pier with weights attached to their ankles. I'd only seen it once but that was enough to put me off doing anything illegal. "I don't care about admirers, I'm going to have to kill him anyway," She points out with a deadpan face, "I'm Viva, I'm probably going to kill you," She fake-smiles before strutting off in the direction of Tiberius. I snort, so much for not caring about admirers.
Rope tying gets old pretty quickly, I move over to the knife-throwing station, Finnick taught me to throw knives when I was younger, I was ok at it but I knew that a weapon such as a knife was nearly always available in any kind of arena. I couldn't just be ok at throwing knives, I had to be damn near perfect.
The District Twelve boy from the chariot ride stood flipping a knife in his hand recklessly, it wasn't perfectly polished or graceful in any way, but it was impressive. I picked up one of the knives on the small table in front of me when a hand slams down on my table. "You're in my spot," A harsh voice hisses, I look up and meet the dark eyes of the District Two female, her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes trail up and down my body as if she were sizing me up.
"I didn't see your name on it," I responded coolly, her eyes narrow into slits and she picks up a knife from the table, throwing it into the dummy without looking. I strike the dummy in the shoulder and I wince knowing exactly how painful that would be, say it was a person, say it was me. "Nice trick, Two, could you try swallowing the knife as your final circus act?" I taunt, she picks up a knife and places it aggressively against my neck.
"Woah there," The voice of the District Twelve boy intervenes, pushing the District Two girl away from me, "Didn't you hear what Atala said, Sagey-Poo? No killing before the games begin, you can have your fun in three days' time," He reasons, making a mockery of her name, Sage.
"She didn't say anything about maiming," Sage lunged at me with a knife at hand, the District Twelve boy grabs her by the scruff of her neck and pulls her away from me, removing the knife from her person.
"You're using too much brute force, if you really wanted to do any damage you should work more on momentum," He said to the Career, "But you have to wait your turn, or did they not teach you that in barbarian preschool?" He sasses, Sage huffs and stalks away, I turn back to my knife table and pick up another blade, "Uh, you're welcome!" He scares me before I can let the knife fly from my hands.
I let out a sigh, placing the knife on the table, "Right, thanks I guess," I shrug, throwing the knife at the dummy, it strikes the centre of the target, not deep enough to be lethal, I let out a noise in irritation.
"You guess? I just saved your ass, Four." He points out, throwing a knife and hitting the target straight in the centre of the head.
"I could have taken her," I say passively, I know I'm right, if I had my hands on a trident or spear at the moment, she'd be skewered to the wall. But in spite of my want to hurt the girl, I hold back, I can't show them my talents and I certainly can't build up the stomach to kill anyone just yet.
"I bet you could have, just not with a knife," He teases, tossing another knife carelessly into the target, without any effort at all, the knife still makes a lethal shot at the dummy's heart. I begin to focus on throwing the knife again when I hear a young excited voice bound up to us from the other side of the room.
"Beck! Look what I did!" The young girl from District Twelve exclaims, holding up a well-made snare. She looks Twelve at the most, but her innocent eyes and a childlike smile make me feel like she's so much younger, my heart breaks for the child, kids like her end up dead before they even reach the cornucopia.
Beck takes the snare into his hands, an impressed look on his face, "That's amazing Elsie!" He smiles, bending down to her height and giving her a high five. I wasn't sure if he had known her before the games or if they had met on the day of the reaping but Beck had clearly taken responsibility for the girl. Perhaps he had made a promise to Elsie's parents as I had with Thorn's father. "Elsie, meet Aurora," He gestures me over to the group and I squat down slightly to look the young girl in the eyes.
"Hey Elsie," I begin, giving her a smile, she smiled back at me with innocent doe-like eyes, she was too young. Far too young for these games, I couldn't let her die on the first day, she doesn't deserve anything she's had thrown her way, "Where did you learn how to do that?" I ask, nodding at the snare she was holding.
She smiles mischievously before winking at me, "That's a secret." She giggled, looking in Beck's direction, the boy merely shook his head and smiled.
"How about we made a trade, you can teach me how to make a snare and I can show you how to make a fishhook? We won't know what the environment of the arena will be like," I offer, she nods, taking me by the hand and leading me over to the snare station.
"What about me?" Beck exclaims as we move further across the room.
"You stink too much!" Elsie calls back causing me to chuckle.
"Excuse you?"
"You heard what I said, old man!"
"Oh, that's it," Beck charges over in our direction, "I'm going to bother you both with my old man stink and there's nothing you can do about it."
You know what? Heck it, I'm publishing the rest of part one I'm over the suspense.