The Very First Hunger Games

Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Training Centre Part 2

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Luca roars at me, grabbing my arm, pulling me off the balcony and into the sitting room.

I'm startled not only because I wasn't expecting anyone to be awake but also because I've never heard Luca raise his voice. Ever.

"I wouldn't... I couldn't... I wasn't" I babble.

"You weren't what?" Luca asks, his voice still raised.

"I wasn't thinking clearly." I say, trying to explain my actions.

"No, you weren't thinking clearly. How could you consider taking your own life?" Luca says grabbing my shoulders as if he is trying to shake some sense into me.

"I-I don't want my family to see me be killed in the arena..."

"You think that if you had committed suicide, that would somehow make it easier on your family. And how do you think I would feel? Knowing you had died not even 20 feet away from me when I could have stopped you."

"I'm going to die in the arena anyway..."

"You are not going to die in the arena, Willow" Luca says interrupting me. "This isn't like you. The Willow that I knew would never go down without a fight. Not even if she thought she had little chance of winning. The Willow I knew would never take the easy way out."

He thinks I'm trying to take the easy way out I can feel my face redden with anger. I could slap him, I really could.

"What on earth is going on" Sapphire says, as she and Indigo come out of their room looking bewildered. "Why all the shouting"

"We were... we were arguing over who got the last slice of lemon cake in the fridge" I lie, throwing Luca a pleading look.

He glares back at me, but says nothing.

"In the middle of the night?" Indigo asks, rolling his eyes. "Well back off to bed you two"

Luca and I hurry back to our opposite rooms.

Before I shut my door, I hear Indigo say to his wife with a scoff:

"District kids"

The next day Luca pretends as if nothing happened. Maybe it's easier that way.

I talk a stroll around the training centre and observe the other tributes. Some of them have apparently agreed to an alliance. It made me think of what Coral said to me yesterday.

An alliance between any of the tributes in The Hunger Games can only ever be temporary as there can only be one winner. The tributes that surround me right now are supposed to be my enemies. I'm supposed to hate them, want to kill them or so the Capitol hopes.

I don't hate, they don't feel like enemies and I certainly don't want to kill them. After all, everyone is fighting to go home. Everyone in this room is just as much of a victim of the Capitol as I am.

I shake the thoughts from my head and decide to join Luca at the plant testing station. I feared it might be awkward but the conversation was mostly brief.

"This is called Nightlock." Luca says holding up a handful of purple berries, "Don't eat it, it's poisonous"

"Thanks for the tip, I'll remember that" I say with a small smile.

"But these" Luca continues, holding up red berries, "are edible and quite sweet"

I try one of the berries and indeed they are quite sweet. I savor the sweet tang of the berry juice as I follow Luca towards the next station, where tributes are hurling their weapons at life-sized human targets.

"Hey Willow, have you tried any weapons yet?" Cleo asks striding over towards me.

"Not yet" I say, with a light laugh.

"Here take this" She says, handing me her axe.

The axe is so heavy, I can barely hold it, never mind throw it at somebody. Nevertheless, I do try and fling the heavy weapon at the target, but just as I suspected, the axe misses the target completely, landing barely five feet in front of me.

"Never mind, there are hundreds of other weapons you can try" Cleo says, too chirpily.

She is obviously delighted that I could hardly lift the damn thing so I wouldn't steal her weapon of choice in the arena.

I guess I should be jealous of Cleo. She is prettier, blonder and more popular than I am. Where I fail, she exceeds. But I'm not jealous of her.

In the corner of my eye, I see a group of men, which must be the Gamemakers, perched on a balcony above the Gym. They appear to be having some kind of buffet, with delicious food that I wouldn't even dream of having back home, an array of drinks to choose from, probably alcoholic and they all seem to be having the time of their lives up there.

Meanwhile we are all down here preparing to fight to the death for their entertainment. They make me feel physically sick . I can feel a burning rage seething through my veins threatening to make me do something regrettable.

Like throw Cleo's axe in the Gamemakers direction, but I can' imagine it would land anywhere near them and if it did, it wouldn't help the circumstances. Actually it would probably make things a whole lot worse.

I manage to restrain myself from taking revenge on the Gamemakers by distracting myself. I take a walk around the training centre, trying to spot anyone else I know.

Watching the other tributes prepare to slaughter each other doesn't make me any less angry. It reminds me of why I am here. Why we all are here. As punishment for rebelling against the Capitol, who treated us like their own personal slaves. And they wondered why we revolted. If you ask me it's the Capitol who should be punished.

I wonder how my family is coping with this. I can't remember how many days it was since I last saw them.

Does my father still believe I'll be the one coming home? I believe I'll be coming home too, just not alive. They will let me be buried back in District 12 right? They won't let my lifeless body rot away in whatever hell the arena will surely be? Could the Capitol really be that evil? There's no question about it .Of course they could.