Dependence - Book Two (Wattys 2013 Finalist)

Training: Day Two

Echo Spark’s POV:

We congregate at the doors outside the training centre; Piper doesn’t seem to be here. Day two of training is about to commence and we will have a free day to practice doing whatever we want. I glance at Osmo beside me, he is a part of the group of tributes that don’t know how to fight. Before we came down, I instructed him to spend a small amount of time at the dagger fighting section, and then spend the rest of the day at other stations – such as survival, camouflage, climbing and other things like that.

There is a digital clock with red numbers sitting above the doorway of the training centre and it is slowly counting down the minutes until the doors open. Yesterday training started at twelve, however today it commences two hours earlier. The number ’09:57’ is displayed on the face of the clock, three more minutes.

I think of the other tributes and the stations they will go to, there is only one other bow wielder – Alistair. Although I am quite confident with my skills with a bow, there are also a lot of other tributes that explained their weapons of choice during the interviews that I should watch out for – Brutis will have a sword, Caspian will wield a trident, Gauze will train with a crossbow, Pious a spear, Ravina an axe and Arianna will be using throwing knives.

Among those tributes, there are an awful lot of long ranged weapons. Although I feel that my skills are quite good, I’m sure some of those tributes will prove to be quite lethal with their weapons of choice.

I glance at the clock again, ’09:59’ – one minute left. I catch Osmo’s eye and he smiles at me, I return the smile. Thank God we were paired together! I can’t imagine how hard this would be if we had been separated, how hard it must be for the others that were separated – the twins, Lilly and Caspian...it would be unbearable.

The clock strikes ten and the doors slide open, like children rushing into a toy shop, all twenty four of us scramble through the door together and advance towards the stations we wish to train at first. I am surprised to see most tributes move towards the station for daggers, perhaps this is where all the non-fighters will be going.

I approach the long-ranged fighting station – as does Alistair, Gauze, Ellie, Belle and Arianna.

‘’ Good morning tributes.’’ Beams the instructor at our station. ‘’ So you are all my long-ranged warriors.’’

I smile back at him as he picks up a bow and hands it to me. He then goes through the other tributes and hands them the weapons they stated they would be training with during the interviews – the trainer obviously watched them. He hands Alistair a second bow (identical to mine), he hands Gauze a crossbow, and then hands throwing knives to the three other girls.

‘’ OK, for the first exercise we will practice singly and then we will work as a group. So if you please follow me, I will escort you to your rooms.’’ He smiles and begins to walk to the opposite side of the room with a little jump in his walk.

He takes us to a doorway and steps inside. In the doorway is a long corridor, which stretches off for about twenty five meters in either direction. There are six doors, three on either side of us and he instructs us to step inside them. I approach the door with the number six engraved into it and step inside.

The room is pretty bare, it has grey walls and flooring and not much else apart from a small speaker in the top right hand corner above the doorway. Almost as soon as I notice it, a voice beams from it, the voice of the trainer.

‘’ Tributes, when this exercise begins, you will have to eliminate the foes we send at you. They will be computer generated and cannot kill you, however if they do manage to hit you with their weapons, you will feel an electric shock. Just make sure to stay alert, keep moving and never lose focus. The test will begin in thirty seconds.’’ He explains.