The Survivor (Book 1)

Training. Day 1

Training starts today and I am nervous. Okay, maybe that's an understatement. I had no idea if I was good at anything that had to do with weapons. I don't think I ever saw a weapon, much less used one.

I paced back and forth across my room, glancing at the forest backgrounds that surrounded me. It was quite peaceful, considering the situation we were in; fake, but peaceful. I stared at the outlines of the trees and actually started memorizing a pattern that they seemed to follow in a perfect order.

A knock at my door sounded and snapped me out of my trance. I straightened and brushed off my training gear I was instructed to wear just as all the other tributes. It consisted of a short sleeved black jumpsuit with our district number pinned above the left breast. "Come in," I said in a level voice that was a bit scratchy from not being used for a while.

The door opened slowly, making a creaking sound. Conner peaked in and entered after I nodded at him. "Ready for training?" he asked, holding his hands behind his back, and rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"How about no..."I trailed off as a new wave of nervousness washed over me. He looked at me but as soon as I looked at him he looked away looking at my walls,

"wow! how did you get the forest to appear?" I smiled and ushered him over. on the nightstand was a remote, "with this." I motioned toward it, "can I try? please?" I laughed "yeah go ahead." I sat down on my bed and he sat next to me, together we watched the walls change.

From a desert, to under the sea, to a busy town square, it was pretty cool.

I looked at Conner a look of awe on his face as he messed with the remote.

He really was good looking, long lashes, his nose a tiny bit crooked from being broken once before, he had tiny freckles on his face.

His hair messy but cute, as dark as a raven's feather... I was imagining a raven's feather that I hardly noticed he was staring at me, his vibrant green eyes looking into mine... I blushed big time and looked away.

"now if you are done appreciating the view, Little Red, we better go." I blushed harder.

He chuckled, waving a hand at me. "Come on. Better go before Pamela loses her crap," he said. I couldn't help but laugh, nervously.

I took a deep breath followed Conner to the elevator. We entered it side by side. The training room was in the basement, so it took a while to get there. Pamela would meet us down there and leave shortly after.

We had two and a half days to train, then we'd show our 'talents' to the game makers.

Then there would be an interview with Caesar Flickerman's nephew. No one knows what ever happened to Caesar.

The elevator dinged twice and the doors opened. Pamela was already there, tapping her foot impatiently.

She eased a bit when she saw it was us. "Okay, you two go now and try out everything you can in the training center."

She pointed a finger at me. "And I don't mean just the weapons, but everything there. Only stay long at a station if you're not good at it. Understand?" We both quickly nodded. Pamela smiled smugly. "Now go," she ushered.

In the giant room we entered, was -except for all the tributes, obviously- a lady who explained our purpose for trying out all things and obstacles and sorts we would come across, how a lot of us would not die in the hand of another tribute, but by natural trials and causes. After the presentation, we were released.

Conner stood behind while I headed to the climbing part first. It was a stretch of all sort of obstacles and tests. There was a line, so I waited patiently, thinking about earlier, how Conner was looking at me while I looked at him... Did he like me too? I didn't know.