The End of Innocence: The 72nd Annual Hunger Games

Last Day Of Training

"It is the last day in your training." Atala says with a sigh. She talks with a little bit of anger. "Well you all sure have been an energetic bunch of kids this year huh? Trying to kill people before the Games..."

I look over at Lesa and we immediately look over at Vickin and Cleeara. Vickin has a black eye and his arm has a load of bruises. Cleeara whoever seems to have been scared or tortured silently without any use of weapons, as she stands hands crossed, eyebrows raised and staring at the floor. The first time I seen them scared.

"Well, let's get started. Go and do whatever, go practice in the digital room, practice the snares, learn the poisonous plants, or train for what's coming later, the hand to hand combat. I will see you all in half an hour." She says, and walks away. She looks so disappointed.

The circle of 24 of us disperses, but Lesa, Ion, and Coil wall over to me. "Hi." Ion says, her voice slightly raised pitch. She's fumbling with her tanned hands and her gaze is slightly diverted. Scared, as am I. Coil, however, is confident and prepared. He is standing tall and trying to make himself seem more 'buff' with his shoulders cocked and head high. He has a half smile on his face and his hair is already done up, spiked up and dyed a different shade of brown. And finally Lesa being Lesa. She's like she always is, her fake tan still not bothered to be washed off. Her slight 'I don't know what's going on' look, and her beautiful smile. She is truly a blessing I have such a good District partner. Usually the District partners from my district are very shy towards each other, never talk. I am truly thankful for her.

"Hello." I say to Ion, but of course before she can reply, Coil snaps in.

"Myself and Lesa are going to practice some snares. Ion is a master at them, and I'm sure you got yourself covered bud." He says, winks and walks away, holding Lesa's hand. Lesa looks back, smiles and gives a thumbs up.

"What a cock." Ion says under her breath, which makes me giggle a little bit. She looks up from the ground and smiles too. "It's true."

"Do you not like him?" I ask. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "He thought he was great when he was picked, I dunno maybe he's actually very upset. Only last night I heard sobs coming from a few rooms down from me. But maybe it was my stylist, she's a bit... Coo-coo, drugs, yanno?"

"Most of our Victors are Morphlings, so it's very common across famous people, I guess."

Ion grabs my hand and walks over to the Digital Room, it's a room where Digital men run at you with weapons and you chose a weapon to stab, shoot, or throw at them. If they hit you, they automatically disappear, there's no penalty for you, but most people watch whenever someone goes in, so you're making a show of yourself if you get hit almost immediately.

There's already a line there, two tributes line behind one another. It's District 11's male and District 6's female. They're chatting with each other, even more, flirting. She's laughing at nothing and hitting his arm playfully. She's twirling her long blonde hair, and fluttering her long fake eyelashes. She's pretty. He's burying his head in her shoulder and she's giggling in his face, kissing him on the cheek. They input something and they both enter together.

"She's faking it." Ion says as soon as the doors close.

"No doubt," I say, "you wouldn't flirt with someone that much if you knew you're going to be thrown in an arena to kill them."

The girl picks up a spear and the boy picks up a dozen of throwing knives. The countdown from 5 begins, and when it goes off immediately an orange man begins running at them. The girl throws the spear, but it zooms past it. The boy throws the knives but they're not lodging in the man. He begins to frantically throwing them at the single one but they're not entering his body.