Heart of Darkness: the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games

Chapter 17

A lot of people wanted a longer POV to understand characters, so here's a 2600 word behemoth chapter.

Attila Attard

Day one was simple. I focused on something a lot of Careers overlook: deadly animals. That bit One in the butt a few years back with Karyssa. It was important to be able to tell a normal snake from a snake that could kill you by looking at you. I learned a lot of neat things about snakes and bugs, which would be useful if I got really hungry. I also learned how to derive poison from a dart frog, which could definitely be useful.

Day two was even more unconventional. What I had in mind was a swap. I'd find some outlier kid of offer to train him in weapons in return for him showing me some survival stuff. The kid wouldn't get good enough to be a threat in a week of training, and I'd learn more if I learned from someone who depended on that stuff for survival.

I lessened the risk of training an outlier even further when I chose who I would train. Even with a year of training, Marcus still wouldn't be a danger. I could pick him up like a sack of potatoes. Also, he was just too nice. He was the kind who would offer a hand if his opponent tripped.

"Hey, kid. Want to learn something really cool?" I asked when I found him at the agility station.

"What is it?" he asked eagerly. He didn't seem scared at all. I was just another Tribute to him.

"Come on," I said, and I took him to the throwing weapons station.

"Want to learn how to throw ninja stars?" I asked.

"Yeah!" he said. I spent the next half hour teaching him, and by the end, he was actually pretty good. He was having a great time, too, and it was infectious. I made a note to let someone else kill him at the Bloodbath. He was a cool little dude.

"Could you show me some plants? We don't have many in One," I said.

"I know tons of plants," Marcus said proudly. We sat by the plants station and he started sorting them out.

"Any plant with a shiny leaf is probably poisonous. And it might be poison ivy, too, so be careful," he said. "White and yellow berries are bad, but black and blue ones are okay."

"There are rules like that?" I asked. I'd thought it depended on the plant.

"Lots of them. Don't eat plants with white sap, spines, three leaves, plants that smell like nuts, or plants with flowers that look like umbrellas," Marcus said. "Except dandelions. They have sap but you can still eat them."

Don't underestimate outliers, I noted to myself. Sometimes our instructors at the Academy said something like that, but it was always halfhearted and slightly amused. We were Careers, after all. Outliers were nothing. I'd learned something more important than plants from Marcus, although the plants were also helpful. Even a little kid could know a lot.

Jayden Chadsey

I already knew what I needed to know. I'd trained in the Academy for years, and I'd remembered to spend a little time on the less glamorous things like survival. Trying to learn something new now would just muddle me up. The thing for me to do was to maintain my exercise regimen and take care of myself.

There was plenty of workout equipment in the training room. I started with stretches to warm up and then ran a swift mile around the track, focusing on stance and not speed. Abdominal exercises seemed more cosmetic than practical, but tough stomach muscles could save a life in a fistfight. Internal organs were soft and could be ruptured even by a punch. I'd been doing crunches daily for years, and I tried to do five more every month. I was up to 300 in one setting. My stomach burned when I was done, but it was a good burn. Next, I did lunges around the track while punching the air with weighted wrists. A Career's only weapon in the end was her body. It had to be perfectly sharpened.

Lunchtime didn't stop my fitness routine. All Careers knew to eat well and we did a lot of carb-loading, but I took things farther. I'd learned something from last year's candyland fiasco. It was likely I wouldn't get a lot of vitamins in the Arena, and I was preparing beforehand. I'd been chugging milk ever since I got to the Games center. Calcium meant strong bones, and extra calcium could be stored in the bones for later. Even though it wasn't my favorite, I picked fish for lunch. It had omega-3 fats and B vitamins, both of which were important for muscle health. As I ate, I got to talk with my allies.

"We better keep an eye on the outliers. I spent some time with Marcus, and that boy knows a ton," Attila said. He continued hesitantly, "I kind of like that kid. Whoever kills him, you should make it quick."

"There's not really any need to kill him at the Bloodbath. I know we're expected to be bloodthirsty and all, but we should focus on pragmatics. We should be organized and go after the biggest threats," Chrome said.

"I like that," Hero said. Only Gator didn't say anything. He knew he was barely allowed into the alliance, and he didn't want to change our minds.

The more I heard, the more I liked our group. We were a levelheaded, practical bunch. Careers were often called cruel or egotistical, but we were just in it to win.

Hero Nolan

"Did you say you learned to make frog poison?" I asked Attila as we finished lunch.

"Yeah, it's easier than I thought," he said.

"Can you show me some of that? I use blowguns sometime. It would be good if I could make my darts poisonous," I said.

"Sure," he said.

I hadn't even known we had a frog station. It was part of the hunting section, but the frogs got a separate table manned by a man who looked a little like a frog himself. He lit up with excitement when he saw us coming. The frogs must not have been very popular.

"Can you show us the poisonous ones again?" Attila said.

"Of course," the man said. He gestured toward a row of cages full of brightly colored frogs. "The bright ones are always dangerous. All bright animals are dangerous."

"How do you get the poison out?" I asked, peeking through a glass cage at a blue frog with black spots.

"It's on the skin. You only have to touch them," the man said. I drew back quickly, even though there was glass between us.

"Scared?" Attila teased.

"I don't want to die by frog," I said. I turned to the instructor. "What do the different poisons do?"

"This one gives you cramps," he said, pointing to a black one with yellow stripes. "This one causes convulsions and death," he said about one that looked like a strawberry.

"What about this one?" I asked. The frog in question was banana yellow. It was looking back at me with a most amusing expression of curiosity.

"That one causes muscle relaxation," the instructor said. "First it causes numbness, then progressive muscle relaxation. Eventually the heart is relaxed to the point of cardiac arrest."

"So you just kind of fall asleep?" I asked.

"More or less," the intructor said. "To get the poison, it helps to hold the frog near a fire. Just enough to get it warm so it sweats more poison.

I like that, I thought. That sounded like it didn't hurt at all. For someone who wanted to win while conversely disliking killing, it was an ideal solution. I liked that little yellow frog.

Chrome Cabella

"I don't really want to be here," I confessed to Ava. "It seemed like it was better than being with my father, but it's hardly an improvement. I know it's too late, though. I have to see it through now."

"Do you still want to live?" Ava asked.

"Of course," I said. I couldn't understand why she'd even ask a question like that.

"Sounds like a silly question, doesn't it? But there's a lot of reasons someone might not want to," Ava said.

"Why not? Unless you have a really terrible life," I asked.

"Because you don't have a bad life, even though you think you deserve it. Because you're weak and can't control your own body. Because you take up too much space and you're ugly. Not you, of course. But someone," Ava said.

"Oh. You didn't always want to be here either when it was your turn," I said, finally understanding. She shook her head.

"What got you through it?" I asked.

"I had allies for a while. Even if I didn't think I deserved to live, I thought they did. After that, I think it was the same reason I never got so thin my body failed. It was survival instinct. I didn't want to live, but I didn't want to die, either. Sometimes cowardice makes a Victor," she said.

"I do want to live," I said. "And not only for me. If I live, no one else in my family has to volunteer."

"That sounds like a good reason. If you want to live, focus on that and get your head in the game," Ava said.

"All right," I said. "What should I do for training?"

"You're good at a few things. It would be a good idea to pick the one you're best at and save that for the Arena. The element of surprise usually isn't an option for a Career. I know no one expected the skeleton girl to win the Games," Ava said.

"Why-" I started, but I stopped. It wasn't a nice thing to ask.

"You were going to ask why they let me volunteer if I was so thin, right?" Ava asked. She didn't look mad, so I nodded.

"I was good at hiding it. Chug a bunch of water before a weigh-in, carry rocks in your pockets during training, hunch over so you fill your uniform out better. I hid that, just like you should hide your lack of enthusiasm. And your archery," she said.

To most of us, Victors were hallowed celebrities. To a Tribute, a mentor was a lifeline. It was strange to see Ava as a complex human being. I wondered what more she was hiding.

Gator Voyage

A human is not a gator. I was good at wrestling animals. I'd never wrestled a human before. By the time the private sessions came around, I had to be good. The Careers barely let me in, and they could still kick me out.

"I have a weird request," I told my wrestling partner. "I need to learn how to get better, so I want to fight you, but every time the Careers look over, can you act like I'm super good and you're getting beaten? I need to look good," I said.

"I'm just here to help you survive. Whatever you need," the man said. We grappled, and I quickly learned it was much harder to fight something with hands that could hold on to things and a body that could twist. I got thrown on a backside a dozen times before I started to learn.

"Heads up," the assistant whispered. He pretended to adjust his stance as he pointed out Jayden, who was watching as she passed by. We started grappling again and the instructor threw himself down backwards, my body hiding his from her view and preventing her from seeing I'd barely touched him. I sat on top of him as he pretended to struggle wildly.

"Thanks," I said when I was done. I shook his hand with my good one and left to try to learn some other things. On my way, I bumped into the girl from Ten

"Are you a cyborg?" she asked with wide eyes.

"What's a cyborg?" I asked.

"It means you're part robot," she said, pointing at my wooden arm.

"Robots aren't made of wood," I said.

"Are you a pirate then?" she asked.

"If I was a pirate, I'd be rich enough to have a metal arm," I said.

"Did you get bit by a shark?" she asked.

"It was a big mean gator," I said. "I've been trying to find him ever since so I could get my arm back."

"Isn't it all digested?" she asked.

"Gators take years to digest. I knew a little boy that got eaten and three weeks later we found the gator and cut him all open. Little Codd came away with nothing but pruned skin," I said. The girl's eyes got even wider.

"It must have been really smelly in there," she said.

"I bet," I said. "When I get my arm back, I'll have to give it a bath."

Eren Lindelle

Like most Careers, I already knew the stuff I needed to know about fighting. It was more important for me to learn about my allies. I spent most of the day tailing them at their favored stations, watching them for a few minutes before moving on so they wouldn't think I was trying to learn their fighting styles.

Attila seemed like a cool dude. He wasn't the intended volunteer, which was always interesting. Turned out his dad was dying and he wanted to win to pay for treatment. I'd always thought everyone in One was rich, so that was good to learn. I made a note to send some money his way if I won. I liked Attila.

Jayden was quite the fitness nut. I was able to spend a lot of time with her, since she was practicing meditative breathing techniques and wasn't worried about my spying on that. She said it was good for endurance and lung strength, as well as clarity of thought and concentration. That was something Careers sometimes lacked, so that was a good thing to learn. We gossiped a bit and she confessed that she thought Jayson was the cutest.

"I like muscleheads," she said, with a hint of embarrassment. "Training was a fun time for me."

Hero was an enigma. Why would someone volunteer for the Games if he didn't like killing people? I wasn't overly fond of it or anything, but I knew what winning meant. He was courting danger, and I suspected he'd be the first of us to die. It was a shame, because he was really nice. He just wasn't much of a Career.

I didn't get Chrome. She was above average with her weapons, but she wasn't amazing. It was hard to believe she was the top pick of all the renowned Academy in Two. She didn't seem to want to be here, either. She trained and she practiced, but it was like a chore. I wondered if she didn't have parents who pushed her into this. That was something I couldn't abide. Volunteering was a life-or-death decision. Nobody should factor into that decision but the person making it.

I wasn't sure what the heck happened with Gator. He told me someone else was supposed to volunteer but didn't, and at least that made a little sense. Four must be pretty embarrassed that they ended up with a one-armed boy who had the most hilarious accent I'd ever heard. It was hard to pay attention to what he said because I was trying so hard not to laugh.

Just to make sure I was still sharp and hadn't inexplicably lost my skills, I tried all my weapons out. Bow and arrow- still average. Spear- good enough. Knife- not my favorite, but I can make it work. Axe- aw yeah. I faffed around the survival stations until it was closing time, just learning a few essentials so I wouldn't be helpless. It was going to be hard to say what would happen this year. The Career pack was just plain weird.

I rushed home and wrote this right away just to make sure I'd be in time for Lent.