Heart of Darkness: the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games

Chapter 22

I forgot to tell you all I'm going to visit my Grandpa in Mexico. I'll be back in three days though, so it shan't be long.

Jodie Jackson- D7

Seeing the littler children in the training room made me sick. Ever since I was little, I'd wanted to have children of my own. I played with sticks and balls and rocks like other kids, but I also made a lot of dolls with those sticks and rocks. It was very important to me that children be taken care of, and I wanted to do that myself with my own family. It made me sick to see the other children here because of what I had to do to them. It made me sick and it also made me think maybe I wasn't who I thought I was. I wouldn't have been a good mother after all, the way I was thinking about those kids. I didn't want to kill them myself, but in my heart, I wanted to be the one that lived.

I had been dividing my time between the survival stations and the weapons stations since I entered the training room. I told myself I would only use my weapons against the Careers or people that attacked me, and I felt like I really meant it. Even then, it was too horrible to use the scarier weapons like the maces and swords. I saw a table covered in tongs of leather and went there to see what they were.

"Do you strangle people with these?" I asked. I didn't see why there needed to be a whole station for that, or why the leather strips were tied together in clusters of three with rocks at the ends.

"No, these are bolos. You throw them at people," the attendant said. "They wrap around you like an octopus."

"Around your neck?" I asked. That was almost worse than the maces and swords. Out of nowhere, a clinging coil of ropes would wind itself around your neck, and you'd spend the next three minutes tearing at it until you weren't moving at all.

"The neck or the legs," the attendant said. The legs? That I could get behind. That would be perfect. I could throw it at people chasing me and they would trip and I could run away. I wouldn't have to kill anyone. If they got too close and nothing else would work, I could theoretically strangle them after all. Or maybe I couldn't. It was hard to hold someone that long, both physically and mentally.

The attendant helped as I practiced throwing the bolos. They were light and the rocks made them go a long way. It was easy to hit people, since if any part hit, the other parts coiled automatically at the sudden stop. It was something I could learn in a week, unlike most of the weapons. Best of all, no one had to die. At least at my hands.

Marcus Henry Wilberforce- D7

They weren't working. I kept throwing the knives just the way Attila showed me, but they weren't going any closer to the center. I was better than I had been when I started, but I'd gottena little better and then stopped entirely. No matter how many I threw, I was staying the same.

I made an annoyed noise as I picked another knife out of the outer rings of the target. I only had five more days to get good, and I didn't want it to take that long. With just one day practicing with Attila, I'd gone from not even reaching the target to hitting it almost every time. By now, I should have been hitting the center. I was so frustrated I wanted to break the knife.

Why isn't it hitting? It's crooked, I thought, and I held the knife in front of my face. It looked straight, but it couldn't have been. Something's wrong with it. I keep trying but nothing ever changes.

"Wow, you're not very good at that," a girl said from behind me. I turned and saw a Tribute near my age watching me throw. My cheeks got hot and I wanted to hit her, but I didn't, because it wasn't right to hit.

"Go away!" I yelled, and she backed away with big eyes. "I'm doing fine!" I was horrified when tears filled my eyes, and I turned away and threw a knife wildly at the target so she wouldn't see me smear them away. I threw all the other knives at the table and wanted to scream when only half of them hit. I ran beside her and across the room with my head down, stopping before the door. I didn't want to be a baby and run back to my room, so I snuck behind one of the stations to pull myself together.

Stupid knives. I can't do anything right. I'm gonna die in the Bloodbath. I sulked another few minutes and let my anger dissipate, then got back up. I'll move to a different station. I just need to try something else.

Even though I already knew I was good at it, I went to the agility station. I didn't have to practice that. It came naturally. If the sponsors saw that they might send stuff, and the others might want to ally. It was fun to run around on the course. Sometimes I got frustrated and let my anger get the best of me, but then I kept going and carried on. I was only human.

Niko Lafont- D8

Karma's a witch. I didn't stop them from getting whipped and nobody stopped me from getting Reaped. I was so afraid I'd lose my friends that I'd do anything for them. None of them did anything for me. I was all alone in the training room.

The spear was a simple and defensive weapon. I liked how long it was. That meant I could keep the other person far away. I just wished I had someone else to practice with me. I saw the boy from Eleven had allied with the two little girls and inched closer, pretending I was just training.

"You guys are allied, huh?" I asked the girl from Five.

"Yeah, me and Yara allied right away, and then Jayson joined in," she said.

"They make me look even bigger," Jayson added.

"That's great. That'll be really helpful in the Arena," I said. "It's good for outliers to ally. It's hard enough to fight one Career, and they always stick together."

"Yeah. I hope we're all close together at the Bloodbath," Yara said.

"You should look for more allies. Then you'll be even harder to fight," I said. Yara and Jayson were tying knots, so only Ally heard, and she nodded politely. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, so I moved on.

"Wow, what's that?" I asked when I came to where Nassor was making some sort of contraption.

"It's like a really simple battery," he said. "I just need something with a little current so I can easily start a fire."

"I made a fire once with a magnifying glass," I said.

"Takes forever, doesn't it?" Nassor asked.

"Do you have any allies yet?" I asked.

"Not yet. I'm not really sure I want any, but it's a smart idea, you know?" he asked.

"Yeah, definitely," I said. I definitely know that.

I went back to the spears after that. My subtle hints may or may not bear fruit, but it was more likely if I had something to offer, like spear skills. I kept pushing imaginary people away while I waited for real people to come closer.

Cavender Jones- D8

I was not a very large or strong girl. I was more likely to wound someone than kill them, so I had to make sure the wound was fatal. People said it was the coward's way, but people who called people cowards tended to be big and strong. For me, poison was just the smart way.

No one would expect a girl like me to kill anyone with a knife. They'd expect a few scratches at worst, and that's probably what they would get. I wasn't spoiling for a fight either, so I'd run as soon as I could. All I would have to do was wait while the poison on those tiny scratches did the killing for me.

"Around here, the most poisonous plants are poppy and bloodroot," the assistant said, and I peered closely at the leaves she held up. "Of course, the Arena might be anywhere, but we have to start somewhere." I wrote the names down on the notepad I'd brought to training and drew a sketch of the leaves. Earlier, I'd watched some of the Careers training with daggers. I saw the best way to fight with a knife was with straight, deep stabs. A girl flailing around with shallow scratching slashes would look like she didn't know anything, and they wouldn't know how dangerous it was until it was too late.

It scared me how I was already planning to kill people. I'd read stories about people descending into savagery as soon as things got dangerous. The Capitol seemed to think the Districts were always savage, and I was certainly acting like it. It scared me even more that the thought of killing someone excited me a little. I didn't want to do it, and it was so wrong it disgusted me, but if I actually killed someone, it would sort of make me feel strong. Not everyone was strong enough to kill someone. It disgusted me more than it excited me, though, so I didn't feel like a monster. Everyone wondered what it was like to kill someone. It wasn't bad unless we actually wanted to.

A lot of Tributes went into the Arena swearing not to kill anyone. Some of them ended up keeping that promise and others didn't. I never even made the promise. People were selfish. That was our nature. If me or someone else had to die, I wanted it to be someone else. I didn't know any of these people. It wasn't fair to expect me to die for them. We all had lives to live, and we all just wanted to live them. I had things I wanted to see and so much more I wanted to do. I wanted to see all of Panem. I didn't want it to end after one trip to the Capitol. We all wanted the same thing, and that made us all equally guilty.

I left my passport in a safety deposit box, so I'll go tomorrow instead of meeting my sister a day early. Bonus chapter for you!