hands up, hands tied -- open

The girl scanned the room, her blue eyes focused on different training stations. She was exhausted from the training they'd been through, hours of moving limbs and focus and eyes darting around the room. Marianne had a short attention span, and she'd tried different stations, knife throwing, fire making, knot-tying, first aid. All of them, she'd tried to learn. But her eyes kept flicking elsewhere, thinking about how muscular that tribute over there was, how cunning that tribute at the knife throwing station looked. All of them looked untrustworthy, and Marianne knew nobody could be trusted in this silly game. Only this game wasn't like the games she and Mam played back home. Marianne enjoyed those games, things like hide and seek and tag and Mam would always let her win when she was a little child. One day Marianne asked to have a proper game, and Mam was really good. Mam would be more useful in this arena than her.

Marianne didn't want Mam in the Games though. She didn't want Mam to die, or kill, or anything. Mam only killed cows. Mam didn't even care for meat. Nor did Marianne, but food was food, and it was hard to be a vegetarian in the district. Even if it meant she threw her meals back up, at least she ate. Mam would try her best to find vegetables and such to put in Marianne's meals, but it was difficult. So Marianne grew accustomed to eating meat, and soon she didn't throw up anymore. She'd conquered her vegetarianism. Even though the taste made her gag, she didn't throw up. That was all that mattered - she ate, and she was satisfied. The taste didn't matter. It only stayed with you for so much time.

Marianne thought of all the different places she could be, away from here, back in Ten. She could be milking the cows by now, or finding something to eat, like vegetables. Marianne remembered that one time she went into the woods and met that girl. What happened? Oh yeah, she went to the woods again and the girl was...she was dead. And that was the first time Marianne had seen a dead body. She'd almost thrown up, but she knew the arena would be full of dead bodies, mostly in the bloodbath at the start of the Games.

People would die. Blood would be spilled. She'd have to keep her food in her stomach, because who knew when she'd get food again? Marianne sighed. The thought of going into the arena was enough to make her feel nauseous. She headed over to the places where they kept bottled water, and undid the lid and knocked back half the bottle without even taking her lips away.