empty faces {pearl/finn} blitz

Jael told me once that you learn at least four new things a day, whether you think of them or not.

Well, from all the stations I've been to I should be able to start a school, but I've only actually learned a couple things; one of those things being that I am horrible at this whole tribute thing. Secondly, I learned never to sleep in fake bushes - not as comfortable as real bushes. And last, I learned that I had no idea how to fight, or even hold a weapon correctly. Now I'm not gonna go as far as to say that I'm weak, if anything it's the opposite, I'm stronger than butts. So strong, I don't even have to fight, swear to swear. Except, in that arena, there isn't much chance of not getting into a single fight, not if I want to make it out the other side of course.

(Except, as many times as I've thought about living through this, living through to regret ever volunteering, living through ever coming to the bright lights of the capitol and just being able to slip away back into that tree house in the back of my yard with Jael, I'm not sure if I want to - I'm not sure with every fiber of my being that I want to be that one, that one who gets to come back in the shoes of twenty-four. I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do in all honesty)

If I only learned four things today, I'm taking it that the first one is that hate the sound of myself walking towards the weapon stations, towards the weapons, towards the literal careers with weapons. And trust me man, I don't hate anything, it isn't right to. But the sound of my own body gravitating towards kids with two three four five six years of training a head start on me if not more, the rhythmic clacks of my capitol shoes with the tiniest of laces slapping the ground and my ear drums nearly hurt until I found the knives station.

See, the second thing I learned today would probably be that I am hopeless with anything even convincable to be a weapon and then some. Even the knife rack itself is a little more than intimidating, back in district eight I never touched anything more dangerous than rose bush thorns and those silly little plants me and Jael would run through as a short cut that always left paper cuts on our legs. So the third thing I've learned today is the fact that I willingly volunteered for the hunger games, and I can't even hold a knife without a singe of panic.

I couldn't hold onto one for very long either, the handle's grip sliding through my closed hand in a state of small panic as one of the career girls looked back at him. The clatter a less welcomed noise than the sound of my steps over here. "I uh," I'm an idiot - that's as clear as I can put it. She probably thinks the same thing as I throw my hands up and my palms parallel to my face, career, she didn't look like a career all that much. I heard some serious buiz about district two, that they're accustomed to broken bones and bruises like tattoo sleeves before ever coming into the games, but she doesn't look like a district two kid, and that's what I can tell.

"Uh," I remember her from a higher district, and that's all I can think of, but I can't place it. She doesn't look like two - not like Dan or Cricket or Tiger or Julian. She looks scared in a little way, I think. "How about them..." my voice as solid as whatever topic change I was hoping to hop onto with my furred eyebrows and uncomfortable gap in my words, "knives..?

After the awkward drag of the word knives in my attempt to salvage what ever intimidation I had left for a tiny potato-sack boy of a middle district, the fourth thing I learned today is that in no form am I smart.