Cursing the Holy Hammer [Geebs, Ems]

[newclass=.jorggradient1]text-align:justify; background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #030102, #474946, #8C8D85, #C88C4E, #50050A);linear-gradient(top, #030102, #474946, #8C8D85, #C88C4E, #50050A); -webkit-background-clip:text; color:transparent;[/newclass] [attr="class","jorggradient1"] There are over 50 Tributes this year, 50. 50 of us who volunteered to throw our lives away all in the name of what? Why are each and every one of us in this almost cramped gym, waiting for the Trainer to come down and give us whatever welcoming message they do. This is the first time that the 8 of us, the District 4 Army as we so lightheartedly call ourselves after the drinking game we decided to play on our train. We were already cramped in there as it was, the train only had rooms for two tributes, not 8, so we have quickly become used to bunking together. Now we all stand amongst the others who have volunteered for this, standing in our given training uniforms. I stand in the middle of the crowd, arms crossed, back straight, trying to radiate the Career presence that District 4 once used to command. That’s when she makes her entrance.

She comes down onto a tightrope, tip toeing her way across the almost unseeable wire. Some stand in awe while others just look almost blase with the entire situation. If I remember correctly from the Games reruns, she sent the entire Jungle she was in; seems being extra is her thing. Seeing her here in this setting though, watching her in the same areas that the Gamemakers would be. Watching her plan out our demise, even though she was in our shoes over 10 years ago. She has an interesting perspective that most Gamemakers never had though, being a previous Victor.

“You’re all boring.”

Those were the first words to come out of her mouth as she decides to be even more extravagant as she flips her way off of the tightrope and onto the ground. She was completely serious when she said that to. Even though she has never met a single one of us on a personal level. I’m assuming that her only impression of us is what she saw of us during our own Reapings, which a lot of us didn’t even think about trying to create a show like she has done with her entrance. Granted ever since she one, you can’t deny the waves that she has made, especially for being such a tiny woman. This is why body sizes and ability mean nothing in the Arena, with people as small as her and as differently abled as Heron when she won her Games. That girl had no legs! The feeling though of having a previous Victor as a Gamemaker though is scary though; not because of the fact that she was a Victor, but because of the new perspectives she brings. I don’t think that has been done in any of our lifetimes.

She looks up at us from her dismount, still analysing us in the same way that a Gamemaker would, with almost pure apathy. Though why should we ask for any compassion this year? We all volunteered to be here and to fight for what each of us only know why.

“Terribly, terribly boring…” she continues on with her speech, “but we’ll fix that. Your mandatory improvisation and creativity training begins today.”

It is not out of the ordinary to allow tributes to have special training, you can tell when the Gamemakers have done it in the past, but what she mean but improv and creativity training? The first thing that comes to my mind is improvised weapon training, which makes me wonder if we’ll actually get any weapons at all. Another thought of mine has to deal with the Arena. If we are getting improved weapon training I’m assuming that the Arena will have plenty of wood for us, so maybe some sort of Jungle or Forest type of Arena. I wouldn’t be surprised if Circket wanted us to relive her experience, though that would seem a bit out of character for the “exciting” persona she is trying to show.

“Each one of you volunteered to be here and —” she finally softens her demeanor but the wild flames of a Career Victor form in her eyes. "— I'm proud of all of you. Ours will be an arena filled with the fierce beauty of tributes who have not come to cry themselves to sleep while pissing themselves in fear, but who have come because you know what you can be. I know what you can be. It does not matter to me who everyone thought you were before you came here and whether or not anyone believed in you. That you chose to try is magnificent and now the world will see. You are legends of your own making, not mistakes of chance."

She walks out of the room, leaving us to mull over everything she said about us being our own legends. Yeah sure ok then. I head on over to the spears and trident to brush up on some of my skills. Fishing with these are one thing, killing someone is completely different. Even though we are trained in District 4 to look upon other tributes as almost not living humans, but rather enemy targets to hit and kill. Getting to know these people make it that much harder to see them in that light though. I learn where the most effective places to stick a spear would be, and then head off, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’m still here. We all get called into a mandatory group training on the monkey bars, why there are even monkey bars here I’m not even sure.

With over 50 of us there is really no way to keep this orderly rather than just for all of us to line up where we fall. I fall behind a gentleman who, for some reason has been crawling around for the entire day so far. A young cute woman comes up behind me as well, I’m totally ok with being sandwiched in between two very attractive people, I think to myself. We have a good amount of time to get to the monkey bars anyways, so i decide to strike up a conversation them.

“Hi my name is Curse, what is yours?”