try harder. |cynthia/tobias|

He barely slept the night before. He laid in bed, running scenarios through his mind. The what ifs that plagued his thoughts kept him awake, counting specks on the dimly lit ceiling. Tobias didn’t dare try to rest, both for his desire to mentally prepare himself for the days to follow and to not avoid testing his theory that running away from District Four would rid him of his nightmares. There was a much better track record for him with daydreaming than dreaming while in slumber. With daydreaming, at least he could control the thoughts rolling in and out of his mind, and he worried not of evil trying to rain on his parade of productivity or imagination or plain peace.

This time, it was a bittersweet feeling to daydream. Tobias dreamt of survival, fight and flight, killing someone (directly, of course, he already believed he indirectly held responsibility for another.) The Hunger Games were no walk in the park, evident by at least thirty-two (but definitely more) people from District Four walking on the stage and only one, Leon Krigel, return. They were serious, and Tobias had to, minimally, think of how he was going to make it out… or if he was going to make it out. There’s enough combat knowledge in him for a bit of faith to reside in his heart, but he saw the disgusting horror on tributes’ eyes during the Games… he needed to prepare for that. He imagined jabbing a spear into a girl’s side, taking her life. He imagined throwing a knife and it landing in a boy’s temple.

He wished murder was as cut-throat as it sounded in the academies of Four. However, Tobias knew it couldn’t be that easy, the horror in Teddy’s eyes when he came to his district promised him that.

He closed his eyes periodically, but as soon as Tobias felt darkness, he knew he was drifting asleep and opened them. Shut eye but no complete sleep, still weary of the monster that stays in the crypts of his mind.



He walked into the Training Center the next day, half of his tiredness replenished, and that was enough.

Tobias wanted to train today as his skills, especially after Ezekiel’s death, did not get the care they should’ve. He trained occasionally, but not as much as some of the others in District Four. They probably would’ve been more prepared than him.

He held a javelin in his hand, lifting it up and down as if it were a dumbbell to get a feeling for it’s trajectory.

The array of targets stood in front of him, and by the count of three, his rusty arm prepared to throw.

One. Two. Three.

He threw the javelin to the target, praying for it to bullseye so he didn’t make a fool of himself. It didn’t though, landing on the fifth’s ring from the center.

Embarrassed, he picked up a javelin and prepared to throw again. After all, he swam in Panem’s Olympics, he didn’t do the javelin throw.