"As mentors, we'll give you advice and prepare you for the games." Rowan says. I nod. Her dangerous blue eyes make me glad I'm not going into The Hunger Games against her. "Run AWAY from the Cornucopia. This is incredibly important. The Careers will form a pack, like wolves, and hunt all of you lambs down. This starts at the Cornucopia. It's a bloodbath—most non-Careers die there. Do NOT go in there. Do you hear me?" Oakley, the blond man, says. He waits for a response for a few seconds until I finally speak. "But what if-" I start to say. "NO what-ifs. You are NOT going into the Cornucopia... unless you have a death wish." Rowan says firmly. "So what if I DO have a death wish?" Arbor jokes. "This isn't funny!" I scold, but I end up letting out a small giggle in spite of it. "Settle down. You guys shouldn't be fooling around. This is the Hunger Games we're talking about. There's a 95% chance or more that you'll die in a few weeks— you might have better odds if you actually listen to us." Oakley says harshly. "Right!" I stop laughing and put on my most serious expression. “First things first, during training, do not show your strengths! I don’t care if people entice you. Just don’t. But make sure the game makers not only know your strengths, but rank you as a worthy competitor in the Hunger Games, not some flighty person that the Careers would want to target.” Rowan says firmly. “Speaking of, stay far away from those Careers. They’ll most likely be the ones that are predicted to win.” Oakley said. “What about allies?” Arbor said. “I don’t want allies that aren’t from my district. Everyone’s here to kill us, why would we team up with them?! We’d most likely get st2bbed in the back- literally. That expression didn’t come from nowhere,” I state. “Okay then,” Arbor says with a nod. “What are your weapons? I used an axe and Oakley did too. It’s really the traditional weapon of district 7, but some people have different strengths,” “Mine is an axe,” I say. And a pen. But I don’t say that. I used to go into the forbidden section of the woods and write poetry in it, where the only sounds were ones of wildlife and pine needles crunching under my feet. And occasionally an arrow shot by Arbor whizzing its way into a squirrel, or better yet, a deer. Sometimes I wrote about it. Poetry and writing can do great things. “Mine is a bow and arrow,” Arbor says. I already knew that, but since we weren’t supposed to have known each other, I play it up. “Like Cupid?” I ask with a smirk. “Something like that,” he says jokingly. Oh, the fun we have together.
