Woo! Hunger Games! And before you jump and tear me to shreds for "copying" other people's ideas, read my author's note. Errrrr. I really wanted to write Haymitch's story after reading the second book and I was so frustrated with myself when I saw I wasn't the only with the plot bunny inside my head about the Second Quell. But I'm going to write it anyway. I haven't read anyone else's story to avoid retreating to their ideas unconsciously when I run out. I'm just going to write this story and hope you, as the reader, are interested enough in my version to experience the second chapter, and the forth, and so on till we get to the end. Yes, as every other HGs story, I am going to have OCs, and they will die. But I noticed that other people take requests. To avoid that, I'm just going to make them up myself. Making up characters is fun!...But I'm going to make myself cry when they die. I'm already attached to my District 12 tributes...
For now I just hope I can keep your attention. I want to get to the games extremely bad, but I'll buckle down. Got to write the important intro...or else I'll have no base.
This is in first person. Definitely not an original idea, but I felt it would be better to have his point of view rather than every tribute. It would get too confusing for me, and you...so It's Haymitch's point of view.
Have fun with his personality.
EDIT: Okay. Idiot here speaking. I haven't read the third book yet and someone just told me about details I should have looked up. *moron* But I just wanted to let anyone else who reads this know that this is NOT the final version. I will be editing it to fit the correct storyline. I really do apologize for being stupid.
Beginning
The reaping day of the second long awaited Second Quarter Quell at the end of Governor Grant's stagnant speech of famine and destruction at the whisper of rebellion was when our lone sixty-two year old victor tribute suffered from a cardiac arrest and kneeled directly over the stage end. Of course two Peacemakers mechanically drug the poor man off platform, but the collateral damage had been dealt. Our district escort, Jaynet Refie, Capitol garbed with a gold-hue skin and jewel studded iridescent teeth, was clearly unhinged after the incident. She awkwardly, but dramatically announces the death of Lue Jobber, as if I could bring myself to care, and then nearly skips her way to the first tribute bowl. Her sickly gold hands hesitate over the girl's tribute bowl first and she rhythmically hums, "Ladies first!" into the microphone, dragging along a horrifying stretch of static when it comes into contact with her claw-like nails. Several of the boys and girls around me either wince or cover their ears. I smirk when I notice they're made of metal.
The Capitol: Idiots with shiny toys and money.
But Jaynet laughs stupidly into the increasing static and flicks it off with a twitch of her head in the direction of the technical supervisors. She's unfortunately skilled enough to allow her shrilly tone carry. Her metallic claws stab into a fresh slip of paper and she smiles smoothly as she unfolds it carefully, holding a secret for the few brief seconds I hear whispered pleas and prayers for it not to be them, not their sister, not their brother. I lock my arms across my chest and pray for no one. I could possibly pray for myself, but there would hardly be any use of that. If I was going into that hell hole, I couldn't change it with meaningless prayers or pleas.
The first name Jaynet calls is a girl from the Seam, like me. But I don't recognize her dark, pinched face as she slowly ascends the steps and takes her place beside the empty chair of their recently deceased mentor. The audience solemnly claps, knowing it is mandatory. The Peacekeepers in District Twelve had increased in season of the Second Quarter Quell. No use fighting with an army so small, if however discreet their taunts had been through silent applauds years before.
Jaynet composes herself and stabs another slip into her palm, unfolding it gently and irritatingly slowly. "Maysilee Donner," she loudly calls. The effect this announcement has is instantaneous. Screams are heard and the small girl in front of me is embraced by a blonde women I know most of the Seam men admire from a distance for her soft face and healing hands. She is the apothecary's only daughter. There is another blonde grasping her arms around the tribute, sobbing as loudly as she dare into her sister's long hair. But just as quickly as the group of merchant daughters had agonized over Maysilee's sentence, they separate from each other, and the two girls left behind lock hands as Maysilee bravely takes her place beside the silent Seam girl, fair head thrust high.
Next are the boys' names. There is a name called that receives a fair amount of gasps. Another twin, one we all know to be blind as we watch him be led up the steps, before the tension suddenly spikes. It feels tangible now, as if I can taste it on my tongue, thick and dry. It occurs to me then that my name may be picked. I had signed up for tesserae every year since I had been applicable the day I had turned twelve. Now I was sixteen and my name was setting in that bowl, enlisted over eighteen times for a pitiful amount of oil and grain. A small comparison to the eighteen year old boy standing on that stage who'd had his name dumped in over fifty times. His only brother had been killed in the same mining accident that had damaged his eyes. He had seven other brothers and sisters too young to volunteer. It was bad luck that had drawn him out.
Mine could just as easily be drawn on bad luck.
"Haymitch Abernathy." I roll my eyes as if I could never have managed to condemn myself sooner. Jaynet stares at the slip of paper in befuddlement, as if she should be familiar with it. Most in district twelve are, and not pleasantly so. I push myself through the crowd, distinctly aware of the silence that envelopes my descent into Jaynet's gag inducing smile. The jewels glare into my eyes and I nearly stumble. I lock my arms across my chest and glare into the direction where I vaguely remember the camera crew to be in position. A bell chimes in the frigid air signaling the end of a blood soaked beginning.
We tributes travel in silence toward the Justice Building. There is never much to say. Good luck to you, pal? They would take it as an insult, recoiling and targeting you in revenge for undermining their ability. No tribute in their right mind would wish another luck. Huh. Now that I thought about it, I possibly could risk it. But the dark faces around me seem none-too-keen on snarky comments, so I keep them locked inside myself, buzzing on the bridge of my tongue. I could always taunt a Peacekeeper if things got too stuffy. They were fun to mess with when you could get away with it without being whipped for insubordination.
Too soon we're herded into the Justice Building. I sit on a cushioned couch, my face set expressionless as I pick at the velvet and wait for empty minute after empty minute to crawl by. The one time anyone could choose to spend a final moment with me, and not one face appears at that door. I can tell the Peacekeeper at guard finds it amusing, maybe even expecting to witness me break down into sobs. But I don't even feel the need. I had expected this.
The only family I have is my mother and shadow of a father. Last time I had seen her face, she was passed out in her bedroom wrapped head to toe in a blanket that smelled like old vomit and sweat. I'd set a bucket by her bed just in case she puked, but that was as far as things stretched between us mother and son affection wise. My father worked in the mines overtime to fund my mother's morphling binges even though Reaping Day required a mandetory audience. He wouldn't make a teary appearance either. He wouldn't know about the tributes till the rerun televised later that night. So I sat in that room for an hour alone.
When we board the tribute train on route to the capitol, my fellow tributes are clearly affected by their last visits. Each of them sits in a corner by themselves, quiet and staring out a window as the bleak forest surroundings of District Twelve whisper a cold goodbye. Surprisingly, the most emotional is the Seam girl. Then I remind myself she might be acting to gain the advantage of a weakling in the arena, but her obvious sniffles and tears continue to irritate me. The most subdued, again shocking, is Maysilee Donner. Even she has managed to remain as stoic as the dark haired blind boy, who I think has more reason than one to break something large, perhaps a Peacekeeper's arm.
Unfortunately, Jaynet Refie has not begun to quiet down. Her continuous clucking over us distracts me as I try to assess my opponents. I momentarily consider saying something to shut her up when I remember the bottle in my pocket. I warmly stroke the corkscrew top, thinking of the scorching liquid taking fire to my throat. It's a sparkling clear alcohol, something I had swiped from my father's locked cabinet after he had left it up to me to chain it close so my mother couldn't get to the stash. It was small, hardly the size of my palm. But it would do.
I excuse myself finally to the back of the car, some foul smelling storage room of rotting vegetables and sour cheese that has walls that barely clear to scrape the edges of my shoulders. I had never been big. I was even short for the district height average of five ten. I shuffle around on my feet and swallow my aggravation. This is practically the only cabin their cameras won't breech. I slip carefully down so I rest on the balls of my feet and lift the bottle to my lips. Instantly, it burns my sensitive skin and threatens to run into my throat at the smallest tip. I bring it forward just long enough to send my nose searing and cough half of it from my stomach.
The alcohol drips from my mouth, mixed with hacked up acid. My lips are buzzing when I wipe my collar over my mouth and try to swipe away the puddle best as I can with my booted foot. It only sloshes around in a larger area. The shelves radiate the sharp smell when I sit back, thoughts clogging together as the poison enters my veins. Alone. Maybe this was how my mother felt alone. The pain to drink it is nearly unbearable, but it hallows you out, wipes the thoughts clean you couldn't bear to let set. I could feel my eyes drifting close, my foot sliding back slightly as my breaths slow. The storage room door brings me snapping back with a fresh wave of pain when it pins my foot against the wall.
Maysilee Donner stands above me, her small form bent forward as an apology drips hastily from her lips, the act wasted when she trips up over my outstretched limbs on the slick floor. She slips with a yelp and slams into my arms so quick, my head whacks back into the shelf with a crack and the bottle crashes to the floor, soaking into my pants and under cloths. Her own flailing foot slams the storage door shut and we're cloaked in the dark again, her cheek pressed up against my chest as the sharp taste of blood floods into my mouth. I had bit my tongue.
Neither of us move. I am sure she must have injured herself. It would be an admirable challenge to avoid it in a closet the width of my scrawny shoulders. Her head doesn't lift from the position on my chest. I spit the blood into my shirt and try to lift up the fallen bottle, scowling once I shake it to learn of its nearly emptied contents. She finally releases a small moan as I fumble around with shaking fingers for the corkscrew top. It would be nearly impossible to locate it now. It had most likely fallen through a crack in the floor and lied miles away stuck between the tracks. But the thought of having the responsibility to finish it so Jaynet has empty proof to chew me out doesn't deter me when setting the glass against my lips. I nearly almost forget she's there, practically glued to me with the putrid alcohol dampening her own cloths.
She sets up, and I see her bright blue eyes nearly flash in the dark. "You okay?" I mumble out of obligation, even though she had been the one to instigate this mess. I sniff the bottle and my thoughts of manners sweep right away with the burning liquid thrumming numbly through my bloodstream.
"No," she nearly snaps, then shrinks back as her eyes, ears, and nose narrow, perk, and wrinkle in realization of the situation. Anyone else would have assumed why and stolen the bottle right from my quaking fingers. But Maysilee does not seem a stupid girl, or at least not a reckless one when she had pried her own sister's fingers from her hands so her family avoided the pain of defying the Capitol. "Does it taste good?" she asks, surprising me for the second time in the same day. She was a merchant's kid kept pretty and innocent away from the Seam. Maybe being protected so fiercely would be her downfall. We weren't so different, not when we were probably all going to die, shackled together with the same District number and reputation without a mentor.
I let the bottle rest under her pert little nose a moment so she can test the smell for herself. Not that she needs it. The stench practically sets in the air as an invisible fog, drenched into our cloths like a second layer of skin. "Tastes terrible. Want a sip?"
Before she can even say no, which I can see her round lips have already formed into so she can refuse, the door slams open again. I lift my foot away from the crevice between the wall just in time and chuck the bottle behind a crate. In my drunken stupor I can only hope the pinched face of Jaynet that appears from the flooding, blurring lights of the outdoor hallway is contorted in shock at the sight of her tributes locked together and not twisted in disgust from the smell, which had begun to harden my cloths to an uncomfortable, sticky shell.
Whichever one, two cameras lens appear next, projecting our distinguishable faces across the nation in an even more understandable scene.