Haymitch's Story
Chapter 11
JoannaReads
I wake up at dawn and start walking again. There's got to be more to this arena. As I walk, I eat the packaged food from inside my bag and try to avoid any tributes. The watch, of course, helps with that. I had pains shoot up my arm three times today, and I've already heard four canons.
Walking with the load that I picked up yesterday, I become fatigued after about two hours. I decide to sit on a rock next to a patch of flowers. They're so beautiful. I walk over to one of them and pick it, only to find that the stem has a kind of spike on it that I've only seen once before. I concentrate my memory and remember.
I was walking with my father in the meadow one night when I saw a beautiful flower. The most gorgeous flower I had ever seen. I picked it, hoping to give it to mother when I got home, but it was almost immediately smacked out of my hand. My father began to yell at me, telling me never to touch something like that again.
It was poisonous.
I take in a somewhat audible gasp. Is that why everything is so beautiful? To trick unknowing tributes into eating or inhaling the flowers? Is it the same with the grass? The trees? The adorable little animals that have scurried past me at least twice today?
I laugh as I think of the quote "beauty can be deceiving". No kidding. The fact finally sinks in. This entire arena is poisonous. Everything is a lie. I should have known the Gamemakers well enough by now to realize that they would never give us an arena as easy as a beautiful meadow. I wonder how many of the 22 dead tributes died because of this arena. There had to have been at least more than one.
I make a note to keep away from anything that might look too friendly. I continue to walk, always keeping the mountain at my back. Then I see a blue butterfly with golden flecks on its wings. It's beautiful. Too beautiful. I try to walk away slowly, glad that I have discovered the arena's secret. If not, I would probably have tried to hold this gorgeous butterfly.
As I creep quietly away from it, another one appears. This one yellow and red. Then another, and another. I haven't gone unnoticed. I break into a run as a full out pack of butterflies zooms in, close on my tail. I sprint as hard as I can, but I get stung by these butterflies at least six times. My arm begins to feel numb. There are other tributes near. I hide myself from the butterflies and the tribute- or tributes, inside a small cave that barely fits my body. Then I hear a scream. Followed by another, even more full of agony then the first. She emerges from the trees, the girl from Eleven, and I see her, being stung by butterflies repeatedly.
"HELP ME! PLEASE! SOMEONE!" Her screams are drowned out by a buzzing in my head. It must be the stings, I guess.
The last thing I remember was the girl falling to the ground, maybe six feet away from me. She was twitching. Her head rolled to the side, and she met my eyes for a second. "I don't want to die" she whispered.
Then her canon fired.
And I blacked out.
