I do not own 'The Hunger Games' or anything related.


I could tell that the kids want to gouge the meal, but had the better sense to ration it. After eating some of the food, they got into the sleeping bag together. Her head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around her. I wanted her to continue the act. She asked him if there was any other girl he noticed. He replied that he noticed about every other girl, but none of them left quite an impression as her. She remarked that it would make his parents proud, him being in love with a seam girl, but he reminded her that when they won, she would be a victor. That's right. If they win, they'll be my neighbours. The girl would bound to bring her family with her, whereas the boy's family would likely stay in their home.

The boy and the girl as my neighbours…

I'm sorry. I still couldn't say their names consciously and deliberately in my head. I try not to remember any tributes' name, to make it that easier when they died, but I realised that perhaps I was being discourteous to those who died, considering them only a number and a gender. Rue. Thresh. Even Marvel. But I still couldn't say the names of my tributes. After all, there was still a chance that they wouldn't make it, although their chances had greatly improved. There was only Thresh, the 2, and the 5 left. Thresh I didn't think would be a threat. Neither was the 5, so that just left the 2. But I was sure between the two of them, the girl and boy could defeat them.

"But then our only neighbour would be Haymitch!" Exclaimed the girl, as if horrified at the thought of me a neighbour (Not that I blamed her).

The boy continued to talk about the fun all three of us could have.

"I told you, he hates me!"

"Only when he's drunk. I've never heard a single negative thing about you when he's sober."

"Haymitch is never sober," The girl joked (probably).

"You're right. Who am I thinking of? Cinna, and that's because you didn't run away when he set you on fire. On second thoughts, stay away from Haymitch. He hates you," The boy joked.

"I thought you said I was his favourite?"

"I think he hates me more. I don't think people are his thing."

I couldn't help but chuckle at the fun these two were having at my expense.

"How do you think he did it?" The girl asked.

"Did what?"

"Win the games?"

That was a fair question. How did I win the Hunger Games? I mean I know how I won, but what led me to winning? I thought back to the start, up to the day after I had snapped at Maysilee.


Things were predictably cool between us. Once again we were out of the maze and back into the woods. It was raining so we collected the rain water in silence. Afterwards, we heard a sound. Was it a new trap from the gamemakers? It sounded like thunder, but coming from the ground. An earthquake? No, not that. We looked at each other.

"Run!"

At once we started running, not daring to look back at whatever it was that was behind us. My first thought was to climb a tree, but since it had just rained, they would be too slippery to climb. And even if we managed to outrun whatever it was that was behind us, we would just reach a river and then we would be trapped between the poisonous liquid and being trampled.

Or would we?

"We have to jump in the river!" I told Maysilee.

"Are you crazy?" She exclaimed, as if I had asked her to jump into a river of acid.

"It's our only chance! We'll be fine as long as we hold our breath!"

Maysilee nodded. My only concern was that Maysilee couldn't swim. As we ran, and felt the hooves just behind us, we saw the river in sight. I could feel the sharp antlers just grazing me as we jumped in. Within the water, as agreed, we had our mouths closed so that no poison could enter. We watched as the deer fell into the river around us, becoming still moments later. One almost fell on top of us and I grab Maysilee and swam out of its way. She pushed me away, and that was when I realised.

She could swim!

When deer stopped falling into the river, we came back up and gasped for breath. Any deer that hadn't fallen into the river had likely already moved on, and we could see a remaining few already moving on. Once they were out of sight, we swam towards the bank and pulled ourselves out. I was so glad I had those swimming lessons! Once we were out at once we opened our backpacks (luckily they were waterproof so nothing inside was spoiled), took out a couple of towels, made sure we were thoroughly dry (especially our faces) and threw them away.

"I guess the gamemakers got fed up of waiting for us to kill each other, huh?" Maysilee suggested.

Something wasn't right. This was too clumsy for the gamemakers. If this was an attack from them, they would have made sure that the deer stopped in their tracks at the bank rather than falling in the water. It was important that they showed the audience what they were doing. The river was full of deer carcasses, being carried by the tide. On one of them, I noticed a burn mark. A fire made more sense. Something to drive tributes together. But there should have been a visible wall of fire, it was like whatever it was that spooked these deer was intended to only drive them into the way of whatever tributes were in their path…

Facing the river, I looked behind us. There wasn't any sign of anyone.

"What's wrong?" Maysilee asked me.

I explained my theory in whispers.

"So do you think whoever it was that spooked those deer is nearby?" She whispered back.

I nodded. I was positive. Whoever it was was meticulous, hiding from view as he watched the other tributes, making note of their movements for the last couple of days, noting any pattern, bearing in mind the other threats as well, choosing the exact moment when it had just rained and any attempt to climb a tree to avoid the danger would have been made less possible. And after all that, would have made sure that his handiwork had worked or not. But how to draw him out? In the backpack, I noted the jar of red liquid we got from the 5, which he used as fake blood. I had an idea.

"How good is your acting?" I asked.

"OK. Why?"

I explained to her my plan.

"And why I can't do it?"

"Well you've already had three kills, and I've had two. Wouldn't be fair to make you do all the work."

Taking the jar, opening it, making sure that whoever it was that was behind us couldn't see what I was doing, making a hold in the side of my jacket with my knife for good measure, I poured the jar against my side.

"You all right?" Maysilee asked, as part of the act.

"Yeah," I replied, feigning the symptoms of someone who was losing blood, "I just don't feel…I just don't feel…"

I fell on my back.

"Haymitch? HAYMITCH!"

Maysilee started shaking me, gasping at the sight of my fake blood. I could feel her trying to stem the apparent flow of blood.

"No no no no! Haymitch, don't you die! DON'T YOU DIE ON ME! PLEASE HAYMITCH! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALL ALONE!"

She was actually really good!

A little too good.

I could hear footsteps approach. I wish I had my eyes open so that I could see who it was, but I could only fake dying. Fake death without a canon firing would give us away.

I knew Maysilee's noticed him, because next thing I could hear was the familiar sound of the blowing of darts. I heard several darts being blown, meaning he was quick enough to dodge them. With the fourth blow I heard a metallic cling (Whoever it was had a weapon they just used to knock the dart away). I could hear Maysilee retreating, and the other advancing. He sounded too near for her to get a likely shot in. I heard her take a few more steps away from me before falling to the ground. From their footsteps, I could tell they were far enough away and with his back turned to me so that he wouldn't notice me. Opening my eyes, I slowly got up, making sure that I made as little sound as possible. Now I could see who had been stalking us. It was a tribute from 10.

"I'm sorry," He apologised, "I'm just so hungry. So very, very hungry."

"Please!" Maysilee pleaded, "We don't have any food!"

"Well then. I guess I'll just take what you both have anyway."

"Hey."

The 10 spun around at the sound of my voice, startled, swinging his weapon, but I managed to knock the knife out of his hand and kicked him in the stomach. Maysilee, on all fours as planned, caused him to trip on her, falling into the river. The canon fired before his body came back up. We managed to grab his ankles and pull his body onto the bank before the river could carry him away. Checking his backpack were a few useful items (Including an oil can and a lighter. I imagined how he managed to spook the deer into a stampede), but as expected, no food.

"By the way, I think you overdid it earlier," I said.

"Sorry. Just giving a realistic reaction to your death. Besides I – was actually struck by the notion if anything happened to you."

"-Maysilee-"

I raised my hand, but she raised hers.

"But you're right. It was overkill. We are only allies after all."

That stung worse than the butterfly sting I received earlier. Although I did deserve it.


Later that night, as we had nothing to do but stare at each other, I felt like I needed to apologise to her for my behaviour the day before. But that would require me to take off my mask, and expose my true emotions not just to her, but to everyone, when I had learnt to conceal my true feelings.

You know what, I've never cared about what people thought of me before.

Why care now?

"I'm sorry."

Maysilee looked at me.

"I'm not - good with people. Never have been."

"That's not true! You're good with your little brother!"

"Yeah, but that's my little brother-"

I was struck by what he said. I decided to carefully say what next to say.

"How do you know how I am with my brother?"

Maysilee blushed.

"I might have noticed you…from time to time…and how you are with him."

I grinned.

"So you've noticed me, eh? Like what you see?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Haymitch, you're not as handsome as you think you are."

"Because I'm seam?"

"What? No, I didn't mean it like that!"

"Oh no, I know you didn't mean it like that!" I quickly said.

"So yeah, I've noticed you, but it's hard to forget the nasty little boy who made fun of someone's singing."

I realised what she was talking about.

"Would it make any difference if I told you I didn't mean what I said?"

"Then why did you say it?"

"Well, with everyone looking at me, that was the best I could come up with."

"And you couldn't come up with anything else?"

"No."

"Then there was that time you beat up Mel-"

"In my defence, he beat me up as well."

"That's your defence?" She asked me in disbelief, "Not much of a defence if you ask me!"

"What I meant was it wasn't like I was beating down on someone who was weaker than me! He was able to get a few swings at me as well."

"You know, for a long time, I didn't know what it was he saw in you."

I was reminded of her words she said to me during training.

"Sometimes I don't know what he sees in me either," I confessed, ignoring the fact that he was likely watching this conversation.

"Oh Haymitch, I didn't mean it like that-"

"We do seem to spend more time fighting than getting along like actual friends. Honestly, sometimes I don't know why he even hangs around me, when he's got ton of better friends."

"Will you let me finish? At first, I didn't know what he saw in you, until…well…"

"The Arena?"

"No. It was before. Much longer before."

"Even though you verbally said you didn't know what he saw in me during training."

"Oh Haymitch, I didn't mean it! I only said that because you were being such a jerk."

"Well, I might have overreacted when you told me to try to remain calm during training."

"I only said that in order to help you."

"Yet strangely enough when you tell someone to be calm it only makes them less calm."

"Sorry. That's not what I was trying to do."

"No. I'm sorry. Ahem, so you were telling me when you realised that I was really such a nice guy?"

"I didn't say it exactly like that. I said when I realised you weren't as much of an ass as you act."

I was a little stunned to hear a merchant girl swear.

"And when was that?"

"It was….at Mel's father's funeral, when I saw what such a good friend you were."

She was at his funeral? Of course she was, everyone in Mel's year would have been expected to attend, regardless of status. But when did I act like such a good friend, when I acted no different on that day compared to any other. Apart from that one time –

Oh no.

OH NO!

DON'T TELL ME SHE SAW THAT? Or at least heard it from someone else!

During the funeral, I noticed that Mel had gone missing. Eventually, I tracked him down at the edge of the district, separated from the woods by the fence.

"Mel? Are you ok?"

It was a stupid question. Of course he wasn't ok! But I didn't know what else to say!

"Pa always had a bad cough, you know. But it got worse over time. The last few weeks it got really bad. Ma tried to get him to work less, even get him to retire early, but he refused, because – because if he didn't work…then how were were supposed to get any money?"

Picking up a rock, he hurled it at the fence and screamed. I had never seen him like this.

"I hate this stupid district! I hate how we're divided between merchant and seam! I hate how everyone has to work their ass off just to get so little in return! I hate how we have to send kids every year! Why, Mitch, why do we have to put up with it? Why?"

It was as if he was expecting an actual answer from me, but I didn't know what to say to him. Who was I to even answer questions like these? He then broke down into tears, covering his face and turning away as if to conceal this from me.

"I'm sorry! I don't want you to see me like this!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"I don't want you to think I'm some kind of wuss!"

"Some kind of wuss? Mel, you're upset over your Pa being dead, I would have loved to mourn my old man like you mourn yours!"

It seemed like an odd thing to wish, I know.

"And since when do you care what I think?"

Apparently he did. He still remember the first day of school, when I made fun of Everdeen's singing.

"I didn't mean it!" I tried to assure him, "I-I…"

I didn't know how to say it. That the reason I reacted like I did wasn't because I found his singing hilarious, or something to laugh about. It was because I was so taken aback, that something that beautiful could even exist in this world, let alone District 12. Mel had almost gone down to his knees. I didn't know what to do. Actually I did, but I had never done it with a boy my age before. Looking around to make sure that no one was around, I hugged him.

"Shh, shh," I said, "It's okay. It's okay."

I knew it wasn't, but what else was I supposed to say? Standing up, Mel hugged me back, and I held him as he sobbed. For a moment, I thought I saw a flurry of long blond hair, but then thought I had imagined it. Eventually when he calmed down, we came apart. Once he dried his eyes to cover up the fact that he had been crying, we walked back to where the funeral was taking place.

"Hey Mitch."

I turned to him.

"Thanks. For earlier. You won't tell anyone what happened, right?"

"Sure!" I replied, "As long as you promise not to tell anyone that I hugged you."

"Promise," Mel chuckled.

I wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea. Not that I cared.

You know what, I would care about what people would think about that!

But now I understood. The glimpse of blond hair I saw belonged to Maysilee. She had seen us.