I do not own 'The Hunger Games' or anything related.
Beyond was flat, dry earth. You could tell that the gamemakers never expected anyone to be here. We continued walking up a cliff, and saw jagged rocks below.
"That's all there is," Maysilee told me, "Let's go back."
I couldn't explain it, but I felt there had to be something here. I had spent so long searching for this that I couldn't turn back now.
"I'm staying," I told her without turning back.
"All right. There's only five of us left. May as well say goodbye now, anyway. I don't want it to be down to the two of us."
Her sudden ending of the alliance took me somewhat by surprise. I know she was never a big fan of my plan to try to find the edge of the arena, and she's right. I didn't want it to just be down to the two of us. We may as well part ways now.
"Fine," I reply.
I didn't look back, thinking it would be easier if I didn't acknowledge her existence anymore. I heard her walk away, until I could hear her no more.
I walk along the edge of the cliff, trying to figure out what could possibly be here that's of use that it cost me my alliance with Maysilee. I was starting to question my decision, let alone my quest, when something occurred to me. It seemed odd that this would even be here. Even if the gamemakers didn't expect anyone to get through the hedges, what was the odd chance that someone would get here? Allow them to fall to their deaths? That doesn't seem like something the gamemakers could allow-
I was just thinking of this when I accidentally knocked a pebble below. I decide to take a moment to rest, sitting down.
At once the pebble came back up. Of course! This is just like the force field around the training centre! The one that prevented tributes from throwing themselves over the roof!
I threw a rock down below, and moments later, it came back in my hand. I laughed at my discovery.
And that's when I heard Maysilee scream.
There was no need to go after her. She ended the alliance with me. No one at home would blame me for not going after her.
But I had to.
Running through the maze, I came back into the forest, to find Maysilee being attacked by a flock of candy floss coloured birds. One of which used its beak to skewer Maysilee's neck.
I roared, getting their attention. I ran to them, slashing my knife at them, until they were dead or gone.
"Haymitch."
I looked down at Maysilee.
I'm sorry. I've already relived her death once. I have no desire to do so again, so instead I'll just pick up where I left before, When I placed her mockingjay pin on my jacket, making that grand internal promise that I would win the games for both of us. I took her backpack, knowing she would have wanted me to have it, and watched as the hovercraft came and grabbed her body, pulling her up and in. I kept watch until she had disappeared from view, and continued watching the hovercraft until it had left, when the only other friend I ever had was gone. I went through the backpack. It included the other half of the food we got from the 2 that we decided to share, the bowl which we used to collect rainwater, and the blow darts, her weapon. I never told her how impressed I was that she was able to use the arena's poisons to her advantage. Getting up, I slowly walked through the maze again to the cliff. For a moment, I just stared out. Then, noticing a rock by my foot, instinctively I kicked it with the greatest force I could muster and screamed as loud as I could. When I finished I took a deep breath and screamed again (ignoring the pain on my foot when the rock returned). I kept screaming until my voice became hoarse. I fell to my knees, covering my face and mouth. I could not let anyone see me, and I would not give the capitol the satisfaction of seeing me grieve, not my tears or the sounds of my cries. When I was sure I was done, I made sure that no one could see me wipe the tears from my face as I looked out again, and below at the invisible force field. I would make them pay. I would make the gamemakers pay for what they did to Maysilee, by turning the thing they never expected to be used back at them.
As I ate my food (Which had become a little damp and salty), at first I tried to ration out what I had. But later that day I heard the canon fire twice. That meant there was only one other tribute alive. The broadcast came, where I saw there were five dead tributes. The career me and Maysilee killed, before ending with Maysilee. That only left the 1.
The next day I decided to finish all the food I had. I thought there was no need to ration this and draw this out any longer, and I needed all the strength I could muster in order to finish this off. I also decided to finish off all the water I had, later urinating and defecating over the cliff to show what I thought of the capitol (though making sure that I wasn't hit by what came back).
Bet you don't hear much of that happening in a Hunger Games!
I paced up and down along the edge of the cliff, knowing that this was where I needed to finish this. All day, though, there was no sign of the tribute. The next day, nothing again. I saw a cloud and rain further away, beckoning me. I got it. The gamemakers didn't want us anywhere near the forcefield, but I had gone without water for two days. I would not be baited. However, again there was no sign of the career. As the day ended, I knew that I couldn't afford to fight dehydrated. I needed to find the career tomorrow.
The next morning, I decided to set off. I found myself back in the woods. I wondered where the career must be. The gamemakers would be bound to make sure she was as far from the force field as possible when an axe was swung at me. I used my knife to block the blow. She swung at me again. I found difficulty dodging her like I did with the 9, and much like the 2 she was so well trained that my knife wasn't as good as a shield. A few more swings and she knocked the knife out of my hand. I knew without a weapon I was as good as dead so I dived for the knife. By the time I grabbed the handle and turned around I felt something cold enter along my stomach. Not too deep, but I knew that I was a goner. I grabbed the handle of her axe, as I coughed, undoubtedly I had just coughed up blood.
"You're dead, 12," The career told me.
She twisted her axe in my body, causing me to scream and cough. I could feel warm liquid pour down my lower half.
"And really, you were dead the moment your name came out. After all, how could someone from the lowest of the districts possibly win, especially against the likes of 1?"
I gasped for breath, my eyes half closed, my head down, giving the impression that I was about to black out. To her, I was just part of the lowest rungs of society. I guess that's how everyone saw me. Except for my brother. And my Ma. And Rachelle. And Mel. And Maysilee, who saw through my appearance and found my worth.
Overconfidence. The greatest flaw of a career.
Springing to life, I stabbed her in the eye and drove my knife as far as I could in her head.
Now it was her time to scream, clutching the handle of my knife, trying to pull it out. But she kept her grip on her axe, too. Nothing for it, I pulled myself off the blade of her axe and clutched my stomach as I got out of there. The cliff. The force field was my only hope. If I could somehow get her to throw her axe at me, then it will just bounce back and without her expecting it at her. I had to run far enough to be as far from her as possible but close enough so that she could follow, also taking into account that with my injury I didn't have much time left. I ignored the pain in my stomach, as I could feel the blood pour on my hand, feel the soft tubes that were undoubtedly my intestines. I could hear the career chasing me, swearing, screaming for my death. I was reminded of my old man chasing me, giving me the feeling that it will be over soon. I ran through the maze. Keep it together! Keep it together! You're almost there! I managed to get to the cliff where I could stand no more, and collapsed on the ground. As I did so, I could see the axe just miss me as it went over the edge. I could hear the career walk towards me as I convulsed. A minute later the axe came flying back and I heard it impact something, before the sounds of something falling down with a thud. I heard the canon fired, but I didn't know if it was for me or my opponent. The hovercraft came, but not for me. My vision had faded, but I could still make out the career's body being pulled up, the axe stuck in her head, as she disappeared from view, and the hovercraft disappeared.
"Ladies and gentleman, I give you the victor of the 50th Hunger Games - Haymitch Abernathy of District 12!"
How did I win the Hunger Games? Well, I won because I managed to get the best supplies from the cornucopia, but that was only because everyone else was distracted. I won because I recognised that rabbits don't run towards people who are bigger than them. I won because I found it strange that an animal wouldn't take a chance to drink. I survived getting stung by a butterfly because I willed myself to stay alive, and I was lucky to wake up when it was raining. I won because I knew what it was like to be hungry. My chances were improved when the careers' food supply was destroyed by the lava. I survived the first three careers I faced because I was skilled with a knife, because I was quick enough, because they underestimated a tribute from 12, because Maysilee was there to save me, Maysilee who became my ally, Maysilee who saved me from being killed by the 5, who between the two of us were able to get more rest, work out a system to collect more water, and kill three of the other tributes. In other words, I won out of a mixture of skill and luck, intelligence, endurance, a strength of will, an alliance, and because the careers' food supply was gone. In other words, how anyone won a Hunger Games who wasn't a career. But the main factor I won was because I defied the system. I went to a place where the gamemakers never expected anyone to go. I used something that wasn't supposed to be used. And that was why I was convinced that I could never make another victor out of any tribute, because I wouldn't dare tell any of them to do what I did. If I had known the consequences of what I had done, I wouldn't have dared used that forcefield.
And I certainly wouldn't have gone looking for anything like it. I would have rather died.
"He outsmarted the others," The girl said.
Well, there was some truth to that. And not just the tributes, but the game makers as well.
But maybe this time was different. Maybe this time not just one but two winners were possible. Why was I so sure? What made Katniss different from so many district 12 tributes? That could be summed up with her skill with her bow and arrow. She was a survivor. She knew how to hunt, how to forage in the wild, and her skill with the bow and arrow was the reason she was a good hunter and put her on the same level as the careers. But it was more than that. Their survival was also thanks to the star-crossed lovers story, which wouldn't have been possible if there wasn't some real chemistry. What were the odds that out of so many potential tributes two of them would have this pre-existing bond? It wasn't just the boy. I don't think the girl would have pulled it off as well as she did if she didn't already have feelings for him. Not necessarily romantic feelings, and whereas she certainly wasn't as head over heels for him as she presented herself, she nevertheless had feelings for him.
I then also started to think that once they became victors, they would become mentors as well. A district only really needed two, but I didn't think that I'd be much help after this. It took me twenty-four years to find a worthy tribute, I don't think I could go through another twenty-four years with more deaths. I know how selfish that sounds, leaving Katniss and Peeta with the sorrowful job of mentoring tributes only for them most likely to die. But at least they would have each other. And I would always be on board to mentor the mentors.
It was another half hour before they decided to eat again, when they broadcasted the deaths.
"There won't be anything to broadcast," Katniss told the boy.
Nothing to broadcast? What was she –
Oh no. She didn't know. She probably didn't hear the canon go off with the thundering going on. I've been so focused on the two and myself that I haven't mentioned the other activity happening in the Games. After showing some surprising emotion over his fellow tribute's death, the 2 hunted down Thresh in the field, after avoiding it before. Taking him two days, eventually the 2 was able to track him down. Thresh was able to put up quite a good fight. The boy broke the news to the girl, but she didn't believe it until she saw it for herself. She slumped against the wall.
"You ok?" The Boy asked.
Of course she wasn't ok! What kind of question was that? I knew that the boy had left some impact on her, the boy that spared her life. The girl did her best to hide her grief. Rue was one thing. She was her ally, but Thresh was her opponent, so she just made it out as if she would have wanted Thresh to win if they couldn't, for what he did, and for Rue. She also reckoned that the 2 had been wounded as Thresh wouldn't have gone down without a fight, plus they were in his territory. The boy wondered how the 5 was doing, but the girl was sure she was fine. As the boy took watch and she covered herself in the sleeping bag, I wondered if she was taking a moment to express her real emotions.
It was breakfast next morning when the reporters came, dragging me out to interview me over the boy and girl. It had been a long time since I last had a tribute that lasted to the top 8, and to be honest I was too drunk at the time to remember what they had asked me. They asked me the usual questions, such as what I thought of them when we first met, and how did mentoring go, to which I gave nothing but praise. I might had exaggerated somewhat, especially regarding the girl! They also grilled me over my strategy, like how I withheld water when the girl needed it the most, to which I lied and said and that we had set up a way of communication during the arena, for example if I withheld something it meant that she was close by the resource. They also question me over how I seemed to have decided that the girl had a better chance of winning than the boy.
"Oh no," I replied, "They both had equal chances of winning."
"Then why did you choose Katniss to help rather than Peeta?"
"Peeta and I had already agreed beforehand that it was Katniss he wanted to live, and so between us we decided to do all we could to get her home."
Even though it was an outright lie, it was the sort of thing I could see Peeta and me agreeing to do.
"So, as their mentor, did you suspect before that Peeta was in love with Katniss?"
And there it was. We got to the juice of the real interview, what they really wanted to ask about.
"I suspected there was something between them during our first session."
"From Katniss, too?"
"Oh yes."
"So do you believe that Katniss was as madly in love with Peeta as he was with her?"
"Without a doubt."
I'm pretty sure that Katniss wouldn't mind me lying that she has been madly in love with him all this time. And it was a lie, as I did have doubts.
The session lasted about an hour.
"Anything I missed?" I asked Effie when I came back.
"Not much. They had goat's cheese for breakfast. I had no idea that Peeta's family had it so tough. Did you know that all they ate was stale food?"
I did, but only from Maysilee. Seam had it worse, in my opinion, but there was something depressing about eating nothing but stale food for your life.
How long has the games lasted? Sixteen days. Mine were over in seventeen. Perhaps this would be the same for the kids.
I thought about what would happen after the games, when all the cameras will go off, what will happen between the two? Does the boy know that the girl has been somewhat faking having feelings for him? I doubt it. Even if he did suspect that's what was going on at the beginning, right after the rule change, I thought at this point he's been sucked into the romance himself, convinced that the girl he loves loves him just as much. And then I imagined the girl's reaction, thinking that the whole thing was just an act and discovering it wasn't. I pushed the image out of my head. That was a worry for another day, after they win.
