Hunger Games: The Second Quarter Quell - The Story of Haymitch Abernathy

Chapter 10: Allies

Haymitch had no idea what time, nor day it was when he regained consciousness, though voices could be heard immediately, and his reflexes kicked into action. 

Groggy and disorientated, he scrambled to his feet, trembling in pain, and dragged himself between a cluster of nearby trees as the voices grew closer. The two tributes – who he remembered from the first day, Savory Dammann and Fennell, from District 9 – would've seen him, should he have been any slower at concealing himself. 

Glancing around, Haymitch attempted to reorganise his clustered mind, realising the lava must not have reached this part of the woods after all. He had awakened in the exact location he remembered, though it seemed hard to believe that not a single tribute had seen him and gone for the easy kill. Maybe they assumed he was already dead. It seemed likely. There would've been a number of canons during the eruption, so it would be too hard for any one person to distinguish each one. 

Haymitch wondered how Connell felt right now; did he think he was dead? No, surely not; the Gamemakers had introduced new technology in the trackers which recorded vitals, after a Games not long ago where the victor had won by pretending to be dead the entire time, and jumping up on the last day to kill the only remining tribute. 

'Fooling the Capitol' was, ironically, no joke, when it came to the Hunger Games. Though Haymitch couldn't recall how that victor had been punished, he was sure it was probably brutal.

Haymitch was pulled from his thought suddenly by a small, beeping noise, which scared him slightly, and he returned to his senses, scanning all sides of him for some sign of this strange sound. 

But as nothing surrounded him, he glanced to the only other direction: up. And there it was: a small, metal container attached to a little white parachute floated down toward him, and Haymitch reached out an arm to catch it before it hit the ground. 

The woods were silent, now, and he fumbled with the metal clasp, finally clicking open the thing to reveal a small pot of some sort. A small slip of paper sat on top of it, which Haymitch picked up first, reading its words like the numbers on a winning lottery ticket.

For your burns. Use heaps.

- Connell

Haymitch recalled Connell's last words to him before he'd left he hovercraft: 'I'll try to get you some sponsors. I won't let you die. I have to visit District Twelve, remember?'

So Connell had kept his word. 

Haymitch glanced all around him with a grin, hoping at least one camera captured his gratitude for his mentor to see. 

Gratefully, he unscrewed the lid of the small pot, revealing a generous amount of a thick, yellowy ointment, which he dug two fingers into right away, pulling up the leg of his trousers with his other hand and flinching as the cool ointment met the raw, blood-encrusted skin of his right ankle. 

It hurt, but not as much as it did before, and for that, Haymitch was entirely grateful. He moved to the left ankle hastily, desperate for the ointment's smooth relief. 

He observed the state of his legs as he applied the cream: the skin had almost been burnt right off, leaving a shiny, red surface on every spot the stream water had touched. The stage of healing that it had already reached, however, implied that Haymitch had been unconscious for a little more than just a few hours. 

He made a note to use a little ointment on the singular spot on his hand, where the water from the bowl had splashed, before screwing the lid back on and chucking both it and the slip of paper into his backpack and resting backwards against the tree.