The Hunger Games: Fresh Poison

Chapter 1: The Supper

If anything truly represented the reality of life in District 12, it was The Seam. A place that not even the brightest lights of the capitol could reach. So far away from the luxury and stability of The Capitol, that most living in the Capitol wouldn't be able to imagine it let alone know that it actually existed. The Seam could be identified not by the view, but first by the smell. You could be 30 miles away and still smell the burning of human feces and mouldy damp blankets as people who hadn't ever heard of a shower tried to keep warm in the harsh winter-like conditions that occurred once night fell. The people in the Seam mostly comprised of the elderly and sick, the most vulnerable and poverty stricken members of District 12, who had no where else to go. 'In the early hours, the place crawled with coal miners heading out to the morning shift, Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many of whom had long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails and the lines of their sunken faces.' It spanned for about 100 metres, just one long stretch of shanty houses, open fires and black markets where children sold cole dust stolen by their fathers and brothers in the mines where they worked for hours at a time, breathing in the dust, letting it fill up their lungs until they were as black and sticky as tar for nothing. 

The sounds of hoarse male coughs and Children crying from starvation was almost comforting to the 16 year old Haymitch Abernathy at this point. It reminded him that he was already born at the bottom, so really it could only get better from here on out right? The Abernathys lived on the West end of The Seam Strip on the bottom floor of a multi-storey shanty house, that was so fragile it shook if someone sneezed too hard. The three of them shared the crumbling house with a family of five who lived in the two storeys above. Mrs Abernathy had given them the bigger space after Mr Abernathy had died in a coal mining accident. The downstairs space consisted of two rooms; a kitchen that also substituted as a dining room, lounge and bedroom for Mrs Abernathy, and the second; a bedroom shared by Haymitch and his brother in the far back of the house back that had a bed and a wardrobe inside. 

It was daybreak, so just like every other Saturday, Haymitch had been given the task to collect the week's groceries by his mum. They could afford more now that he had been saving up his earnings from his shifts in the mines. He'd only been working there for 2 years, but the weekly pay wasn't half bad, I mean it wasn't anything like Capitol money but it could get you a loaf of bread and a pidgeon or two at the Seam market if you were lucky. The Seam market was located out in the open at the east end of The Seam Strip, it consisted of mostly old women selling out of the windows of their shanty houses or on the side of the road on tarps. The peacekeepers in Twelve knew it was there, but since most of the food being sold was rotten anyway, they never tried to shut it down. Haymitch arrived at the market, his hands were dry from walking in the cold early morning summer air for just a few minutes. He walked up to the usual stand where seven kids were already lined up, eager to get the first pick on the weeks food. Gaia, a hunchbacked, elderly woman with moles on either side of her cheeks that gave her the resembence of a spider with many eyes, opened up the shutters of the small wooden shanty hut to reveal a chopping board with an array of dismantled poultry. There were two pigeons, a whole pheasant cut in half down the middle and six chicken wings and two chicken thighs; she had saved the breasts for herself or whoever shot them. The presence of the meat caused an uproar as the children ageing from 8 to 16 all started begging for their cut.

"Alright, Alright settle down na'ur! You'll get ya'ur helping don' worry, ye won't starve!" Gaia shouted, patting her hands down loudly on the windowsill. The children suddenly quietened and one by one in a line asked for their cut of each bird before handing out the silvery coins they kept in their pockets. Haymitch was the eighth kid in line, he had already accepted he wouldn't be getting much when he arrived and saw the other children in fornt of him. His turn finally came after a 15 minute wait. he looked down at the cutting board, there were two chicken thighs left.