The Quater Quell: 50th Hunger Games

Chapter 30

       Demetria laughs as she digs and twists her axe into my gut even more. This was a fatal blow. I know I only had a limited amount of time before I would succumb to my wounds. This fight had to end soon and I would have to be the victor. If I didn't get the immediate medical attention that awaits in the hover crafts for all of the victors, I was dead.

          She laughs and rips her sword from my bowels. Her axe had bits and pieces of my insides still attached. My guts were falling out so I had to hold them in. I turn and half run, half crawl to my last option. I had lost my knife. It was still lodged into her eye socket. I can hear her crying out in pain. She throws my knife back at me but not far enough to hit me.

         I rely on my gut instinct, well what's left my guts, to throw one more quick plan together to save my skin. Cesar Flickerman's interview question pops back into my head. "So, Haymitch. With the games being how they are with twice as many competitors, does that worry you? "No, Cesar, it doesn't worry me. Being that there is twice as many competitors this year, that means they are twice more stupid. I think the odds are in my favor this year."

         I hope that is still true and that the odds are still in my favor. I'm counting on it. If it's true, than that means I can predict how this fight will end. Knowing what I've seen from Demetria I am guessing she will be tired and in pain. Hardly be able to see and that she is pretty accurate with an axe. Man, I hope this plan works.

          I lead Demetria up the slope of the cliff that leads to the canyon. She is getting closer and closer every second. She wasn't as mortally wounded as I was. I know she would die from her wounds but I would die first.

         I use one hand to hold my intestines in and the other to help push me up the cliffside. I look over my shoulder and see Demetria struggling now to keep up. She was having a hard time navigating blindly up the rocky terrain. She stumbled and would fall down and slide back a few more feet.

          She yelled something obscene at me but I couldn't hear her. I couldn't concentrate on anything. My vision was starting to fail me and everything was fading in and out between the real world and a blur. Demetria began to use her axe to help her climb the slope. She dug it in and pulled herself up. Crap. I don't know if I could make it to the top or not in time.

       I began to think of home and of all of my friends. My family and my ex-girlfriend Roseanna. I then thought of Raven. How she saved my life. I thought about my promise to the little girl who lived next to me and came to visit me before I was whisked away on the train. I promised her that I would try to win. She didn't want me to win because she cared about me, but because she had already lost her mother and two brothers to starvation. If I won, I would end hunger for the next year back at 12.

     Finally, I reach the top and crawl over to the edge of the cliff. The sun was just beginning to set. I can hear Demetria grunting and pulling her way up the slope and shouldn't be wasting anytime but I had to take a moment to take the beauty in. After all, it could very well be the last thing I see on this Earth.

      I can hear the girl with the axe finally reach the chateau that I was all too familiar with. I pivitoed myself on my knees and knelt down. Waiting. She stood and smiled at me. with a running start and the tell-tale sound of her battle cry, the girl named Demetria chucked her lethal axe straight at my head.

   I waited until it was only a few feet from me and lean to the side. It missed and went right over the cliffs edge and into the canyon. The girl smirked at me and walked closer to me. I counted in my head.

     One

      Two

        Three

      I slowly lean back and hear the air being pierced from the canyon below. I steadily keep my eyes on Demetria. Her smirk turns into a look of horror. Before she can react or even scream, the axe flies through the air and embeds itself directly into the face of her skull. Her body goes stiff and she collapses in a heap onto the ground below.

     The sound of her cannon sounds off from somewhere in the canyon behind me. A voice ringing out of the sky itself shouts, "Ladies and Gentleman. I present to you, the Victor of  this year's 50th annual Hunger Games. Winner of a Quarter Quell, Haymitch Abernathy, District Twelve!"

       I fall face first on a rock in front of me. I did it. I won. I have beaten 47 tributes in a fight to the death and have made history. I have saved my district from starvation for a whole year. I am alive. But for how long? How long do my loved ones have left to live if they were not killed already?

     Surely, President Snow and the Game Makers weren't happy with me by using their own force field against them and used it to win. I can feel my heart beginning to fail and my breaths coming short. I was dieing but not for long. I could see a hover craft appearing in the sky above me. I may have won the Hunger Games but I know, the real games are just beginning.