Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen Return to the Arena

Before my brain could fully react, my body reacted. In an instant, I rushed out of the room, crossed the lawn of Victor Village, and submerged myself in the darkness.The damp from the cold ground wet my shoes and socks, and the cold wind cut my face like a knife, but I didn't stop.Where are you going?where?Woods, of course.I ran to the edge of the isolation net and realized that I had been imprisoned like a trapped animal when I heard the buzzing sound.I stepped back in a panic, turned around in a hurry, and ran forward. When I regained consciousness a little bit, I found myself in the basement of an empty house in the village of Victor, kneeling with my hands on the ground.Faint moonlight shines through the skylight overhead.I was cold, wet and short of breath, and despite my attempts to escape, it did nothing to contain the madness inside me that would consume me unless it was released.I pulled the shirt into a ball, stuffed it in my mouth, and started yelling.How long I did this is not known; but when I stopped, I was nearly speechless.

I curled up sideways on the ground, staring blankly at the moonlight projected on the concrete floor.Back to the arena, back to that nightmarish place.That was my new place, and what flashed before my eyes was not the arena, but everything else: being insulted, tortured, and killed in full view; escaping in the wilderness, being chased by vigilantes and helicopters; Towers get married, and then our children are forced into the arena.I will never go back to the arena again.Why?This has never happened before, and the winner can never participate in the lottery ceremony for life.This is the contract to win the game.But now, everything has changed.

There was a piece of cloth on the floor that I had used for painting before, and I pulled it over and used it as a blanket over myself.In the distance, someone is calling my name.But now, even the person I love the most, I don't think about it anymore, I only think about myself and everything waiting for me. The cloth was stiff, but it kept me warm.My muscles gradually relaxed and my heartbeat slowed down.The little boy holding the box appeared in front of my eyes, and President Snow took out a somewhat yellowed envelope from it.Are these really the rules written for the Century Extreme Competition seventy-five years ago?Seems unlikely.That seems like an overly standard answer to the Capitol's current predicament.Get rid of me and bring all jurisdictions under its dominion.

President Snow's words echoed in my ears, "To remind the Rebels that not even the strongest of them can defeat the Capitol, the seventy-fifth Hunger Games Century Xtreme tribute will be drawn from among the existing victors elected." Yes, the winner is the strong.They escaped the circus, and escaped the poverty that weighed down the common people.If there is hope, then they, or we, are the embodiment of hope.At this time, twenty-three of us were about to be killed, which showed that even this little hope was nothing. I'm glad I only won the race last year, otherwise I would have met the other winners, not only because I would have seen them on TV, but because they are invited as guests by the Extreme race organizers every year.Even if not all of them will be mentors like Haymitch, most of them will return to the Capitol for activities.I think many of them have become friends.And the only friends I have to worry about getting killed are Peeta and Haymitch.Peeta and Haymitch!

I sat up abruptly, throwing off the sheet covering my body.What have I been thinking about?I'll never kill Peeta or Haymitch, but one of them will go into the arena with me, that's a fact.They have even discussed who will go.Whichever one is drawn first, the other has the right to replace him as a volunteer.Anyway, Peeta will ask Haymitch to let him into the arena with me, to protect me. I began to wander the cellar, desperately looking for an exit.How did I get in here?I slowly felt the steps leading to the kitchen and saw that the glass on the door had been shattered.My hand was sticky and seemed to be bleeding, it must have been from the glass.I finally rushed out into the night, straight to Haymitch's place.He was sitting alone at the kitchen table with a half-empty wine bottle in one hand and a dagger in the other, very drunk.

"Look who's coming. Enough of the fussing. Finally figured it out, dear? Finally figured out you didn't go to the arena alone? Look, you're here to ask me . . . what?" he said. I don't answer.The windows were wide open and the cold wind whipped at me like I was outside. "It was easier for the boy, I must admit. He came just now, before I had time to break the seal on the bottle. He begged me to give him another chance to get into the arena. But What would you say?" He mimicked my voice, "Instead of him, Haymitch, because chances are equal, I'd rather Peeta than you get a chance in the rest of my life, huh?"

I bit my lip and said nothing.Now that he hits it, I'm afraid that's what I'm trying to say.Keep Peeta alive, even if it means Haymitch dies.No, I wouldn't say that.Sure, he can be a nuisance at times, but he's become part of my family.What am I doing here?I wondered, what do I want? "I'm here for a drink," I said. Haymitch laughed and threw the bottle in front of me.I rubbed the mouth of the bottle with my sleeve, drank a few gulps, and then coughed loudly.It took me a few minutes to calm down, but the snot and tears were still running down my face, and the alcohol was on fire in my stomach, and I loved it.

"Maybe it's you who should go." I said honestly as I pulled up my chair, "You hate life anyway." "That's right," said Haymitch. "Last time I was just thinking about keeping you alive...as if I should save the boy this time." "That's a reason too." I said, wiping my nose and lifting the bottle again. "Peeta always felt that since I chose you, I owed him a favor. I had to do whatever he asked. And his request was to give him access to the arena to protect you," Haymitch said. I knew it would be like this.In this regard, Peeta's thinking is not difficult to predict.While I lay on the cellar floor wallowing in self-pity, he came here thinking only of me.Shame is not enough to describe how I feel right now.

"Even if you live a hundred times, it's not worth his life once, you know that," Haymitch said. "That's right, that's right." I said angrily, "I didn't say that, he is the noblest of the trio. So, what are you going to do?" "I don't know." Haymitch sighed. "Maybe go back with you, if possible. If my name is drawn, it doesn't matter, he will volunteer to take my place." We sat for a while in silence. "Going back to the arena must suck, right? You know everyone else?" I said. "Oh, I'm a nuisance everywhere I go, I'm sure of that." He nodded at the bottle. "Can you give me that back now?"

"No," I said, holding the bottle in my arms.Haymitch took another bottle from under the table and unscrewed the cap.It dawned on me that I wasn't here to drink, but to ask Haymitch to promise me something. "Oh, I remember what I should say, if it's me and Peeta in the arena this time, we're going to try to keep him alive," I said. Pain flashed across his bloodshot eyes. "Like you said, no matter how you look at it, it sucks. Whatever Peeta asks for, it's his turn to get saved. We both owe him that," I said, pleadingly, "Besides Well, the Capitol hates me so much, I'm pretty much dead right now, but he might still have a chance. Please, Haymitch, say you'll help me."

He frowned at the wine bottle, weighing my words in his heart. "Okay." He finally said. "Thank you." I said.I was supposed to go see Peeta, but I didn't want to move.Dizzy from the drink, and exhausted physically and mentally, who could say that meeting him would he force me to promise something?Now, I'm going home to face Mom and Prim. As I staggered up the steps, ready to go home, the door swung open and Gail pulled me into his arms. "I was wrong, we should run away," he said softly. "No." I said.My head was dazed, and the wine spilled from the shaking bottle onto Gale's back, but he didn't seem to care. "It's not too late," he said. I leaned on his shoulders and saw Mom and Prim hugging each other at the door.If I run away, they will die.And now I have to protect Peeta.Needless to say. "Yes." My legs were sore, and he supported me hard.When the alcohol finally worked its way through me, I heard the bottle shatter on the floor.The bottle fell just in time, and obviously, I had lost control of everything at this point. When I woke up, liquor came out of my stomach before I could rush to the bathroom.The vomited alcohol was as pungent and pungent as when it was drunk, but it tasted much worse than when it was drunk.After throwing up, I was sweating profusely and shaking all over, thankfully, most of the stuff was poured out of my stomach; but enough alcohol had entered the bloodstream, I felt dry mouth and heartburn Burning, splitting headache. I turned on the shower and stood in the spray of hot water for a minute before realizing I was still in my underwear.Mom must have just taken off my dirty coat and dragged me into bed.I threw the wet underwear into the basin and shampooed my hair.My hand hurts very much. I can only see that the palm of one hand and the side of the other palm are evenly covered with small thorns.I vaguely recall breaking a glass window last night.I scrubbed myself from head to toe until I threw up again.This time, what was spit out was basically bile, and the bitter bile mixed with the rich bath fluid flowed into the drain. Finally I rinsed off, put on my nightgown, and threw myself on the bed, ignoring my wet hair.I crawled under the blankets, thinking this must be what poisoning must feel like.Footsteps were heard on the stairs, and I tensed again like last night.I'm not ready to meet Mom and Prim.I'm going to pull myself together and look as calm and confident as I did when I said goodbye to them on the last Harvest ceremony.I want to be strong.I struggled to sit up, straightened my back, brushed my wet hair from my aching temples to the back of my head, and waited for Mom and Prim to arrive.They came to the door with tea and toast in their hands, with infinite concern on their faces.I just opened my mouth to make a joke, but I couldn't help crying. Stop thinking about anything strong. Mom sat on the edge of the bed, and Prim sat next to me in the bed, and they held me and whispered comforting words as they waited for me to finish crying.Afterwards, Prim took a towel, dried my wet hair, and brushed it out, while my mother coaxed me to drink tea and eat toast.They helped me put on warm pajamas again, put some extra blankets on me, and walked out of the room gently. When I woke up again, the light outside told me that it was evening.There was a glass of water on the table by the bed, and I drank it down.My head was still groggy and I was sick to my stomach, but it was better than before.I got out of bed, put on my clothes, and braided my hair.Before descending, I paused by the stairs, a little embarrassed by my reaction to the news of the Xtreme Century.I was running around like crazy, drinking and crying with Haymitch.In this desperate situation, I figured I could indulge myself one day; thankfully, there were no cameras. Downstairs, Mom and Prim hugged me again, but they weren't emotional.I understood that they were suppressing their feelings to make me feel better.Looking at Prim's face, it's hard to believe she's the frail little girl I left home on Harvest nine months ago.Through all of this pain and misfortune—the harsh realities of life in District 12, dealing with injured and sick ordinary people on her own while Mom was away—it all made her grow up quickly.She's grown a lot, too; in fact, we're about the same height, but that's not what makes her look grown. Mom filled me with a bowl of broth, and I asked for another for Haymitch.Then I walked across the lawn to his house.He just woke up and took the broth from my hand without saying anything.The two of us sat there, drinking the broth in a calm, so-to-speak way, watching the sunset outside the window.I heard someone moving upstairs and thought it was Hazel.But Peeta came down a few minutes later, and without a word, he threw a box of empty wine bottles on the table. "Okay, it's over," he said. Haymitch braced himself and stared at the bottles.I said, "What's ending?" "I dumped all the yellow soup down the drain," Peeta said. Hearing this, Haymitch was half sober at once, clutching the bottle, unable to believe his eyes. "You what?" "I dumped that thing," Peeta said. "He can buy more," I said. "Oh, he won't," Peeta said. "I found Ripper this morning and told her that if she tried to sell you two any more alcohol, I'd send her to the police. Plus, I paid her .I don't think she's in any hurry to get back into the bureau." Haymitch raised the knife to stab Peeta, but he was limp, and Peeta parried the knife with a wave of his hand.I also said angrily: "What does he like to do, what does it matter to you?" "It's about me. No matter how it turns out, we've got to have two of us in the arena and one to be the instructor. We can't have any drunks among us, especially you, Katniss," Peeta told me. "What?" I was furious, "Didn't I just get drunk once last night?" "Yeah, look what you've become," Peeta said. After the news of the re-entry was announced, I don’t know what reaction Peeta will have when I meet him, maybe he will hold me in his arms, maybe he will give me passionate kisses and say some comforting words, But I never expected him to be like this anyway.I turned to Haymitch and said, "Don't worry, I'll get you more baijiu." "Then I'll send you both to the jail, and put you in the shackles to get sober," Peeta said. "Why do that?" Haymitch asked. "I'm doing this because two of us are going home from the Capitol, a victor and a mentor," Pipita said. "Effie has brought me videos of all the victors who are still alive. , we gotta watch tape of their games, learn their survival skills, we gotta put on weight, get fit, and compete like the pros. No matter what you two think, we gotta have one of us win." His words hit Haymitch and me like a hammer, leaving us speechless. "I don't like self-righteous people," I said. "So what do you like?" Haymitch said, sipping the remaining drops from the empty bottle. "You and me, he plans to let us both go home," I said. "Oh, he's kidding himself then," Haymitch said. But after a few days, we agreed to play like the pros because that's the best way to get Peeta ready.Every night, we watch replays of the living victors from previous contests.I find it weird in retrospect that I didn't meet any of these guys when I was on the Victory Tour.I mentioned this to Haymitch, and he said the last thing President Snow wanted was for Peeta and me—especially me—to join forces with other potentially dangerous precinct victors.The victors are people of special status, and if they support my rebellious attitude, it will bring political risks to the Capitol.We also took note of the ages of the winners, finding that some were older.It's sad, but also reassuring.Peeta took extensive notes, Haymitch volunteered information about their personalities, and little by little, we began to learn about the contest. Every morning, we run and lift weights to exercise and strengthen our bodies, and every afternoon we practice skills such as knife throwing, hand-to-hand combat, and fighting; I even teach them to climb trees.Theoretically speaking, "tributes" are not allowed to train, but no one came to interfere with us.In previous competitions, the players in the first, second and fourth districts even mastered the skills of throwing spears and fencing. Compared with this, our little practice is nothing. After years of self-destructive living, Haymitch's physical fitness is difficult to recover.Sure, he's still strong, but he's out of breath for even short distances.I thought that a person who sleeps with a knife must be very fast, but his hands are shaking badly, and it took a few weeks to practice this alone. Peeta and I made great progress with this new training method.We can finally deal with it positively, instead of sitting still.Mom made us special diets to put on weight; Prim massaged our aching muscles; March stole the Capitol newspaper from her dad and predicted we were favorites to win; Also featured in the Sunday papers, and even though he doesn't like Peeta or Haymitch, he also teaches us how to play tricks.Talking to Peeta and Gale at the same time gave me a weird feeling, but they seemed to have put everything about me behind them. One night, as I was walking Gale back to town, Gale even admitted, "It might be easier if he was hated." "And you said, if I could have hated him in the arena, we wouldn't have all the trouble we're in now. He'd be dead, and I'd be the happy victor." "And what about our future, Katniss?" Gail asked. I muttered, not knowing how to answer.Gale wouldn't be my "cousin" without Peeta, and what would happen between me and this fake "cousin" without Peeta?In that case, would he still kiss me?If I had the freedom to choose, would I kiss him too?Paralyzed by being a victor, guaranteed money, food, security in every situation, would I still open up to him?However, no matter what, we and our children will always be haunted by the horror of the Hunger Games.Whether we want to or not... "Go hunting, like every Sunday now," I said.I know that's not what he meant, but it's the most honest answer I can give.Gail knew I would choose him over Peeta if I ran away.But it doesn't make sense for me to talk about what might happen.Even if I kill Peeta in the arena, I don't want to marry anyone, I just want to save people's lives.But the result backfired. I feared that any emotional provocation to Gale would prompt him to take radical action, such as starting a riot in the mines.But as Haymitch said, the conditions for the riots in the 12th District were not ripe, and the situation was even more so after the announcement of the Extreme Race of the Century, because on the second day after the announcement, the train brought in another 100 security police. I no longer expected to come back alive a second time, and the sooner Gail let go of me, the better.In fact, after the lottery, I was supposed to have an hour to say goodbye to my family and friends. I wanted to say something to Gail. I wanted to tell him that he has been very important to me all these years. Fucking him - even in limited circumstances has made my life pretty good. However, I never got such an opportunity. The day of the draw was sweltering, and the people of District 12 were waiting, sweating and silent.Many guns were aimed at them in the square.I, alone, stood in a small circle surrounded by ropes, and Peeta and Haymitch stood in a similar circle.The draw took only a minute.Effie wore a blonde, shiny wig without her usual vibrancy.She scratched in the glass ball containing the girl's name for a long time before she took out the note that everyone clearly wrote my name on, and then she caught Haymitch's name. Before he had time to cast a sad look at me, Peeta volunteered to take his place. We were quickly escorted to the courthouse, where Sergeant Stride was waiting. "New program!" he said with a smile.We were taken out the back door into a car and taken to the train station.There are no cameras on the platform, and there are no send-off crowds.Haymitch and Effie, escorted by the security police, also came to the station.The vigilante urged us to get in the car and slammed the door.The wheels start turning... I looked out of the window and watched District 12 disappear from my sight, but I haven't had time to say a lot of farewell words...