The pain was overwhelming. His head spun and throbbed. His hands shook. His body wretched out anything put in it, and every ounce of bile had been forced up through his esophagus, burning as it went.
But the shakes and the pain were just the beginning. He'd spent a quarter century numb to any emotional pain, blocking it out, being the poster child for the consequences of playing against the Capitol's arbitrary, unwritten rules, and now it all flooded back to him like he was drowning in a river of emotions and memories long since forgotten.
Wakefulness and sleep blended together, unsure what was dream and what was hallucination. Nothing was real. Nothing but the pain.
He could see his mother, still bleeding as she walked about the room, pale, tidying his things with a look of disgust and disappointment on her face. He threw himself at the cold, hard floor, intent to sop up the blood as it dripped onto the floor, only to find his fingers ghosting through nothing as the woman finished tidying and left, and he was left alone with his thoughts.
Thoughts of his kid brother haunted him. His brother was like a little chipmunk, always climbing places he shouldn't be and sitting atop them like a champion with his cheeks full of bread. Now it was ash, always ash pouring from his mouth as the boy chewed. His insides boiled to a crisp.
Haymitch wasn't sure what was real memories and what was the sudden withdrawal from booze forcing things into his head as is body tried to remember what it was like to function without it. He hadn't had to since he was sixteen. Once he was a victor, he had all the money in the world, he could do whatever he liked.
Sweet little drunken trysts with his girl, still tasting the strawberry wine on her lips, enjoying being able to be together in a warm, soft bed for once instead of their fumblings behind buildings in the Seam.
Two weeks. That was all they had. He'd been hurting after the Games but she was just so happy to see him alive, her smile was infectious and he found his mood rapidly improving and he deflowered her before he had even slept in his new bed.
But the wine on her lips turned to blood and he begged her for one more minute, one more kiss before she turned cold. He could taste the warm saltiness of blood on his lips long before he realized they were his own tears.
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