Garden of Eden

Chapter 22

When I wake, dawn is still several hours away. Sitting up, I see Haymitch pacing in a circle.

Probably to keep himself awake, I figure.

"You can rest now," I say, loud enough for him to hear.

He stops his pacing and looks at me. From the look on his face, Haymitch is about to protest before thinking better of it.

He lays down, head resting on his pack.

Soon I hear even breathing, as I carry on keeping watch. It's an incredibly tedious task, but an important one at that. Where you have a person's life placed in your hand.

Time just seems to move slowly, even with me willing it to go faster. I impatiently wait for the sun to rise, commencing a new day.

There's not much fun in sitting around uselessly.

I stare up at the sky. Despite the fact that the sun will rise soon, the sky doesn't appear to be brightening at all. From what I can see, there is a gloomy grey in the air. Minutes later I distinctively feel a little drop of water land on me. It is quickly followed by more before I realise that it is raining again.

With a grin I look over to Haymitch, expecting him to wake up very soon. Sure enough, he shifts about in his sleep before the rain wakes him.

Haymitch looks to the sky, the corners of his mouth curved upwards in a smile.

"We should collect as much rain as we possibly can," I tell him.

He nods and we both pull out all the bottles we have from in our bags.

I uncap the lids of all the empty orange juice bottles and allow them to be filled with rainwater. Digging into my bag, I find the funnel we recently got and place it into the mouth of a bottle, speeding the process.

Haymitch digs a small hole, much like the last time he did when it rained. This time, he uses the vinyl sheet recently accumulated rather than his jacket to collect the much needed rainwater.

Digging further into my backpack I discover all the way at the bottom the bowl I originally left the Cornucopia with. I laugh, remembering how I had initially overlooked the bowl, not knowing what to do with it. I place it out in the open, allowing it to fill with rain. Once it fills, I eagerly drink it. I leave it to fill up again. Then I offer the full bowl of rainwater to Haymitch.

"Here," I say with a grin.

He grins back before taking it. "Thanks," he says. He drinks it in one mouthful before passing back the now empty bowl.

We then tie a jacket to two trees, again, much like before. I place Haymitch's bottle on the ground where lots of rain falls when the jacket is lifted by a corner. He holds up the jacket.

We are soon alternating between holding up the jacket and drinking from my little bowl.

The rain lasts a long time, more than enough for us to fill every one of our bottles to the brim.

Once I cap off the small orange juice bottles, I pass off half of them to Haymitch.

At first he protests, but I eventually wear him down enough to convince him to take them.

Satisfied, and with all the bottles packed away, we sit down to eat.

The rain stopped around the time we finished salvaging the rainwater. Now the sun shines warmly, drying the world of the recent rain.

We sit on a relatively dry rock and split a drop biscuit. Then I eat a little more raccoon meat, wanting it make it last for longer. Unsurprisingly I still find myself hungry. It's not anything I'm not already used to, having come from District 12.