On the morning of the Games, Mags wakes the District 12 tributes and they put on their old training clothes for the trip to the arena. Haymitch quietly gives Maysilee Beetee's potato-light packet as a peace offering after deciding to leave the Newcomers behind. At breakfast, Lou Lou eats happily, too damaged to understand what is coming, while Wiress gives final survival advice and Mags offers a last, sorrowful farewell. Drusilla oversees their search and transport, and Capitol staff inject trackers into the tributes' arms before loading them onto a hovercraft.

During the flight, Lou Lou starts singing songs that Chicory from District 11 recognizes as her district's songs. That exchange strengthens the suspicion that Lou Lou is not really District 12's replacement tribute but a stolen girl from District 11. Wyatt and Maysilee explain that Lou Lou seems controlled through something in her ear, and Chicory sadly realizes the Capitol may be listening through her. The conversation leaves Haymitch convinced there is no good ending for Lou Lou, and he spends the rest of the trip thinking about Lenore Dove and his family.

At the arena complex, the tributes are separated into launch rooms. Haymitch notices the numbered doors, shares a final embrace with Wyatt, Maysilee, and Lou Lou, and then dresses in the thin black arena outfit waiting for him. Wiress's rhyme helps him remember his priorities: avoid the slaughter, get weapons, and find water. Effie Trinket rushes in at the last second to check his clothes, shows him a handkerchief hidden in his pocket, promises to try to return his token to Lenore Dove if he dies, and warns him not to step off the plate too soon.

When Haymitch rises into the arena, he finds an impossibly beautiful meadow filled with flowers, birds, soft scents, woods, and a snowcapped mountain. The prettiness immediately makes him suspicious, but he trusts Plutarch's clue about the sun and uses it to identify north as the direction of the woods. At the gong, Haymitch executes his plan: he snatches a spear, a knife, and a green backpack from near the Cornucopia and runs left toward the trees instead of joining the bloodbath. He refuses to look back even when the screams begin, because helping another tribute could ruin both his escape and Beetee's larger sabotage plan.

After reaching the woods, Haymitch hears eighteen cannon shots and realizes the opening slaughter was catastrophic. He checks the backpack and finds a hammock, binoculars, water, apples, eggs, potatoes, and charcoal tablets, then heads deeper north with the mountain at his back. Inside the forest, he confirms Plutarch was right about the berms and becomes angrier as he discovers that the arena seems packed with easy food and water, making his heavy pack feel like a joke. At a stream, however, the illusion breaks: a dove-colored rabbit drinks, convulses, and dies with blood on its chin. The sudden death proves that the arena's inviting beauty is masking deadly hazards.