The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody

by Bratniss Everclean

  And why is she always running toward things that are on fire, and rolling into things that are made of fire?

  And why is she constantly eating dirt? I just don’t see the tactical advantage of anything she does.

  Some part of me suspects that “take fork out, put fork in” song of hers doesn’t have even any other lyrics. I hope I’m not alone here, but I don’t think it’s a very good song.

  So, yeah, I’m not too worried that she’ll have gotten to Scar and P’rank before me. I guess the only thing to worry about now is whether the one who isn’t taken will be willing to date me. All they know about me is that that I tried to painfully murder them a day ago.

  And here I am, right at the clearing where their encampment is. God, I love books. From the edge of the forest, I can tell the two of them are engrossed in some kind of argument, but I can’t quite make out what they’re saying. I creep closer.

  “That whoopee cushion system you set up better protect our food supply, P’rank,” Scar is saying. “If anything happens to my ice cream, I’ll kill you.”

  I look behind him, and see mounds of rotting food surrounded by a perimeter of inflated whoopee cushions tied together with a string. The deviled eggs seem to be doing particularly badly, and something is writhing around inside the yogurt. P’rank goes over and stirs it.

  “Your ice cream will be fine,” P’rank replies. “See, I’m moving everything up to the top of the heap, closer to the sun’s preserving rays. Anyway, don’t we have more important things to worry about now? You heard the announcement.”

  So, they’re already going to start fighting over which of them will get the privilege of dating me!

  “Yeah, man,” Scar says, solemnly, “I’m a monstrous, scary dude, but even I feel sorta weird about, you know...going on the ground.”

  “I don’t think you have much choice,” P’rank says, “Use one of those lava-toilets and you’ll burn up like a moth in a flame.”

  Wait, what? This should be the least of their worries! I mean, the fact that they’re even mentioning it, it’s almost as if...they’re already taken. But that can’t be!

  “At least it’s the only problem we have to deal with right now. You’ve got Emily, and I’ve got Glam. Really gotta thank my sponsors for sending in a team of doctors to bring my lady back to life,” says Scar.

  But I saw her skull fall out of her head! And if Glamorrhea is somehow still alive, and dating Scar, this means everyone but Pita is taken! I should have known that even here, even in the face of death, the popular kids would still manage to date only each other.

  And that’s when Glamorrhea walks into the clearing. I can’t believe what I see: her head is literally just a skull with some blond hair. Even so, she’s still blathering on about herself. “I wonder who’s going to play me in the movie they make of this. Who’s that actress who was hideously disfigured in a car crash? Because that one can play you, Emily.”

  Emily nods sadly.

  “Sup bitches,” says Scar.

  Glamorrhea laughs. “Oh, Scar, you’re so very sweet. Now, won’t you be a dear and accompany me to the loo?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? The toilets are full of lava now, remember? Go behind a tree, or something.”

  “Preposterous! I’d rather die!” Glamorrhea says, raising her voice. “Aiming our poop into a bowl and then funneling it into a big tank of poop underground is the only thing that separates man from beast. Now, Scar, stick your hands out and receive my lady-droppings!”

  “Whoa!” says Scar, “I don’t know if we’ve reached that stage, yet!”

  Across from them, P’rank is trying to get to know Emily.

  “Emily,” he says, “Do you...like pranks?”

  “Pranks? You mean, like, walking slightly behind someone at all times? So you can be ready to brush her skull-hair?”

  “No, I mean, like, making someone think there’s a fart? Or any other butt gas,”

  “Ah! Like jumping in front of your friend and claiming her fart as your own!”

  P’rank shakes his head wistfully. I feel for them. As lower-level popular kids, they’re stuck with each other, even though they don’t have much in common. You might even say that it’s one of life’s greatest tragedies.

  Nobody’s paying attention right now, I can steal their supplies! All that rotten food looks pretty grisly, but there’s got to be something in there that could be useful.

  Just then, I feel something brush past my legs. I look down and stifle a yelp as a badger waddles past me and into the clearing. It’s headed straight for the food mound.

  “There’s no need to fear, Scar, my butt-treacle is as skinny and elegant as my figure,” Glam is saying.

  “Hey, look!” shouts P’rank. “It’s Bratniss!”

  Oh, no! They’ve spotted me! Wait, no, they’re pointing at the badger.

  “Are you sure that’s her?” Scar asks.

  “It’s obviously her,” says Glam, “I’d know that hobo haircut of hers anywhere.”

  “Where’s her loser boyfriend, then?”

  “Are you kidding? That cave we dumped him in might as well have been a tomb.”

  “Whatever, I’m still not convinced it’s—”

  At that moment, the badger reaches the perimeter, triggering the first whoopee cushion. A loud fart rings out.

  “Okay, that’s definitely her,” says Scar. “You know what they say: ‘If it looks like a badger and farts like a badger, it’s Bratniss.’”

  “And she’s farting on our food!”

  “Kill her!”

  Frightened by the commotion, the badger snatches a slice of green pizza, and scurries back towards the forest.

  “Do something, Scar!” yells P’rank. “She’s trying to escape to her farting den! We can’t get in there! It’s filled with too many poisonous Bratniss farts!” But Scar isn’t looking at the badger. He’s looking at the mound of food.

  I follow Scar’s eyes to the tipped over container and the puddle on the ground.

  “My ice cream,” he says, twitching involuntarily. “It’s...gone.”

  He turns to face P’rank. “You promised me. You promised me that you could make an impenetrable wall out of rubber bags filled with air.”

  “I didn’t say that! I said they would alert us in a funny way if someone got close!”

  Scar steps toward P’rank and...SNAP.

  He steps on a twig.

  Then, SNAP.

  Scar snaps his “Killing Time” slap bracelet onto his wrist.

  SNAP.

  He has paused for a moment to eat some fresh sugar snap peas.

  SNAP.

  Ahh, washing them down with a refreshing Snapple. The bottle cap teaches him an interesting fact.

  SNAP.

  “Scar, dearest?” Glam calls out, picking a few snap-dragons, which she probably means to wipe with. “Are you going to snap his neck or not? I hope you haven’t forgotten the condition I’m in.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  SNAP SNAP SNAP.

  Scar starts snapping his fingers in that “scary” way the gangs in West Side Story do.

  Then SNAP!

  Scar chomps down on a ginger snap before punching cleanly through P’ranks face.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Glam says, “Now, open up your hand that isn’t covered in brains, so I can deposit my womanly tushy-berries.”

  “Glam! Either go on the ground or hold it in!”

  “That’s easy for you to say!” shouts Emily. “Ever since Bratniss had your butt eaten off by flies, you’ve had a constant stream of poop running down your legs!”

  “Shut up, Emily,” Scar and Glam say in unison.

  “Now, as I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted,” Glam continues, “That’s easy enough for you to say. Ever since your behind was eaten off by those nasty little flies, you’ve had a constant stream of poop running down your legs. You’re a man, and it’s fine if you act like a barbarian. But I a
m a lady. Come now, Emily. We’re off to the washroom.”

  Emily runs after her.

  “What are you idiots doing?” says Scar, “Emily, get back here. Girls don’t always have to go the bathroom together. You know you’re committing suicide, right?”

  Emily looks back at him, through misty eyes. “And if I let her go alone, and she ran into a stall-dragon, then it would be murder.”

  And with that, Glam flings open the stall door. She and Emily step inside, and both girls comfortably go to the bathroom together.

  I’m kidding. They are killed instantly, by the lava.

  Somehow, Glam’s burning skeleton manages a few final words.

  “Farewell, ugly people. Oh, and Scar, I’m breaking up with you for not letting me poop in your hands. Wanker.”

  Even though these people mistook me for a farting badger, I can barely hold back my tears. No one deserves this. This must be so difficult for Scar. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to see that happen to your girlfriend and her sidekick, and to have been helpless to stop it. He looks up into the sky, visibly pained, and shouts, “YES! I’M SINGLE! I’M SINGLE AGAIN! Nothing can stop me from pooping any and everywhere!”

  He hops around and begins beating his chest and yelling, like one of those crazy humans we gorillas keep in the zoo. (I mentioned earlier that we’re all gorillas, right?)

  “And, now that I’m free, I can spend every waking hour hunting down that disgusting badger-girl who messed up my ice cream. And when I find her, I’m going to torture her to death.” He smiles happily.

  Hey, maybe Pita isn’t so terrible after all. He’s creepy, but in a relatively harmless way. And, my God, at least he won’t try to kill me! Besides, it’s not as if the Gamemakers said I had to fall deeply in love with him and have a perfect relationship.

  So. I guess it’s finally time to make Pita my boyfriend.

  The rain pours down outside the cave as I crouch over Pita. (Luckily, he was in the first cave I spotted.)

  “Come here to kiss me a lot, darling?” he asks weakly. “I...heard the announcement.” Ah, Pita. Always on, even when you’re lying in a pool of mud, gravely injured. I’ll have to learn to tune it out, though, since my life depends on dating him. But I’ve got to make him understand that it’s going to be on my terms. Those terms being that our relationship lasts for the duration of this tournament and not a moment longer, and that said relationship will not be kissy.

  “How's my leg?” he asks. “Am I still going to...have the moves like Jagger?”

  “Before I answer that stupid question, let’s make a few things clear,” I say. But right before I start explaining how it’s going to go, I glance down. What I see fills me with dread. Either Pita is covering his leg in a blanket of pulled pork, or he’s in serious trouble.

  Well, even so, I still need to lay down the law about this relationship business.

  But I never get the chance, because suddenly, the announcer’s voice rings throughout the arena.

  “Greetings, remaining sacrifices! I’d like to give you some wonderful news. You’re going home! All the parents in the country banded together and decided this tournament was too cruel. Of course, I’m only kidding. Now, please watch this footage we’ve secretly taken of your families learning how to be happy again.”

  I peek out of the cave and crane my head upward. One by one, images of our mothers, fathers, and siblings returning to normalcy crawl across the sky.

  There’s Pita’s dad, unscrewing Pita’s mom to reach her mainframe, and removing the black mourning chip that robots use to feel sadness.

  There’s Scar’s family, going to District 4 to chase some people with big lawnmowers.

  There’s Forkface’s little brother, helping his mom tinker with their homemade “Automatic Tablesetter XL77,” and the mom giving him this look like, “You know what? I have a feeling it’s going to work this time.”

  And, finally, there’s my mother and Pig. Mom’s tending to her new boyfriend, a gigantic cinnamon roll, and then accusing him of cheating, and then murdering him, and then Pigrose smiling as she has a nice Sunday breakfast for once.

  I let out a little gasp. My heart sinks. Seeing them and not being able to talk to them makes me feel like a ghost, only without all the fun haunting and making people go crazy powers. The announcer continues. “However, I do have a little bit of good news. We’re throwing you a special party by the TeenZone. There, you will each find something that you need dearly. Oh, and don’t feel the need to take a bath before you come…Because there’s going to be plenty of a certain red liquid to bathe in once you get here…and when I say ‘here,’ I mean the Murderbloodsuperkillbath Party. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

  Pita and I look at each other for a few moments. Then he turns away and closes his eyes.

  “I think I’ll take a little nap,” he says. “A nice, little nap.”

  “Uh…are you sure don’t you want to discuss this murderbloodsuperkillbath thing?”

  “What’s to discuss?” he says. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

  “The thing is, I’m sort of not sure if I should go at all,” I reply. “I mean, all that evil laughter at the end. It made it sound as if they’re planning something dangerous. And you know how our sponsors only give us the absolute crappiest things.”

  Pita whips around, his eyes filled with panic.

  “Please, Bratniss,” he says, grasping my hand and looking up at me beseechingly, “You have to go. There might be medicine for me there. The kind of medicine that heals a shredded leg.”

  “Does that actually exist, Pita?”

  “Yeah, it does! It does! If only I could remember the name! Legicillin? DoctorProfessorWizard Justin Bieber's Magic Leg De-Mangling Serum? Whatever it is, I know that it exists, and is not a figment of my going-into-shock imagination.”

  Before I can answer him, we hear a knock on the cave door.

  “Package!" a voice calls out. “Package for Bratniss Everclean, from her sponsors.”

  I sigh, and then make my way out into the light. The deliveryman is holding an envelope for me.

  “Hey, how's it going?” I say, scribbling my signature for him. “What is it this time? Some dust clumps to use as body armor? A strand of hair to use as a sword?”

  “Hey, I could ask the same about you and my Christmas bonus,” he says. I give a short courtesy laugh, but then I look up and see how pissed he is. “Do you know how dangerous it is for me to be bringing you crap out here?” he asks.

  I give a shrug and head back in. “Hey, there’s your problem. Stop bringing me crap,” I say, as a giant fireball smashes into his back. Inside I tear open the envelope and pull out a piece of paper. “Go get the medicine,” it reads. “It's your only chance to save him...and yourself.”

  “And?” I wonder.

  “And remember that if he dies, you die,” the paper says/it doesn’t actually say that, I hadn’t finished reading the whole thing.

  I sigh. “I guess I am going to go, Pita.” But he doesn’t reply—he’s already fast asleep, having a Power Rangers dream.

  “Rangers! As you know, I’m your leader and the best fighter,” he murmurs, “But I think I’ll sit this one out, so I can observe your skills and teach you how to improve.” Then, a moment later, in a whisper: “Phew. I’m glad I didn’t tell them the real reason I don’t want to go fight, which is that I’m too scared.”

  When I approach the TeenZone, there isn’t anyone in sight. Perhaps I’ve made it here before the others. I strain my eyes to see what they’ve got waiting for me on the fold-out table. And there, next to the dusty karaoke machine, crouches the medicine. Huh. Awfully tall and human-like for a bottle of leg-medicine.

  That hulking figure can only be Scar. I guess this is it. Please use the remaining blank pages to write your own end to my sad tale, or to write a note of condolence to me. Or, better yet, to make into a money-holding envelope that you put lots of money in and then send to:

  Aaron
Geary and John Bailey Owen, Scholars, Men of Letters, and Distinguished Authors

  - of -

  The Hunger But Mainly Death Games: A Parody

  Prisoner #330192 & Prisoner #49051

  Rikers Island

  Cellbock E-7

  Maybe include some guns, the kinds of guns that would be strong enough to blow up an entire prison wall. Thank you!

  I walk closer to the figure. “All right, Scar,” I manage. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” I shove him and, oh my God, he just topples over. I...I must have superhuman strength, because there’s no way Scar is that weak. I stand over his crumpled body and, right before I stomp down on his head to finish him off, I say to him, “Hope this doesn’t leave a scar.”

  His head folds in half and I realize that I’ve been fighting a Sharkorade life-size cardboard cutout of Scar. They must have propped it up in the TeenZone as a cool decoration.

  “BRATNISS,” a metallic voice rings out in the sky. “YOUR TIME HAS COME.”

  I look up to see a fighter jet bearing down on me, its machine-guns blazing. I leap out of the way, and watch as the pilot ejects, sending his jet hurtling into a nearby mountain. His parachute deploys, and he begins hurtling downs toward me. Scar! I rush to the table and grab the medicine, but he’s already on the ground, sprinting at me. He’s just too fast. Right as I’m about to reach the woods, he lays out and grabs hold of my ankle, pulling me down to the ground.

  It’s all over, I think.

  And then, a man emerges from the bushes. It’s a Gamemaker. He must be here to revel in my death, the sick freak.

  But to my surprise, he pulls a whistle out of his pocket and blows on it.

  “Kids? Kids?” he calls out. “Sorry, I’m gonna have to call a little ‘timeout’ here. I’m not trying to interfere, but one of our bear sensors around here was tripped, and we don't want to take any chances. So just hold up for a second while we look around, and—”

  At that moment, Bear emerges from the woods behind us.

  The Gamemaker freezes.

  “Do not go near that bear!” he hollers at us. “Back away slowly! No sudden movements! You hear me? Back away from the bear! Oh, but feel free to go near that pit of spikes over there.”