The next few moments are a blur. As the trapdoor opens beneath me and I fall through the floor, and then fall through more trapdoors in each room I land in, I find myself wondering why they rely on trapdoors so much here, and couldn’t they have the trapdoors link directly to one another instead of dumping me into small rooms that only seem to serve as anterooms for the next trapdoor.
But I have other things to worry about right now. I’m late for The Hunger But Mainly Death Games! Surely that comes with some form of punishment. I mean, what if they kill us? What if they just up and kill us before we even have the opportunity to be thrown into the arena and killed?
I land in what appears to be the floor underneath the arena, because I can see some roots dangling down. Oofie steps out of the shadows, pulls my face up to hers and says, “If anyone in that arena or any one of the millions of people watching on national television notices that you’re late, the agency is taking my cut. If that happens, I’m going back in time, drinking some reverse aging juice, getting picked for the Seventy-Fourth Hunger But Mainly Death Games, and killing you myself.”
Then I realize, Hey, aren’t we supposed to be outfitted with games uniforms and get certain provisions for the—SHOOMPF. Another trapdoor! Damnit! This one’s in the ceiling but still, come on, what ever happened to normal doors?
When I open my eyes, I discover I’m in a lush green field. Around me birds chirp, and I can smell the sweet scent of robotic pine. For a moment, I’m transported back to the idyllic summers in Slum 12 I had as a child. But the time for flashbacks is over. Sometimes, you need to actually let the plot move forward.
I look over my shoulder and see Pita, who’s a little freaked out, but still managing to do the sign language for “I love you” at me. Behind him, maybe 100 meters away, are the other sacrifices. Weirdly, they’re all just kind of milling around a big table covered in food and supplies. This must be the—
“Hey, everybody! This is your announcer speaking! Before we begin the Seventy-Fourth Hunger But Mainly Death Games, I wanted to tell y’all about some of the totally hip changes we’ve put in place!
“Some of you may have heard of something called a ‘Cornucopia.’ But am I the only one who thinks the word Cornucopia is so lame? What is this, a death tournament for dads? That’s why we decided to ditch it! And we’ve replaced it with something totally awesome: the “TeenZone.” Like the Cornucopia, the TeenZone is that hip spot-izzle for all your tournament-izzle needs-izzle—but with a fresh teen attitude!
We all peer around, trying to see what he’s talking about. The only thing for miles is a fold-out table. It must be that. A disposable plastic tablecloth hangs over it. I guess they were trying to make it scary-looking, because it has a print of a cartoon Frankenstein on it. But he’s carrying a heart-shaped box of chocolates in his outstretched arms towards a Bride of Frankenstein, and he’s saying, “Will You Be My Valentine?” On one end of the table there’s a tray of orange and purple Jello Jigglers shaped like ghosts, and on the other there’s a bowl of Lays. In the middle, there’s a karaoke machine.
“I bet you’re pretty ‘pumped out’ for that new karaoke machine!” the announcer continues. “We used the money we would have spent on a death-announcing cannon to get it for you! We think you’ll have a swag blast gettin’ jiggy with it! And in the event that anyone in this tournament dies, a message will briefly scroll across its screen. We’re sure you’ll be using it so much that you won’t miss a single announcement. A sign-up sheet is on the clipboard next to it.”
Is there anything useful on that table? I’m actually having a hard time seeing. That’s because right in front of Pita and me is an enormous bird that I probably should have mentioned before describing all that other scenery. The bird is eight feet tall with big buckteeth. A trail of feces follows its footprints and its two eyes look in opposite directions. A mockstrich! Just like the one on the pin the mayor’s daughter gave me! This must be a good omen! It’s also the perfect animal to serve as the symbol of a rebellion, I think for no apparent reason whatso—MWAHMWAHMWAHMWAH.
Without warning, the mockstrich launches into its trademark song. Uh-oh. Not good. Not only has it now gotten the attention of all the other sacrifices, the song it’s singing sounds an awful lot like…
“Hey!” yells out one sacrifice. “Why are you guys late?”
And, as I’m about to respond and explain the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing and how it’s not true at all, the mockstrich starts up again,
MWAHMWAHMWAHMWAHMWAH.
“Oh man,” yells out another sacrifice, “they were kissing! That’s why they were late!”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I try to tell them that no, we were not kissing, but it’s no good. The other sacrifices are just laughing too hard. And it doesn’t help that Pita is yelling out “Sorry, guys! We got carried away with the smooching!”
Finally, the laughter dies down.
“It’s good to have moments of levity like this in a death tournament,” says one sacrifice, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
“Okay, but back to that death tournament,” says another, a sandy-haired, tall boy.
Everyone groans. “I know, it’s a drag!” the boy continues. “But this is the day we’ve been training for. Now, the other team could arrive at any second, so gather round, and I’ll lead us in a quick prayer.”
Other team? I don’t this guy has a very accurate conception of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games. But it’s probably better for me not to point that out, since many of the sacrifices are already stepping forward to join hands in a prayer circle.
“Heavenly Father,” he begins, as I creep towards the food table, “Please watch over us this afternoon, and, if it is Your will, please give us the strength triumph over the Watertown High Minutemen so we can move on to State.” I spot an orange backpack lying on the ground, and snag it. Noticing that it has an unexpected heft, I unzip and find it’s filled to the brim with freshly cooked meat. I shake my head in disgust. The Capitol’s message is all too clear: we’re nothing but “dead meat” in their eyes. And maybe something about the importance of protein. I toss everything out in disgust. Now, if I can make it to the table and then the forest before these sacrifices realize—
“Um, attention, sacrifices. Attention,” comes the voice of the announcer. “You’re supposed to be killing each other. Just want to make sure that’s clear.”
The sandy-haired boy’s jaw drops. Off to the side, a sacrifice who’s been sipping a latte spits it out in shock.
“Wow…” the boy says, “This is so awkward…Crud…I mean, how do you guys even want to do this—GARGH!”
He’s cut short by Scar, who has leaped behind him, pulled out his spine, wrapped it around his neck, and then stomped on his feet so hard that the pressure makes his head pop off and shoot into the sky.
“All right, rich kids! Let’s roll!” he shouts, beckoning to the other careers. They start sprinting towards the table, and my only option is to leap out of the way. Looks like I’ll have to put my hunting skills to the test in the arena, after all. While it’s nice to have them, I had sort of been hoping to “reinvent” myself here. But I guess I can still tell people that my nickname back home is “Coolgirl Awesomegirl.”
The other sacrifices can only watch as the big, bad careers take all the good stuff from the table. They take greedily take all the oysters, potato salad and milk and…and now that I think about it…they’re taking foods that spoil really quickly, and a couple six packs of beer. “Have fun with all the yucky foods, losers,” says Glamorrhea as she turns her nose up at a table full of beef jerky and canned food items that will last for years.
With the careers gone, the rest of us are left to calmly apportion out the remaining food items. Oh wait, never mind. Death tournament. Soon there’s a huge dogpile of sacrifices stabbing and eating each other. One kid uses his severed arm as a club to cave another kid’s skull in. One girl gets a grenade jam
med into her throat, so she runs up to a boy sacrifice, latches on to his face, and starts making out with him so that his head explodes, too. Meanwhile, one boy is knocked down on top of a dead girl’s body, only to discover that the girl is actually only paralyzed from the neck down—meaning she can still bite into his neck and sever his carotid artery. As he bleeds out, she drowns in the blood.
As I watch them maul each other, I can’t help but note how convenient it is that all the kids whose names we don’t know are getting killed at the very beginning of the Games. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s way too convenient…
Two of the nameless sacrifices appear to realize the same thing, as they abruptly jump out of the dogpile and make a break for it. The first of them doesn’t make it too far. Within seconds, a disemboweled boy from the pile throws his own intestines out as a lasso, and catches the boy around his waist, ripping his body in two. The second escapee, a girl, is luckier. She survives for a full ten seconds longer, before Capitol snipers quickly pinpoint the nameless escapee who is threatening to ruin the integrity of the Hunger But Mainly Death Games with a character we don’t know the name of.
“I have a name!” she calls out. “I have a name and my name is—”
POW.
The top half of her head disappears, sparing us from having to remember more than like five or six names.
I look off into the distance, and hey, it’s Mr. Sniper, from school!
“Best of luck in the tournament, Bratniss! All of us in Slum 12 are rootin’ for ya!”
“Thanks, Mr. Sniper!” I say, as I turn away from him and I run right into Pita.
“My love!” he cries. “Thank the sweet angels I found you! Quickly, let’s find some sort of kissing-cave! We’ll be safe in there!”
I can’t let this go on any longer. The Games have started, and there’s no time for games, except the Games themselves. And that’s when it hits me. The perfect plan. Because if Pita can say that we’re dating…
“All right, Pita,” I say. “I understand that we’re dating.” His eyes light up and he gasps in joy. I continue, “And now, since we’re dating, I’m taking this opportunity to break up with you. It’s over, Pita. You’re dumped.”
I gaze at him in satisfaction. In celebration of my newfound freedom to completely focus on the Games, I allow myself the luxury of ducking out of the way of a cloud of throwing knives.
But what Pita says next makes my heart stop.
“I understand completely, Bratniss,” Pita says. “If you love something, then set it free.”
“That’s not why I’m breaking up with you! Which, I don’t even need to do at all, since I never agreed to date you in the first place. I don’t—”
“Hold on, I’m not done yet. So you set her free and if she comes back to you, after you’ve tracked her down using the homing beacon you inserted into her body, slipping the beacon piece by piece through her morning skunk milk over the course of ten or so years, then yes, you are allowed to kiss her forever.”
Here I am, in the middle of the Games, and instead of killing someone I’m having to break up with someone I’m not even dating.
“Pita. You know that way you feel about me? I don’t feel that way about you.”
“You haven’t said you don’t love me yet.
“Okay, Pita, fine! Pita Malarkey, I do not—”
A booming guitar riff from the darkening sky cuts me off. I start to tell Pita I don’t love him again but I’m cut off by more guitar riffs. It’s a song from the Now That’s What I Call Jock Jams #441 album: America John and the SpaceWolves present “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Oh-hoooo say can you see, under the neon lights,
Big baby Jeeee-sus and his muscles,
Guns, apple pie, and then more guns,
For the la-hand of the free, and the home of the Year-Round McRib.
As the last chords of the song play, the announcer’s voice booms out of the speakers, “Welcome to the Sprint Nextel University of Phoenix Touchdown Jenga Arena Sponsored by Red Bull®!” The sky turns into a scoreboard, because apparently they can do that with science now. On the scoreboard is a grid with the pictures and scribbled names of all the nameless sacrifices killed.
As I scan the list of dead kids, trying to make myself sad in that way you have to when someone from your school you don’t know dies, I can’t help but notice most of the dead sacrifices have pretty forgettable faces. I have to hand it to them: they cast this book pretty well.
There are a few exceptions, though. I see one girl dyed her hair pink, meaning she must have had some real spunk. I bet she—wait, no, that’s just hair cancer. But here’s one: a boy who did a goofy pic where he’s holding up his glass eye! Or, wait, maybe the eye popped out and he’s trying to catch it right as the picture is being taken. Either way, he’s got this scream frozen on his face that looks really genuine and heartfelt. So, I decide to pay him the honor and respect he was so cruelly denied when he entered this godforsaken arena. I give him a name. It’s a small gesture, but I hope he would have appreciated it. Goodbye, “Screamy.”
Finally, I get to the bottom of the list, and there I see it: my name. Bratniss Everclean. Oh, no! I’m dead!
But then I look closer and realize I was looking at scribbles underneath the picture of some other generic looking brunette girl. Phew, that was close.
“And now,” booms the intercom voice in a gravely, monster truck derby announcer way, “for your Sharkorade Sports Drink Death. Of. The. Dayyyyyyy!”
On the floating sky billboard, a video clip begins to play. It’s Scar, wearing a Sharkorade jersey and helmet, using a sacrifice as a bat to kill another sacrifice, whose head shoots off like a baseball and tears the head off of another sacrifice in the distance. Somehow, the boy’s body then explodes, and the video ends as a pre-recorded voice says, “Sharkorade. Kill your thirst—IN THE FACE.”
The video ends and I’m left alone with Pita.
“I guess we’re stuck together forever, huh?” he says.
I walk through the forest alone, still holding the block of wood I knocked Pita the hell out with.
Anyway, I’m lost in the forest now. Sorry for not going into further detail, but it’s been a rough 72 hours. You know, you’re more than welcome to chime in with directions or advice. You haven’t been particularly helpful up to this point, reader.
But let’s set aside our differences for now, because while I’m trying to hide in a big tree, I suddenly hear the sound of footsteps. The loud footsteps of someone walking either very clumsily, or deliberately loudly for ingenious trap-based reasons which I can only begin to speculate on. Somehow, I have a feeling it’s the latter.
There’s no time. I’d better hide in the bushes across from me. OW! Pricker bushes! Time to try these other ones! OW! Knife bushes! Mustering all the speed I can, I rush over to some barbed wire bushes. OW! Barbed wire bushes!
Not a moment after I’ve made it back to the safety of the Ebola tree, the shadow of the mystery competitor appears. And it looks like he or she is carrying a hideous trident. Either they're coming to kill me, or there's a bail of hay that needs to be moved around. But when the figure steps out into the clearing, I see that I'm mistaken.
“Forkface,” I whisper. Luckily, Forkface doesn't hear me, because she's too busy stuffing mud and sticks inside her ears. Huh. I guess she must be trying to suppress her sense of hearing, in order to develop some new, and more useful super-sense, like radioactive night vision? As if to confirm her, uh, keen intelligence, she heads over to a huge patch of poison ivy and begins to eat it by the fistful—a sure way to keep any cannibalistic sacrifices away from her. Yes, that Forkface is a wily one. I guess. This can only be part of an elaborate and...intelligent trap? Well, whatever, best to sit and wait it out.
By the time Forkface has stripped the area of all the poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak, and moved on, night has fallen. Through what little light remains, I look around me and confidently dec
ide: I have no idea where the hell I am. I’d better walk to somewhere where I’m not so lost. But it’s hard, because it’s pitch black outside. I can’t walk more than four or five feet without tripping and falling over. Would it kill them to put some lights out here, for those of us wearing heels?
It’s also eerily silent. The only sounds are the crunch of leaves beneath my feet and my handbag’s occasional pursefart. All signs point toward death—big, smelly old death. Yep, ignoring the fact that several chapters remain, all signs point to my death, at any moment.
Suddenly, I hear voices. It could only be one thing: sacrifices, coming to kill me. I need to think quickly. Fortunately, thinking quickly is one of my strengths, which is why I’m sure there’s no way the huge, nest-like structure to my left harbors any wild or dangerous animals. I confidently walk inside.
Seconds after entering, I hear buzzing and, as I tiptoe through this structure’s hexagonal, larvae-filled corridors, the sounds of liquid sloshing and mouths gulping. Finally, I turn a corner, and there I see them, gathered around a keg of beer. This is no normal, safe-insect hive, after all! This is a hive full of Buzzerguzzlers!
I’d better give you some background on hybridations before I get to Buzzerguzzlers, though. A hybridation is an animal genetically engineered by the military science department of the Capitol. Over the years, the Capitol scientists have succeeded in creating a few moderately dangerous hybridations, and a few others, like the Mockstrich, that were pretty much a waste of time. These include Panta Bears, which are ant-sized pandas; Grizzly Mares, these horses with really tangly manes; and Kangaropes, which are ropes that bounce up and down and keep their little rope joeys in a pouch.
But Buzzerguzzlers? They’re actually dangerous: they’re super alcoholic flies, whose bite releases alcohol into your bloodstream and makes you hallucinate and go crazy in that way that alcohol does. But that’s not the end of it. If a Buzzerguzzler detects that you’ve consumed any alcohol in the last year, it will burrow inside your skin with its razor-sharp wing-claws and eat the surrounding flesh.
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