Panem's Next Top Model

Chapter 2: The Entire History of Panku and Katooshka

Panku lives under a huge rock in the more privileged and rich section of District 12 nicknamed The Cheese and his family lives in a fancy house nearby. The last time I talked to him was two years and seven months ago, when I was 14 but I had known him since I was 12.

Back then, a year older than me at 15, Panku was a well- known drug addict. The only reason he had access to these is because he lived in The Cheese. He even dealt sometimes. I had known him since grade 6. He used to smoke even as a sixth grader, I believe.

When I stepped into my new school on January 13th 3019, as a bitter 12 year old who had no desire to be in that particular school and had a lot of pent up resentment regarding her change of schools, I was entirely alone in this vast sea of district 12 students who already knew each other from before.

You see, I used to study in a different school with an entirely different class of people with entirely different mentalities and upbringing. It was so difficult for me to match with these people of Daku District 12 Middle School. Everyday, I was just looking for someone to befriend.

One such day, I met a short girl named Leanna who was one of the only people in my section who had instagram. I thought that was amazing because I thought by talking over instagram with schoolmates, I could easily get some friends. Eventually, I found small, ugly, little druggie Panku Mallarkey Knob from Leanna's instagram.

I followed him and started talking to him on 28th April. We talked quite a lot and perhaps even became internet friends. I thought he was pretty chill and cool and liked his humour. We never talked in real life although I really wanted to.

So, one day, during school recess, I was standing in the hallway. Panku was standing next to me surrounded by a bunch of girls from other sections. He had a lot of friends and a lot of girlfriends too. The bell rang signalling the end of recess, the girls left. I turned to him abruptly and we made eye-contact. I low-key didn't know what to say so all I ended up saying was "Were you talking to that many girls at once?" He shrugged and said "Yeah?" and walked back into class. I was NOT the person to ask weird shit like that I just didn't know what to say.

Later that day I went home and apologized for the very awkward "conversation" but his Pankuass did not seem to mind.

Months later, when sixth grade was almost over, I had heard this guy named Maha from our class making rape jokes. Maha was a good friend of Panku's and since I used to be this girl who stood against all injustice and whatever, I texted Panku and confronted him about the rape jokes.

Pankuass replied, "You won't get it unless you're an OG". Like girl, THANK GOD I'm not an OG I don't wanna get rape jokes, darling. After that, obviously, I unfollowed him and didn't talk to him again for about a year or so.

That was 3019. In 3020 due to the David-19 pandemic, when online classes were going on, one day our class teacher mentioned one of our classmates was sick and currently in a  hospital. Now, I didn't know who this classmate was but I got worried and decided to try to find out who it was.

Back then, we had a class group chat in Instagram with all our students. As soon as I entered the group chat Leanna and another friend of Panku's named Pronto kept saying things like "don't do this ever again", "why did you do that" addressing Panku.

Now since Leanna was still a friend back then, I decided to text her and ask what the fuck happened but she wouldn't tell me a thing. So I decided to go to Panku's profile and try to find out for myself. When I viewed his story, it was a selfie showing just his forehead and a caption that said something like "tried to kill myself" or something like that.

Now I thought this guy was OD-ing or something so I texted him right then and just casually asked, "Hi, how are you?" This mf responds like a ray of sunshine bro I'm not even kidding. He says "heyy I'm good Alhamdulillah. What about you?"