The YouTube Hunger Games

Chapter 24 - The Recap Chapter

Day 5 6:54am

Tyler Oakley

Kpopp - Kelly Reynolds

Smosh - Ian Hecox

Pewdiepie - Felix Kjellburg

Shane Dawson - Shane Yaw

itsGrace - Grace Helbig

The Syndicate Project - Tom Cassell

Jenna Marbles - Jenna Mourey

Minx - Michelle

Sancia DuPont and Cory Snow sat in the corner of the brightly lit control room huddled over a computer. A computer with the powers to remove every atom of oxygen from the arena. However, they sat at this computer and responded to the comments on the YouTube Hunger Games live stream. Of course the games gathered millions upon millions of views and with those views came the thousands of comments: "Is this real?", "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUTUBE?!?!", "NUUUU NOT HANNAH!!! GOODBYE HARTBIG!!!", "OMFG WHY DID ADAM HAVE TO DIE?!?! HE WAS THE ONLY REASON I'M WATCHING THIS BULLSHIT!!!", "Is that what a dead body looks like?". Under every somewhat negative comment, they would respond with a sentence commanding the commenter to do such terrible things to themselves in some form or another.

The room around them was alive with the clacking of keyboards. A sea of faces highlighted with the blue lights of their computer screens. Pupils zooming in, out and around like a swarm restless flies. On the front wall is a screen bigger than one at an IMAX theatre. The screen is cut up into ten separate screens the size of a large TV each showing one of the remaining tributes and one showing the cornucopia. In the middle of the room was an enormous circular table with a 3D topographic map of the games. 9 tokens were scattered around the board moving ever so slightly to correspond with the movement of the tributes. A giant dome had been set up to protect the map from any unwanted outside obstructions.

The map is made up of ten islands of varying sizes forming a circle around the largest island containing the cornucopia. The ten islands are raised at different levels, the arena was designed like this so overtime the tributes would have to find higher ground as the water levels began to rise. What do you mean the water levels are rising? Ah, I'm glad you asked. Separating each island from one another is a giant ocean that is being fed every second by an enormous waterfall that puts Niagara Falls to shame. This circular wall of water not only prevents the tributes from escaping but it also gradually floods the arena. Already, the first two islands are completely submerged with half of the 3rd island covered in water. Only one token sits on this island. Grace Helbig. Her token moving slower than anyone else's.

Her wet suit is clinging to her bones as if it were her own skin. At a glance, her face could easily be mistaken for something out of the walking dead. Her eyes heavily outlined with black circles of tiredness, stress and grief. The grief of losing her best friend and ally, Hannah Hart as well as the lingering memory of making her first kill, Adam Skyler. Her hair is matted into a ball of barbed wire and her cracked dry mouth strung into a tight crease and showing no sign of breaking. It is a wonder that her legs are still managing to carry her through the shin-height water. Her steps are small and slow but she carries on. She gives a little sniff as a single tear rolls down her face. However, if she keeps going at this pace then she will eventually drown.

The 4th island is inhabited by Minx and Jenna. Minx's token hasn't moved for roughly ten minutes. Her screen shows the purple-haired figure resting her head in her hands as she sits atop a fungi-infested log. Not moving a muscle. Not making a sound. Slowly she gets to her feet, her arms reaching out for a cloth bag that rattles as it moves. They are her throwing knives. Her bag of weapons that have helped her take the lives of three tributes: Caspar Lee, Benni Fine and most recently, Hannah Hart. With the blood wiped clean she goes hunting for more. Jenna has a different story from the others. She was given an offer before the games which meant that she could either choose to have five tributes of her choice eliminated before the games or she could be delivered into the games three days after they started and be given basic supplies. Her decision took two hours to make but in the end, she chose the second offer. Her demeanour is well kept in comparison to the others. Her circles are not as apparent, her hair is frizzy but still tame and her stride still has a little bit of energy. On her back sits a hiking bag containing the the remainders of a full water bottle, a few packets of food, some bandages a fold-up axe and a few miscellaneous items. Jenna has managed to construct herself a sketchy-looking lean-to out of the leaves and branches around her that would easily collapse under the slightest gust of wind. She is wrapped up in her sleeping bag under the confines of her shelter trying to get some sleep in the morning sun.