The Hunger Pangs - A Parody

21

In the remaining hours before nightfall, I grab some battery packs 'n crap, neon lights, whatever I can salvage out of the Corn of Copycans the Carers didn't want and thus I didn't blow up and go back to the cave before they begin to set up for the Banquet. I basically hang fairy lights and put neon signs around the cave, flashing blue and red and electric lime all over the arena. Eh, I just want Peebo to feel safe and be able to see in darkness.

I just hope I don't die at te Banquet. If I do, District 12 won't have a victor. I'm the one saving Peebo here, and without medicine...he deeeeaad.

Anyways I make some smores and I'm off to the races; on the way I think about things I'm fairly certain of. Tainto, Clymidia, and Trash will definitely be on hand when the Banquet starts. I'm not sure about Foxyface. Direct confrontation isn't exactly her forte. She's way smaller than me and also unarmed, and also a furry, so she's a pretty easy target. She won't go in and reap the spoils and expect to get away.

Hey, but somebody has to retrieve their pack first, right? I hold Betty 2.0 close to my heart. She'll know what to do when Clymidia or Tainto or even Trash run in. But Tainto knows I took the machine gun from Kimberly's body. If I shoot someone up with bullets, that huge grundlecake will totally come after me. 
Spirits must be running high. We rarely have people to root for District 12 this late in the Games. Surely people are getting excited about Peebo and me, especially now that we're together. If I close my eyes I can imagine Grease Cap and Badger. The old woman cheering us on and flicking some grease at the screen for good luck. Badger, baring her teeth and chewing her arm off in anticipation, getting a good rise out
of me and Peebo's romance.
I wonder what Dale thinks of it.

I position myself in a patch of shrubs, waiting as the sun begins to rise over the horizon clouded by trees. I don't even look ino the clearing, but when I do, I am thoroughly surprised.

The Partygoers are all sitting at a long wide table, feasting on roast turkey and other stuff. I see Clymidia sitting next to Foxyface and Trash across from them, drinking wine and talking. Then it seems Clymidia notices me just as she swallows a breadstick. "Oh Kantmiss! Welcome to the Banquet!"

I run to the table and gorge myself, taking a seat next to Trash. "Man I am starving!" I exclaim. "What's going on here? I expected, like, a lot of killing."

"Well, Clogged Toiletsmith doesn't want any boring deaths, like starvation." Clymidia offers me some wine with a cordial invitation. I decline. "So this Banquet was brought on."

"Where are the backpacks?" I ask her. Foxyface and Trash just seem to be eating quietly, the ones who I've never heard speak.

She points to the end of the table, where four backpacks sit. 2, 11, 5, 12. "Don't worry, I'll kill you after we eat."

Foxyface is the one to finish first so she exits the table and cleans up her dishes, then takes her pack and walks away.

Trash is the next one to finish, so he takes 11 and runs away as well. Now it's down to me and Clymidia, and soon we both finish, and the table is lowered into the ground. Betty 2.0, strapped over my shoulder, is raised at her.

Now!
I quickly sprint to my backpack and grab it, hoisting it around my wrist, and try to turn away until Clymidia catches me in the eyebrow with one of her knives. It opens a gash and immediately blood flows down my face.

Clymidia slams into me, pinning me to the ground. And I flop around for a moment like a dying fish until she holds me down. "No! I will not die this way! I'm so close!" I cry out.

"Where's your boyfriend, District Twelve?" Clymidia asks me, a knife to my throat.
"Um, well first of all," I say, "we're not dating. He's kind of just all over me, you get that right?"
"I gotchu girl," Clymidia says. "Tainto is always all over me."

"Yeah but Peebo does it in a creepy way," I tell her. "But anyways, you asked me where he is right?"

"Yeah..." she says.
"He's in a cave down by the river," I tell her. "You'll see the Motel 77 sign right up above! Can't miss it!"

She jams her fist into my windpipe and carelessly wipes some blood from my wound. "Kimberly liked him you know," she says. "And I liked him too! But you stole him from me! I mean, after the backpackers took her out, I wasn't even trying to kill you anymore! I was ou trying to find Peebs!"

I can barely speak; my voice is hoarse when I speak, "Only I call him Peebs..."

"Shut up," she whispers. "And anyways, he's nearly dead. Tainto knew where he cut him." She opens up her jacket and pulls out a knife. "What's in the pretty little backpack? Medicine for Blubber Boy? Too bad he'll never get it!" She surveys my face, and tries to find out what pattern to carve on me. "Now I have the Pinewood Derby next week. I have to make a car out of a block of wood. Would you mind being said wood?"
I shake my head, and then try to unseat her. At least my death is going to the scouts.
She pushes me down again. "Forget it, Katpiss..."
"Why does everyone call me that?" I ask.
"Because you smell like it." She fans her nose and then snarls. "Anyhow, I'm going to kill you, just like how we killed your pathetic little ally. What was her name? The one who kept stalking Tainto?"
"You saw that?"
"You thought she was concealing herself well?" Clymidia asks. "Ugh, what was her name?"
"Rudy," I say. I almost forgot it myself.

"Rudy! That's it!" She purrs. "First Rudy, then you. Then we'll let nature take care of Blubber Boy. Sounds good?"
I give her a thumbs up.
"Where should I start, Katpiss?"
I shrug, but she already knows where she'll start. Why would she even ask me, then?
"I think," she almost purrs. "I think we will start with your mouth." She traces the outline of my lips and I know that now I won't make it to the party. Dale must be laughing at me right now. My mother just stiff and unmoving, and my sister moving out of the sink and into my room right about now. I'm a goner. "Wanna blow Blubber Boy one last kiss?" I spit in her face. "All right then. Let's get started."

As she begins to cut my lip, some great force yanks her body from me and she's screaming. Dangling a foot above the ground, Trash is holding her, and she cannot move. Haybail sends me a silver parachute with more popcorn, but it has to be microwaved. "Wait!" I cry, and Trash gives me a look of stark confusion. I run over to the microwave in the Corn of Copycans and wait for the bag to inflate as I run over and watch the show, popping some kernels in my mouth. "Resume."

Trash shouts now. At Clymidia. "What did you do to Rudy? You kill her?"
Clymidia says, "No! No! It wasn't me!"
"You said her name," Trash shouts. "I heard you! You kill her? Cut her up like this girl here?"
"No, no, I!" She then sees the basketball hoop attached to the Corn of Copycans and she loses it. "Tainto, Tainto!"
"Clymidia!" Tainto screams back. He's far away, and I know then that Clymidia is a goner.

"I didn't play basketball all my life for nothing!" Trash then leaps into the air, and slam dunks Clymidia into the hoop, and I know she's a goner. She's still alive, but barely.

Then Trash whirls to me. "What did she mean about you being Rudy's ally?"

"We teamed up!" I say. "Blew up the supplies! I tried to save her, but Marble got there first!"

Trash seems confused. "And you killed him?"
"Yes!" I holler. "And I kicked his weird ball body away from Rudy! Then I sang her to sleep and danced over her corpse."
"To sleep?"
"To death. I sang until she died. Y'know. And she even stole my TV, so no hard feelings, right?" I flinch as he nears me. "Do it fast, okay, Trash?"

He lowers his arms and backs away from me. "Just this one time I let you go. For Rudy!"

I grin. "Aww shucks. Thanks Trash."
"Clymidia!" Tainto's voice is much closer now.
"Better run now, hottie with the body."

"Did Peebo make that up?"
A pause. "Yeah." He then turns on his heel and runs away, and I do the same. Reaching the woods and turning back for a mere instant. Trash and both large back packs 2 and 11 have disappeared with him, meaning once Tainto is done mourning Clymidia--as he is now-- I am spared! Yay! I run into the trees and try to find the neon lights of the cave, and then my face meets the ground--slicked with my own blood.