Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games, its characters, or its settings.
Author's Note: Hello, all! This is the result of an amazing writing game which my family has unoriginally dubbed "The Plot Twist Game". Just so you'll understand why this fic is crazy, I will briefly state the way the game works. Don't worry; it's easy. All you do is start your prompt (off a picture or just randomly), and someone draws a slip of paper from a bag containing lots of plot twists. They select the writer they want the plot twist they drew to go to, and then that writer must incorporate the plot twist into their story. You end up with lots of plot twists, and the hilarity increases as you go. It's SO much fun, and this story is the result of my family playing The Plot Twist Game at our Easter gathering a while back. Remember, this is extremely silly! The plot twists I received will be listed chronologically at the end in case you're interested. Enjoy, and please don't forget to review!
. . .
The Plot-twisted Hunger Games
The suite where we'll be staying is more elegant and rich than anything I've ever seen. But considering the circumstances, I don't really take it in or give it much credit. As soon as dinner is over, I head to my room and, well, pout.
I keep up this pouty routine all throughout the days of training, refusing to acknowledge pretty much everyone. The interview with Caesar Flickerman goes by well enough, but even with my training score of eleven, I am not very optimistic. Yet I try to just think about survival and nothing else, and so it is that when I am lifted into the Arena, I have no emotion.
"Let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!" Claudius' voice booms through the Arena. The gong sounds, and we're off.
I rush towards a backpack and encounter the boy from District 9. He looks at me and screams, "Adios, Senorita!" as a knife slams into his back. I am quite confused by his statement, but I dodge a knife from Clove and rush into the woods without further thought. I am only a few yards into the trees when I crash into Peeta.
"Mellon nîn?" he asks, his expression full of confusion.
"What?" I inquire, cocking my head at his nonsense. "Aren't you going to team up with the Careers? And why are you speaking some unintelligible language?"
Peeta gives me a why-would-I-team-up-with-the-Careers-you-idiot look, but all he says is more rambling in the same unknown language.
"Attention, tributes," Claudius says over the loud speaker. "You will notice that all of you no longer speak the same language. You will not be able to resume normal communication until twelve tributes are dead."
So this has all been a ploy of the Gamemakers! Peeta seems to have understood the broadcast—did we all hear it differently, I wonder?—and we both just nod and start jogging away from the Cornucopia without further attempts at discussion.
As we go, my mind wanders, and I am confronted with a terrible thought. How do I know that I'm really in the Arena? What if the Capitol has me hooked up to a machine and this is all in my mind? What if all of reality isn't really real? What if I'm not real?
"How do we know this is real?" I ask worriedly, pulling to a halt and staring at Peeta, hoping for an answer.
"I don't know," he answers with a shrug. Twelve kids must have died, I realize. "But who cares?"
"Me!" I shout, exasperated and afraid of the truth. If there is any truth. Oh no!
Before we can continue the vital conversation, a figure suddenly appears out of the bushes to our right. He's not a tribute; in fact, he's middle aged with a strange uniform and a beard to match. I can't even guess what district he's from, and since he isn't supposed to be here, I wonder if we are expected to kill him. Will he kill us? But really, do any of us exist at all?
"Good day, children!" he calls to us, a grin on his face.
"Who are you?" Peeta asks, thrusting out a sword that I didn't even know he had.
"Thomas Jackson," the man replies. "You might know me as General Stonewall Jackson, though. But where am I, and where are my men?"
Neither Peeta nor I respond, and Stonewall seems impatient, like his "men" are in danger or something. He finally rolls his eyes, sighs, and waves his hand mystically in front of himself.
"You will tell me where I am and what is going on," he says to me. I suddenly must respond, though I have no idea why.
"You're in the Hunger Games," I answer stupidly. Why would I tell him that? It was never my intention to say anything!
He does the same hand-wavy-thingy again, and I find myself explaining the Games. Stonewall listens to all I tell him in silence until at last he nods his head as though he has come to a decision.
"We should go; if these "Careers" are near, we would do well to get away while I consider what to do."
"What do you mean?" I demand, suddenly very offended by his uncaring statement. "I am not a child! You can't tell me what to do!" Stonewall raises an eyebrow and does the hand-wavy-thingy.
"Stop arguing and follow me," he commands. I stop arguing and follow, though I have no idea why. I hear him mumble something about a "Force" being more useful than he thought, but since I don't know what he's talking about, I don't really think about it. All I know is that he's offensive, but I have to not argue and follow.
"We must follow Jack; go forward, not back!" Peeta declares with a dumb smile. "We will rhyme as we walk; make poems, not talk!"
Suddenly we all stop as a tiny purring sound fills the air. A small, furry creature appears in a tree, and I grab it without thinking. It has a tranquilizing effect on my nervous system, which is curious, but very nice. I begin stroking it, and we move on.
"A small tribble is so cute," Peeta chirps. "A better pet than a bandicoot!" This comment deeply offends me, for it undermines who I am as person, but I say nothing. After all, if it undermines me but I don't exist, who really cares?
My tribble multiplies rapidly as we go. Soon Peeta, Stonewall, and I have our arms full of the purring creatures. What could the Gamemakers want us to have these for? Do they make for a good dinner? But who would want to eat on these little guys? I wish I could send one home to Prim . . . if Prim and these tribbles and I really exist, that is.
Finally, after several hours of walking, it becomes obvious that these tribbles are, in fact, quite dangerous. It's not that they will actively harm us, but since they keep breeding and we can't carry all the babies, there is a trail of tribbles leading all the way back to the place where I first dropped one. The Careers could easily follow the line and run straight into us, and even if I don't exist, I don't want my nonexistence self to die.
"If we leave tribbles, they will come," I whisper angstily. I am not sure why, but I feel the need to let the others know all my thoughts via whispers. "I don't want the Careers to find us," I continue to whisper. "I don't want to dieeeee…"
"Dying would certainly not be fun," Peeta affirms. "I'd don't want to be gone and done."
I glare at his horribly insulting affront to my intelligence. "How could you dare to say that?" I hiss, still in a whisper. "That's just cruel! Why do you have to act like that all the time? Why does everyone always find something wrong with me?"
Stonewall lets out a sigh of annoyance and Peeta cocks his head. "Why do girls always whine?" Peeta asks the general. "It's all they do, all the time!"
"That doesn't rhyme!" I screech. "Do you think I'm an idiot? You're an idiot!" Then, in a whisper, I add, "I think they all think I'm an idiot."
"Okay: why do girls always whine; they won't accept that my poetry's fine!" Peeta huffs in frustration.
This seems to finally make Stonewall snap. He turns, glares daggers at both of us, and then waves his hand in front of us. "You will stop this pointless bickering!"
"But what about the trail of tribbles?" I ask.
"And no complaining, either!" Stonewall adds. But he does seem to see the sense in my point, and with a flick of his wrist, all the tribbles in the vicinity suddenly go flying in all directions. I let out a scream and try to grab the nearest one, not wanting to lose my friends, but also glad that the trail is now gone.
"I must save my tribbles," I whisper, stooping to pick up one of the purring balls. But Stonewall performs the same trick, and the tribble zooms off as if thrown. "My little Billy," I mourn in a whisper. "I can't go on without you."
"But go on we must," Peeta reminds me, "or else Cato will a sword through us thrust!"
"How dare you infer that I can't defend myself!" I yell, starting a bird and causing Stonewall to grip his sword hilt before he realizes it's just me. I take a threatening step towards the offending party and raise a fist. "I am going to punch out your brains," I whisper. "You chauvinist!"
But before I can go through with my intentions, a strange sound and blue glow stop me short. Stonewall is standing a few feet from me, grasping a weird, glowing sword that makes funny sounds as he swings it. "Shut your mouth and let's go," he instructs through gritted teeth. "Thanks to you, probably every person within a hundred miles knows our location."
"I wish I was at home," I whisper in a defeated sob. Everyone's comments are so offensive, and on top of that, I don't even know if I exist. "How can I know anything?" I weep quietly as I fall in line behind Peeta and Stonewall. "Why do I want to know if I know?"
And so we go on, me whispering my thoughts, Stonewall leading us as he sees fit, and Peeta trying to comfort me with poems that I detest. So it is that when he suddenly crumples to the ground, I'm overjoyed.
"Finally," I whisper gladly.
"What have you done now?" Stonewall inquires with a sigh, turning to face me with a look of exasperation.
"Stop insulting me!" I squeal. "It's not my fault!"
Stonewall brushes past me and kneels beside Peeta, checking the boy's pulse. "He's fine," the general confirms. "As a matter of fact, I believe he's just asleep." With that, he gives Peeta's shoulder a shove, and the said boy rouses.
"Why did you disturb my sleep?" Peeta demands, yawning. "I had just succeeded in counting sheep!"
"I hate you," I whisper maliciously under my breath. But before Peeta can respond, he suddenly drops his head limply and snores. Stonewall lets out a very frustrated groan and lightly kicks the sleeping form.
"Oh, let him sleep," I beg in a whisper. "Maybe we can leave him behind."
"I really need a good nap," Peeta declares. "And Katniss needs a good slap!" he adds with a childish grin. I reward his meanness by issuing a slap of my own.
"You jerk!" I whisper. "My life stinks!"
I get no pleasure out of his reaction, though. He falls back to sleep without even registering my blow. Stonewall gives up on waking Peeta, and instead he uses the same unseen force and lifts Peeta off the ground, causing the boy to hover ahead of us. And so we continue, sometimes with Peeta awake and walking with us and sometimes with him hovering asleep.
"I hate hiking," I whisper to myself. "If only I knew that I was really hiking instead of being, you know, nonexistent."
Stonewall stops in his tracks, as if hearing my comments for the first time. "Young lady," he says with surprising gentleness, "if you doubt, then there must be someone to doubt. Therefore, you exist. You think, and therefore you are."
It all clicks, and a huge burden eases from my heart. "Now I get it," I whisper to myself. I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier! "I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier," I whisper. Stonewall proceeds to roll his eyes, probably for the hundredth time today, and sits down, letting Peeta's sleeping form flop to the ground.
"We will rest here," he declares.
"I now see that it is dark," I whisper as I too sit down. "I wish to sleep."
"Then please do so!" the general pleads as much as allows. "Sleep as long as you can!"
I am too tired to feel the full load of offense that his comment carries, but just before I drift off, I do catch another annoying word against me from Peeta.
"If she sleeps for some time, perhaps I can teach you to rhyme!"
. . .
So, what'd ya think? Please leave me a review! The second half of this tale shall be posted very soon. If you like this story, be sure to check out the tale that came about at my family's Christmas celebration, an Avengers fic entitled "Attack of the Plot Twists". Here are all the plot twists I received up until this point in the narrative, and if anyone out there would like me to send them the original list of all 40 plot twists which can be used to play the game, PM me; I'd be glad to pass on this amazing game!
Everyone begins speaking different languages
Your main character questions his/her existence
A great hero from history suddenly appears
A character of your choice learns the ways of the Force
A character takes every statement as a personal insult
A character suddenly aspires to be a poet
Tribbles enter the story
Your main character begins a whisper-commentary of all their thoughts and deeds
A character keeps falling asleep at odd times