The Hunger (These are NO) Games

PG-13

Thematic elements, gore, and violence (but no language, drugs, or sex so that’s good)

It was a pleasant evening in the Berry home. Tess and Hunter sat at their small table laughing merrily as they as shared stories from their day.

“Oh Hunter you’re so funny!” Tess laughed.

“No, Tess. You’re the funny one.” He corrected with a smile.

A stomach growled. The friendly banter came to an abrupt halt. The siblings stared warily at each other from across the table.

“The weather was nice today,” said Hunter trying to keep his voice light, but to no avail. The merriness of the moment before had been lost. A hungry stomach was no laughing matter.

“Indeed¹,” agreed Tess. She could think of nothing else to say.

They sat in strained silence. The doorbell rang. Relieved at the sound Tess got up to answer it. At the sight of the pizza guy, that relief left as quickly as it had come. Anxiety now clutched her. The man was paid. The pizza set on the table. It was as if the Berry children were looking through a camera lens, and it was zooming in on the pizza sitting on their kitchen table. Steam wafted lazily toward the ceiling. The scent of garlic, cheese, pepperoni, and all the other wonderful ingredients that make up the delicious life-staple that is a pizza filled the small apartment. Both smiling tight-lipped at the other, they each reached for a piece of pizza and began to chow down.

Though only a few minutes had passed, it seemed like hours to the brother-sister duo. The pizza had only eight slices. Hunter had finished three of his already while his sister was still working on her second. Soon his fourth piece had been gobbled up too. Tess was still struggling to put down her second one. Finishing off her third was going to be rough, but what else could she do? Ideally, she would like to save it for later, when it could actually be enjoyed. After all, nutrients in their apartment were hard to come by. Tess sensed her brother’s gaze and turned to face him. His eyes dropped to the two remaining pieces. Hunter was bigger, and so naturally he reasoned that he was in need of an extra slice. Their eyes locked from across the table. There was a brief pause, and then the action started.

Tess ducked a steak knife hurtled over her head. Hunter was reaching for the pizza, taking advantage of the distraction. He was close, but he didn’t make it. He dodged as his sister advanced toward him, swinging the lanyard holding their keys over her head like a mace. He took a heavy blow to the back. He found their bucket of change and flung its contents into Tess’s face. Hunter scrambled to the kitchen in search of a new weapon. Tess, unable to do the same, grabbed a “couch lid” to use as a shield. Seeing a glass candle holder, Tess picked it up and smashed it against the wall. She sorted through the shards, picking a large piece with one edge jagged and one smooth. It would serve as a good shank. With caution she headed for the table which held her lifeline. The younger Berry was able to get a quick bite in before he charged her, wielding two large knives like an ancient warrior would a sword. He slashed at the hand holding the pizza and was rewarded with his sister’s cry of pain. She thrust towards him with her makeshift weapon, but Hunter was too quick. He charged her again, swiping with one of his knives and barely missing her throat. Thrown off balance by the movement Tess fell, and her piece of glass clattered away. Acting quickly, she reached for a pair of scissors on the television stand. Tess turned just in time to fend off Hunter’s blows, leaving a gash of her own along his left cheek. There was a howl of pain, and the girl scrambled to the kitchen in desperate need of a good knife. Hunter caught her as she reached the counter, yanking her hair from behind. Frantically, arms out she felt around for something, anything to use as defense. Her hands closed around a ketchup packet. She tried to sweep the jagged edge across his face. Of course the effect was a weak one. But as she squeezed, the packet exploded, sending a spray of ketchup into his eyes. His grip on her hair loosened but not enough. Tess clawed at the gash in his cheek. It was enough. Hunter released his sister, temporarily blinded by ketchup and pain. There was a sickening thud as Tess swung a frying pan with all her might at her brother’s head and made contact. Lights danced before Hunter’s eyes. The brother staggered backwards, trying to regain himself before his life became forfeit. Tess swung again, but he heard her coming this time and sidestepped. For the second time, Tess was thrown off balance and nearly fell. Now able to see, though not clearly, Hunter sent a swift kick to her back. She crashed; face first, into the wall. Blood from her now broken nose sprayed the white walls, painting them red. Tess crumpled to the floor, unable to see for the blood in her eyes. Hunter seized his opportunity. All thought of knives and weapons were gone. He was now acting on blind rage, kicking her savagely again and again. Then, remembering the pizza, he headed once more for the pizza. Tess’s hand feebly grabbed for his leg. Hunter shook it loose, and kicked her in the face. She lay moaning on the kitchen floor. He picked up the pizza and began to devour it.

The girl opened her eyes. Only seconds had passed since her brother had left her lying on the floor. She didn’t have time to assess her injuries. Tess knew that her time was running out and with it, the pizza. She slowly crawled across the floor. Every move was agony, but she needed to reach the knife lying only a few feet away. Moving to the doorway and leaning heavily on it, Tess rose to her feet. Hunter was just laying hold to the last piece of pizza. He brought it hungrily to his lips. With a sudden jolt forward he dropped it and slid to the ground. Reaching to behind him, Hunter plucked the knife from his back. Tess was still standing in the doorway. With much effort, she moved into the next room where her brother sat next to the table. The pizza was only a few feet from his right hand. No longer able to stand, Tess was crawling towards the pizza. With his last ounce of strength, Hunter took of his shoe and hurled it at his sister. She cried out. Crumpling to the ground as the force of it caused one of her already broken ribs to puncture a lung.

The siblings lay only a few feet apart from each other with the last slice of pizza between them. The room was silent now except for the shallow breath of the two lying wounded on the ground. The pizza lay tauntingly close to each of their hands hand, but neither was able to grasp the source of their desire. A slight scuffling noise was heard. The brother and sister looked around warily. Sniffing the air as it went, a little mouse began making its way toward the lone slice. Neither able to move, Tess and Hunter were helpless to stop the mouse’s nibbling. Soon, the nourishment that had been so brutally fought over was gone. With nothing more to be done, each Berry child began to attend to their wounds.

Tess and Hunter sat at the table. Once again they were laughing and talking together as if no battle had been fought between them only a couple days before. It was a pleasant day. The sun was bright, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind whispered lazily to the trees. All was well. Then the doorbell rang. 

¹ For those of you (namely my family) who have seen the Bud’s version of The Lord of the Rings imagine me saying this like Paxson says it while playing Gandalf.

Chapter 6: "That's REALLY mature, saying exactly what I say... You're an Idiot!"

I think that’s pretty much all of the main stuff as far as the move goes. So with that updated, everything else will be more recent. I’m excited to get all caught up. That way I don’t have to worry so much about forgetting any of the good stuff. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of good stuff to go over. I can’t guarantee that it will all be in chronological order, but I’ll do my best.

Let me start by filling you in on our furniture situation. I have to giggle a little every time I think about it. I’m pretty sure the first visitors to see the inside of our house were the sister missionaries. So, imagine this. The Sisters are at your door. You invite them in. Normally a person might say something like, “have a seat” or “pull up a chair”. At our house, there are no such invitations. If anything it’s “the carpet is awfully nice to sit on” or “feel free to lean on the wall”. This is not due to Hunter and I having a lack of common courtesy (our mama raised us right). It is however, due to the amount of furniture that we have…or rather the lack thereof. We have a little ottoman, a little t.v. stand, a card table, and two fold-up chairs. The chairs do have cushions on them though (even though Hunter broke the strings that held them to the chairs, ha which of course he’ll deny even though I watched him do it), so that’s nice. Anyways, it was all good, because the Sisters thought it was quite funny. We’re tight now. Oh also, recently I made a couch… or rather I threw a little airline blanket over two of our big Rubbermaid tubs and put them in the corner of the living room. Hunter, who has a kind of deep love for couches having had one for his bed quite often throughout his life, was quite offended. He said that “thing” was a disgrace, and I was never to refer to it as a couch again. Of course I never heed to that demand, and probably call it couch more often because of it. A few days ago Hunter and I were both sitting the “couches” talking about something or other. He must have shifted his weight or something, because the “couch” that Hunter was on fell right in. It was pretty funny. I say he had it coming for dissing them in the first place. Another recent addition to our little furniture collection is our t.v., which was given to us by our friend Ariel. With her generous donation and Hunter’s X-box, we are no longer resigned to watching movies on our laptops. Hooray!

The next thing worthy of mention is our food situation…which reflects our money situation, but we won’t dwell on that. We’ve got to be kind of careful with what we buy, even though on the same token we probably aren’t careful enough (at least where food is concerned). Pretty much everything Hunter and I have is pooled together, including our money. Every decision we make, takes heavy consultation. When it comes to food though… I think Hunter put it best when he said, “When food comes into this house, it’s like The Hunger Games.” That’s no joke. Hunter has his own opinion on the matter, but let me shed some light on my point of view*. For one thing, I’ve been living literally by myself for pretty much the last 5 or 6 months, so if I bought a half gallon of ice cream…let’s just say it’d last me longer than a day. While Hunter is always complaining of being scrawny due to lack of nutrients, I believe I’ve actually gained weight since living here. At first I was perplexed. How could that be? I’ve come to this conclusion. Think of a sled dog. When they get food, they immediately set to work devouring every last piece of it. They can’t afford to save it for later, because if they try the other dogs will eat it. Attempting to defend their saved spoils would be to no avail either, because the other dogs will kill for the leftover food. This is how I feel. I must gorge myself when we do have food, because if I try and save any of mine for later it will most assuredly be gone before I can get to it. If I try to protect my food stash, I will surely be killed. I have begun to realize that I simply can’t keep up with the eating habits of my always-famished brother. That’s just the way it is.

 

Slipping slowly...

It’s not quite so bad now, but for the first few weeks that we were here Hunter and I had trouble thinking of enough activities throughout the day to keep us busy. In fact, we often dreaded the weekends, because there wasn’t even school to get us out of the house. We did go to a couple of dances at the institute. We’re not really dancers, but it did get us out of the house, plus there was ice cream so…how could we pass that up? We also go to FHE every Monday, and our friend Allison was quick to get our numbers and has broken up the monotony for us on more than one occasion. However, there are still 7 days in a week, and we simply didn’t have enough going on to fill each one. Most days all we could do was lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and slip slowly into madness. Our days went as follows: 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00 faint from hunger; 5:30 jazzercize; 6:30 dinner with just the two of us – we would’ve loved to cancel that; 7:00 wrestle with our self-loathing (ok you guys should DEFINITELY get this movie, even though the quoting is slightly off). When we weren’t doing that, we were usually fighting. Now when I say fighting I don’t mean like arguing. I mean more like, wrestling… which is actually more like Hunter pushing me against the wall pretending to bash my face in while I slice at his arm with a ketchup packet or something. It’s good fun.

  

...into madness...

                         

Wallowing in self-pity

      

* ”The Hunger (these are NO) Games” bonus story coming soon!!!

NOTE: Hunter rarely actually gets mad at me, so when I say that he was furious about something or “beat me up” NONE of it is real. He does those things only in jest. We can usually hardly breathe during our “fights” due to laughter.

  



Chapter 5: Your Mom Goes to College

(This chapter title was Hunter’s suggestion…and I ran with it.)

Hey guys, it’s me again. You probably thought I died or something, but nope I’m still here. You may remember from Chapter 4 that I said that things were about to start happening. Well let me tell ya, that was the truth. I’m pleased to tell you that our house hunting did come to an end on Monday, January 9, so we haven’t been homeless this whole time (and yes Amber we have gotten to shower in the past month J hallelujah!). I’ll get to that soon though. First I need to back up for a second. I don’t think that I put into full view what we did to search for apartments that week or so before we actually found one. Yes, we did look online and in the newspapers and such. But also, we drove around the town looking for any place that had a For Rent sign and called that number to get some info. The weekend before January 9, we were doing just that. Because I was driving, we had ended up on some back alley or other and weren’t really having much luck. Then, I saw it! As you can imagine, I got quite excited at the new prospect and was in a hurry to write the number down before we passed the sign. Now, the details are a little fuzzy so bear with me here. Maybe Hunter didn’t think the apartment was even a remote option, or maybe I just didn’t give him enough time to think (not likely). Either way, he wasn’t writing the number down as I drove past. Ok kids; let this be a lesson to you. Do NOT use your cell phones while you’re driving (even if it’s a worthy cause, and you’re just trying to help). I proceeded to try to put the number in my phone. While that was going on, my Baby Truck was heading towards the curb…which it then drove onto. Luckily enough, I had the good sense to hit the brakes rather than the telephone pole. Of course Hunter was freaking out… it wasn’t really that scary. We weren’t going very fast. But anyways…it’s stuff like that that eventually lead Hunter to say this to me… “Every time I get in this truck while you’re driving it’s like the frickin’ fear factor.” Haha what can I say? Hunter does most of the driving these days. If I do grab the keys before he does he’ll look at me and say, “Oh… you’re driving huh? Great.” (It is my truck though…haha love you Schunt!) Hunter does have quite a few wonderful quotes though, so keep your eye open in chapters to come.



We live on the left side.

Alright, we’re back to Monday morning now. By that time, we had narrowed down our housing possibilities to two choices. Sparing you most of the details, I’ll just say that after much agony of decision making (which both Hunter and I hate doing) we called up one of our choices and told he we’d take it. The excitement was palpable. Of course we were nervous, but the idea of being free of the confines of the Baby overpowered most other thought. At about 1 o’clock that afternoon, we signed the papers (cue party jams so Schunt and I can dance with joy!) We still had many, MANY worries, but for that moment we left them behind. The unpacking began! What turned out to be a little bit funny was that even though we had an apartment, we still had to spend a few hours in the Baby that night. We had gone to get our utilities all set up and junk, but they couldn’t turn them on until the next day, so our apartment had no electricity. Once it got dark, we sat in the Baby and watched movies on our laptops and dinked around on our phones. We did however, relish in the ability for our seats to be able to lean back, and we lounged to our hearts’ content (or at least something moderately close to it).

The next morning we set to work putting our little home into order, though I must say there wasn’t much zeal in our efforts. Unpacking, it just…isn’t very fun and let’s face it, Hunter and I are fun lovers. Anyways, later I was in the kitchen washing dishes or something, and Hunter came in. “Hey Tess, can I use one of your blankets to cover the living room windows.” When I asked what he wanted to do that for, he said that the blinds were broken. After a few minutes, I went to check the situation out for myself. I saw Hunter in the living room yanking on the cord for the blinds. When his efforts yielded no results, I stepped over to him (my 21 year old brother), grabbed the cord and pulled it slightly to the left. The blinds came down. I did the same to the other window with, shockingly enough, the same result. Crisis averted. “Hunter,” I said. “Haven’t you ever closed a blind before?” I may have thrown a “you re” in there somewhere, but who can know for sure really? He told me that he’d never seen blinds like that before and something along the lines of that if they were normal he would’ve been able to work them. With a sigh of exasperation (and maybe my dad would say a little bit dramatically), I informed him that pretty much every blind EVER was made that way.  I told you, he surely is a funny one!

The living room and through that door is Schunt's room