Task Description:

Tributes must run up the levels of the mall collecting supplies and attempt to get the 'magical pixie sword'.

The people running around and killing each other for pointy objects that looked quite lethal was going to be hard to explain. The fact that it was early in the morning didn’t help, my brain didn’t start working until 3PM on a good day. What accelerated everything to its positively worst level was the fact that I had been jolted from my beauty sleep by some inconsiderate asshole saying, “The only way is up; time to ascend.” Nobody tells me what to do before 10AM and gets a positive response.

I had let out a loud pained groan and forced my body to move upon being jolted awake. One of my eyes was glued shut with whatever that crust was what formed in your eyes overnight, half of my hair was absolutely flat from where I had laid my head the previous, half of it sticking up at an odd angle as if I had taken some hair-gel and tried to give myself a horn. “I’m going to beat whoever just woke me up to a bloody pulp.” I snapped taking my fingers and prying the crusty eyelid open and scanned the faces around me.

Alex looked perhaps even more undead than usual, his brow was furrowed as he looked around as confused as ever. See? Confusion is what happens to people who don’t believe my alien theory. The vampire guy, who I had learned was named Murphy, looked as if he had never gone to bed. Can I just take a moment to say that Murphy is perhaps the worst name for a vampire I have ever heard. Who the hell names a vampire Murphy? ‘Murphy wants to suck your blood.’ Yeah. I was not feeling it. Then Rose strongly resembled a racoon this fine morning, her eye-makeup smeared all over the place and her eyes were alive with a nervous energy. Very feral. I briefly had to question if she had rabies…. perhaps from Alex? Tove looked nice. Her eyes were a little droopy from sleep, her hair a mop-like mess on her head.

“Good luck with that.” Rose muttered, rubbing her eyes and smearing the makeup even more.

I glowered at her and stood up grabbing my skateboard, my limbs groaned with stiffness. I ignored it as I tripped over some scattered matches and a tent package that Alex had grabbed- why had we grabbed a tent? We were inside. It was pointless. I crused loudly moving around the desk of ‘Doctor Butt’s Dental Care’ that we had slept behind the last night. Assuming it was daytime now. I had no clue as to what time it was, but it sure felt like morning- and not just any morning. It felt like a Monday morning.   

I had just made my way around the desk when my foot stepped on a stray piece of paper that must of been torn from a magazine. I fell backward and crashed into the floor, pain exploded in my head making it throb painfully.

“Are you okay?” I heard Tove ask with concern.

I let out a loud (and quite possibly over dramatic) groan. “No! The stupid paper just tried to murder me-” I lifted my foot, the page was still stuck to my foot. My jaw dropped when I saw whose face was on it. “No! Oh my gosh no! Justin Bieber just tried to kill me! This can mean only one thing: Justin Bieber is with the aliens! I knew it!” I declared in awe, realizing how much the stakes for our country had changed. Our army was not only fighting the enemy, but an army of rabid teenage girls as well. Our future looked dim.

To my surprise everyone laughed, I sat up and looked at them incredulously. Murphy stood up smirking and walked past me to the door. I resisted the urge to trip him, watching people fall on their faces and writhe in pain generally makes me feel better. Alex looked from side to side uncomfortably letting out a forced laugh. He knew I was serious.

Finally Rose stopped. Her face fell and she locked eyes with me, “Wait. You aren’t kidding are you?”

I rolled my eyes in irritation as I stood up, kicking the evil paper from my foot. I forced a really sweet smile on my face. “Of course I’m kidding- Hell no!” I snapped, “I’m dead serious. Do you realize the complications of having Justin Bieber as the alien king? This ad with his face on it trying to kill me is not a coincidence.” I gesture to the now partly scrunched up paper, “Give me a match I need to burn it.”

Rosella Deville opened her mouth to say something back when Murphy’s strained voice interrupted us. “I think you guy’s had better come see this.” He called over his shoulder, his eyes reflecting with nervous concern in the dim light of the office.

I walked over, my eyes scanning the floor for any more booby traps. I bumped into Murphy who jumped as if he hadn’t even heard me coming, which let’s face it, he did. I was a rather loud fellow he hadn’t moved on purpose… was he trying to trip me? Was he with Justin Bieber? I was about to bitch-slap him when a loud shriek of joy from outside the office. My attention was diverted to the small blonde child running around laughing maniacally with a large knife in his mouth.

My jaw dropped as I stared at the kid. “Oh my crap, he’s doing oral with the knife!  ….He’s a promiscuous little fellow.” I said half in disapproval and half in horror. I mean how old was this child? 5 or 6? I wondered what had gone so wrong in his life to lead him down this road.

Alex was suddenly behind me, “You realize the kid is probably just teething or something? Right?” I glanced at him, he had that same semi-embarrassed expression that he had been wearing earlier when I’d been talking about Justin Bieber.

“Shut up!” Tove barked, fear rippling in her eyes. “Someone needs to get that out of his mouth before it’s too late! What if he tries to be a sword swallower or something?”

I shrugged unamused, “Its probably already too late. He’s probably going to die of internal bleeding. Or STD’s.” I watched the kid toddle around blissfully. “I mean at least he will die happy.” At that moment a group of older people ran up to him, yanking the knife from his mouth and the biggest man threw the child over his shoulder. The child sobbed in protest of his chew toy was shoved in a backpack and the group ran onwards.

Rose’s jaw dropped, “You are so mean!”

I smiled sarcastically, “Thank you. I try.”

Murphy slowly shoved the glass door open, his neck crained in either direction and then he slid out. I followed him into the hallway littered with backpacks and drink bottles. I spun in a circle eyeing the eerily empty hallway. I stooped downward and picked up a green backpack. “The aliens have returned the supplies….” I muttered, then I raised my fist to the ceiling and yelled, “This doesn’t make up for waking me up!”

Alex grabbed my shoulder jerking me backward a bit, hovering his mouth close to my ear. “Dude, you're acting insane. You’ve got to calm it down. We need these people to like us, if they don’t they might backstab us. Just accept reality, this is happening.” Shivers ran down my spine, the entire building’s temperature seemed to drop. “What happened to your brother’s is happening to you. And if you-” I elbowed him roughly.

“No!” I cried, my voice coming out hoarse as if I’d been screaming for hours on end. “No!” I thrust my finger into his chest. “How- how can you be so stupid?” I demanded running my other hand through the flop of hair that fell over my eye, tugging at it in frustration- fear- I don’t know! Something! All I knew was that I was having an emotional meltdown right now and that nothing was going to be okay until I had chocolate.

Murphy put a hand on my shoulder, I looked at him as if he had cooties. “I-Its okay. We just have to stick together.” The words came out of his mouth slowly  as if they were hard for him to say. I opened my mouth to shoot something back when something knocked me to the side. I hit the floor hard, all the air pushing its way out of my lungs. I looked up to see a woman with dark short hair peering at me, her legs straddling my chest. I was confused. I was very confused. “I’m sorry kid.” She muttered as a sharp blade came barrelling toward my neck. My heart thundered in my chest as my brain comprehended what was happening.

I was going to die.

Suddenly the woman was tackled from the side by Alex and Murphy, the toppled to the side in a heap. The woman’s boney hand still grasped the knife, she hoisted it above the writhing mass, about to plunge it blindly into Alex’s back when Rose kicked it from her hands and it skidded across the floor.

The woman kicked Murphy in the face and clawed her way across the floor toward the instrument of death. My breath was ragged as I rolled to my feet, grasping the skateboard in my clammy palms. I darted over to the woman and brought it down over her head, a crack came from her head sending a wave of nausea rushing up my throat. I stared at her body, a trickle of very real blood dropped from the corner of her mouth. “No, no, no, no.” The words fell from my mouth, I didn’t even feel like I was saying them.

I looked around at all the wide eyes staring at me. Tove was suddenly hovering beside me, “You had to. She was attacking us.” Her voice was quiet and soft, like a warm fuzzy blanket. I didn’t trust blankets.

“Now can we face reality?” Alex asked pulling himself off the ground slowly as if it pained him.

“No!” I yelled, my brain racing, searching desperately to find something- anything that could explain this. Anything but what deep down I knew it was. “No, no, no! It- Its the aliens… they.... they beamed us into a videogame!” I let out a laugh that was wound tighter than a jack-in-the-box, and not much more pleasant sounding. I looked past the horrified faces that stared at me in shock to a guy stumbling out of a bar, limping toward the escalator. “And in video games in order to win you have to get to the top and collect bonus points!” I yelled much too loudly. My heart was pounding, my mind was at war because I just couldn't face it. I felt like my sanity was resting on one last column that was ready to crumble the second I faced the fear that loomed over my head like a dark storm cloud.

I threw my skateboard to the ground, it hit the tiles with a loud crash. I placed one shaky sneaker on it and pushed off with all the adrenaline that infested my body. I heard Alex yell after me, but it was too late. I was leaning on that one final headcanon that could protect me from the truth. I was gone.

In retrospect, the fact I was more willing to believe that aliens had taken over the mall lead by Justin Bieber and had beamed us into a video game than that we were being held in a broadcasted massacre that had already happened once this year was moderately embarrassing. I’ve done worse though, like what happened next.  

The air rushed past my face, tugging at my hair as I wove in, out and around the debris that scattered the floor. I leaned down without stopping, my hands grabbing some medical tape and throwing it in the backpack. I could practically hear the chime as bonus points racked up.

I skated around the drunk guy who’d fallen flat on his face muttering about Zach the pink poodle or something along those lines. He wasn’t going to make it far. I jumped from my board, stepping on it’s tail to flip it upwards and grabbed it’s ridge and tucking it under my arm. I took the escalator steps by two, my breath was uneven, the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling. Why was I nervous? I was in a videogame- I was perfectly safe.

Suddenly a flurry of arrows whized past my head, I ducked behind the railing. After a second I looked up to see a girl with blonde hair holding a bow and arrow awkwardly aiming at me from the side. Her eyes locked on mine and she went to take aim again, I began to crawl up the rest of the way to the second  floor, the teeth in the escalator biting into my hands and knees.

When I peeked over the edge of the escalator I nearly fell backward, there staring right at me was a bloody corpse. It’s hollow looking eyes looked at me blankly, his cheek sliced away revealing it’s bloody mass of teeth. Wow. These graphics were amazing. The corpse even smelled bad.

I slowly stood up and looked around, utter and complete mayhem surrounded me. People ran in blurs of speed, grabbing objects, tripping over corpses, falling to the ground bleeding with sharp objects protruding from their backs. Something made me turn to see another arrow barreling toward my face. Before I even knew what I was doing I’d lifted my board in front of my face like a shield. I heard a scrape as the flimsy arrow bounced off the hard.... whatever skateboards were made of. (Yes, I know it’s hard to believe. I don’t know everything.)

I dropped it to the ground and pushed off and I was flying, I wove in and out of the masses, blindly grabbing objects that looked like they might rack up some points. I grabbed a pink tee-shirt strewn on the ground that said, “Save The Wombats” and crammed it in my backpack. I wasn’t even sure what exactly a ‘wombat’ was (perhaps a flavor of jelly bean?) but I’d take what I could get. I saw a bottle of ketchup lying a few paces away and shot over to grab it. My finger wrapped around it and I stuffed it in my bag. A girl fell prostrate before me, I yelped as my board hit her and I went flying. My heart jumped into my throat as I felt myself collide with someone.

I moaned irritably, it was too early to be doing this. Or anything, actually.

The person I was now laying on top of cried out as a baseball bat came crashing down toward us. I let out a very loud curse as I rolled off of her swiftly, my fear beginning to get to me. It ran up and down my spine like electricity. This felt too real. I stared, eyes wide as the girl’s blonde mass of hair girl turned a blood red as the bat connected. I swallowed painfully, that was almost me.

But it’s okay because it’s not real, I told myself as the guy wielding the bat came swinging toward me. You’re fine, nothing can hurt you here. The bat hit my chest with a devastating force. I gasped, I felt as if I’d been hit by a frigging truck! Video games actually hurting you was something new. I sent my foot barrelling into his chest. He cried out and fell backward into someone else. I let out a strangled laugh as I stood up swiftly, “Dat right! Don’t mess with da Drewmeister!” I yelled shaking my finger at him all sassy like.

I almost didn’t notice the large knife barreling toward my head until Tove dove at me from literally nowhere trying to knock me out of the way… which didn’t really work because she looks like she’s like what? 85 pounds? And I’m like so macho all she did was kinda jolt me a little. “Get down! And will you not shut up, you bastard?!” She shrieked fiercely, her eyes darting off in another direction.

I ducked without thinking about it, afraid that she would take my head off if I didn’t oblige. I was barely aware of the breeze of wind that rushed over my head as the knife narrowly missed me. Wow, Tove was really assertive, not afraid to tell me to shut up before I even said anything.

...She was also the only non-paranormal one in our alliance.

On impulse I grabbed her wrist, dodging another blow from the angry knife wielder and tugged her into a small alcove of a store. She looked up at me startled, her big owl-like grey eyes staring at me as if she was afraid I was going to bite her head off. She was fearing the wrong person, Murphy the vampire was the one she had to watch. “Tove. I have to tell you something.” I gasped, I hadn’t realized how out of breath I was.

She looked at me hesitantly, “...What?” Why was she treating me like a mentally unstable person?

I looked her deep in the eye. “Alex is a zombie, Murphy is a vampire and Rosella- I’m not sure what she is but I know she’s evil. Spawn of Satan perhaps?” I mused then shook my head, I had to stay on track. “Point being, you and I are the only non- paranormal ones in our alliance. We need to have a mini-alliance, so that if they team up to try to eat us we can team up back!”

She let out a nervous giggle averting her eyes to the ground. “Ummm….” She muttered awkwardly shifting feet. I glanced out of the alcove and saw some loser grab my skateboard from where it had fallen. I didn’t have time for this. ‘ummm’ was close enough to a yes for me. I hastily reached forward and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Thanks! I’m going to get us out of this level.” I said, running my words together and took off sprinting around a intense battle between Alex and this really fierce looking old lady who warded him off with a handbag. I would have stopped to help but I was confident Alex would eat her brains… you know if she didn’t kick his ass first.

An arrow grazed my back as I ran sending a rivet of pain shooting through my back, I swore stopping to stumble a few paces before picking my pace back up again. I tackled the guy who was running, my skateboard clutched in his palms. We crashed into the ground tumbling a few paces. I landed on dagger, it’s hilt digging into the small of my spine. “Son of a mango!” I hissed quickly rolling off it.

I didn’t like this video game. It caused me too much bodily harm. I was definitely more of a ‘sit-in-a-dark-room-with-cheetos-and-cupcakes-while-controlling-someone-else-with-a-remote-and-letting-them-get-beaten-to-a-bloody-pulp’ kind of gamer.

Unless it isn’t a game, a voice in the back of my head chided me. Shivers raced up and down my spine as the demons of doubt began to creep into my mind.

“Shut up!” I yelled clutching my head, “I don’t have time for this!” My fingers wrapped around the dagger beside me and I swung it around, wielding it in front of me. The black haired guy looked up, shaking his head. His purplish-greenish eyes looked as if they would pop out of his head if he opened them any wider. I gritted my teeth, “It’s a good thing this is just a video game, or I’d have a hard time doing this.” I said, trying to reassure myself.

I thrust it towards his neck, he tried to get out of the way but it only hit his chest instead, it dove downwards, I felt it puncture the skin, crush the bone and delve into his soft organs. I shuddered staring numbly at the blossom of blood that colored the dying guy’s chest. I stared at it numbly.

This is real and you know it, you just killed a boy, reality banged on my skull, trying to weasel it’s way in. No! No it can’t be real! I reached forward and grabbed the my board from his already chilling hands, my hand brushed his dead fingers sending shivers running up my arms like raindrops down a windshield. I dropped the board as I jumped to my feet, placing on on my board and taking off.

You get to the top, you win the game.

This isn’t a game and if it was there’d be no winners.

Yes it is! Shit, just shut up, brain, will you? I know what I’m doing!

No you don’t. You’re an idiot.

I shuddered as I reached the escalator that went to the 3rd floor, the nervous energy racing through my veins like a river. I took the stairs as fast as I could, running practically. My thighs burned and my chest thudded. If this was a game, I’d find the key to the next level here- if not? I’d probably die.

I hurdled over the final step nearly slipping in a puddle of blood that poured out from a corpse whose legs had been amputated… I looked around, probably by the maniac that was running around with a chainsaw. I watched as he chased a small girl with pigtails. I shrunk back a little, if the last floor had been mayhem this floor was the essence of chaos. Everyone here had a large weapon, they were chasing each other, mowing down those not weak enough to stand their ground.

This is real you moron, you go in there and you’re going to end up like Mr. NoLegs down there! Run!

No, none of this is real. It can’t be. It just can’t! I can’t handle it! I can’t-

I felt tears starting to brim in my eyes from the stress of this all, I was about to run, go have a mental breakdown in some dark corner. But then I saw it, the answer to all of my hopes; a large beautifully incrested silver sword dangling from the glass ceiling that. It was clearly a work of the elves. If I got that sword I’d advance to the next level.

I started running through the chaos, through the dying screams. A girl gritted her teeth, her green eyes focusing on me as she swung a weedwacker at my face, I threw myself to the ground as it’s blades whooshed over my head, nabbing the tip of my beanie and ripping it from my head. I watched as it was devoured by the blades.

Two thoughts raced through my mind: The first being that was almost my beautiful head. The second being there goes 10 bucks I will never get back.  

The girl brought the weedwacker back down, I rolled out of the way feeling adrenaline rivet through my body, I scanned the ground around me for anything I could defend myself with. My eyes fell on a sleek black crossbow beside me ankle. I grasped it bringing it around like a club towards the girl’s legs, She fell, toppling down onto the weedwacker’s blades. I stared in horror as the blades wrapped around her hair, entangling more and more of it. She let out a deafening, blood curdling scream as the blades started to rip her scalp from her head. I watched at the first little cracks in her skin appeared spouting little trickles of blood, then it was tearing, the entire scalp ripped from her head and spun in the wacker. Blood flew everywhere like tiny droplets of rain, the girl reached out toward me, tears in her eyes.

I grabbed the bow and shakily raised myself to my feet. An arrow impaled itself in my shoulder, I cried out ripping it from my flesh. If I wanted to be an optimist I would have said that I’d gotten a free arrow, but I’m not an optimist so I just yelled “I’m going to frigging eat your soul! With ketchup! And then I’m going to feed it to your mom! And when she says ‘Mmmm, what's the special ingredient I’m going to say, ‘Your kid’s chest hair!’” in the general direction of where the arrow had come.

I looked back toward the sword. I had to get it down. I scanned the walls for anything that looked climbable. The walls were pretty smooth for the exception of a few neon lights that announced the names of stores. Besides, I didn’t have time to be spiderman.

I looked down at the crossbow I grasped in my hands. I could always pull a Katniss Everdeen. I had never aimed one of these before, but I’d seen it done plenty of times on TV. I lifted the bow awkwardly into the small of my shoulder loading the bloody arrow into the lever. I lowered my eyes to look into the sight. My heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird in my chest as I aimed the bow at the string that suspended the bow in the air. If I could sever that with my arrow the sword would come down too.

My arms trembled as I squeezed the trigger- without warning a huge weight knocked into me, sending me and the bow tumbling to the ground. I looked up to see a man with a club about to crush my skull. I rolled away, my heart in my throat as I heard the devastating crash inches from my head. I stumbled clumsily to my feet, a wave of lightheadedness rushing over me as I looked over at the man go after someone else who had distracted him. I clenched my teeth at I looked toward where the sword hung, my aim had been destroyed, there was no way I had hit it.

My heart stopped, the sword hung by one thread that was quickly snapping from the weight of the weapon that hung on it’s end. The arrow must have severed half of the string. I couldn’t believe I had hit it! How had I hit it?! I started running toward the ground beneath the sword I ducked a fight, I dodged a baseball bat. I heard a clatter as I watched the sword hit the ground in front of me. I dove for it, my fingers wrapping around the silver hilt. I stood up as fast as I could, my breaths were ragged as I waited for the scenery to change as I was beamed to the next level.

Nothing happened.

I felt a wave of dizziness ravage my brain as I waited for what was never going to happen. I stared numbly at the unblemished sword that was clutched in one of my clammy palms and the beaten up skateboard in the other. It was real, my words raced through my head  The tears that I had held back earlier started to ripple in my eyes. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough. My body shook violently as the faces of the people who were dead flashed through my mind and the sensation of killing them renewed itself in my senses.

A girl swung a knife at my face and suddenly I was alive, I felt like an animal running from a hunter, fighting for its life. I was running, my feet were sailing through the hell that surrounded me. Fear controlled me, moving me like a puppet on a string. My feet pounded heavily on the tiles stained a deep scarlet, the air ripping at my lungs as they heaved. The only thing that was on my mind was escape; run.

Only there was no escape to run to.

I was trapped in my worst nightmare.

The worst part was that I knew it had only just begun.