CHAPTER TWO: THE EPIC SAGA CONTINUES

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND CHAPTER

(In case you missed the first epic chapter, you can find it here.)

While I have not yet started a bidding war among publishers (yet!) I am pleased by the positive response my first chapter has received. Clearly there are still connoisseurs of fiction out there who know quality when they see it. And to those who did not enjoy my first chapter, let me simply say this: you are objectively wrong.

As I said, there is not yet a bidding war, but I have already gotten several promising emails from a publisher called “Lulu.” I don’t want to take the first offer that comes along, of course, so I am currently playing hard to get.

Before we get on with the story, I would like to once again thank my faithful assistant and good friend, Laura, for her feedback. And I suppose I should mention that Katniss Everdeen and her love interests were created by Suzanne Collins and are, of course, used here without her permission. Also there will probably be other characters too, but we’ll disclaim those later. On to the story!

THE STORY

Katniss Everdeen sat in a dark room in the future and thought angry, confused thoughts. She remembered back to the day of The Lottery, when she boldly stood up and shouted out, “I WILL TAKE MY SISTER’S PLACE IN THE HUNGER GAMES!!!” And she had done so, and now she was fighting to overthrow the evil Capitol. But that was not what made her angry and confused.

Katniss was in love with a boy named Peeta but she was also in love with another boy named Gale. How could she work this out? Could she maybe date both of them without the other one knowing? If, say, she went out to eat with Peeta, but then slipped off to meet Gale at the ice cream shop next door? Then excused herself to use the bathroom, and went back to Peeta? Or did she even need to keep it a secret? How open minded were Peeta and Gale, anyway? Would they freak out if she proposed a non-traditional relationship?

(Team Peeta all the way! –Laura)

“But if I married both of them,” she thought, “whose last name would I take?” The question made her angry. She wanted to shoot something with an arrow, which was not just an idle thought, because she had a bow and arrow in her hand. She looked around for something to shoot.

The door opened. A man walked in. “My name is John Connor,” he said. “Come with me. We are going to put you in a time machine and send you back in time so you can destroy the Capitol before it even comes to be.”

“Do I get to shoot people with arrows?” Katniss asked.

“Probably.”

She shrugged. “Okay, let’s go.”

Meanwhile, back in the past, Bella walked down the street in the rain. She felt sad.

(Not to criticize, but traditionally, fan fiction writers tend to be a bit more . . . florid? You know, describing things more vividly. Maybe give that a try. –Laura)

Meanwhile, five hundred years, six months, seventeen days, four hours, and twelve minutes prior to Katniss’s offhanded acquiescence to the enigmatic John Connor’s shocking, out-of-nowhere offer to send her spiraling back into the depths of history itself so that she might cut out the root of the malignant weed she knew only as “The Capitol,” in order to stop its unholy growth before it might even have begun, the tormented melancholy youth known as “Bella,” whose name meant “beautiful” but who felt like nothing more than a hideous splattered piece of roadkill, a squirrel on the road of life, who tried to cross without looking, and whose intestines had now been ground into paste by a passing Volvo, trudged down the sidewalk in Fork City, a sidewalk that had only recently been built thanks to action taken by the Municipal Development Committee, which passed in a 12-6 vote, as rain rushed into her like a barrage of shots from a million water guns.

Bella shuddered under the unending barrage, even as she reflected on how perfectly it suited her mood. The rain was cold, bitter, and wet, just like her heart. The wailing of the wind echoed the wild wailing in her soul.

(Bingo! –Laura)

(You’re like a muse, Laura, pushing me to heights I had not even previously imagined I could reach. –J.L.)

(Awwww, thanks! –Laura)

“Raaaarrrggghhhh!” Bella cried out, trying to give vent to the demons that toiled and labored on their infernal machinery, to unknown ends, inside of her. Then she realized she was yelling like a crazy person, and shut her mouth.

From a distance, a mysterious stranger watched her every move. The rain poured down on the mysterious stranger, as it pours down on saint and sinner alike, but the mysterious stranger did not seem to care. The mysterious stranger did not even have an umbrella, yet the mysterious stranger kept standing there, in the rain, standing perfectly straight, as if the rain were not even there. Bella could not see the mysterious stranger, and did not know he—or she?!—was there. I only mention it so that you, the reader, will know, and can feel the delightful anticipation of waiting for the mystery of this mysterious stranger to be revealed.

Bella tried to distract herself from herself from her misery. Almost as a reflex, her thoughts flitted to an old and comfortingly familiar topic. She thought of Pope Pius V, who excommunicated Elizabeth I of England for schism and persecutions of English Catholics during her reign. He also arranged the formation of the Holy League, an alliance of Catholic states. Although outnumbered, the Holy League famously defeated the Ottoman Empire, which had threatened to overrun Europe, at the Battle of Lepanto. This victory Pius V attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory.

(Um, did you just copy and paste that from Wikipedia? –Laura)

(Wikipedia is a free public resource. Why not take advantage of it? –J.L.)

(Well, sure, the information is publically available, but you can’t just copy the text and pass it off as your own. That’s plagiarism. –Laura)

(Wait a minute, now I’m confused. You’re my muse—you’re supposed to be musing me, not confusing me. Weren’t you the one telling me that fan-fiction was a way to overthrow the old hierarchies, the outdated concepts of “ownership,” and liberate ourselves as writers? And now you’re telling me that Wikipedia is somehow off limits? –J.L.)

(I’ve told you this before, J.L. The point of fan fiction is that it allows us as fans to express our love for our favorite characters. Like, for instance, my favorite character on Battlestar Galactica [2004-2009 series] was Margaret Edmondson, callsign “Racetrack.” There were a lot of characters on the show and, unfortunately, Racetrack did not get the screen time she deserved, although she did make several key discoveries and without her everyone would have died. But in my Racetrack fan fiction (plug! plug!) I can make up for that oversight on the part of the show’s producers, and give Racetrack the spotlight she deserves. While I respect the established canon of the series, I’m interested in crafting my own tales, and I would never copy someone else’s words and use them without permission. Does that make sense? –Laura)

Bella thought back bitterly to the events of the day. Mainly she thought about her friend Laura—her so-called friend Laura—who had stabbed her in the back. Laura had so acted supportive when Bella had started a new endeavor, but was secretly jealous of Bella’s talent. Who wanted to read about Racetrack, anyway? Racetrack was barely even a supporting character.

She slammed the door as she walked into her house. Her father was, as usual, passed out on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own vomit. As she flipped him over, checked to see if he was breathing, and wiped the vomit off his face, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

“No one loves me,” she whispered. “Why won’t someone love me?”

TO BE CONTINUED!!!