Ty and Ryan's Fictional Character Hunger Games (Part X)

The Conclusion

See part IX

Dalton and greenman-suited Charlie Kelly trudge through the brush on their way towards the clearing and the Cornucopia. 

“Oh man, can you even see me right now or are am I, like, completely camouflaged?” Charlie giddily asks his companion as he frolics through the woods, his arms waving like a giant, blow-up, dancing man at a used car lot. 

“I can see you, Charlie,” says an exasperated Dalton.

“Hey, bro, sorry your lady died, or left you, either way” Charlie says sympathetically towards Dalton, misinterpreting the bouncer’s frustration with Charlie’s own antics for heartbreak.  Kate had, though, left unceremoniously last night.  After they had made camp around nightfall she had wandered off to find water and simply never returned.  Dalton felt sure that she was not foolish enough to be caught off-guard by any other competitors but he was also surprised that she would simply abandon him with Charlie…on second thought, perhaps Dalton could empathize…

“It’s ok, Charlie, let’s just stay quiet until we make it to the clearing,” Dalton says placidly.

“I know what’ll cheer you up, bro.  Me and Frank play this game called ‘Nightcrawlers,’ you’re gonna love it! I’ll show you tonight. Y’know…” Charlie says now, in a shrill voice (somehow even louder than he’d been before), “I thought there’d be more corn at the Cornucopia.  I’m really more a man of the law than science, bird-law to be precise, but I’m pretty sure a Cornucopia is a corn-tree, right?  Where does the corn grow off the Cornu…”

A ninja star flies directly over Charlie’s head.  “Whoa!!”  Charlie exclaims. 

“Run!  The clearing should be just ahead,” Dalton shouts to Charlie as both take off.

Before they can make it to clearing they see where the ninja star came from, Dwight is engaged in a vicious battle with Boo and Kevin (sitting on Boo’s shoulders, controlling and commanding him like Hannibal atop an elephant).  As the groups merge, each recognizing the other’s presence, all freeze.  Then, instantly, a battle ensues.  Fists and feet are flying as the tributes assail each other.  They’re all entangled in a furious storm of blows now at the edge of the forest.  Carried by the momentum of the fight, the group bursts through foliage and into the clearing near the Cornucopia.  They all stop, realizing where they are and momentarily taking inventory: Dwight, his glasses askew, his mustard yellow-shirt looking more honey than deli from the sweat; Dalton, slightly out of breath and shirtless (obviously); Charlie, looking near (or more near than usual) to death, clearly having alcohol and inhalant withdrawals but miraculously alive; and Boo Radley with KMac on his shoulders, an unlikely team.  They stare at each other for a few minutes, eyeing each other up now in the clearance, no one daring to make the first move…none sure of what that would even look like. 

“I think we’re the only ones left,” Dwight says finally.  They all look around silently, the non-response confirming Dwight’s statement.  They had all been too busy or hungry or scared to listen for any more to the death-announcing cannon blasts, but the silence in the group now feels like an unspoken agreement that they are likely the final competitors.

           

“I’m glad we are all able to meet, face-to-face, here in the open,” comes a voice from the woods suddenly.  The group turns to see Nic Cage emerge from the dark vegetation, his countenance calm, his appearance demure, un-cinematic.  He walks toward them, stopping in the middle of the group (who had formed something of a circle after emerging from the woods).  “I’m glad we could meet now that the Games have ended.”

 “Cage…” Dwight says darkly. 

“What do you mean, ended?” asks Dalton, skeptically. 

“Yes, ended…if they ever really began,” Cage responds enigmatically.  “Let’s just say that a survivor has emerged.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dalton asserts, his eyes piercing into the heart of the mysterious man before him. 

“Don’t you see?  I’ve already won…” Cage seems to gaze off into another dimension.

“What?!  How have you won?” Dwight demands. 

“I said I’d take your face off, Dwight, and now it’s time,” Cage says to the paper salesman, strangely calm.  Dwight reactively semi-crouches in a karate stance and glowers at Cage, ready for his advance, when Cage turns from him and addresses the group, rotating slowly as he speaks.  “No, Dwight, I’m not going to hurt you, I don’t need to.  It’s time to unmask you…all of you, to take your fictional faces off and expose you to the truth.” 

“What are you talking about, man?! Did you find alcohol because you better not be holdin’ out on us!” Charlie rages, pulling down his Greenman mask inelegantly to address Cage, “and who ARE you?!”

“I’m you Charles,” Cage responds, even-toned.  “And I’m you Dwight, and you Dalton, and you too Boo,” Cage says, turning to address each Tribute respectively, “or rather…you’re all me.  This is how I’ve won.  You’re all more than flesh and bone standing around me…or perhaps you’re less…you’re fictional characters.  You have been forged in the fires of human emotion, pain, joy, regret and victory.  You represent part of an invisible reality.  You are spirit as much, or more, than body here before us.  There are aspects of each of you that define and, in fact, effect, who you are more so than physicality.  And I…I have been in more movies, played more characters, than is calculable by any means known to the world today, and in that, I myself have been in-grafted with your very essences.  Don’t you see, Dalton?  In Con-Air I was a tough guy by necessity, just like you.  I hated to start a fight but I didn’t hesitate to end one…and I too had a dark past from violence.  And in National Treasure I was a leader of men, also like you.  And you, poor Charles, I too know the horrors of alcoholism, as a man drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas (“Well, you’re throwin’ out some accusations here, man…” – Charlie).  And Dwight, I was a socio-path in Face-Off.  Even you Boo, I was Boo Radley in a high school production of To Kill a Mockingbird, I was…magnificent…  But I digress, you see, my countless movie roles have melded me with the invisible qualities that compose your fictional beings.  Don’t you see?  I, myself have even started to resemble a fictional character. I have forced my way into both worlds.  I can’t help but be the ultimate winner, the ultimate survivor…I am fact-become-myth, that through the dying of all, I may yet live.”

 Everyone is shocked, spellbound, unable to speak.  The silence is thick when Kevin McCallister speaks up, “what about me?”  “Ah, Kevin,” Cage turns slowly toward him and moves closer, looking kindly upon the boy’s face, “Kevin there’s more of me in you than anyone else here…I’m your father, Kevin.  Don’t you see?  Can’t you all see how this ends?”  Cage says now turning around to address the whole circle.  “No matter who wins, Nic Cage lives, he lives because he’s in each and every one of you whether you like it or not.  Nic Cage is bigger than me…Nic Cage is bigger than all of us...” 

“WHAT?!,” Kevin finally breaks several moments’ silence, “how are you possibly my father?” 

“Do you really not understand…Macaully Culkin…” Cage says kindly.  “You and I are kindred spirits but at the opposite end of the spectrum.  You, Kevin McCallister, were so large, so luminous, as a fictional character that you begin to encroach upon reality.  You have joined Macaully in another dimension…We are the fence-crossers, Kevin.  You and I, father and son, we blur the once indelible line between reality and fiction…”

“Wait…” Dalton says, his eyes narrowing in intense concentration.  “But if we are really ideas, concepts brought into life to reflect some single or small collection of unseen realities…then we can’t really die at all…we would simply cease to reflect those invisible truths in the form that we currently do, at least until we are again imagined as such…we, actually, are larger than you.” The tension is beyond palpable amongst the group now as Dalton continues. “You may live on through us, but because you forced your real self into our mythical world, you’ll enjoy a terribly meager existence, you’ve gone the wrong way over the fence and you’ve spread yourself too thin, Cage.” 

“Like Voldemort!”  KMac shouts out excitedly. 

“Shhhhh! Don’t say his name…” Dwight cautions, his head instantly on a nervous swivel. 

Dalton presses on, “a single human can’t be in-grafted into all of the fictional characters in existence, each one representing some small space on the map of ultimate reality.  You can’t start off as a mortal man and then spread yourself out like that, that’s like an upside-down funnel!  Fact-become-myth devolves into non-existence...into a lie…”

Suddenly a horn blast envelopes the crowd.  While the others cover their ears defensively, Dwight sees an opportunity to strike and attacks Cage with a pair of nunchucks.  Cage, whose hands cover his ears more out of annoyance than fear, suddenly bursts into a flaming skeleton and begins to choke Dwight with a chain. 

As Dwight slowly chokes to death, the rest of the group looks up to the top of a giant hill on the north end of the clearing several hundred yards away; the noise seemingly emanating from the crest.  A blindingly bright figure slowly appears.  While they can't make out who or what it is, the group notices Kate Austen standing atop the hill next to the source of the sound and light, dressed elegantly in a light blue dress.  She looks like she has never even seen the arena, let alone been stranded for days.  As Kate and the light move slowly down the hill towards the group the glare from the bright figure dies down and the group sees a gargantuan lion standing before them.

"Hello, friends," the lion speaks.

"Are you kiddin' me!?  Who slipped me acid again?" Charlie stuttered, collapsing to the ground.  "That thing sounds like Liam Neeson!  Nic Cage AND Liam Neeson! What is going on in here?..." Charlie asks no one in particular, pointing to his head with a wild glint in his eye.

"I am Aslan.  I've come to lead you out of the Games"  The booming yet soothing voice of the lion permeates the arena and cuts through the surviving tributes' tension like a knife through butter.  “It’s just over the crest of the hill, if you’ll follow, Kate can lead you now...and I’ll meet you there soon,” his eyes shift for an instant towards Cage.

“We been over that hill before and we didn’t see no way out over there…sir" Boo says timidly while he and Kevin both tremble in awe of the talking beast.

"You haven’t been with me before,” Aslan responds.

“Is there something new over there?” Kevin asks.

"It will be new when I meet you there,” the lion almost smiles, “come and see.” 

“It won’t be comfortable going up the hill,” Kate says to the scared duo, “but you won’t be alone, and once you’re over you’ll never have to hide or set traps again.” 

Boo, still carrying the injured KMac on his shoulders walks over to stand by Aslan and Kate, ready for the journey.

"Come with us, Dalton!" Kate beckons to the bouncer. 

Dalton, who still holds a karate stance, eases up and stares at his former ally.  "Why did you disappear?"

"I saw the talking lion last night and I thought to myself, 'this could make for an interesting love triangle'."  Kate's honesty brings a smile to Dalton's face.  “But once I met him I couldn’t help but follow over the hill, come with us.” 

Before he can make a decision, Dalton turns to face his arch nemesis. Cage, who has returned to human form after taking out Dwight, stares back blankly.  Both men clinch their fists together, ready to fight.  "I hope you find your peace, Cage," he says stoically.  He eases his fists, turning his back on Cage, and joins Kate and the others.

"Wait, wait, wait just a minute here--" Charlie says excitedly.  He faces Aslan.  "Is there alcohol where we're going?  I could use some glue too..."

"Charlie, where you are going, you aren't going to need drugs," the lion responds.

"Uhh...yeahh...that's cool and all...but...uh...I'm gonna need some brews to ease my nerves a bit.  At least this dude Cage seems to have a stash of poppers or something.  Or maybe you could, like, teach me some of those sweet skills you used in Taken?  That would be pretty sweet…"

The lion sighs.  "The Waitress is waiting for you."

Charlie's eyes light up as he thinks of his long unrequited love.  He doesn't even acknowledge Cage, but pulls on his Greenman hood and scurries uncoordinatedly over to Kate.  “Go ahead with Kate, I’ll meet you there.  You’ll know when I arrive,” Aslan says authoritatively to the group who subsequently turns and begins moving towards the large hill.   

“What about me,” says darkly, the group now well behind them, “am I welcome?”

Aslan turns, addressing Cage, "Nicholas, I’m afraid you couldn’t survive over there…not in your condition," he says sadly. “And yet, if you’ll follow me up the hill…if the trek doesn’t kill you, all may not be lost yet…”

Cage laughs maniacally.  "You obviously underestimate me, you fool.  I'm Nic Cage; I'm above you."  They stare into each other's eyes, reading into each other's souls.  "You can't win, beast," Cage hisses.  "Haven’t you heard?  I can’t die."

“I’m afraid, Nicholas, that Dalton was closer to correct…you cannot live...not as you are.”

"You’re nothing but a talking lion.  I have seen and conquered things much scarier than you…I’ve stolen the Declaration of freakin’ Independence!"

"This is a mistake, Nicholas.  I can summon anything to end you.  Travolta, MegRyan, a hoard of bees..."

"Not the bees!" Cage hisses, slightly taken aback, but quickly regaining his venom, "this is the last good fight you'll ever know..."

Both Aslan and Cage pounce.

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THE END