Winner, Winner, Chicken_ _ _ _ (Food, #1)

Is there anything you wouldn't eat if it meant saving your family?

Even during the years preceding the Downfall and the creation of the Kingdom of Pacifica, food is scarce. Social injustice and hardship, however, is quite plentiful.

Sharren Menter, widow and mother of three young children, works long, hard days at a factory in Tacoma, Washington. But it isn't enough. Even with foraging for less than savory alternatives, like roadkill, she can't reliably feed her family. And every day life is getting worse. National and local government is losing control. States are seceding. The environment is collapsing. Chaos and misery are becoming the new normal.

Then the opportunity of a lifetime falls in Sharren's lap.

All she has to do is compete in a new game show and beat three other contestants. The competition -- three rounds of "food preparation challenges." The show producer is mysterious as to what that means. But Sharren doesn't care. She can't care. Because the prize is something she cannot pass up. It isn't money. Money is practically worthless when the grocery stores are practically empty. It isn't fame. Fame is now utterly worthless because no one cares about anyone else.

The prize: food. And lots of it. The winner's family receives generous quantities of luxury foods for an entire year.

For someone like Sharren, this prize is simply too enticing to pass up. She'll just have to find out what the game is when she shows up...

WARNING: This is an extreme horror short story. It contains graphic depictions of harm to animals. It also contains violence, coarse language, human degradation, and dark dystopian content.