TATIANA VANDERWELL ★ D7

Praise him. Him. You have to. Mama said you have to, or terrible things will happen. You can't even think about disobeying his orders - that in itself is a sin. So just prey that he will spare you from the fiery pits of what happens if you do not follow every rule to the letter. And you will. Just give yourself up to Him - do it, do it. Be true or forever regret your disobedience. And regret it you will. Did you know that He made the forest? All of it, every tree and flower and blade of grass. He created everything in the district. But not the sky or the sea. Did you know that they are both lies - infinity is a lie told by sinners. He said so himself, Mama told me. When I was a wee thing, I looked up into the sky at the stars and she told me not to believe in them.(Forget about the pretence - Tati, dear. Just remember that there is nothing more beautiful than He, Himself.) He is our King, for He rules us. Even though there are billions of distractions and illusions and terrible things like love and emotion, He holds our faith. Not just mine. All of ours. He is saving us, that is what they don't understand. He is our saviour and we will obey him.

Inside my head I laugh at those who pity us. Why would anyone pity us, when we are the ones who know and appreciate the truth, and they are the ones with a destiny of pain ahead of them. That is, if we don't get to them first. Mama says it is our duty to educate the unfortunates. They are not as lucky as us, to have a mother like her. With a heart so strong she chooses to lead us toward the light. Him. Worship him and listen to him, because he tells us so much. And we write it out because he asks us to, pin it to every surface in our house and our church and the rest of our district when we can. Looping scrolls of swirling writing the way he asked it to be written. Just the rules so that people know what to do. What not to do. Thou shalt not sin, and yet all the people do. I watch them and I laugh because all these sinners will rot and I will be praised. One day, he will reward me - us - the way we deserve. By letting us serve him further. Mama explains to the unfortunates that we do not do this because we believe that one day we will live - or die - in luxury. We follow His ruling because it is the only way, the only choice. Praise Him or die and keep on dying forever, whether it be at the hands of one of his willing servants or He himself. Count yourself lucky to feel pain at his command.

I am ashamed of myself. No, no. Ashamed is a sin, as are all of the sins that are emotions. I do not feel them. I feel nothing but faith running through my blood as it was given to me. It's part of being born into this family. He runs through your entire body. He consumes you. And you are glad of this. (You'd better be, you selfish being!) What I meant to say is that I am not such a great messenger from the Lord as I should be. Mama has done better, but I have years ahead of me. To be seen and not heard, to carry out his wishes in silence. But she has created a stream of believers that will carry on forever. How could it not when every single one of us believes in him instead of the stars and the sky and the sea and the emotions and all the other traits of a unbeliver. (Mama says this is the right word - unbeliever.) Not non-believer, although I don't know why. I don't think about things like that. Why waste my time considering the actions of those who are already lost when I could be saving souls, one at a time. Building a bridge to perfection in humanity.

I don't speak. Why would I waste my words when they could be used within? Mama says they burn through my eyes, but to me, my eyes look empty. They are blue - but blue is the colour of sins. (As you grow wiser, they will grow greyer, and the dreadful blue will fade away, Tati.) I hope so - I'm so sure how much longer I can walk about carrying the ocean and the universe in my head. It's heavy and all I want to hold inside of my mind is Him. (Patience, darling.) Simple clothes adorn me so as not to distract anybody from the most important thing of all. When you look at me, the aim is to see nothing at all - just a message. A shell holding onto a truth. But it's something gradual, and it's taken Mama many years to become completely empty of distraction. If I was permitted to feel pride I might do so in response to how quickly it has taken me to become free of evil. I guess when you grow up staring into books of Law instead of television screens, hearing stories of the forest and the birds and the unbelivers rather than the tales of Panem, it is easy. (The Vanderwell family were chosen after the rebellion, darling. It's our destiny to keep Him alive.) And this is why when I describe my appearance I do not describe the brown of my hair or the full lips which scarcely part. I ignore the slender figure and the spaced-out features that give me a peculiar look. (How do you see yourself when you look in the mirror, Tati?) I see the forest and my home and my family and the fluttering pieces of paper which dance in the wind, I see the trickling streams and the daisy chains and Mama leaning in to tell us - (No! Do not say you love me. Love only Him.)

We have a house, but I barely ever see the inside of it. Or the outside for that matter. Sometimes I sleep under the benches at the church, or under the trees in the forest. Nobody tells me to come inside. I go to school, when I remember. Me and my siblings slip scripture into lockers and wait with wide eyes for the days to end so we can return home to a place where when you stare they don't stare back. Aelia's empty gaze is often responded to with empty threats and snickers, but I don't think she notices. (They think we're crazy, Tati. All of us.) If I knew what funny was, I might find this funny. They are the crazy one, ignoring the words of Him. Who will be snickering when they are rotting eternally and we are cared for by our master? Lucius has done the best. He has taken life from someone who threatened to break the church. My brother killed a boy who shattered a window and scrawled cruel things on the walls of our house. (Insane! Crazies! Thou shalt not be so creepy!) I don't know how he did it, but one day he was jeering across the school grounds and the next he was six feet below the ground. The Peacekeepers never came knocking. I think perhaps they are just as fearful of us as the rest of them. Rightly so. When you do not have Him to protect you, surely everything is to be afraid of?

. . . .

There are three things I will never lose. My faith. My desire to help the unbelievers believe and save themselves. And Titus. Titus is like me. Too much like me, sometimes. When He created us, we were made in mirror images of each other. And I hate it. When I look at him and I see myself reflected in his eyes, each of us a mirror of the other - well, without the guidance of He I wouldn't know how to act. My twin brother is in my mind as I am in his, and my mind is a place that nobody should be but myself. Not even Him, because he trusts me enough to think my own thoughts. I obey him - but only most of the time. Because sometimes I think things that I know aren't right and yet I cannot suppress the lies that poison me. I hate tried everything and sometimes I forget about feeling nothing and let emotions slip through the boundaries of my mind. Sometimes I forget about not questioning the world and awful, sinful thoughts dance on my lips. (Tati, don't run away like that!) He doesn't speak the words - we scarcely utter a sound - but I see them in his eyes loud and clear. And what I am afraid of is him doing the same thing to me. It's always been like this but lately I've felt myself slipping away. Burying myself in scripture, or running away barefoot through the forest feels better. I doubt that He approves of my being alone - I was born with Titus, so surely I am expected to live and die with him by my side? (Tatiana! You were never one to rebel!) It's true, Mama. I was never one who turned herself over to all of infinity infinity is a lie of punishment for crimes. I am a Vanderwell - I do not commit crimes against Him. But if I was to then Titus would see it right away and all of my secrets - the ones I am forbidden to keep - and he would be in a kind of danger I never want to put him in. So I shut myself up even to my brother, and not just because emotions are sins.

I trust Him. Completely. That is why I do not worry about Valentina. (You're not to worry about her, Tati, she'll find her way.) Because Mama says and because He will guide her. She sins, yes, but she is only young. She doesn't know better. She makes out sometimes like she doesn't believe but I think deep down that she does. I don't know why she would pretend in a family like this. If she keeps it up, she'll end up like that boy who's grave lies without flowers at the cemetery. But He wont let that happen. Lucius wouldn't be asked to dispose of his own little sister - would he? Sometimes I doubt that there is even a limit to what He would ask of his followers. (Whatever it takes. For humanity.) Mama says the unbelievers do not appreciate the help we give them only because they are unfortunate. Unfortunate enough not to be born into a family like ours where there is no doubt at all. Our bedtime stories never held princess and dragons. I think anybody could guess the tales we heard before our weary eyes drifted down into sleep.

Whispers sound like the waves crashing on the shore as I watch Penelope Libertine die. The screen flashes and I turn away. Nobody told her what to wish for as she uttered her final goodbye. She didn't know, and now she will suffer. That is, she will suffer if she is real. (Don't believe in it unless you are sure of it, Tati. If you cannot hold the stars then they are not there.) That was the words that made me begin to doubt that there is anything at all beyond the walls of the district. Maybe the simple idea of something more is a temptation and an illusion, placed there by some greater evil in order to lure people away. Once they are gone from here there is no hope of saving them. Penelope could have been saved. Not saved from death - there are much more dreadful things than death. She should have been saved. And this is why we are here. His messengers, essentially. Soldiers sent to earth to fight all the untruths that are told. The whispers. We fight the sea. (Are you quite sure it is wise to battle with the sky, my dear, when you know not of it's extent?) Just so long as I never burn brighter than the stars.



Lyrics: Stars, Fun.
Template: Just kind of stollen from everywhere.
Faceclaim: Sydney Edmonds.
Plot: Vanderwell Family.