[justify]The beauty of painting comes not from the brush, paint, or even the artist himself - but begins with a single, blank canvas.

The magic starts here - varying from a crisp, white page to a large, brick wall. An image waits everywhere; from invisibly settling into unused sheets of paper or into the paneling of a wooden door - sitting there until the right artist comes around, catches sight of the potential drawing, and uncloaks the disguise they hide under with paint and a paintbrush as his only tools. The possibilities of where to begin are endless. Some may prefer sketchbooks, while others go as far to paint upon a cemented ground. As for me? The world is my canvas.

There are days when the sky is so blue, and the hills so green, that I can lie for hours perched by the window sill of my bedroom - staining my hands with different shades of grey, indigo, violet, and yellow until the painting finally comes to life. Not many people realize this, and it only takes a true artist to figure it out, but the light of the world streams through the tip of a painter's brush.

Today, I paint myself.

My soft, blonde locks lay uncurled around my pale shoulders, shimmering off sunlight as if it were really just threads of gold. For once, my thin lips are set into a small line, a ghost of a smile tainting them. Though, hardly anyone could find me like this outside of a portrait, I talk as much as I please - so much, in fact, that it'd be a rarity to find my lips closed. I compliment myself in the painting by making myself appear to fill out my petite frame somewhat more, but in reality, I'm far from that picture perfect weight. There are nights where I don't remember anything else but drowning in my father's expensive alcohols and purging over the porcelain seat of my toilet bowl. Can you blame me though? I mean, I can hardly bare to imagine myself with a few extra pounds hanging off my stomach. Nevermind the fact that most in Panem would kill to have those extra pounds for themselves. My skin beholds a haunting pale color, and although I don't reveal the matter in the painting, it's due to my skin being powdered down with thick make up each day. Apparently, the freckles that splash against the whole of my body are not "in" with Capitol fashion, this season. Or any season for that matter. Glamour is certainly something that I never come short of. Usually, my outfits are gaudy and superfluous, consisting of bejeweled corsets, satin robes, or gauze kimonos. But, that's not how I look in my painting. No, I dress myself in a simple dress that seems to flutter in the wind. My piercing blue eyes stare directly into it's audience, squinting ever so slightly as if I were happy.

That's another beauty of painting. The art to convey lies.[/justify]

[justify]My brush moves mechanically against the white page without me forcing it to do so. My fingers are wrapped around the handle, and hardly move, as if it was of no use except for holding the utensil up. It dips into black paint, then water, grey paint, then water, red paint, then water, blue paint, then water. Over and over again. An endless chain of dipping. The only sound I can hear is the soothing noise of the bristles of my brush meeting the crisp page. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. And, before I even realize what it is, the image comes to life.

A girl with golden hair confined in a rectangular box. She reminds me of a bird with broken wings, stuck to live the rest of her days in a small cage. But, doesn’t everyone know by now that we’re all meant to spread our wings and fly? The box is encrusted with minuscule diamonds and pearls, painted in the most decorative of colors, and glows with opulence - but it is still too small. Her lithe body is crammed into what little space that the box offers - which is honestly no space at all. She has her eyes clenched shut, and her mouth wide open. If a brush could paint sounds, blood curdling screams would emit from this girl’s two dimensional mouth. She’s slamming her fists against the ornate walls, trying - oh so desperately trying - to get the hell out. But, the box only seems to shrink around her, pinching her thin ankles, choking her tiny neck. It’s darkness closes in around her, it’s thick, golden walls crumbling to pieces about her. There’s no way she’ll be able to cope. There’s no way out for her. There’s no escape.

Why did I condemn her to this life?

Why didn’t I paint an exit for her? Why didn’t I open a hole in the box to let oxygen in? Why didn’t I create a window that could’ve let light flood through the room? Why did I leave her trapped on this page forever? Why do I allow this girl to be tormented? Why?

Then, I realize it isn’t just any girl. It’s me.

I rip the page to shreds, the paint still fresh and wet against my pale skin. It all floats to the ground in small pieces, like ashes after a fire. I collapse to the floor next to my bed, crumbling like the walls of the box. A shred of the drawing falls in front of me, and it’s her mouth - my mouth - opened wide in pure agony. Then, suddenly, my world is collapsing in on me, too - my canvas is falling apart. The grand walls of my bedroom that are lined with moldings and flashy wallpaper surrender under the weight of gravity, forcing me down to choke beneath it’s rubble. I claw at my scalp, placing my head in between my knees so I don’t have to witness my world falling apart. But, my world falls apart anyway.

And so do I.

It isn’t until Beth, my Avox, bursts into my room and holds my trembling hands in hers do I realize that I’m screaming. My voice halts suddenly, but it doesn’t prevent the tears from falling. I stare at Beth - silent, shaking, and bewildered - while she gives me a look that asks if I’m alright. I don’t answer her question, or give it any acknowledgement. I just stare at her with empty eyes, looking right through her as if she wasn’t even there to begin with. This is more of an answer than she could’ve asked for.

The doctor’s say there’s no permanent cure for claustrophobia. Yes, there’s medication for the disorder - but, if anything, it makes my condition worse. Because, the walls continue to shrink around me, I continue to grow about them, the spaces between us continue to shrivel until there’s no space left - until I’m that girl in the painting, desperately begging for an escape out of this world.

People don’t notice this about me, however. Or, if they did, they’ve just never mentioned it. Why would they? I am Ambrose Aisling, daughter of one of the highest officials in District One, let alone, all of Panem. No one wants to get on my bad side. Everyone smiles at my looks, my wealth, my potential me, everyone wants to become friends, everyone wants a piece of my life. But, absolutely no one wants to have themselves out of my favor.

And I like to keep it that way.

Besides, why would anyone want me to hate them? Yes, I have manners like every other little rich girl in this pathetic district, but I can snap out of that disgusting facade as soon as someone gives me a reason to. I don’t have that much of a great temper to begin with, so it’d be best if everyone did not try and test my patience.

But, if anybody even tried to get to know me as other than ”Daddy’s little rich girl,” maybe they’d find something different. If someone - anyone - thawed through my iron armor, they’d discover a vulnerable girl that wishes for life beyond the regal walls she’s bounded in. To be free and resist the temptations of abiding by the law. To care for someone rather than be cared for. To not be the first class lady her parents and all of society expect her to be. To not take up the "honor" of serving The Capitol. District One closes off all opportunity of imagination that comes knocking on my door. I go through fancy dinners and glitzy parties enjoying every single bit, but all the while, it’s like being closed off in a steel box. Just like the girl in my painting… Like all that I’ll ever live in is ignorance. Can one live in a place all her life and not know that her surroundings are a mere illusion?

If I had any choice, I’d paint my own world. Pick up my brush - dip, stroke, dip, stroke - and stain the world with bright hues of yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, green, blue. There’d be no more black and white. There’d be no more misery. There'd be no more President Snow, there'd be no more Panem, there'd be no more Hunger Games. The world would stand indestructible - as long as the light always flowed right through my brush.

But these are dangerous thoughts - thoughts that could only be portrayed with the most poisonous of venom.[/justify]

[justify]I remain trembling on the floor of my bedroom as Beth released her grip on me, slowly nodding her head as if she thought it gave me any comfort, then turned to clean the mess I have created. I wonder if she realizes that I am the true mess.

She moves slowly, collecting the torn pieces of paper from my floor, delicately, as if they were all petals of a rare flower. It disgusted me. "Get out of here, Beth," I told her quietly, a hiss under my breath. My hands clawed at the fur rug I sat on, clenching and unclenching it with my hands. Red stained parts of the rug, now, and I wasn't exactly sure if it was blood or paint. "Get out." But she doesn't. Of course she doesn't. Above anyone, she's heard me like this countless times before. She understands me more than anyone, she is the only one I know who can navigate her way out of the deathly labyrinth that I am, the only one who can undo the snare I always set inside of me for the unsuspecting. She is my only true friend, the only one I know that doesn't use me for my money or for my status. Ambrose Aisling's only friend is an avox. How pathetic. But, when I look at her - at her mangled tongue, cropped brown hair, dry tan skin - I don't see the barrier that society barges between us. Although I do act that way in the presence of other people. What I see are flashes of my past, flashes of irresistible memories, flashes of the horrifying reality that only Beth can ever understand.

Murder.

At my hands.

And, had Beth not been strong enough, she would've been one of them.

Then, unwillingly, the images are being painted right before my eyes. No, not here, not now. But, there's no stopping the past when it comes back to haunt you, is there? Because, now, I'm drowning in endless swirls of heart breaking screams, blood splattering a cold tiled floor, sounds of the blade of a sword slicing through the wind. There's no stopping it now, there's no going back. Now, you'll all know how much of a fucking monster I really am. I am a career.

But I was made a murderer at age eleven.

As a little girl, my mother was determined to make sure her only daughter would become a victor just as she had. Training took place every week since age three, ranging from 4-5 days. At first, it began simple, as in learning how to grip the handle of a dagger, or how to make a bow and arrow out of natural resources. But as I grew, with the Reaping age not too far ahead, the training soon became unbearable for a girl of my... "innocent" age. Innocence? No, all innocence is corrupt the moment you are born into this world. My mother would hire countless Avoxes my age, only to force both of us in a closed off room as she watched her only daughter kill off each and every one of them. Too much blood has been shed and seen for a girl who has only lived eleven years, and, as merciless as my mother was is, I could hardly live with the fact that I had killed someone. That I had taken the life of another human being. That I had corrupted the innocence of another. And all for what?

For the sake of the games.

At night, I’d wake up screaming, sure that the wind banging on my window was the Avox I killed begging to come in and be saved, that the book that fell off it’s shelf was the sound of me crunching an Avox’s skull, that the rustle of my sheets was the whimper I heard right before I finished them off. I couldn't beg my mother to stop the training, though. How could I when she displayed the greatest passion and joy for transforming her daughter into a murderer?

Until Beth came.

I bring my hands over to my eyes, shielding me away from her presence until I feel the memory slowly slip away. But it never goes away that easily. Because now I can feel the dagger stinging my back as the prick of the metal meets my skin. Now I can feel myself collapsing to the floor, waiting for death to come as I lay my cheek in a pool of my own blood. Now I can feel Beth gaze at me with a stare just as sharp as her blade. Now I can feel the thump as she falls to the ground next to me, a dart sticking out of her neck. Now I can feel the vibration as the dagger falls to the tiled floor, it's metal clinks ringing throughout the room.

An avox - of among all people - has beat me at my own game.

Beth, withered and worn just as much as I was from our battle, was assigned as my servant ever since then. Someone that my parents never gave much thought to other than another slave to carry our thrones about in the house, never did they think that their only child could have befriended such a beast. But, I did. For she never tried to hide her scares from me, after all, I have them too. The brutality of my training has decreased since then, but the overall training has never ceased to exist for me. The walls of the training room always close in on me, always crumble about me just as the box in the painting. I still stand as one of District One's most brutal careers.

And, yet, here I sit, my screams echoing off the walls of my room, as my best friend avox tries to pry my hands away from my face, paint staining the floors and walls of my room - all because I have allowed the blade of my past to cut through my cloak of vulnerability. What kind of creature have I grown into? A claustrophobic, paranoid, and weak being who's scared of her own shadow. Careers don't act like this - careers are courageous, careers are merciless, careers are strong.

And I am anything but strong.[/justify]

NORMAL // 443322
EMPHASIS // 774411
SPEECH // 996633
HEADINGS // 442211 and 332211