Reyes Moreno [District One]

Reyes Moreno [District One] Oct 2, 2011 0:45:22 GMT -5

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Post by Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy] on Oct 2, 2011 0:45:22 GMT -5

Male. District One. Seventeen.

appearance

Well I didn't tell anyone, but a bird flew by
Saw what I'd done.

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I am gorgeous.

Of course, I haven't been told so, at least not directly. There's not a lot of proof behind the matter, but when I look in the mirror I don't worry about a thing that I see. My hair, wild unless I gel it up into some formal style. My clothes, sleek and clean as a direct result of my parents' money. My physique, crafted out of years of training. My eyes, my nose, my chin. It is all pleasant.

At least, I think so. You'd be surprised how many ugly comments are thrown around the house by the younger children. Everything they can say about me that's negative, they will. I used to be bothered by it, but my parents taught me how to ignore all of it. They taught me to feel utmost confidence in myself. It's most of what I have. When you take away the confidence, I would hate to see what I am. A weakling, I guess. I am always afraid. If anything, the confidence in my appearance and everything about myself covers up the fear a bit.

Plus I won't believe anything they ever say about me.

In the end, it shows when I step out the door. I make a point to ooze confidence, force myself to smile and show the other kiddies that they don't bother me. I strut, skip, dance, hum to myself, dress nicely, and after a while it even makes me feel better. I forget that I am afraid when I act like I'm king of the planet.

He set up a nest outside,
and he sang about what I'd become.

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I'm not exactly spoiled. None of us are, if you think about it. My parents could give me the whole wide world and that would change nothing. In some ways it strikes a balance. I can ask for any materialistic thing I want, but they would not love me enough to instill any feeling of safety in my mind. I don't think they love at all. It's difficult to tell. I know they like me better than the others, at least. I'm their own, and I know what I'm doing.

Either way, they give me just about anything I ask for. Clothes, shoes, makeup (I'll occasionally wear eyeliner – it makes for a nice effect), weapons for practice, trinkets and things to carry with me for comfort. I used to have a stuffed animal – a cat I never named – but I don't know where that went. One of the kids probably thought I would miss it so they took it and burned it or something, but I have no idea. I don't worry about the objects as much as I cling desperately to the things to present myself. It's the clothes and the things that cover me up. Shiny things, fancy things, everything that my parents can afford to give me, I wear all of it. And believe me, they can afford a lot more than most people.

He sang so loud, sang so clear.
I was afraid all the neighbors would hear

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Naturally, I'm not sure how I look. I don't usually look in the mirror when I'm dirty or not clad in layers of extravagant clothing. Maybe my nose is a little wide. Maybe my eyebrows are too bushy, my eyes too thin, my mouth too large. Those are the things the little ones used to insult me about to weaken me, at least, but I don't notice them anymore. I notice the muscles, the curly brown hair that covers half of my face, the clothes, the height. The positive things.

So I invited him in, just to reason with him
I promised I wouldn't do it again

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My eyes are brown. I'm not sure what I think of them. Mostly I look at them and realize that they look just like my Dad's eyes. I don't have an opinion of them. They are a part of me, and so they are amazingly beautiful because I say they are. They are also a part of my Dad, and so they are horrific. But they are simply brown. I'm not sure. I try not to relate myself to how my parents look. I am myself. I am not a killer. I am calm and comforting as long as I'm not being attacked by the other kids. I shouldn't think of myself as anything like my parents, but I see resemblances. The eyes, my mom's curly brown hair. I'm almost the same exact height as my dad, except an inch shorter. He's 6 feet, I'm 5'11”. I don't often notice these things, but when I think of them they bother me until I force myself to not care.

But I am me. I love myself. I am not them.
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personality[/size]

But he sang louder and louder inside the house,
And now I couldn't get him out

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It's not that I'm awkward, I swear. I can talk, lie, cheat, manipulate, smile my way out of a lot when it comes to getting what I want. My parents, they call themselves the parents of the other kids they “adopt” – they like me the best. I'm not their only “real” child – I have a younger brother or two (it's really becoming difficult to tell, with my parents bringing all of these kids into our home, you would never know) but I'm the oldest of the bunch. You can't outplay the first one that comes along; I'll always be the favorite. No matter what the others say or do, I will always come out on top. But that's why they're trying to kill me. Maybe it's my attitude, for one, but then you can't go along and say my parents never had anything to do with it. They made me a target, giving me the most attention. Plus, our house is like a factory for Careers, and I'm not surprised Peacekeepers haven't caught them yet. In the end, that's not the point. I stick my nose up away from them, the little ones, the weaklings, and they try to shank me in my sleep. I don't sleep a lot anymore. In fact, I can't do a lot of anything anymore without looking over my shoulder every time someone's out of sight. Even when I'm away from home, I have to know that I'm safe. Every shadow, every corner, every small breeze is a threat. It's not that I was taught as a Career; it's that I've lived it.

So I trapped him under a cardboard box
stood on it to make him stop

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When it comes to the kids, there's not a lot I can do about manipulating myself out of an issue. They're the ones with the lee way, the power. I can't very well puppy dog eye my way out of being attacked, not like they can. Stutter, stutter, cry. “I'm sorry! I – I – I didn't mean to do anything.. really.. please don't hurt me..” Crumple into a little ball and prepare for the worst. They are little masters at that, but even if I cry for real they don't believe me. It's a giant game of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but we're all playing and nobody ever tells the truth. Weakness is a luxury. Can't have any, can't show it to anyone, but you know it's there anyways. They'll tear your eyes out if you're the first one to fall asleep and somebody's got a knife around. Mom and Dad usually confiscate the knives before we sleep because they say it's cheap to attack someone when they're unaware, but you know. Somebody always has a knife on them. Sleep is considered a weakness, and so is not keeping a weapon stuffed somewhere my parents won't find it. Not that I would openly attack one of them – right? – but you need something to defend yourself with. The bigger challenge is talking them out of doing it. I can't cry or beg for mercy (and I wouldn't) but they work in strange ways. I've found that if you insult them enough, hate them enough, they'll back down for the night. ”Mom and Dad would be ashamed of you, you know, attacking at night.” And then you threaten them, because you know what they're really after. “I'll go show them this and they'll hate you even more than they do now..” And that's the moment when they always pick between two options: give in and go to sleep (hatred still burning in their eyes, so you know they'll be after you when the morning comes) or try to kill you right then and there and stuff their weapon under somebody else's mattress before morning.

I picked up the bird and above the din I said
"That's the last song you'll ever sing."

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But then I guess awkwardness factors into everything. Guys I can talk to real easy, but girls not as much. Especially the ones that live in the house. They're not family, I won't call them that. Half of them are after me to kill me and the rest of them are, you know, after me. I don't know, it's just.. I don't understand it either. You'd think I'd be able to handle them better, distancing myself from them as I do, but maybe that's why I'm so terrible with girls. Which ones want to kill me and which ones want something else? Guys I understand, I completely get their motives. I'm one of them, I grew up this way, I know what I would do and what they're probably thinking and the expressions on their faces. But girls are sneaky and I don't understand them one bit. I've never had real sisters, and girls are a foreign species. Kinda like they've got cooties still, ya know? Except.. more dangerous cooties. I guess. Not that I haven't had relationships here and there, albeit very, very short relationships. Not with girls in the house, gosh no, but girls outside of the house. I didn't understand them, they didn't understand me either. Not only do they scare the hell out of me, but I also can't talk to them. I'll stutter and stumble and awkwardly go through a conversation at best. At worst, I'll freeze up and try to look like I'm thinking something deep and emotional and try to compose myself like I would if I were faking a persona to manipulate. But I think I still look terrified when I try that. Like I said, my relationships don't last long.

Held him down, broke his neck,
Taught him a lesson he wouldn't forget

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I have no idea what my future will be like.

I know I won't be in the Games, I can tell you that much. There are plenty of people out there that would volunteer in my place, being District One and all. I've never decided what I wanted to do with my life. I'm not one to look ahead to the future. I've always trained other Careers away from home, but I know for a fact I won't be doing that after I'm eighteen. My parents say that I have to help others train, and I don't mind that much at the moment because it gets me out of the house. Then again, I am training other Careers about everything I know, things I wish I didn't know in the first place. I am not a killer. I'm not. But I train them, I train myself, and I am supposed to be one of them. I hope more than anything in the world that I am not terrible, that these things that I've seen aren't a part of me. I am apart from all of that, unaffected. I try.

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But in my dreams began to creep
that old familiar tweet tweet tweet

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Mom and Dad were always obsessed with the Games. They told me that they were Careers too, but neither of them were reaped. It seemed like a waste of years, to train for so long and never get the chance, I thought at the time. Now I wonder if dying in the Games is the real waste of years. In some sick, twisted way, I can completely justify training. It is one thing to train, to “better oneself” as my parents used to call it, but it is another to die without preparing. Mom and Dad said they wanted me to be ready. That they don't want me to die when I'm reaped. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't be picked in the first place. They taught me that it was always life or death. I train, I live long after the day that I'm reaped. I don't, I am as good as dead once I enter the arena. Like it was a sure thing. Now I know I won't be, but that doesn't the change the fact that I am still afraid for my life.

It also never occurred to me that they didn't actually love me. All they want is a Victor.

I was wondering why my parents were taking so many kids in from the community home, at first. I was around 13 years old, living a rich kid's life. I had already spent a good deal of time training. Not the psychological stuff – I don't think my brain could handle that at 13 – but the physical things. I could kill a dummy for sure with at least three types of weapons.

I opened my mouth to scream and shout,
I waved my arms and flapped about

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Then, one day, we had 10 other kids in our house, not counting me and my first brother. Not all at once, of course. They came in gradually, the ones my parents had handpicked. The strong ones, the spunky ones, the ones with a bit of fight in them from the community home. For a while my parents trained all of them, and I didn't understand why I wasn't being given any attention. Then, one day, my parents made an announcement of sorts. I don't remember it perfectly, but it went something like this:

”From now on, you are going to pretend that you are in the Games,” my Mom said, in that official way she spoke when she mentioned the Games. ”We have weapons laying around the house anyways, and you are all encouraged to fight each other. Don't kill, of course, just fight. We just want to see if this method is effective.”

It scared me how little she seemed to care about us.

I wouldn't have picked up a knife and harmed a single one of them, not until they actually did start fighting. I actually kind of liked them, apart from the fact that my parents had spent most of their time training them and had no time for me.

But I couldn't scream and I couldn't shout,
couldn't scream and I couldn't shout

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None of us were supposed to kill. It all seemed like a game at first, you know, actually fighting each other in a surprise setting. I would smile and laugh and wield my knife as I was taught. I suppose we all injured each other a bit – them more so when I fought them because I had a few more years of experience – but not enough that any of us were seriously hurt. We healed ourselves up as we were taught and that was that.. until things changed.

At some point, they all started to notice something. The more they fought, they better they did, the more attention they got from my parents. The more attention they got, the happier they were. It's difficult to come across a bit of attention or praise in a house of 12 children, and in a way it's the worst kind of motivation. At some point it became a bloodthirsty fight for “love” and praise, and me and my younger brother were at the top, being their actual children.

I opened my mouth to scream and shout
waved my arms and flapped about

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My brother was the first to die. They killed him in his sleep. I don't understand why my parents didn't care. It seemed all they really cared about was the perfect fighter, the perfect person to send into the Games one day.

But I couldn't scream I couldn't shout,
The song was coming from my mouth

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I never thought I would kill anybody, but I did. I was angry; I couldn't help myself. The girl who killed my brother was a year older than I was, but she had less experience. I told myself it was an accident.

Accidents happen a lot in my house, or at least I think that's what my parents tell the Peacekeepers when they wonder why a child goes missing. Then again, it's more likely that they pay them nicely to keep it to themselves. Rich and sadistic is a terrible combination for a parent.

They feed us. They give us anything we want. We have a roof over our heads.

But we never have safety.

FC is Marlon Teixeira.

odair

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