Isabella S H N O W <five.> ::FINISHED::

Retreated into the corner of her noisy house,
How wonderful it would be to see just one single flame,
Finally she took the plunge and struck a match,
How merrily it crackled, how it warmed, how it glared.
She took another match and struck again,
Wonderful visions came as it glared again
It was so beautiful to see the flame,
Like sitting in front of an iron stove.
Somebody died, she said
As her Grandma had told her,
Granny please don't leave me here!
She cried as her shape appeared,
As they left this world behind
Only the flames stayed there,
In the twilight she was found dead
With a smile on her face.

Colouring credit to Bryya for making my failed attempt look beautiful.




I[/size][/color] am the Definition.[/color][/font]







I[/size][/color] am the Event.[/color][/font]
{Appearance}

She walks
She yearns
She talks
She learns
She burns

I am only partially aware that the clucking woman in front of me is, indeed, not my mother, but Veronica, the only truly sane person in this House. Although she is only two years my senior, I, like all the other crazies here, need looking after. In fact, the way she treats me is only with less fuss because she is afraid of the power I have.

Tutting, she rubs the ends of my frizzy hair between her thumb and index finger. I look down to my collarbone, where it falls to, and watch at the dark red particles make a fine dust there. She whines something about looking after myself more, before brushing my hair aside and placing a hand firmly on my shoulder. I wince and try to hide the pain that shocks through my body, but she notices and gives an exasperated sigh.

"Is, where did you get the matches?"

It's not a question that surprises me, because as she turns me around and studies the new almond-shaped red mark of tender skin on my shoulder, deeply contrasting with my pale and freckled skin, she knows as well as I do it's a burn. Just another one to go with my already tender skin.

[/color] But while Veronica sees my scarred and puckered body as something disgusting and wants me to hide it, I believe I am beautiful. These burns are a mark of freedom, love marks from the flames I cherish so dearly. When I hold fire to my skin and watch it dance there, the tingling makes me want more. It's something another human being could not do for me. Veronica is just too sane to understand.

I tug my hair back over the new burn and push her hand away. If I tell her where I keep them, in a rafter of the attic, she will come into my room and take them. I don't want to have to cause her pain. Her eyes close and so does my expression, and she pushes her eyeballs with her thumbs in resignation.

"You know why we can't let you have them. This is our home."

I want to scream at her. I want to shake her and say I know. Say I wouldn't set this place on fire. But the truth is, I would. Even now I envision Veronica, and the other crazies, on fire, eyes rolling, arms flailing, screaming until the heat takes their voice. I could make it happen.

I rub my bare feet together and glance back into her eyes. They are just like mine, deep and brown and beautiful, but now they well over with tears. She is weak, really, and I am strong. I stand taller than her – yet she is short – and could overpower her in an instant. But what's the use anymore? My strengths were only useful when I could be Tribute, and those days are over! I see her begin to cry and I don't want to watch. I wrap my arms around my midriff and turn to retreat back into my dark attic. However, Veronica catches me at the last moment.

"I'm not finished! Look at me!"

I don't want to look![/color] Anger bubbles again inside me. My mind shows me her burning, shrivelling, blackening. I can almost smell that glorious smell of singed hair and boiling blood. I want to watch her burst into victorious flames and stand over her. I remember my glory, so long ago, as I faced my worst fears and beat them.

I reach into the side of my top and pull out the flint I had found and had been hiding there. When it strikes, she will fear me once again.

The slap she gives me stings harder than any flame; a bitter sting that laughs blue and purple in my brain. Though I barely notice pain, still I recoil and drop the stone, but the clatter sounds slow and muffled. Still, I can make out Lucas' cackle as he enjoys my pain. My hand cradles my cheek when I feel Veronica's damp face pressed to my neck.

"Oh, Isabella, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, oh my Isabella."[/b]

But I am already racing back up the old staircase to my room.[/size][/blockquote][/justify]


I[/size][/color] am the First Person.[/color][/font]

{[/size]Personality}

Do you think it’s normal to want to set people on fire? No? Well, I guess I must be insane.

When I am by myself, that is how I wish to stay. I’m very happy to spend days not eating, in my room, waiting for the world to change before I am made too. Yes, I’m a stubborn brat at times, but I can’t help it. It’s the way I am, why can’t anyone understand that? My room is in the loft of the Madhouse, and no one can be in here but me. When I trust someone enough, perhaps they can come and see where I live, but until then, this is my space where I can be alone. Here I can play with fire.

Some people say I daydream too much, but really, it’s not dreaming. I lose myself in my memories when I have the time, and I usually have the time. Sometimes, I don’t react even when I’m shouted at, and when I eventually do it is to lash out for being pulled out of the blissful recollections inside my head. Yes, many assumptions are made about me: That I’m good for nothing, I never help, I ask too many questions… I cannot deny any of these things, especially the latter. I need to know everything that goes on around me, even if I do not use this information. It comforts me to know that the stories about me have not yet penetrated the walls of the Madhouse I call home. Sometimes, I comfort people with what I know, and -sometimes I taunt them. Either way, information is my substance when fire is not.

I write poetry and create worlds, and, like all writers, this means I am a born liar. It does me no harm to lie, and I get away with it every time. Lying also gives me the advantage of ebing a secret keeper. It is often that I find myself approached by the more normal inhabitants of this Madhouse and told something that reflect their deepest wants, fears or memories. Never would I dare to repeat it; though I never let anyone into my life, I wouldn’t want my secrets escaping from their confidence. And then I use these secrets to solve problems. I can easily stop fights, when it isn’t me that’s started them, without giving away any information I have been trusted with. However, on the occasions when it is me that is in the fights, I can come out on top. My beautiful fire keeps everyone fearful of me, and I can really do as I please without serious repercussions.

One thing that infuriates me more than anything are those more powerful than myself. Peacekeepers. The way they think they can boss anyone about…I wish their armour was as easily enflamed as my temper. Oh, how I would love to cook them in their shells, to watch their eyes widen as they take in their fate. How they fear me, Isabella Shnow, the girl who should fear them. Accidents…often happen, when a Peacekeeper gets involved with the lives of my housemates. Those I live with always come first, and I will fight viciously to keep them safe and satisfied.

Sometimes, the Mayor or another official comes to the Madhouse for a publicity act or just for the general atisfaction one gets when they are around those less fortunate than themselves. I use these opportunities always to my advantage. While I am not allowed matches, per se, I love hinting at my obsession and watching the worried look flicker over their face as quickly as a spark from metal. Most of the time, it serves them right. Just because I am diagnosed as ‘INSANE’ doesn’t mean I’m not still a human. And if I am patronised, or made to feel weak, I will lash out. I don’t trust strangers, whether they are doctors or do-gooders, and I will find out what I can from them without them getting anything about me in return.

[/justify]

I[/size][/color] am the Story.[/color][/font]
{[/size]History}

[/size][/justify]

Have you guessed yet? Yeah. This was me.

[/size][/blockquote]

The child who always had everything, so that she didn't need friends. Well, the happiness soon went away. Oh, and if you're expecting a happy story full of smiles and rainbows, stop reading now. Because from here on out, the non-fiction that is my life just gets worse and worse.

So, where were we? Little girl Bella with red-gold plaits and picnics in the meadows? Those things both ended abruptly as Grandma's life did. I remember it clearly, because of how cold it was that day, I was asleep with socks on and three blankets. At the time, I hated not having any fuel for a fire, but now I see that was a blessing; that way the Peacekeepers could tell that the fire was started by an outsider, and the charred and blackened bones, hanging on the smoking and blistered flesh of my Grandmother's body wasn't because of us. As it turned out, some crazy bastard who worked with my parents had lost the plot, knocked his wife unconscious and come to destroy my family’s benefits and wealth for stealing his position in the business. And I thought this only happened in gossips’ imaginations.

My parents and I were out, at some family function. Grandma had to stay home and sleep, and when we got back it was already too late. We could even hear Grandma’s sobs over the ear-splitting noise of the upper floor falling in and crushing her. Peacekeepers came in the twenties, driving monstrous vehicles filled with water which terrified me out of my wits. I just couldn’t understand why this had happened to us. Afterwards, my parents allowed me time alone as they searched for the body, and I lay in the doused and choking ashes of our porch, smearing my dress with charcoal in distress and screaming for all I was worth.

Mourning was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. In a time when I needed picnics and plaits more than ever, all I got were black clothes and gravestones, constant reminders of the dear friend and grandmother I had lost. My hair was knotted and limp, cut short to stop my mother having to deal with it; she was in no way as patient as grandma was. My father quit his job, fearing for the safety of his family in a District where anyone could be driven as mad as the arsonist, who was satisfyingly executed in the Capitol, by our city’s fumes. We moved into a house in the run-down area of District 5, surrounded by coughing, hunchbacked parents and sickly children. Slowly, we lost all our wealth, until we were even worse off than my classmates, an alien family in a strange new atmosphere; my parents could not find jobs. We didn’t eat many nights, never had the luxury of socks in bed, and only our mourning clothes, even when that passed.

And from them on, it got no better. However, the worst of it with school. Every day I’d be the one that was pointed out, the one that didn’t fit. Never had I needed friends, my family were enough, and I wasn’t sure how to make them. With only elaborate, yet fraying, black clothes to wear, the mothers wouldn’t let their children talk to me even if they had wanted to. Pushed into the mud, not that it made any difference to the state of my body, shoved around, shouted at, words I didn’t even know the meaning of... When my nights were already haunted, my days were no better. There was always one boy in particular, who made it his one life goal to crush me like the arsonist crushed my past life. He threw stones through our window, injured our goat; the only source of fresh milk we had, which my father bought from the animal market which still remained from the old days of our District. All the tiny things we still kept, which made our life better, were taken away. Finally, hatred bubbled up inside me so much it overflowed, filling my head with chaos and my body with a want to cause this boy pain.

It happened in the late evening on a night in summer. Most children were allowed out to play in the rubble and he and I were no exception. Where we differed was that he always had a gaggle of cackling children behind him, and I kicked the stones alone. The idea for my revenge came to me as a result of my nightmare. Lying once again in the hissing wood of our grand home, he entered my private world. Jeering and laughing, he emerged from within the black skeleton of the house, all on fire and clearly the cause of the problem. All on fire. The solution came from the cause.

Most children were returning home, and I took my chance to approach the dispersing gang. Pretending to ignore them, I hunched my shoulders and scurried past as loudly as I could. The words hit my ears and told me I had succeeded in catching his attention"Oh look everyone, it's Icky Izzy. Want to play, little girl?"Now all I had to do was ignore his taunts and keep walking. Of course, he left his gang and followed me down the hill, never surpassing an opportunity to make my days as much of a fiery hell as I see in my nights. I led him as far away as I could, until we got to the furthest fuel tanks outside the factories of the Disrict.

I had spent three days planning this revenge. The first day was devoted entirely to watching this boy, finding out the ways I could lead him somewhere quiet and keep him wanting to upset me. The second, I opened the tank of fuel, praying to some God I didn't believe in that there would be no rain to dilute it. Then I found the matches. All the effort I had put in taming my dreams to concentrate this idea and finalise my revenge came to a summit in the matches. And I got them.

I lead him to the top of the tank until finally I stopped. I could feel his grin searing into my back as I stood there, composing myself for what I was about to do. The first insult had just slithered from his stale lips and in my vulnerable direction when I swivelled hastily and flung a piece of rubble that I had been playing with straight at him. It hit him square in the forehead, immediately drawing thick, crimson blood. I raced towards him, seized him and dragged him to the tank. Oh, the image remains burnt vividly into my memory, of how he splutters and cursed as he thrashed in the oil. I may not have looked it, but I was strong; body as well as mind. Looking down on him, I reached into my pocket and brought out a match. I struck it, and watched the flame wink at me from the tip. How beautiful, how pure it was, something so destructive contained on a splinter, waiting to be given the power it needs. I saw myself in that flame, delicate and breakable but, when given the right amount of force, able to tear families apart.

The flame burnt down the match until I could feel the heat in the tips of my fingers. I listened to the innocent sizzling of the sweat on my thumb as I brought it to the light. A quick jab of pain was all it took. “Oops,” I said, and dropped the match into the tank.

The last thing I saw before I was blown backwards by the force of the reaction was his eyes, wide with fear and reflecting the fiery dance that would be his end.

They never found his murderer.

Years came, and went, and my crime turned into an obsession. Each day I would hide behind school and light matches, holding them so close to my face my eyes were hurt and my eyelashes burnt off. Sometimes, I would set bins on fire, burn cats’ tails or threaten other children by singing their hair. Quickly I stopped being Izzy, the little girl to be ignored, and became Isabella, the monster to be feared. Teachers were too afraid to do anything about it, and, of course, my darling parents didn’t know. I could do what I wanted, and always have my beloved sparks and cinders to return to if things didn’t go my way.

And that was exactly what happened. It was all very sudden when my father died. One moment he was a regular grey-skinned factory man, with sagging eyes and a cough that shook his home, and the next he was a cold corpse, lying in the street where so many others had lain before. Nobody even knew he was gone; he was just a faceless death. But I noticed. I had not felt rage like this since that fateful summer where I relieved myself of a looming misery, but it all burst back to me at once. No matter all the awful things I did to myself and my mother, things I cannot bear to think about, I knew there was only one way out of this nightmare that would not go away. I had to bring light into a dark world. I set the school on fire.

Oh how it flickered, it was much more beautiful than our house or the boy or the students at school. The ashes were alive. They called to me, to come out of the snow, to go into the flames. Hypnotised, I edged forwards. My hair blew away from my face with the power of the warm wind, brushing my cheeks with affection I hadn’t known since I was Bella. I danced and spun, loving the way the fire licked my arms and left them black and blistered, loving the way my face was taught and cracked from the heat. In such a cold mindset, fire lifted me out. The next morning, when the news got round that the school was on fire and being destroyed, a little girl, half-dead ad laughing manically, was found at the veins of it, and was to be taken to the Madhouse.

I am the Phoenix. I was beautiful and loved. I disappeared into my own ashes, and I have been born again.

I have never seen my mother since, I do not know what happened to her but I expect she killed herself. I know my story is unbelievable but I am happy with my life here, whether people believe how I got here or not. The school is rebuilt and I have calmed. Still, of course, I can have no matches, but occasionally I find some way to…acquire…what I would want. I spend my time alone, painting like I used to, or recreating flames with fabrics, at least those we can afford to get our hands on.

Codeword: I hope you don’t have body
Other: For madhouse plot Anwhat. Face Claim Jessica Anthis.[/color]