Abra Coraline D1 [FINISHED]

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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bloomtodeath

Abra Coraline D1 [FINISHED] Jun 6, 2012 1:52:15 GMT -5

Quote

Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jun 6, 2012 1:52:15 GMT -5

Name: ABRA AURALEE CORALINE (pronounced like the start of abraham)
Age: 16
Gender: Female
District/Area: District 1

Appearance:
Personality:

History:

Codeword: odair
Comments/Other:
www.colourlovers.com/palette/1939194/Butterfly_Dusk
blood - the middle east
x x x

Last Edit: Aug 25, 2014 1:26:58 GMT -5 by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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8,143 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Apr 23, 2024 3:26:29 GMT -5

bloomtodeath

Abra Coraline D1 [FINISHED] Jun 6, 2012 23:38:26 GMT -5

Quote

Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jun 6, 2012 23:38:26 GMT -5

Older brother, restless soul, lie down
Lie for a while with your ear against the earth
And you’ll hear your sister sleep talking
Say, “Your hair is long but not long enough
To reach home to me"

A P P E A R A N C E

And she woke up in a cold sweat on the floor
Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
And beside a jar of two cent coins
That are no good no more
She’ll lay it aside

[/center][/i]

There's not much to say about my appearance. Hardly anyone sees me these days. I don't even know what I look like anymore. I don't even care what I look like anymore. Sometimes, I'd wear the same baggy, loose, too-big clothes for days, his clothes, just to keep his smell lingering around me wherever I walked. Another attempt at keeping a part of his close. Pretending that he was right next to me, still messing up my floppy brown hair (the exact same shade as his) that I never bothered to tie up. It's still as messy and free as it used to be. (As I used to be). I think I used to brush it, or perhaps someone else did, but I don't bother, don't remember. Or rather, I don't want to remember.

My eyes (mine are brown and his were blue but they still glistened with hopes and excitement and the wonders we saw) are blank and refuse to look at my reflection, for everything reminds me of him. My nose, the same shape as his, small and round, buried in a million different flowers. Skin tanned from endless hours in the sun (now I cower from it, so terrified of the light that soaked up his own and turned his skin black and blue) was just like his. A smile used to be almost permanently stamped to the lower half of my face, and I'd throw back my head and laugh my insides out. Now I just stare. Lips concreted to a silent, horizontal line. If I try, I think my face would crack like porcelain and shatter completely. Arms hidden away under layers of clothing that wrap around my knees, hunched over in a corner or perched on a seat. Sometimes I get so lost in the past and the present and the future all at once that my mind begins to wander from my body altogether - and there I am, tucked away from the world. Consumed.

My palms are constantly stinging. Teeny little indents from sharp edges of plastic adorn the calloused skin of the insides of my hands. People ask why I constantly hold on to the silly little thing in my hand, and I gnaw at my hands and fingers and sleeves and simply blink slowly. My nails, extensions of long fingers that were perfect for making music - bitten down to almost nothing, edges rough enough to make a Capitolite faint at the very sight of them. Forced into a vow of silence, dark shadows under my eyes seem to have taken up a permanent residence from the slack of sleep that has painted them there as I drag my feet against the ground, wandering through the night. The silence that falls around the world when the stars arrive reminds me a little bit of myself. I find that silence is the best form of weapon when you're too scared to talk about the past.

Sit on your porch
and pluck your strings
Oh, and you’ll find somebody you can blame
And you’ll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
And you’ll find the peace of the Lord

P E R S O N A L I T Y

Older father, weary soul, you’ll drive
Back to the home you made on the mountainside
With that ugly, terrible thing
And a lonely ring
A lonely ring[/center][/i]

I like to think that I have had two personalities. One for before it happened, and one for after. Before is buried away, hidden. Trapped, even; suppressed below layers and layers of indescribable lamentation. And yet even though it is concealed under sheets of concrete-like protection, it is still a part of me even if whether I’d like to admit it or not is another story in itself. Sometimes, on the most rarest of occasions, it appears again in traces – like in the memories of others containing thoughts of lost loved ones. (If that is the case for the dead, then he’ll live forever and ever and ever within my life until my heart stops beating altogether.) The past is something you can neither change nor dispose of, no matter how hard you try. I am veiled underneath it in my attempts to forget how it feels to be broken in two halves.

I was happy. I was inquisitive. I was adventurous. I climbed trees, peered under rocks, rounded corners and pattered up stairs. I wanted to explore and find and seek out. Discover new places; unveil lost coves and hidden treasures. I cured my thirst every day, for we did not stop moving. Every day was a new day, a new place, a new voyage. I liked to laugh. I laughed every day, actually - so much so that my cheeks would ache after a while. I had sparks inside of me that burst through skin and flesh and bone and turned into blood that pumped through my veins.[/i] I had a curious way with words, and loved nothing more than twisting them, linking them, connecting dots and turning each syllable that slapped against my tongue into something marvellous, unique, beautiful. A perfectionist, independent (I would never admit it aloud, but I still needed Eli and the security I felt towards him ~~I still do, dammit~~)[/i] constantly scribbling out things that didn’t sound right. I could spend hours making sure everything felt, sounded, looked right – and screw it up and start all over again with a concentrated frown creating an indent between my eyebrows. He’d laugh and ruffle my hair and I’d pretend it annoyed me, when really it was one of my favourite things in the world.[/i]

I was a little shy and timid, careful around strangers and slow to trust; but gradually I bloomed into a more open, enthusiastic person. Eli was always so much more confident than me, and I tried oh-so hard to be like him.[/i] I preferred to sit at the back quietly and play my guitar, singing delicately when needed; whilst Eli was always up the front, entertaining the crowd with a cheeky grin and witty attitude. He said I was the star, but without him I wouldn’t even be a flicker of light to begin with. The more people I met, the more I performed and got used to the bulging eyes and rounds of applause, did I truly open up. A little like Thumbelina, a story I vaguely remember reading when I was a little girl – a flower opened up its petals and there was a girl, perched on pollen and ready to see the world. Stars exploded, and so did I. I was every colour of the rainbow, all at once. I wished on shooting stars and dandelion seeds. I stretched my arms up and hung out the car window, roaring with laughter with the wind in my face, hair, loose clothes, its rushing gales trying to sweep me away.[/i] For a mere moment, if I closed my eyes and let my mind loose to wander, I could have sworn that I was flying.

Everyone became my friend. I found that with exploring, with a life of travel and performing, I could meet a million different people in a day. People were fascinating, invigorating. I longed for personality, for ideas, for opinion. My thirst was cured with each passing sunrise. Everyone I met was so different. Not one person was the same.[/i] And I realised that I too was unique - that my soul had its own distinct way of working, a unique collaboration of melodies and rhythm that played my own little song. From then on, I attempted to merge all the different souls I met into music. Eli was sharp, twanging base notes with a soft, acoustic slide of fingers against guitar strings and a bold, impulsive beat. I was a little less spontaneous, but ever as hungry to catch dreams with my fingertips. I liked being me. I was a Coraline and we did not stop pursuing our dreams. But most importantly, I was Eli’s little sister and he would always keep me safe.[/i]

I still am his sister. I still am his flesh and blood and bone. The sparks have fizzled out to tiny little embers, to ash, to dust swept under a rug made of iron.[/i][/color] Except now I am without him, and I do not know who I am without him, without Eli. He was always there, always a part of me. I grew with him, subconsciously stealing bits of him as I planted my roots and spread upwards above the ground. When everyone else had gone, he came back and took me with him. I am an empty shell, my soul stripped from a death that ate him from the inside out.[/i] Now there is an absence in my body, my core, so gaping wide it’s like I’ve lost a limb, or all four, even – except it’s invisible. Existing only in me, in how I feel, unseen to everyone else’s eyes, for they cannot see it in the agony that is living, walking, breathing, being without him. I don’t care about souls or displaying them to the world anymore.[/i] I only care about him. I only care about Eli. And he is gone, stolen from me, and now all I am is the anguish that constructs a disruptive monster in my place. Sometimes I crave for the guitar that I destroyed just so I can play his song again.[/i] To hear his soul through music, to use it to fill the empty void that has become a defining part of me. Perhaps I could close my eyes and pretend for a moment that he is here with me again.

Responses come in two forms from me: either in nods or shakes of my head. At times I am so scared of opening my mouth for that if I do, for just a fraction of a moment, and a cry escapes my sealed lips I will crash back down and not be able to stop.[/i] I dare not speak, let alone sing. No, singing was something I shared with Eli. Nobody else has the right to hear it. Nobody but Eli. And if that means that not a soul will hear my voice again, then so be it. I’ve hidden myself away behind corners and bends and cracks in the ceiling. Everybody else gets the robotic version of me. I slouch around, no time or energy to care about good posture. I pretend not to care when they treat me like nothing. I eat, I sleep, I take care of myself. (That was Eli’s job but I can’t let him down and nobody else is ever allowed to take his place.)[/i] Most of the time, I sit and think. The silly little piece of plastic that I’ve held onto for so long never leaves my hands. I twirl it, clasp it, and coil it through my fingers. If anyone ever asks about it, I snatch it back and stare with blank eyes until they leave me alone. Without Eli, I am nothing. I don’t want to be anything else.[/i]

Weary soul, you’ll fly
Over your life once more before you die
Since our grandma passed away
You’ve waited for forever and a day
Just to die

H I S T O R Y

And someday soon, you will die
It was the only man you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when he was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into his body and his blood
And there’s nothing you can do about it now[/center][/i]

Life. Life. A noun, right? Living. Breathing. Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling. Experiences. Journeys. Paths and gravel and crossroad signs. Cars, changing tires, music and daft sunglasses and juice that tasted like apples. Windswept hair, far-flung hopes, improbable dreams. A boy and his sister, off to chase the universe. Improbable turned to possible, then plummeted back down to impossible again. It was beautifully tiresome, wonderfully frustrating, brutally stressful and monstrously exhausting. My life was beautiful and carefree, and all I want to do is to have it back.

It takes a finger to tap my hands nearly twice over to count the two almost-decades I’ve lived. One. I’m born to two parents - I forget their names. Nights on end I keep them awake. I have their hair, their nose, their mischief and their stubbornness. Two. I’m crawling, stumbling, grasping out for support. Sounding out letters in a fuzzy, too-big world. Colours are nice but music is nicer. I shouldn’t be climbing on the furniture. Three. I’m toddling, talking, tossing my clothes about everywhere. I am a princess and a pop star and a painter, all in one day. My eyes are only for my brother; and his for me. Four. The piano is nice, but the guitar is even better. My teeny little fingers don’t stretch far enough across the neck, but I’ll slump against a shoulder on evenings when I’m too tired to play Hunger Games with the other children. Five. I skip off to school but "I don’t want to go, Eli, don’t make me go without you!" He greets me at the end of the day outside my classroom and we walk home hand-in-hand. The other kids are oh so jealous. Six. Something is wrong with Momma, but Eli distracts me so much that I hardly notice. My favourite colour is yellow and his is blue. If you mix them together, you get green. Seven. Eli turns twelve and I don’t know what’s happening, but when he comes back from the big parade by the District Square he scoops me up and twirls me around and holds me so close I can’t breathe. Hospitals smell funny and Momma is never here. Eight. I climbed my first tree and found a birds nest with remnants of speckled blue egg shells. Daddy cries and Eli is quiet, for once, and I don’t like it. I can play 6 chords on the guitar already. Nine. Momma’s ‘gone to a better place’ and Eli hogs the guitar. I hate yellow, because everyone here is a raincloud. Trees are nice to sit in. I sing like a bird and I don’t like wearing black. Ten. School is boring and no-one likes me, anyway. Eli punched a boy at school and got into loads of trouble. And then he cut his hair off. Are you supposed to miss someone you never really knew? Oh yeah, I got my own guitar for my birthday. It’s beautiful. Eleven. Echoes are odd. 16 year old boys are odd-er. Luckily I have birds. I haven’t seen Dad in weeks. This house is a cage. Twelve. Reapings are scary and I don’t like dresses. Eli moves out on his eighteenth birthday and I cry for the first time in 10 years. My father leaves and never looks back. There’s a phone on the wall and I hesitate calling. Swing sets are hard to construct by yourself. It’s awfully lonely in my empty, open cage.

Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen.

There’s a knock at the door. I scream and almost cry (but not quite) , and "We’re off, Abra. Off to see the world." He picks up my suitcase and my guitar and tells me to pack what I need. I don’t know where he got the car from but it quickly becomes my second home. We drive and drive and never look back. That's what us Coraline's do, though. Never look back.

Travelling is enlightening. A tight squeeze, sleeping on the back seats under old woollen blankets, pancakes for breakfast and a slow melody to sing me into dreams. We sung in the middle of the highways of One, once. Days passed into weeks, weeks into months. Not once did I want to turn around. The Coraline's became a splendour of performance. We sang and played guitar and I soared on stage. "It's Aye-brah, not Ah-brah" and Eli would laugh, that same-old familiar crinkle of his eyes etching experience into a smile. At first I was nervous, fumbling over music chords and tripping over the wired kind. Photographs are beautiful and I appreciate them more and more with each passing day.

I rode a bike through a field of flowers as tall as me. It's one of my favourite places in the world. He took a picture afterwards. And I grew, like those flowers. I blossomed into something amazing. Standing ovations and shakes of hands and a little toy cage that perched on my stage. You're a star, Abra. They love you. I chased my brother's lifelong dream and he pulled me along with an outstretched arm, not once letting go. We camped in a forest and I hung fairy lights in the trees. Our skin turned pink in the summer months and froze to sheets of ice in the winter. I love the smell of gasoline and know how to fix an engine. In spring, we drove through early sunrises with the rooftop down and I slept in the passenger seat, a blanket to keep me warm and a brother to keep me safe. Walks through fields of nothing but green turned to muse, turned to scribbles on paper and watching clouds go buy, and eventually warped into plucks of guitar strings and harmonies and lights that shone and set me free. I'm twelve, or maybe thirteen, quite possibly fourteen too but it doesn't matter because it's all just a blur and they're slipping away, the memories, and this is all I have of us left. This was what I would be doing for the rest of my life. We played by a riverbank, secluded and hidden from the glitz and glamour of the cities. We only came back to where we left off for reapings, and for the horrid minutes when we were separated were so, so worth the spinning hugs that followed afterwards. I'm home, for another year. 'Home' is our car but who cares, we're off again. I stole his camera when he wasn't looking, but he probably stole it from someone else, so now we're even. He won't admit it, though. I'm the only person who can spot the cheeky glint when he's hiding the truth. Just what that truth is, I'll never know. It's my sixteenth birthday and we're being stupid, as usual. Time flies and I'm a star but I'm also a bird and it seems like it will never stop.

"Why do you use that thing so much, Eli?"

"Because photographs capture parts of time that are supposed to slip away. You can hold onto them. Treasure them forever."

"Why'd you need to do that? I'm never leaving."

"I know, A. I'll never let you go."[/i][/blockquote]

Instead, I let him slip away. He said he was just tired, that was all. He slept more than me and I still felt fine. Don't worry's and I'm fine's filled up the empty spaces that let my thoughts drift and tumble into fearful ideas, and for a while, it almost left my head completely. "Did you fall over, Eli?" "No?" "Then why is your back all bruised?" Excuses and apparent conclusions followed the endless questions. I gnawed on my lip so much it bled almost ever day. I was pretty sure that freckles are not supposed to turn black, but still, he did not seem to worry as much as I did. Stupid, stubborn Eli. I begged him to see a nurse, pleaded and nagged and persisted - but no, he would not give up the dream. "We can't just leave now, A, we've got loads of shows to perform! Afterwards, maybe, when we're done." We never finished. Scabs aren't supposed to sting, they're supposed to be looked after and checked under a microscope. Skin isn't supposed to botch and turn purple. Shows became harder and I became so scared. We fought and quarreled and made up with hugs, but he still wouldn't listen. I should have, could have, would have done something.

The drive was long. I was exhausted. Eli insisted he was fine. Our guitars were perched in the back along with our suitcases of belongings. The last thing I remember was drifting to sleep, his hand on my head and my body tucked under warmth, forehead resting on the window and small little tunes setting me adrift to sleep. They said he fell asleep at the wheel. And I woke up to white and bleach in my nose and groggy vision and "Eli? Eli? WHERE'S ELI?! ELI! GIVE HIM BACK, HE'S SICK, DON'T GO, YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER LET ME G-"

Sedation is horrid. Soldiers look different when they're wounded. Once so strong, so proud - now pale and mottled with god-knows stuck into his arms. I'm still scared of hospitals, and even more scared of leaving his side. I fought, Eli, I promise I did. They had to wrestle me back to my ward, and I kicked and screamed and scratched at their arms. But who would notice another mad girl here, anyway? I'm loosing a war that isn't even mine to fight. And Eli was loosing, too.

"Abra-"

"It's Aye-brah" I replied coldly, wishing my gaze could cut right through their fake smiles and stupid little uniforms. I want them to go away. Eli would make them go away.

"Right, Abra, do you know what cancer is?"

I say nothing.

"Do you know that your mother had the disease? And that it's quite common to contract it through genetics later on in life?" Anything that sucks the life out of my Eli is more than a disease. It is poison.

"That it's normally preventable, but it some cases, it affects the body so much that it's tricky for us to get rid of?"

Again, nothing. They can't wake him up. They deserve nothing.

There's a pause, a clear of the nurse's throat - as if her next question has become stuck in her throat and is difficult to pull to the surface. I don't look at her, I haven't raised my frozen stare from my clasped hands or uttered a single syllable since she arrived, save for the correction of my name. But she persists, and I don't want her to. I brace myself for the next question, questions that seem endless. I am terrified.

"Well, your brother's" Eli's, his name is Eli, dammit. "has spread from his skin into his bloodstream. And from that, it's corrupting his lungs. And I'm afraid..."

I don't hear anything. I can't. I won't. And I'm trying to form words, pleads of "Please no, no, no please no NO" try to emerge, but instead I collapse to the ground, and my mouth is moving and I'm screaming, heaving from my insides and grappling at the doctors and fighting with everything I have, begs to fix him, fix him please pour out of my eyes. Flesh and blood tastes disgusting when you're biting away fingers holding needles to calm you down. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO FIX HIM, THAT'S WHAT YOU DO, FIX HIM! FIX HIM! I HAVE NO-ONE ELSE, FIX HIM PLEASE, HE PROMISED ME HE'D BE OK, FIX HI-

I hate yellow. And blue. And green. I hate cameras, needles, medicine, music notes, journals and the smell of fuel. I hate birds, trees, flowers, bikes, cages and bleep, bleep, bleeps of machines. I hate black and grey and funerals. I hate guitars, most of all, and when I smashed that stupid piece of wood against the concrete ground over and over again, I didn't care. What's the point of having it if he's not here? With each smash, I lashed out. Pointed fingers. Blamed everyone and everything I could think of. Myself, for not trying hard enough for him to listen, not waking up in time - to the car, for not keeping us safe, for trapping me in that building of white. To the doctors and nurses for not fixing him. To the Capitol, for being unable to construct a medicine to cure him. To my mother, for passing it on to Eli, to my father, for vanishing without a trace. And finally to Eli, for leaving me. Building me up, holding me high, and tearing me down again. For being stupid and MOVING ON GOING TO A BETTER PLACE and reckless and DEAD PASSED ON and stubborn and GONE NOT HERE DEAD and carefree and SICK TOO SICK LEAVING IN SLEEP NEVER WAKING UP EVER. But the moment I sunk from my rage, turned back from the monstrous, violent girl into a bird with broken wings, I sobbed and sobbed and tried to put the splintered pieces back together. Grief warped me into something unimaginable. So low, so deeply consumed under mourning, I crawled into a state of depression. Turned myself into a numb, zombie-like puppet on strings. I needed Eli. I still do. Weeks passed in a blur and his guitar pick never left my clenched fist.

Between then and the first mentions of the Lightwoods, it is foggy. I made it foggy. I refuse to think about it, remember it, even for a second. So I replaced it with a grey haze, as if I'd fallen into hibernation. If I could fall asleep and never wake up, I would. I never really paid much attention to the Games. All I knew was that I had to attend a Reaping every year, knew I wasn't going to be picked, and that was that. I don't remember the tributes, the victors - anything, really. It was a little bit like they didn't exist. Or at least Eli made it feel like that. Someone explained to me that one of the 60th Tribute's family from One was looking for more kids to adopt. Their daughter didn't win, apparently. Her name was Avon and she loved to sing. All I could think of was replacement. I could never, ever think about replacing Eli. The idea was bizarre - for you cannot fit a square into an empty circular space, no matter how hard you try. But I had nowhere to go. No one to look after me. I can't even remember where I was staying after it happened. The hospital, probably. Someone mentioned that a few of the kids liked music, and that pretty much sealed the deal. I didn't even have to like the kids, or the parents - but somehow, the idea of slowly beginning to heal (Though I need more than a lifetime to even start the process) with others who have lost someone seemed more comforting than his death place. I tugged my suitcase behind me, dragging it along by it's wheels, fresh cuts against my palm bleeding from his guitar pick that I squeezed harder than ever, hopped into a car, and drove.

Our dreams burnt with the guitars in the back alleys of One like his skin did all those years ago.

[/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

Last Edit: Jun 9, 2012 18:06:37 GMT -5 by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ Advertiser 8,143 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen Apr 23, 2024 3:26:29 GMT -5 bloomtodeath	Abra Coraline D1 [FINISHED] Jun 9, 2012 18:08:04 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jun 9, 2012 18:08:04 GMT -5 GOOD GRIEF SHE'S FINISHED. [/size][/blockquote]
	“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

pika Retired Staff 586 POSTS Pronouns: she/her last seen May 7, 2022 18:36:48 GMT -5	Abra Coraline D1 [FINISHED] Jun 9, 2012 23:25:03 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by pika on Jun 9, 2012 23:25:03 GMT -5
	arise and be all that you dreamed