Sonnet Prey -- District 2

A smile can uncover all; I’mokayI’mhappytoseeyouIloveyouEverythingisgoingtobeokay. But it can also be a deceiver's closest companion. While a smile is the key to understanding it is also a mask used to hide the lost’s truth when he lives in a world of chaos and misery. His smile is a smile broken and battered and stained from the fumes of death, yet even with its smudged color and missing bottom teeth it shines as bright as a lone star in the dark depths of outer space. Even with lips that have leaked the blood of battle too many times to count, the smile remains as beautiful as a spring flower and pumps life into the seemingly empty, copper eyes of the tormented soldier. Even with death's cloak draping over his scarred shoulders he can still smile with a warm glow worthy of the sun's brotherhood. But what lies beneath the fabricated delight may not be as pleasant as the outside. After all, a mask is meant to conceal the hideous truth - the truth of what littered his body with scars and colored his face with black and blue. The misery that stained his complexion and covered his scattered freckles with its filth. The cruelty that greased his sandy blonde hairs and weakened a frame that was never given the chance to blossom with the strength of a true warrior. The truth of what Sonnet Prey's life was; hellfire in the form of metal wires and a makeshift, bloodstained arena.

If abuse was an art then Sonnet is its prime example of a masterpiece. From the top of his blonde head to the bottom of his large soles his body is splattered with blues, purples, muddy browns, and crusted crimson. He carries the death’s finest odor upon his limbs - the only pieces of him capable of both destruction and creation. Bulk that destroys life and creates death. Excluding these weapons, his body is frail and pale from exposure to darkness and neglect, his skin acting as merely a thin blanket for the bones visible beneath. Scars of every variety cover nearly every surface, the most obvious being a jagged ridge stretched across his back and a blade's lick on the bridge of his nose. He is damaged and worn around the edges like a discarded toy, never again to be cradled with care by an innocent child. And yet, with all of these imperfections a smile will still crawl its way through, giving his sunken cheeks and wide chin a purpose. If there is one thing that belongs to Sonnet Prey, it is his smile; a smile that is enlivening, and a smile that is infinite.

A layer of grime sticks to the skin that was once kissed by sunlight. Prisoners are granted few opportunities to bathe and maintain good personal hygiene, and to the average district two citizen the poor boy would resemble that of a muddy beast or savage rather than a rational human being with feelings and weaknesses. Limited access to the outside world allows for only few garments to be worn, many of which are permanently stained by the blood, sweat, grime, and tears of the hopeless who share his filth and misery or lay as corpses in an arena haunted by the vengeful souls of many. They also carry an odor like none other, but when one can only bask in the fumes of perspiration and death during his confinement he learns to embrace it. Now, the stench is almost undetectable by his curious nostrils. He is surrounded by death, and now it is all he knows.

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Sonnet Prey is not your typical tormented soul, and despite his seemingly suitable last name he has not fallen victim to death's cold grip. Fear threatens to clutch every prisoner by their weak, beating hearts, but he has trained himself to form an exoskeleton solid as steel. This is not an armor designed to protect him from danger, however - it is a shell meant to hold the truth within, because while Sonnet is a smiling bundle of sunshine on the outside, always flashing his signature smile, there is a disease on the inside threatening to infect his system until his sanity shuts down permanently. A journey into madness. A fate worse than death. And what is this disease, exactly? What force could possess enough power to cripple the optimism that dominated his demeanor? What happened to the rumors claiming him as the sole owner of absolute happiness? He is supposed to be strong. He is supposed to be the one who couldn't break. He is the one who can smile in the face of death, and bring sunshine into the underground wasteland where children suffered and submitted their lives for the sake of vanity and man's foolish dreams of glory. He is the embodiment of delight and kindness. And yet, slowly, he can feel himself crumbling from the inside out, just like the others.

Obnoxiously optimistic is an excellent way to describe Sonnet’s demeanor. He is the infuriating type of boy who constantly searches for the good side of everybody and everything, including the very tyrants that locked him in a cell and trained him to become a robotic soldier. He is the type of boy who finds a reason to smile in the most hopeless situations, even when he knows of his status as the inevitable bringer of death to innocent children. Even when he knows he could die a tragic and painful death at any moment when he is shoved into an arena and forced to fight his friends. It is a wonder how the boy manages to keep himself together when everyone else is tumbling into an abyss of madness and submission. It is hope and determination that fuels the pure-hearted fallen angel. Where there is life, there is hope, and this fact is the mental motto and truth that keeps Sonnet on his feet with his forehead held high. He sincerely believes that at the end of the trail of tears and suffering, there will be paradise awaiting him; a white light at the end of a dark tunnel. And this is the reason he continues to fight. This is the reason he endures the misery and the disease within. He just wants to hope. To dream. To live. And to one day, be free.

Guilt is the disease that courses through his veins. The other trapped children assume that what he faces in the arena he chooses to forget as soon as it’s finished - as soon as the child takes his or her last breath.