ALIQUOT NOX, DISTRICT THREE

“LIKE STARLIGHT CRASHING THROUGH THE ROOM”
We'll lose our feathers.

AGE . Probably eighteen.
GENDER . A man.
DISTRICT . District Three.
OCCUPATION . Cashier by day, Singer by night..
SEXUALITY . Is there such a thing?.
TALKING . laurel
DOING . c o p y r i g h t *
DEEP THOUGHT . p h o t o g r a p h
HEARING . bad at naming colours
OTHER . sad widow


APPEARANCE .

“THIS IS ALL, FIVE MINUTES IN AND I'M BORED AGAIN”
Ten years of this, I'm not sure if anybody understands.

That first night I left he told me he never wanted to see my face again. Maybe I didn't either. After that day or night, whatever it was I didn't care anymore, or I began to, one of the two. When I left I hid, stopped looking for myself in corners and found myself out in fields. I grew my hair out long and shaggy, and forgot what it was like to wear anything but bright and flashy colours. Even the black garments were flashy in their own way. Maybe it's because I was tired of trying to remain nondescript so that 'please, someone, help me!' didn't happen. Love, I was born to be colourful and bright, so that's what's been happening since. With my expulsion, I became another man entirely. At first I thought I was dying, It would only have been fair. But out of that small death came someone entirely new. When I was fourteen, Aliquot fell, and Nox reigned.

My hair grew long, so I styled it up. My mother used to love it short, told me it made me look like her little boy. I guess that's why the short hair had to go. It grew long, shaggy, and raven black. It was too dark, too much of it was Aliquot, so I found some bleach and some blue dye for from a toy shop, and fixed that problem rather quickly. It isn't raven black anymore, every time the colour comes creeping back, I dye it again with whatever I have on hand. I don't want that somber colour anymore. I style it up, keeping the sides shorter in a soft blue wave. I hear about District Four during the games, and I see the ocean. I would like to see the ocean too someday, but the largest body of water I've ever seen is a bathtub. Sure, there are streams and rivers in District Three, but I've never seen a fabled lake or pond. Some people are just born lucky. It's a common known fact that I wasn't.

I've got a long and angular face, that I'm told is very beautiful, but often looks angry. That's not much of a surprise because I often am.the same curved eyes that belonged to my mother and sets me apart from most everyone in the District. My father said he fell in love with my mother because of her eyes, "A sweet darkness that I wouldn't mind falling into," is what he always said. I don't think mine are the same. They're probably more like just black, dull and duller still. I wish I had blue eyes to match my hair, eyes with hints of gold that you sometimes see. I wish my eyes were beautiful like my mother's, but they're not. Just slightly curved, almost almond-like. They're not like the average joe's but normally always surrounded by dark eyeliner nowadays. Meticulously planted, they're not to far apart and not too close either.

"They're so....dark..," she says, running a hand through my hair and catching the ends between her thumb and middle finger. Staring out the open window and away from her, I wait for the explanation that's sure to come because if there's one thing she always has, it's an explanation. Matches my lack of words to explain anything, let alone my own sadness perfectly. There's starlight and moonlight clashing out the window, and she's always been a lovely woman to sleep beside every now and then. "Your eyes I mean, even when you smile, you look sad." I still, the warm summer night air washing over me as we lay together, drinking in summer air in a fashion meant for lovers. It has to make do with us. After a few moments of laying in silence, and her fingers stopping, I roll back towards her, body languid as our legs become tangled up in a way that says, 'mine' but doesn't really mean it. She's staring at me, head on the pillow, dark, dark hair spilling everywhere around her in a dark halo. I slip into a soft smile, fingers working into her's until they're interlocked, but she's still staring. "You're smiling now, but they're the saddest eyes I've ever seen, like empty shells. Why?" I don't know what to say,and slowly caress the side of her face, pulling her to me, waiting until she's sound asleep to leave. I wish she had said that my eyes were so beautiful that she'd like to fall into them. But she wouldn't because they're not. I didn't mean to let her see them but I was tired and not altogether intoxicated enough so for a moment she glimpsed something she shouldn't have.

I've got a body, yes it's true. What I do with it isn't anything new. Mostly a lot of sleeping around because sometimes I need the endorphins provided to feel a little bit alive. Also running. Sometimes I panic, and the only thing that fixes it is running away. I run and run over and under obstacles until I can't breath anymore, and then I run some more. It's long and lanky, the fingers agile and thin. The body is tired and weak really, it doesn't have a lot to say for it's self. Muscles gained from all that running hide themselves away under tight shirts, so you can almost see the faint outline of something that should be visible but isn't. See, my dad always told me I had it the wrong way around. I was always far too visible for him. Unconsciously, I dress in dark colours with many ways to keep them closed. Dark fabrics layer over others until sometimes I'm nothing more than a shadow. I'm too good at disappearing. Long scarves wrapped around a long neck to hide bruises that aren't there any longer. But they also serve the purpose of extra padding, another nervous way of dressing from childhood. When I notice this happening, this curling in, with a clothing form, I tend to erupt fashionably. The next day after a week of black might be magenta and blue, for one example. Whatever it is, my father doesn't run my life anymore.

Oh jesus, I'm terrified. I can't stop shaking, I can hear him walking around below me, hear his feet make their usual pattern upon the old wooden floor boards. There's no response of softer, delicate feet, none anymore. there used to be an answer, always whenever he came to the door. She used to run to him, and he used to hold her, and then Chejae, Omnia, and I would get swept up too. Not anymore, not since the thirteenth. my father's the type that needs everyone to feel his pain, and I guess I'm the perfect little body to show it to. I think that this time will be the last time. I don't know how I know, I just do. I can feel it.

Pale skin stretches across the features of my body, almost clear of marks, there's no bruises. Maybe here and there one appears after a long night of running, and determinedly poorly calculated jumps. But nothing forcibly pushed into my skin at a higher speed, causing me to bruise. I have scars. I don't want to show them to you, not really. Some of them are grotesque almost. Like my left hand, all the fingertips are burned off where they touched a stove top, a pale expanse of nothing. There's a long, faded pink thing where I 'tripped' and my knee smashed into a vase. Hundreds of other little things pattern my skin in small stories left untold even after all these years. Then there's nothing else but a small black star tattooed between two knuckles on my left hand, and the number thirteen tattooed on the back of my neck in roman numerals. Every now and then I'll wake up with some new body art that I don't know how it got there, but it fades away most of the time. Well, not everything fades away. One morning I woke up with pierced ears. I like them well enough, so they stay. Carmen tells me that I could take them out and they could grow over, but I guess some part of me wanted them, so that part of me gets them. I encourage all standing up for myself in any way.

I'm on the verge of tears when he finally comes up the stairs, one foot at a time, thump, thump, thump. I can almost hear his breathing, see the pity I feel for him forming somewhere under my collarbone, on a bruised muscle. I hold myself tight against me, even as I can hear him stopping, but not at my door, at another. That's a door I won't let him enter though, not ever when he's like this. So slowly, I struggle to my feet, make myself step out into the hallway. This stranger, this fearsome man that inspires hatred from something dark and twisted within me is also a man I love. I love myself more than I love him. But I love the boy in the room he stands in front of even more.

PERSONALITY .

“I'VE GOT ENOUGH ON MY MIND, WHEN SHE PULLS ME BY THE HAND”
She hasn't much to hold onto.

I swear to you, I'm probably insane. Or at least if I'm not already, I'm heading there very quickly. I can't help wondering if that little fact matters. If anything I say, or do, that's an actual fact matters. I am a hundred thousand different little truths all tied up in a bundle to create one big lie. If one fact slips away from me, does it stop mattering, or does it become a lie. One day I'm going to lose all of my little truths and facts until even Nox is gone, and all that's left is a boy who still doesn't know where he's going. I think I had a goal once, something to strive for. Somewhere along the way I lost it. It got turned and flipped about so many times that it become less than I thought it was, until I lost the taste for it altogether. There were people who relied on me, but I've forgotten them as well, I chose to so that when they forgot me it would hurt less than it should have. It could be that I've been insane for all of my life, and only now am I seeing clearly. For once in my life, the only reason I'm sore anywhere is because I choose to be, not because of a man who called himself a father.

I walk around acting like nothing matters, hoping that if I do, it won't. Sometimes I actually think it does, I smile and it's gone for a few moments. All that's left is a sunny little shop that I sometimes work at when I remember to show up. Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm just a base, an outline. That all there is, is the first layer of skin. Blue tinged hair with a smile. Gestures and physical movements making a whole. There's nothing buried deep within the skin however. There's just an outline, I am an outline. That is one of the most terrifying thoughts I may have ever had. An outline is just a sketch, it can be erased so easily, and I have erasers. I have tools to erase a simple outline. Would I do that, though? Would I take a bit of rubber and wipe myself out? See, that question is important, because I don't know the answer.

But hey, I'm not the type to sing about my gloom and doom all day. Mostly, you'll see me with a grin on my face as I'm doing something ridiculous. I'm the type of boy to draw a smile out of anyone. I don't dwell on the past too much, and when I find that I am I dwell on something else, like those lovely little round pills that people just love to give me. Maybe a cigarette, the burning sensation in my throat is usually enough to relieve me of a different sensation buried somewhere between my toes. If all else fails, there is usually a friend found somewhere in the bottom of a bottle. I can't abide beer, but I do have a fondness for harder things, and softer secrets. All these things I use to cope, and I don't even. I don't cope with anything that's happened to me. When I do think on it, and nothing else can help, I run away from it. I run and run until my lungs are so empty of air that I collapse. I don't use the streets anymore, it doesn't take enough concentration. I run along rooftops, and jump over alleyways.

"Grow up, Nox! just tell us what's wrong," they always, always say. But I can't, I've tried. Once I even got as far as opening my mouth. When I did, nothing spilled out but empty, meaningless words about nothing. Maybe it's a reflection, of my internal soul or something. Or, how about this, maybe there really is nothing in there. I am an outline. The truth is, I'm just scared. I don't want to think about before because when I do, I start shaking and I can't stop. I was never so frightened in my life, I still am. Everyday, I'm just so afraid that I almost can't breath. There awesome nights where I almost hear his footsteps following me, and then the guilt comes calling because I left my little brother behind. I left my brother with that monster because I was so blind with fear and pain that I let it rule me.

No matter what it may look like now, that's what I'm still run by. I don't deserve to see my little brother again until it doesn't anymore. I can't rescue him until I'm not so afraid. I can't rescue him until I've saved enough money for us to both live comfortably. Then again, I don't know if he really needs rescuing. What if, my father's alright now? What if they're all very happy. I don't know, maybe they've never looked for me because they assumed I was dead even.

Sometimes I play the guitar! not very well though in my opinion, and not because I really wanted to pursue it. One of the girls I used to hook up with gave it to me before she met an unfortunate end. I keep it because I'm a sentimental bastard. I've played with it enough to know how to pluck out a decent tune, but mostly for me, my music comes in the form of a couple of tinkling laughs found in the Von Meyer girls. I work with another girl at the shop, Carmen, and she usually moms me a lot. For example, she makes I show up to work when I'm supposed to, at least when she can find me. Her little sister was my tea party partner, or I was her's, until she grew out of them. The two of them are family to me, and of course they've never asked questions about me, but I'm sure that one day they will. I'll never be able to answer them.

I have been asked before, "How are you so perfect?" which made me laugh for ten straight minutes. I may look devilishly handsome and well put together, but I am simply a bundle of flaws stitched together with good intentions. I am far from perfect, as I have come to accept that most anyone is. It's not my fault that when they look at me, they see something that seems unbroken and whole, because I never told them to. I don't try to ruin the illusion however, I'd much rather they think me flawless than ruined. I'd much rather be seen as a well put together guy instead of the bundle of nerves I really am, because who likes a drama queen? If they really like them, then I could just direct them over to Carmen.

Does it seem like I'm grasping at straws to tell you about what I think? It's because I am. I'm vapid and empty, a waste of space. I'm not anything special inside, outside is what I want you to look at. All the effort that goes into my appearance is meant to ensnare you so that you never ever ask about what's going on below. Don't let me trick you with eloquence, there is nothing in here. Aliquot is gone, my friend. He's never coming back. All that's left is Nox, a confident, smiley young man, that maybe talks a little too much. Why don't you understand that nothing is here? how can I make you understand?

HISTORY .

“WELL I AM FADING IN THE DARK, SO DON'T YOU EVER KISS ME"
Don't you wish on me, why can't you see that no one is going to save us.

Sometimes I can almost remember the way the city smelled when I was little. Returning to it did feel like home after all. That's not really where the story starts however, let me try one more time. My father was the son of Titanium Nox, and Singapore Goravich. My mother was the daughter of Contare Funke and Celia Lewis. They both grew up rather separately in District Three. My mother was a seamstress, my father was the mayor's son. As soon as he saw he had to have her, and so he did. They were wed when they both turned nineteen and had a son, Chejae. he would have been twenty this year. Two years later, came me. A year and a half later came Omnia, and then no more after that. When my mother had him, my father decided to move us out of the center of the District, to the countryside so we could grow up in the sun. He loved us then, said we all looked like our mother. I have his chin, and my mother's delicately long fingers. She taught me many things with them.

My older brother was my best friend, as was Omnia. I was the middle child, and was often pulled between them. It was rare however to find the three of us apart. We went everywhere together. There was so much to do in the countryside. We were well off from my father's inheritance and my mother's sewing. Women would flock from all over to view her fine little stitches. My father would take us out into the woods for adventures, and when we came home late, my mother would pretend to be grumpy and then she would make dinner for all of us. Some nights, we stayed up drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace and telling stories, other times we would build forts and go for picnics. Chejae and I always ran ahead to find the perfect place, we were the scouts. Omnia, little five year old Omnia, was the mighty warrior who protected the mother and father from harm.

We were home schooled from my father's extensive library, and my mother's extensive mind. From her we learned about ordinary everyday things, such as dragons, and how to make really good toast. From our father we learned about maths, literature, sciences, and histories. Winters were spent inside huddled by the fire, summers were spent outdoors as much as possible. Spring and fall counted as summer. As long as the weather was bearable, we were outside. We knew those woods like the back of our hands. Chejae better than I. There was no dip or swell that he didn't know. There was no tree or hill that he hadn't climbed. Every stream, every stump, every single stone, we knew it, we knew it all. So then how did it happen?

It was a picnic, I was eight, he was twelve, and Omnia was six. We were scouting ahead for the perfect spot like we always did. Chejae was ahead of me, too far ahead. His legs were longer than mine suddenly. It was a few weeks before the next reaing, and he had been so very afraid. WE weren't meant for the games I think, he and I. We were meant for soft summer afternoons, picket fences and always, always two point five children of our own. He ran ahead, too far. I heard a scream, I remember it piercing through everything like a bullet, even the birds were quiet after. I remember my legs, going faster and faster until I couldn't run anymore. It didn't take long to find my brother, he chose a really simple spot. It was pretty clear of any trees, and there was tall grass everywhere. It could have been taken for a mistake, like he thought the grass would catch his fall.

He must have climbed a tree, I remember thinking that right away. He must have climbed a tree and jumped off it, the highest one he could. I don't really know why, and I never did find out. I thought that maybe it was because of the games, or maybe there was too much pressure on him. My father always wanted him to become the next mayor, the next district genius. His neck was twisted in a weird way, and his legs and arms were sticking out oddly. He looked like a broken bird, and there was a smile on his crooked lips. His eyes were wide open, he looked happy. When I was little I thought he jumped on purpose, full of the certain feeling that children have, when they believe they can fly, and really fly. He forgot the fairy dust, I thought. It didn't occur to me that maybe he had forgotten the happy thought as well. Either way, my brother was dead because he wasn't breathing anymore.

After that, things were very different. It was a lot sadder at our house, and our neighbors kept bringing us casseroles that no one felt like eating. They'd mold away into the counter until someone threw them out. My parents were inconsolable, my mother the worst. My father shut himself in his study. They stopped teaching us anything, and Omnia kept wanting to know where Chejae was. I wish it hadn't been an open casket. He looked so sad in there, his muscles all relaxed. He wasn't smiling anymore, which was wrong because even when Chejae was sad or angry, he smiled. I didn't let Omnia look at him.

With my mother and father so sad, I started looking after my little brother and I. I cooked us dinner, warmed up the portions of casserole that were okay to eat in a pot on the little stove. I read to him what I could from books, so I learned at the same time as him. We played together because little kids are sad yes, for a time, but we also didn't quite understand at the time. We went on laughing and playing in the woods and around the house. We even went to Chejae's tree and carved it with a 'C' for him. So everyone would know it was his. one time I even climbed it, even though I was very afraid. I never tried to fly, not once. I guess seeing us so happy still is what set my father off. I guess we were supposed to be sad. I couldn't stay sad. Not for very long, not back then.

One night, when I was sitting alone by the fire and Omnia was in bed, my father came into the room. We exchanged some words, I can't remember what they were now, it was so long ago and I probably have some sort of brain damage obtained from a thrown objective or these addictions I keep. Whatever it was, it was the start of the hurting. As if the mental pain for my brother was not enough, it became physical. You could see the badges obtained in bright blooming bruises along my rib cage, or in the finger wrapped up in tape from being broken. Sometimes they were just short, a punch here, a kick there. Othertimes they were my father holding my hand an inch away from the burner while I screamed before he pressed it to the heat and the pain sang through me in deep lunges. Or the time I got the bit of vase in my knee. He pushed me into my mother's vase, and the shards went everywhere, the biggest one slicing my knee open.

I always told Omnia that they were from night adventures that I went on while he slept so that he wouldn't worry. I'd come to bed late, and the only thing to keep me from crying was my brother's inquiry of what I did that night. I felt better telling him that I was battling my mother's monsters rather then tell him my father had become one. Sometimes my father would cry after, as if he was realizing what he did. He told me that he never wanted to be that way, that his father had beat him, and his sons weren't supposed to have that life. He didn't succeed there, because the rage just seemed to grip him so tight he couldn't escape. I pitied him for that.

When I turned twelve, Chejae's age, and my mother wasn't getting any better, her doctor sent her off to a home for people like her about a mile or two away. The house was a lot emptier, and there was no one to stop my father's rampage. I got my own room, Chejae's old room, and Omnia kept mine and his. My father was able to make room calls. I could always hear him coming, hear him on the step that always reminded me of my older brother because it creaked after he jumped on it too hard. he would sometimes drag his hand along on the wall, as if he needed it for support. I'd hide nuder my bed or in my closet, but then it always made him angrier. It was best if I was waiting for him when he came. One time I heard him stop at Omnia's door instead of mine, so I had to step out into the hallways and lure him into mine.

Afterwards, even though we never shared the same room again, I'd have to go see Omnia so I didn't have to cry. My tears of agony were words spit up like bile, painting pictures with words of my exciting adventures. Explaining why I had a black eye, or how my body had become so bruised. I don't know if I could have gotten through those four years if it wasn't for my little brother. I might have turned to hating my older brother, or hating my father even, but I never had the heart to because of Omnia. I just grew more frightened everyday, even as my heart began to accept a death that was most likely coming soon. Sometimes I wasn't so sure about how much more I could take. Sometimes I'd just close my eyes until he went away.

One night, my father went too far, and he broke my wrist. I don't remember the equation. I just remember one night, it was a normal night, and the next I was screaming in pain (that meant I was battling monsters in the cellar). One moment I was laying between the feet of my horrified father, the next I was outside, running as fast I could with my father shouting behind me. I remember the way the crisp autumn air tasted in my lungs, how my sobs resounded through the woods. I hadn't had a chance to give my horror to Omnia that night.

The rest isn't important.

All you need to know, is that somewhere in those four years, Aliquot thought he could fly, so he tried and he broke his neck. Nox emerged from something, and he liked it. A fiery blue demon, he lives for the night, like Aliquot lived for the day times, when the monster that was his father wasn't awake. I work now in a shop, at a job that I sometimes show up for. Sometimes I visit my cousins, the Goravich's. They're always surprised to see me, surprised that I van't faded out yet, I guess. They told me everyone in the family has been searching for four years, I told them, "me too." My father thinks I'm dead, I guess. So does Omnia, I suppose. I live for the night, where I can wrap myself in shadow. I dream of a picket fence, and a house with two point five kids, but mostly I am afraid, and I am guilty. Omnia is alone with a monster, and I left him there. I didn't protect him, and he has no one to lie to but for the mirror. I'm working hard so that one day I can send for him, and give him a house to live in with no squeaky floor boards that go bump in the night.

ANYTHING ELSE ?

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OUT OF CHARACTER .

FACE CLAIM .
CHOI SEUNG HYUN • ALIQUOT NOX

OTHER CHARACTERS ?
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I, ELEGANT .

CODEWORD . odair