Delilah Mercury -- District 3

You stand in the center of a large house, a grand staircase immersed in luxurious velvet carpet to your left, and a door leading to freedom just a mere foot away to your right. You take a deep, relaxing breath, an attempt to calm the jangling nerves in your system because you know that this is your very first day of work as a servant and that the rumors circulating about the Mercury family have never been pleasant to hear. A familiar noise catches your ears then - the echoes of voices bouncing off of the white walls, but voices that changed in pitch and tone too quickly to be people speaking in close proximity. You recognize the background noise instantly; it's a television, and where there is a working television there is usually a pair of curious eyes watching. Eventually, you know you must approach one of the residents and perhaps introduce yourself as their new servant. They are, after all, your employers and customers, and your job rests on their opinions of you. So, with your head held high and your chest swelled with confidence welded from iron you march toward the source of the noise - a cozy family living room adorned in fuzzy carpets and a giant sofa occupied by one of the wealthy adolescents.

When you turn to face this mystery identity you find that it is none other than the sweet butterfly that hired you in the first place. You remember dearly your encounter with her, how her angelic voice seemed to melt your senses as she batted elegantly long eyelashes at you and curled a lock of golden hair around her manicured fingertip. She was breathtakingly gorgeous - the lucky girl - though you had been too entranced by how pretty she was and how jealous you were to notice the rather large, distracting freckle dotted right above her nose, or how when she smiled so kindly at you her lips stretched a bit too wide. You also fail to notice that as she greets you again with her large grin she tucks her long strands of hair behind her ear, revealing just how prominent it is, though with hair falling past her shoulder blades the flaw is quite easy to conceal. You instinctively return a charming smile and exchange greetings. "Is there anything you need, Miss Mercury?" you ask, trying to make a positive impression of yourself. She merely flashes a closed smile with lips shaded in rose colors - no doubt from a tube of lipstick - and speaks through the straight teeth you envy so deeply. "Please, call me Delilah." the warmth and grace drip like sweet honey from her lips, and you can't help but admire the girl who is blessed to be as pretty as she is. "Would you mind dusting those shelves off?" she points a slender, ringed finger toward a wooden shelf mounted across the wall with framed photos organized neatly across it. You glance back at her and silently leap for joy knowing the task will be simple to complete. "Not at all, Delilah." And then the rich princess smiles at you again, her thin, waxed eyebrows moving just an inch as her pale features contort. After she directs you to the supply closet for cleaning materials you grab the duster and begin to work your way down the line, lightly touching each of the photos as you curiously gaze between their frames and stare at the family members you've heard so much about.

The baby photos greet you first. There are many of them, almost too many to count, and certainly too many for you to remember so quickly. They are even difficult to distinguish. Your eyes can't help but fall upon the names engraved on the frames, however, and you soon find the blonde-haired child you know to be the delightful Delilah Mercury. In every photo of her as a child she wears a full smile and ravishing dresses to match. Such a spoiled child, you think quietly to yourself, yet it is amazing how she has grown into such a gentle spirit despite all of this. It is faintly strange to you, observing her as she was; small frame, delicate hands, so skinny and fragile as glass. A stick compared to what she is now. Now, she is everything you want to be. She is slim with enough curves to drive a man mad - or perhaps just you - and has a right to wear dresses that hug every inch of her. She has wide hips, and from the looks of it an almost-flat waist, though you cannot tell by merely looking at her from a distance. It does not appear that she is involved with career training; she does not seem strong or athletic, though you imagine her carrying a sturdy skeleton (complete with a set of longs legs that make her rather tall for a girl her age) from access to healthy foods and full meals. You also find it convenient that she has a full kit of make-up to cover blemishes - not the occasional freckles that seemed randomly sprinkled across her milky frame, but those that probably appeared on her cheeks or forehead, not that you would know since you have yet to see her without make-up. Still, you find her very pretty, and it is so distracting it seems to be hindering you from your job. You hastily begin to dust at a swifter pace and ignore the various people that appear until an unmistakable one greets you rather harshly; it is Otis Mercury, the father of these children and the previous owner of their inheritance. Yet, that isn't what makes him so unique. It is the tragic, untimely death that makes him so memorable.

Otis was a troubled man, you know that much. He was a man too engrossed in his own work to pay any attention to his beloved children, though when his attention was spared from his work he did not treat them with the kindness they expected. He was a rather hostile and explosive man - there have even been rumors circulating that he had physically brutalized his poor wife, the woman named Annora who had loved him so dearly, perhaps too dearly. You were too young to consciously witness it during the time, but when Annora had walked the streets with her sanity still intact people couldn't neglect the patches of violet and blue littered across her pale skin, nor could they doubt that the angry man sharing a home and children with her had been the culprit. Still, Annora chose to stay bonded with him until the very end, even raising a child she suspected was not her own - most likely the result of a secret affair committed by an unfaithful husband despite his claims about the child being found in a dumpster. It wasn't until his death that everything about the family changed. You know very little details about why it happened, but you do know that something was definitely wrong with the man's conscience (if he had one). Only a tormented or disturbed man would dare put a bullet through his mouth in the comforts of his own home, where pools of his scarlet blood could be seen by innocent children's wandering eyes. Nothing was the same after his dreaded funeral; Annora lost part of herself in a chasm too deep to dive into, her sanity crushed to a singularity and shoved into one of the many cracks in the chasm's icy walls. And the rest of the family? Well, they inherited millions from Mr. Mercury's dedicated work, and that's how they came to live in the enormous house you are standing in at this very moment. You find it fascinating how such an odd handful of children have been blessed with these riches, even when you know most of them are completely out of touch with reality and far from the edge of sanity. Or so people say.

You don't remember much about Annora Mercury. After the abrupt and gruesome death of her husband she suffered a physical and emotional meltdown, risking the welfare of her children by trying to follow suit. She was locked away in an asylum by concerned neighbors before an opportunity presented itself, and remained imprisoned there until she was deemed capable of functioning well enough to think in favor of her children rather than herself. That is the extent of your knowledge - you're not sure how she acts or how she raises her children nowadays. You have yet to even see her wandering about the house, as if it were the children ruling the household with iron fists instead of her. Leaving the house to the children? That didn't sound wise. The rumors you've heard about these children are not at all pleasant; phobias, demon possession, adrenaline seeking, insomnia, manipulation, drug and alcohol use, witchcraft - all are strange facts or fibs you've heard about the eight children that bear the name Mercury. Some are adopted, some have been raised here since birth, but when you try to recall the names mentioned and the sick rumors whispered you suddenly realize that one name has remained absent the entire time: Delilah Mercury. She is such an angel, isn't she? So why has her polite behavior never been acknowledged in the whirlwind of gossip? Maybe people don't like to discuss the goody-goodies. Yes, that must be it. People want the dirt, not the innocence. They want a juicy story and endless reasons to avoid the Mercury family forever. You, on the other hand, promise yourself not to think like they do, and quickly finish your task of dusting before Miss Delilah notices your delay.

You turn and find nothing but an empty space on the sofa cushion indented by the fresh mark of a previous visitor. You faintly wonder where the girl wandered off to when a deafening crash! alarms you, nearly startling you out of your skin and leaving you breathless as you register the possible source of the noise. It had been the unmistakable screech of glass splitting into fragments upon a solid floor, and that was enough to warn you that it hadn't been your doing. You are immediately lured into the kitchen, a grand display of granite counters, glazed wooden cupboards and glistening silver shapes of every kind, where sunlight streams through a window over the sink and outlines a figure standing over crystal fragments scattered across the tile. It is Delilah, her eyebrows raised skyward and her lips parted to form the shape of an "O" as if both shocked and horrified by the incident. You immediately feel the pity welling in your gut. "Are you alright?" You ask hurriedly, spying no hints of seeping blood or bruising on her bare feet. A wave of relief washes over you like a sunlight bath. "Yes, I'm alright." she breathes unsteadily, as if the startling event had moved her. "I hope I didn't give you too much of a scare," you shake your head, insisting that the accident was only a mild scare, a pinprick of a worry, a very minor ordeal in your world of fears. And then, "Would you mind cleaning it up for me? I'm a tad bit busy at the moment." She turns away before your frozen body can respond, before you choke on the words that suddenly spill out of your mouth in a strange frenzy of disbelief. "Busy? But you just..." Your voice earns her attention, for she suddenly stops and cocks her head as if to listen. "You were just watching television. You're not busy." You don't why you're acting this way, but everything about it feels right. It is logical, isn't it? No, you're her servant, you're supposed to listen to her. But she is lying, isn't she?

When she turns to face you she is no longer glowing with a smile. There is something eerie about the way her eyes darken, the way her smile is replaced by the a faint smirk with fabricated sweetness, and the way her shoulder blades seem to stiffen like bird's wings stretching to take flight. "Oh, you're right. How silly of me." Something about the casualness in her tone upsets you, and part of you begins to believe it is false. "A lady should always clean up her own messes, right?" she is opening one of the cabinets, reaching for a stack of glass plates in the corner. She pulls them out and holds them evenly in front of her, her smirk practically faded into a neutral ribbon of red as eyes hard as marbles stare straight into your own. Then, as if her wrists are attached to strings manipulated by a puppet master behind closed curtains, her hands simply slide sideways and linger in the air as the plates plummet to their demise and create a symphony of unearthly and thunderous shrieking. Like autumn leaves scattered across a lawn, the glass now lay unorganized and in sharp fragments, glistening like malicious stars threatening to draw too near. It was sheer luck none of the pieces had struck your bare ankles. You are, however, too shocked to react to the girl whose lips are now curled into one of the most beautifully repulsive sneers you have ever seen. "Oh, look at the mess you've made!" There is false surprise in her tone as she kneels down and plucks one of the glass daggers up from the floor. A shadow passes across her eyes like foggy blanket, stealing the lights and replacing them with demonic gleams of malevolence as her mocking of you grows more evident while seconds linger and you silence drags. "Clean it up, bitch" And then realization strikes you like a brilliant bolt of lightning; it was her they had spoken about.

"She is the prettiest thing, that girl is. Cute as a button when she was little, sexy now. She's got the charm of a diamond, but she's no jewel, I'll tell you you that. She's an evil thing, like a vampire that will suck you dry. She uses her beauty and her money to get everything she wants - I would know, I had a son that fell under her spell. Poor boy got his heart broken when she took everything from him, and it took me ages to convince him to move on and let go of the past. The way it sounds, I think she's a damn psychopath. Charming her way into my little boy's heart only to crush him afterward and feel no guilt about it? She must not have feelings, that Mercury girl. It'd be best if you watched your back around her, if only I could remember her name..."

Delilah Mercury. That is her name. It was her all along, and you had fallen for it, just like that woman's poor weakling of a son. You are no stronger than they are, you realize. She fooled you. The rush of fury and adrenaline ambushes you like a pulsing tidal wave, but she spots this wildfire before it can spread and stands tall and mighty with her glass shard in hand, eyes twinkling as if egging you on. Attack me, they say, mocking you, provoking you, feeding your fire, I dare you. But you don't. Instead, you stand there, seething and unable to respond, and when she finally realizes you are helpless she smiles. This time, though, it is not a smile of kindness and hospitality - it is a smile of pure, sick delight, and you feel your stomach churn at the sight of it. "Good girl." she says, as if you're nothing but a dirty dog from the dumpsters meant to be trained and used. Then she turns away, gliding out of the room like a black swan, feathers dripping with black ink and malice, and doesn't glance back at you, because to her, you are nothing. And that is all everyone will ever be to her. Nothing.