Aelita Longhorn // District 7 // DONE

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steadily emerging with grace[/size][/center]

Eight years ago, my world fell apart.

Just as I walked into my house, there was a gunshot. My father lay in his own scarlet blood, and it stained the floor. Above him stood three Peacekeepers, one of which held an outstretched gun that had been pointed at my father’s heart – and it had shot. Then my hands began to go wild, I flailed madly as I headed towards the Peacekeepers. My targets, and the middle one especially. They must die, the Capitol must be overthrown, in order for me to achieve my goal. I expect they’ll rig the reapings so my name is deliberately pulled from the bowl, but that doesn’t bother me. When I go down, I will defy the Capitol. I will defy them and make them wish they’d never been born. Trust me, I will, even if it seems I’m scraping by without my long-lost father, I will be inside my room plotting to overthrow those fools from the Capitol who sit and watch us die whilst chortling, popping a bottle and munching on snacks whilst the people back in the districts are tearful, mourning their loved ones and starving hungry.

The little children who are reaped. They are a prime example of why what the Capitol are doing is wrong. Also when the kids that could be no younger than seven years old having their tongues cut off is another one, I’ve seen countless little toddlers from the districts be sent off to become an Avox. I remember that day when I was sitting near the fence, picking blades of grass and wondering if there was any escape route other than entering the wilderness where there were dangerous, poisonous plants and creatures that will rip your limbs off one by one and eat them. Just when I begin to ponder again, thinking I may have the solution, then a blood-curdling scream comes. I jump to my feet. Someone’s running for their lives. Running straight towards the fence. Just a little, tiny, puny girl running, attempting to toddle on her small feet, but the hovercraft is faster. Quick as a flash, the girl is plunged into the air, taken away to be one of the Capitol’s slaves.

i won't soothe your pain
i won't ease your strain
you'll be waiting in vain

i got nothing left to gain

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They are quite petty, the Capitolites. They can’t do a single thing for themselves, instead relying on people who committed crimes to do their jobs for them. With whips and knives and their own fists, they beat them bloody until they do the job right. It’s downright cruel, and I feel immense pity for that little girl who was taken away, shivering, trembling, uncertain of what was going on, how she was being taken board on a flying machine and whisked off to have their tongue sliced off with a knife (or maybe another Capitol-made machine?) and thrown into someone else’s home to spend their pitiful life as a slave to some Capitol brutes. Scum, that’s all the Capitolites are. Absolute scum. I won’t stand for them hurting people like this. But is there anything I can do? No. Just nothing I can do to save the lives that could be taken. Every year, on the anniversary of the rebellion ending and the Hunger Games starting, each of the 12 districts of Panem must offer up one female and one male called tributes between the ages of 12 and 18. These tributes shall be taken to the Capitol, where they will be trained to fight to the death until a lone victor remained. The victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder that the Capitol won the war and that the Dark Days must never be repeated.

That’s how they describe it. I describe it as: The districts send off two children to participate in a fight to the death whilst the Capitol brutes treat it as a festive event. They have to murder each other whilst the people in the Capitol laugh and drink wine and eat popcorn and then the people back home cry, starve, be thirsty, mourn, and the little kids look away as their sibling’s heart is skewered by a merciless Career. Is that really fair? Why don’t the Capitol take part? The president very well could have made the Capitol take part, seeing as they’re not even of reaping age. It would have been legit for them to have done that, yet they just let the Capitol live in luxury whilst the people at home starved to death slowly but surely. And sometimes, I just feel a pang of hatred for those bitches who think they can keep their reign and force me to do this, but I will do all in my power to defy them, and make them look like weaklings whilst I am a bird, flying, a mockingjay.

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suddenly i will play my ace[/size][/center]

My mother described me as a mockingjay years ago. She watched me and she smiled. I was the treasure of her life, the cherry on top. But my mother is the only one left I love. My sister Madeline has been taken to be an Avox; she serves in the Capitol and may possibly be made to be my Avox if I’m reaped. They’d do that deliberately because of me. They’d punish me for the sin I committed – violence on a Peacekeeper. They spared me, because what was the fun in just killing me on the spot? But to this day, I can never walk in the streets of District Seven without feeling cautious because I could be shot any minute. They would never give me a short death, though. They’d savour the fact they’d caught me, they’d outsmarted me and they’d finally captured me. I’m not much of an outlaw, I just wanted to save my father. But it was too late, they’d shot him right in the heart, and they’d asked me if I wanted to join him. Perhaps it was the fact I nodded that led them to just laugh and leave the house.

I wanted to join him. I wanted to join my father. Why didn’t they let me? I would have done anything to join him in death. I wanted to lie down next to him, close my eyes, the sun sets, and then we live forever in Heaven together. But now he’s just alone up high with the angels, and I’m pretty sure due to the life I chose to led, when I die I will be burning in the dark depths of Hell. I’ve turned from someone who loved her father, who was the apple of her family’s eye, who had a caring sister, to a deprived teenager who doesn’t want anything more than to see her vision blur, fade, then end all her suffering. But my mother hid the knives ages ago after becoming worried I was becoming suicidal. I am suicidal, and I want to commit suicide. I don’t see the point in living within all this tragedy, this pain, everything. But if I leave my mother, her world will tear apart, it will break, it will shatter into a thousand pieces of blood-stained glass, covered in tears, tears that are now blood red after mixing with the red liquid on the glass.

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steadily emerging with grace[/size][/center]

Black. Red. Two of my favourite colours, and combined they’re both amazing. Red for blood, black for eternal darkness after the blade strikes your heart. Of course, when you’re dying, red mixes with black – that’s one of the reasons I look forward to death. I try to starve, but my mother forces the food into my mouth. I try to die of thirst, but she forces my mouth open and the cold water runs down my throat. I try to stab myself, but she hides the knives. I try to simply die of beating myself, but she only buys padded clothes for me.

I guess you can say I’m quite pretty. My hair is dark, not sure if it’s exactly black but it’s certainly a very dark brown. My lips were naturally cherry red, perfect for kissing, yet I’ve never kissed a boy before. Thinking of the fluttering in my chest when my red lips brush against pale ones gives me the creeps. My eyes are peculiar, really. Sometimes they’re slightly green, other times they’re a dark blue. I think they’re a mix of the two. My skin is white, almost pale, and my mother called me Snow White when I was a baby. I have a slight fringe, but it parts at the middle of my forehead and goes the other way. My hair isn’t straight, but it’s wavy. I don’t see the point in caring for your hair. My hair just reminds me of my deceased father. I don’t want to be reminded about that, thanks! Why do they do this to me?

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pay for our sins[/size][/center]

My body shape is sort of similar to everyone else’s in the district. Slim, seeing as us lower districts scarcely have enough to eat. My hands are quite strange though. I swear they’re a darker shade of white than all the other areas of skin. As for my feet, they’re even more pale than my skin colour, making it kind of weird. My hands and feet have two very different skin colours, luckily I hide my feet in shoes and I just pretend I haven’t noticed my hands. Somehow that makes other people unaware of the fact I have uneven skin tone. Skin doesn’t really matter in here; what matters more is that we get our food and we eat it and we survive.

As for personality, what can I say? I’m cold, calculating, vicious, distrusting, and overall kind of a bitch. But I’ll never be as awful as the Capitol scum. I am happy that I’m not in the Capitol. Aforementioned, I don’t mind death as long as I can join Father in Heaven rather than rot with the dead Careers in Hell. If God exists, why didn’t he save us? Save us from this terror. But maybe the Capitol’s decision is beyond his power and he tries his best. Or maybe he’s another person who watches the Games and chuckles. I don’t want to go to Heaven now. Maybe he sent Father to Hell because he was killed by Peacekeepers for committing a crime. Maybe Father wasn’t wanted in Heaven. I wish. I’m definitely going to die and go to Hell, where I rot within the flames as they entwine my body furiously.

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you're always with the angels[/size][/center]

Now I’m just thinking about how Madeline is now. I used to be caring when she was around, but now I’m just a girl who’s deprived and doesn’t give a shit. To hell with the Capitol, to hell with them indeed. Let God take them to Heaven if he wishes, I don’t care about being in Hell. The flames down in the deepest pits, the pain, it gives me happiness. It makes me focus more if there’s pain. That’s why I often slap myself in the face when I need to do my homework. There’s another story. At school, I don’t have any friends. This is because I am a cold-hearted person and I really don’t care about schoolwork. They just ramble on about how after the rebellion we must all pay debts to the Capitol, sacrificing our lives to show that we promise the Dark Days must never be repeated. Oh, that’s just a bundle of shit.

Once they made us stand up and promise that we will never try and start a rebellion, and we will abide by the Treaty of Treason. I refused. I lashed out on the teacher, she ended up injured and my mother had to treat her as an apology for my disruption I caused. I realize, years later, that it should have been the Capitol I lashed out on, because they just made the teacher do it. She never intended to make us do that. But now the teacher distrusts me so I’m always the last person to be commended in class. It’s just her revenge. I know that she hates me, with the way she glares at me in such anger. But I don't care anymore.

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i think it's time to part ways[/size][/center][/color][/size][/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote]