Daemon Lazre | District VI [fin]

You tossed and turned in your sleep, muttering words too faint to be understood as once more you were plagued by the memories you shouldn't have. Beads of sweat glistened on your skin as you let out a whimper of pain, demoting yourself from eighteen year old to eight year old as once more the boogeyman caused you fear. Only there was more than one boogeyman in your head, and they were all human. A sudden grunt from you signaled you were fighting your invisible adversary as one of your arms rose up to flail at the point where a neck might be. All was quiet, except for you, in your District six home but in your head you heard nothing but the screams of the dead.

Your black hair was tangled and matted from your constant twisting as you battled the dreams that held you captive. The normally somewhat poofy appearance of your hair had sunk to laying flat on your head because of the sweat the dripped into your eyes. Even closed, it was easy to see the dramatic movement that your eyes were doing as your dream continued its harshly realistic feeling. When open they shine a liquid brown like melted chocolate but right now your pupils were so large the colours of your iris had disappeared into the black abyss. You tossed, turning over and sending the last corner of your covers off of the side of the bed, leaving you exposed. Shivering slightly, your right hand moved towards your face and touched the tip of your triangular nose. The faint facial hair resting below it and around your vulnerable mouth was coarse and short, more stubble than hair at this point.

Your throat convulsed as you swallowed, the muscles in your neck working as your adams apple moved. A drip of sweat traced its way down to the curve of your chest, gliding over your surprisingly well-muscled chest. As you lived in District six, where most jobs were not manual labor like in the mining and harvesting Districts, it was odd to see someone with that much muscle. However, you had felt a calling to train your body like you needed to do it for your own survival. Watching the Games and the tributes, you put together an exercise schedule for yourself that would work with your job and lifestyle, anyone who asked would get your default answer of wanting to be healthy. In truth you didn't know why you felt the desperate need to be fit, it was as though you knew that one day the arena would call you. That was why you trained yourself in hand-to-hand combat, taking lessons from one of the gang kids for a not-quite-small fee. Learning to use a weapon would be dangerous, you knew that, so you learned to use your fists and feet as weapons.

Broad shoulders made it hard for you to flip over on the bed, but you did it again in your restless sleep as a small shiver touched your back. With no covers over you anyone who looked in could see you almost completely naked - you only slept in boxers - but no one would see you. The visions behind your eyes continued to disturb what you had hoped would be a peaceful sleep and you punched forward like you had been trained to do under assault, with no one in front of the blow nothing happened, but the muscles in your arms strained as you seemed to be starting to push someone away. Both arms were muscled like your chest, as were your thrashing legs. Had you been standing you would reach past the six-foot mark by exactly one inch. Had you have been standing it also would have been possible to see that your torso made up almost half of your height, which somehow managed to proportion you well.

But another bought of tossing and turning finally broke you from your sleep enough to reach around for the covers, not finding them left you sighing as you searched a larger area until you managed to grab a corner of it. Dragging them back over you, you turned so you were staring at the wall, eyes open as you slowly started to breath normally after your hours of struggling against yourself. You drifted between sleep and waking as your exhaustion dragged you down despite your fears of more memories rising. You put your thoughts on your clothes, for whatever reason the thought of what you might wear the next day was enough to drive away the foreign recollections. In the morning you would put on your exercising stuff, bright and early in the morning you went for a run and your work out shorts and t-shirt - or in the winter your sweatshirt and sweatpants - were great to wear. After you would change into your uniform, you worked as an engineering technician for one of the local labs, to work in. Casual clothes were something you liked to wear whenever possible, and they ranged from shorts and a t-shirt to pants and a hoodie, or any combination there-of. You even had a suit in your closet if ever a special occasion - like the reaping - came up.

You clench the covers in your fists - this subtle sign of frustration no match for lack of control you felt at this moment. No one could see you now, thankfully, but this was not the person you wanted to be. The is more to you, you know it. You are tougher than this. You always wanted to be the guy that the girls all flocked to because you knew that girls liked tough guys and you were one. Except you aren't, your dreams remind you that every night when terror seizes you and you shake like a little girl. No, you are not the tough guy you wished you were. Still, you try hard to hide that truth beneath the false badass identity you attempted to build for yourself. Only, it's not secure and you know it doesn't fool anyone, but still you continue with it.

In your mind you were surrounded by fog, choked and strangled by its dewy fingers as they claw into your lungs. You felt like you were going to be torn apart from the inside and panic welled up faster than you want it to. A bamboo plant had sprung up right in front of you, smacking you hard in the face with an audible whap. Bamboo, memories rush you and you shake your head to clear them. Not once in your life had you had anything but bad experiences with bamboo, still it wasn't what scared you the most. Unbidden, internalized images of sloth rose in your mind and you shuddered. Of everything that there was in the world, you were scared by wild animals - and in particular, sloth. Nothing explained why you were scared of them, but you thought it might have to do with their long slashing claws.

No one knows about your dreams, not from you at least. They were too much a sign of weakness for you to be able to share them. People would mock you for your fears, this time to your face instead of behind your back, which is something you wouldn't be able to handle. As bad as your dreams were, it wasn't worth the added pain to tell someone about them. You know you aren't what you want to be, and you know that everyone else knows it as well. It seemed as though every night seemed to get worse until you nearly screamed from terror, but you never scream. Even during the most terrifying dream, the one where you get hacked to pieces, you never scream. It felt like the only bit of dignity you had left.

You had always worked hard in your life, never taking things for granted because you never had anything to take for granted. Your parents paid little heed to you, ignoring the effort you put in towards taking care of the house and getting food. The work you did paid for your own food and clothing because your parents never bought anything for you. Each job you took was for the sake of your own survival and nothing more - there was no one to take pride in your accomplishments because no one ever thought of you as more than a burden, though in truth you carried your own weight and that of your parents more than they would care to know.

No one was your father, the man who shared your house was only the name on the property and nothing more. It was his roof over your head, but the patches in the ceiling were your own handiwork. He had given up on you long before you could remember, perhaps even before you were born. It had been his idea to name you Daemon, seeing as you were a menace on his life. He might have been your own personal tax collector, coming to you while your mother slept in order to take your day's wages and spend it on drink. Once you hoped he would trip over his own feet and break his neck, but nothing happened. Eventually you learned to hide your money and told him you no longer had a job. Again you had failed him, but you did not fail yourself.

Your mother was a ghost in the house, pale and translucent, never truly there. Sickly, but determined not to be around you, she specifically took easy jobs and set appointments around when you would be at home. She hadn't spoken to you in four years, though now and again she might order you out of the way, out of the house, and - once - out of her life. Now you avoid her just as she avoids you, no more trying to catch her eye, no more wanting to tell her things. You have accepted your lack of parents, and in accepting it you find you are more content. With no one to guide you, no one to clamp a hand over your shoulder and steer you the way they wish, you could be yourself. You didn't have to be anything more.

The dreams call to you, a place where you feel you belong. You know this is an arena but you can't explain how you know. Tension and fear are tangled around you like the mist that clings to your hair and the vines that wrap around your legs. Sharp claws cut into your skin at night to leave no marks but you still feel better there with them than at home. As you watch the reaping each year you feel the urge to step forward and shout your name to the world. Somehow you feel you belong in the arena, like it was where you had already been and were destined to go back. Your dreams are signs that point you to the Hunger Games. You knew that you were meant to be a tribute, you knew that your name was meant to be called.

Victory didn't matter - who was there to impress, what was there to live for - but something about travelling to your death in an unknown land gave you such a sense of calm that you scare yourself when you think of it. Lower districts weren't supposed to want to enter the Games, and yet you knew that becoming a tribute would be the one thing that would give you contentment.