zz Tjaden Hertz |[fin]| District 6 zz

My name is Tjaden Hertz. It sounds like it should be spelled c-h-a-w-d-e-n h-u-r-t-s, but in truth it's spelt t-j-a-d-e-n h-e-r-t-z. No body ever gets it right.

I'm told I am seventeen years old, though I don't have any memories of even turning sixteen so I keep making the mistake of saying that I'm fifteen. Still, they are doctors, they should know, right?

I live in District Six. I didn't always live here, in Solitude, though. No, I lived with my parents until the day I died. Then I was moved here.

I'm not sure how I look right now. It's an odd thing to say but the last time I looked in a mirror was about three months ago. Actually, the last time I opened my eyes was three months ago. Despite how that sounds, I haven't chosen to keep my eyes shut. Currently I'm in a coma. Basically, the last time I saw myself in the mirror was before I fell into this long sleep. I'll tell you what I remember of my appearance, though, and hope it will suffice.

According to the measurements in my file, I am 6'2" tall. No one says whether it is a good height or not, but I find it a bit annoying because of how lanky I am - being in a coma for such a long time prevents me from maintaining any kind of healthy weight and I am below what I should be. To be precise, their last measurement that I am aware of places me at around 152 lbs, though I could be less than that now.

They simply stated my hair is brown but that's such a basic description of it. Especially because sometimes it looks blonde instead. So it's this kind of medium to light brown with little tints of blonde. It's constantly ruffled, and often stands up in spikes because of its inch-and-a-half length, so I don't expect much change from when I last saw it to when I wake up - if I wake up.

My eyebrows match my hair - being the same mixed colour - and are long, thin isosceles triangles that curve slightly over my eyes. Another simply stated thing written in my file is my eye colour. They call them green, but I think they're more blue-green, or even turquoise. Of course they can change to look more blue one day and more green another, so I'm never quite sure. Still, all the more reason why calling them just plain green is wrong.

After this much time has past I almost wonder whether it's worth bothering over my appearance, but I have so many opportunities to do nothing so it isn't as though I am really wasting my own time. Being locked on this side of my eyelids could be an interesting experience, if it wasn't so boring. Even so, some part of me continues to wonder if I look different right now as when I am awake, aside from neatness. It's not as though I'm really that neat when I'm awake anyway.

The trouble isn't when I'm awake, not the real trouble anyway. I seem to be in constant fear of something, but at least the fear when I'm awake is something that affects more than just me. The Games. Every kid in every district, with exception to the Careers, has a fear for them. I fear them because I know they will kill me. If I fall into a coma in the middle of them then I'm an easy kill for whoever is around. Even if I didn't, the only experience with fighting that I've had is the fight with my own damn heart to keep me alive and to keep me from my monsters.

I have a hard time recalling my monsters. Memories from my comas, my long sleeps, are never clear and that's usually good because I really do not want to remember the horrors that keep me captive for months at a time. During my first coma, the longest one, I simply remember the never-ending terror and the need to flee. I couldn't manage to get away until I woke up here, in Solitude. I didn't want to go back, not even during the night. I would fight sleep until I collapsed, despite being warned again and again that it would only serve to kill me one of these days. I'm fif- seventeen and I've already had a heart attack, another one would probably kill me. I don't care, though, it's better than my monsters.

My parents always told me I was a bright kid, but always finding a way into trouble. I was merely searching for ways to avoid bedtime and somehow they took that as a young boy's disobedience. I suppose it was, in a way. I liked reading and learning, it was something to distract me from my night terrors, and took my every opportunity to do so. Often I would spend nights awake, just reading through one of the few books in my room. Even now I do my best to learn from the adults around me, try to expand my vocabulary and my understanding. Maybe I can find a way to cure myself.

I never know where I belong though. I've always been the weird kid. I'm sure my old classmates whispered about me in the hallways and at lunchtime. What they said was probably half true with a pinch of fairy dust like most rumors. Then again, I usually had my head in a book or in the clouds thinking about ways to escape having to sleep that night. For all I know, I looked just as weird as I felt. Even here I don't feel like I fit in. After returning to "the waking world" I realized that the only familiar thing that I had was a book my parents had left, and my monsters. I also knew that the fear I held in both my worlds kept me bound to each side. I felt like a doll being fought over by children, only to fall to pieces in their hands.

I guess you could call me lonely. I mean, my parents aren't exactly around to comfort me, and after my experiences with other children before coming here I didn't want to start following them around like some stray animal. It doesn't help that I have a bit of a shake in my left side either. I was told that something like that might happen due to my coma, well actually due to why I went into a coma in the first place. They told me I was lucky though, lucky I lived and very lucky that I managed to recover as well as I had. The things you take for granted.

To be truthful, I don't really understand what's wrong with me. I never even knew there was something wrong with me until a while after I turned fifteen. Well, physically at least. I had always had monsters, I've had terrible nightmares since I was young and I don't think I'll ever be able to get away from them. Maybe when I die.

I was a normal child, or normal enough for being a self-made insomniac. I never wanted to go to bed because I knew that the monsters would come for me. My parents never understood, they thought it was just some childhood fear of the "oogie-boogieman". Even as young as I was I knew that these things that I was seeing were much more terrible than the boogieman. They were terrible beings that I still only remember now because I saw them so often. You know those nightmares that you have so many times that you know what's going to happen before it does? I had those every night. Apparently it's a side effect from my condition, or maybe they're just brushing it off as that because no one wants to say that I might be mad. Don't worry, I know everyone thinks so.

When I turned fifteen everything started getting worse. The nightmares couldn't happen more often because they already happened all the time, but they just got more horrible. There's a tale that if you die in your dream then you die in real life. I that's the case for me. I have always narrowly avoided death, for fear that I would really die, and then one time I didn't.

And I died.

I had a heart attack. Cardiac arrest, they called it. Doctors like their fancy names for things. Like resuscitation, it just means that they brought me back from the dead. I guess that makes me a zombie, only not quite. My heart beats - though it sounds weird apparently, something's off about it and that's why I had the heart attack - and my brain works, in its own twisted way, and that means I live. The thing is, after they brought me back from the dead, after they turned me into not-quite-a-zombie, I went into a coma. Vegetative state, they call it. I've heard some kids joke that it really is vegetable - they've called me broccoli before.

I've experienced falling into that state twice; once when I had a heart attack, and the second time when I refused to sleep until I collapsed. My heart, with its weird beat, means that I'm more susceptible to that type of thing than most people. Each time I faint I run a risk of dying. The problem is that I risk fainting a lot in order to avoid sleep and my monsters. My only comfort is that if I die then I may not have to see my nightmares anymore. Then again, maybe then I will never be able to escape them again.

Part of the Solitude: Coma plot.

FC: Alex Gardner

Lyrics: Load Me Up by Matthew Good Band

Words
89 - Introduction
328 - Appearance
706 - Personality
493 - History
1616 - Total