Jaguar Lyre >District 1< {{~Le Done}}

~Appearance~

Skin the color of dark copper stretches across a gaunt face. Dark hair grows from my scalp, resembling that of a bird's nest laying askew upon my head. Much to my mother's chagrin, it is never straight or tidy. I can almost feel her metal comb digging into my scalp like dull blades. Shrieks fill the room, telling tales my my imperfections. Things only a mother could say to her son without reprimand. Dark stubble is always present on my chin, which juts out in a way that only a cartoon villain's should. This is not helped by the large, dark eyebrows resembling two slanted rectangles atop of my eyes. Nothing short of a mustache, slicked back with thick grease would give me any more of a villainous appearance.

Perfection. That's the way my mother describes my body. Not created that way, but designed. The very morning my eyes peeled open the 12th anniversary of my birth, I was shoved into a gym. My scrawny arm held a sword far too heavy for my young hands. A man with beady black eyes, face as red as the blood rushing through the large vein protruding from his neck screams at me. He too tells tales of my worthlessness. The others training in the same gym as I turn and stare, drinking in the scene the red man was creating. Desperate to please I placed both hands on the sword. I bring it up over my shoulder, my hands shaking under its weight. And I swing. I feel sharp pain run through my shoulders and into my back. The thrill this sends through my body is one that I will never forget.It continues like this for six long years. From dusk to dawn I am swinging a sword. I almost grow to enjoy it. My body grows. Frail arms begin to buldge, odd bumps grow from my stomach and chest. Things are suddenly easier. The sword feels better, like feathers in my hand. I don't struggle to swing.

My strength is the only thing that is good about me, I have been taught. Pounded into my brain over and over is my worthlessness. My hair is too stringy. It's far too dark. My face is too round. And my eyes too large. My mouth too small. I should've died the moment I was born. I was a mistake.
I ruined her life.
She hates me.
I am worthless.

~Personality~

My brain doesn't work the same way as everyone else. I'm strange, even extraordinary. It all began in my youth. Insignificant habits, little "quirks" I brushed off almost immediately. Small things, how I yearned for the harsh words shouted to me in school. They weren't uncommon, the pitiful youth that I was. Perhaps failing a test on purpose, just to hear the teacher's disappointment at my supposed failure. The pure apathy I experienced as my father beat me, not a cry leaving my lips, rarely even an overwhelming urge to let loose a giggle. It was nothing but normal me. Natural as the air I breathed or the words I spoke. That is, until my training began. It's only natural for children to spar against each other. The hollow dummies that litter career gyms can only teach you so much. They don't think like a human, don't feel like a human. The desperation of battle never crosses their empty minds. They are simply there to die, only revived to die yet again. Maybe it's lucky that they cannot feel.

Unless they are like me. My first sparring match replays in my mind. I fought a girl, only a year older than I. Her hair was the color of the sunset, eyes of emeralds. Armed with a wooden sword, I lock eyes with her. Big green eyes are laced with fear. She is scared of pain. Scared that I will hurt her somehow. The red man screams- I highly doubt he is able to use any other volume- at us to begin. I can only assume the girl of sunsets was a charge of his as well. She raised her sword, advancing towards me with an unsure gait.
I do nothing. I refuse to hit the girl, not after seeing fear mar her otherwise perfect eyes. She slowly halts, noticing my reaction, or lack thereof, to her advance.
Hit him! The red man orders. Your enemy does nothing. Hit him!

The girl staggers forward, raising the wooden sword high above her head. I try to prepare myself, expecting unbearable pain as the carved branch connects with my body. She closes her eyes and brings it down to meet me.

Sure, the pain comes. I expected as much. I expected the sharp stinging in my shoulder, radiating from the blow to all parts of my body. I expected the grunt to leave my lips. I expected it all.

Except the thrill that ran up my spine. The pure joy I felt as she hit me. It made me small, it made me unimportant. It made me loved. What I had learned was love was by my mother's words and my father's hands. I can almost feel the bruise forming on my side. Feel my hands shake. In that very moment, doubled over instinctively protecting my body from further harm, I feel something I have never felt. I feel as though for the first time I have awoken. I feel truly alive.

That is where it all began. Where I became the monster I am today. My sick relationship with pain is one that still holds true. Others have joined him, to make up what demons float about in my head. Dictating how I live, how I think. Who I am.

You wouldn't see the bruises that line my body. You wouldn't know anything was wrong with me. I must keep it that way, for fear of losing the only thing that makes me alive. I am organized, even intelligent. Though my pitiful grades in school reflect nothing but the opposite. I'm dressed impeccably, not thread out of place. My hair is messy as always, but perfectly messy. I am dumb, but perfectly dumb. All by design, perfectly under control. I must keep it this way, the fear of losing the careful order that controls me. Intruding within my thoughts in the form of loud words and violent threats. I cannot risk disobedience, as things will surely fall to pieces before my very eyes.

Addiction controls who I am. What I do, and why I do it. Though I have managed to convince myself otherwise. Drugs, nor alcohol can tempt me the way that pain does. Pain, what a simple addiction. Something so abstract, yet concrete. The humiliation that comes from cruel words. The thrill that comes from a sharp blow. It is all the same to me. Giving me aliveness, giving me perfection. While training I stand back, sparring with others now the same age as I. The red man still oversees me, his black beard turning gray with age. I assume his hair would be the same color, if any lay atop his head. His other charges have grown in ferocity, whilst I have only grown in the addiction began by the green-eyed-girl. I can manage a hit here, a hit there. So that it appears I simply cannot match the skill of my opponent. I honestly don't know if I truly could, I have never tired. I am simply desperate for my next fix. It overcomes everything, my want to be talented, my need for perfection.

It is my demon.

My skeleton hiding within the closet.

With empty eyes and a grotesque smile.

It is me.

~History~

Newborn-4 years: I do not remember much of this time. Though countless stories told by a kind aunt, or even shouted by my mother, tell tales of a troubled child. Mother and Father were never happy together. Betrothed only because of my birth, they despise each other and myself. In early life, Aunt stayed with us. This kept my father's hands away from me. Instead he laid them upon Mother, and her harsh words were aimed at him. As soon as I could crawl, I am told, I always found the room where they fought. Not a single cry escapes my lips as I watch my parents' fight escalate. The child that would soon grow into me simply sat there, fascinated by the pressure building up between them. It was only until Aunt found me that I would wail. Thrashing and squirming, desperate to escape her loving grasp and return to the violence. I cannot hold much accountability to these tales, as they are not by my own mouth. Simply implanted into my head by others. I do not see any reason as to why they would lie to me, so I take these as truths.

5 years- 8 years: Aunt left soon after my fifth birthday. She couldn't stand it when mother brought in the needles and smoke. She tried to take me with her, in the dead of night. Father stopped it very quickly, large hands throwing me to the floor and wrapping around her throat. I never saw her again. Father never spoke of her. Without Aunt's protection, father turned his aggression to me. He and mother would play with the smoke and needles. It always made them so angry. Mother would scream at me, foul words I do not care to repeat. She tells father to put me in my place, for doing so little as forgetting to wash the dishes.

Sure, it started as punishment. I spoke back to mother, or forgot a chore and his hand met my face. But, when new aunts and uncles came to stay at our house it got worse. Together, they would all play with needles and smoke. They would dare my father to see how hard he could hit me until I cried. And I cried so easily, they soon got bored of it. Next they dared him to beat me until the tears stopped. By my seventh birthday he did it for fun. Meaty hands grabbed my shoulders, they slammed me against the floor. Over and over again, day after day. The new Aunts and Uncles no longer laugh, too wrapped up in their play to notice father's attacks.

Mother is not much better, though her hands have never touched my skin. All the resentment she carries with her explodes in violent words. Her shrill voice paints the walls inside my head, telling me of my faults. Telling me how I ruined them. I ruined her body, her mind. I had her stuck in a loveless marriage. I made her play with the needles.

Me.

And I had no reason not to believe her, so I took her screams as truths.

9 years-11 years: I had no choice but to accept who I was. Or at least, what I was doomed to become. My parent's attacks did not lessen throughout the years, nor did they grow any worse. It became a part of my life. I detached from the situation as a whole. I stopped fighting or crying. I stopped caring. The bruises that lined my skin became nothing more than another blemish. Something I would hide just as the zit that rose at the very tip of my nose. I do not remember much of this time, it all blurs together. I do not know at which point I snapped. It became more than just something I lived with, like brushing my teeth or hair. Annoying, sure, but just something you live with. Maybe close to my eleventh birthday it became something that I needed. Like food or water.

I had known nothing else my entire life.

So I accepted this as these needs as truths.

12 years- 14 years: My training began the day of my 12th birthday. Stories have already been spoken of earlier in this narrative, so I shall trouble you not with such a repetition. But there are things, things you must know in this expanse of time that have shaped me to who I am today. I take my career training very seriously, honing my skills with throwing knives and swords. I can work wonders against a dummy, striking it with as much skill as my peers. My peers have given me a nickname which I can only guess has less than affectionate intent. "The Living Target", how true. The intoxicating pain draws me to sparring matches. No matter how bad I wish to, I cannot raise my sword against them. I let them hit me. I love it when they hurt me.

Is it because my father has taught me no other way to be loved ? That I had been beaten into submission by parents who cared not for me except to cause me pain?

I have known nothing else,
so I accept this as truth.

15 years- 17 years: There is not much of a story to tell, as I am currently living the life I speak of. I can only tell you, like the addiction my parents inject into their veins and breath into their lungs, I have fully embraced my own. Father still beats me, every day as I return to school. I don't know what I would do if he didn't, it's the only way I still know that he still cares. Mother's screams are her own way of expressing love.

It is what I expect from everyone now. I must know that they love me. That they accept me. They must be willing to put me in my place. To scream at me, to hit me. And in turn, to love me.

I know no other life than this. And I will accept no other.

It is the truth.

Narration
Speech
Thoughts





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