Gemma Singularis | District 12 | Completed
May 1, 2015 7:11:53 GMT -5
Post by Joan on May 1, 2015 7:11:53 GMT -5
Name: Gemma Singularis
Age: 16
Gender: Female
District/Area: 12
Appearance: Gemma has flowing black hair that resembles to coal as all of her hair strands are monocolor and lacking of brightness or change in tonalities. She normally has her hair loose and doesn't brush it unless she considers the upcoming day is worth it. Her skin is pale to a degree it seems ghost-like and is completely spotless like the finest porcelaine. Her eyes are calming and slightly dead as they are a bright blue that yet lacks of tonalities in a similar way to most of her other feautures. She is of medium stature and thin for her age due to the malnurishment she has endured many years.
She has a tendency to wear crimson red lipstick and heavy eyeliner that make her dead eyes stand out conveying a mysterious yet beautiful appereance. Her clothes are plain and black, she usually wears black t-shirts and ripped worn off jeans she has tried to patch up many times but always failed. She also wears a golden chain with a white gem attached to it around her neck.
Personality: At first glance Gemma appears to be a shy and reserved girl however after deeper inspection it is learnt that she is a walking nightmare. Gemma has a very cold and calculative mentality as she tries to survive alone without help of anybody else. She has a tendency to look tearful and in the edge to a meltodown when she has to talk with other people as she usually never talks and barely opens her lips other than to drink and eat. As each time she talks she feels the urge to confess her many sins, something she never has, or will.
A sociopathic and lone wolf complex have taken over Gemma's mind as she barely ever wants to talk to anybody. This has grown into an obsession for silence that makes Gemma attempt to flee situations that involve large amounts of noise and talking. Part of Gemma is aware of how truly messed up she is causing depression that urges Gemma to attempt to change but she never has and plainly just continue following her desire for ultimate silence.
She tends to skip school due to feeling uncomfortable by all the noise, when she does go to it she tends to sit in the table farthest from everybody, tending to push it day after day a centimeter or two backwards attempting to with time being as far as possible from everybody else as she can. She also does not communicate with many people from the orphanage, she will only go to it when it's nighttime, sometimes she even stays on her old house to evade the noise of people sleeping.
History:
I don't want to talk anymore, I'm obsessed with silence. Why? You wonder. It's all my fault, the answer. I've done very bad things, things that shouldn't be able to happen, why? I am selfish little bitch. That's why. Me, me, me. Only me, and after me, death. I could have sworn that it was instinct, nothing more, but in the depth of my heart I know it's just me and my fucked up mind. It hurts. I repent myself since he was no longer there.
Mother died giving birth to me, it was a cold night of winter when it happened, everything was grey and morbid. She died screaming in pain whilst looking up the ceiling's cracks, daddy wasn't there when it happened, just the healer woman who used to live in the shack near the meadow before she hang herself. It's said they found her a week after it happened. Daddy arrived home and saw all the bloody mess, he cried, he walked past me, tugged in dirty cloths in the arms of the healer. She hugged mother's pale and cold body for hours. It is said that most babies cry when they arrive to this world, especially in District 12, they cry from what they see will be their life, a life of misery and hunger and despair. However I never cried that night, I remained tucked in between the cloths with a doll-like expression, my dead eyes taking it all in and assimilating the situation.
As mother died she talked to the healer. "Please promise me you will take care of my daughter until my husband is back."
The healer looked nervous, she was probably just desiring to grab the three coins she was promised and run back to her shack. "Yes. I will."
"She is beautiful, her eyes are cold like stones yet she seems thought, strong like a rock." I wouldn't have said it any better.
"Yes." The healer was becoming more and more nervous by the minute. She just wanted to get away as soon as possible. "Yes she is."
"I want her to be called Gemma. It means stone in an old forgotten language." Oh mother you loved me so much, something I never returned. Nonetheless she wasn't selfish and gave her life for me. Bless your rotten body buried under ground somewhere in this decaying wreck.
"That's a nice name." The healer just kept doing her job, a few minutes passed without mother talking, she looked up and saw that mother was gone.
Daddy worked in the mines, he worked really hard to have the money to feed me, he never managed to get enough money, sometimes I'd be covered in dirt and filth as he couldn't pay for water, he usually would have a bucket outside the house for when it rained, he would make me drink from it, it tasted like coal and soot from the mines and some factory in a nearby district. He would also dampen a cloth in the water and clean me with it. I had no friends, not really, the other kids ran around in the meadow. I rather stay on my room, it wasn't much, a old bed with a creaking mattress and no pillow, a chair that faced the window, who's frame was slightly tilted to a side, deformed by the rain that soaked the wood. I sat in the chair and looked down at the streets leading to the square. Id hear the sirens calling the older girls and boys to the reaping and understood that the two picked people would meet death, victors were rare in here. Most people would feel bad for the people who got reaped, I never did. Why? It's life, we are going to die anyways.
When I was 12 daddy got really sick. He'd lay on bed all day, he asked me to sit next to his bed, and to talk to him. I didn't want to. He'd beg me and in the end I would sit next to him, listening his sickening breathing and his voice begging for a reply. I hated it, I wanted the silence, to sit next to my window and be alone and enjoy the peace. Due to him not being able to work we had no money, I had to start signing up for tesserae. One day as I walked through the streets to buy a piece of bread with what I had managed to scavenge I saw a newspaper, lying in a puddle of water. I grabbed it out of mere curiosity, only the rich people bought them, daddy said they tended to only bring misery in them as they'd keep an update on the new rules to ensure maximum productivity. A grin stretched my lips as I read it "To maintain the economical stability of our beloved miner's families we will pay a small pension to those who have lost or lose their parents in a mining accident." I returned home and looked at daddy, he was sleeping in all but peace in his bed, sweat trickling down his face like spiders and his chest rising and falling. I went to the kitchen and to the wrecked cupboard, I grabbed the stitches. I walked to him. I can't remember what I did to daddy, the shadows kept me from remembering what I did. His corpse was too gruesome to describe. However he was finally silent.
I waited for an entire week, his corpse remained in the bed, rotting, some would have said the smell was unbearable, it really didn't bother me. When I heard from the whispers in the street about the massive mine accident I started smiling. I walked to the closet me and daddy used to share and grabbed mother's pretty dress, daddy said that she used to wear it for her first three reapings and that it'd be nice if I wore it someday, it could become some sort of family jewel, passed from generation to generation. I used my fingers to comb my hair and went to the cabinet in daddy's room, the cabinet used to belong to mommy, she kept make up there. Daddy watched me as I played with the lipstick, painting my lips red, enjoying the sticky feeling as the two lips fused together when I sealed them. I admired myself in the broken mirror, it made it look as if there were many of me, some smaller, some bigger. I walked down the streets, it was a weird feeling, nothing too important, but the spurt of excitement as I reached the Justice Building. There was a long line of people, mostly crying widows and sick looking teenagers, I felt stronger and older surrounded by their misery. They didn't talk much. I appreciated it. I waited for an hour as the line shrunk, periodically taking a step towards the table with the pension manager. She looked at me and started asking questions. I nodded as an answer my eyes dull and my lips dropping at the corners. After a short long interrogation she sighed and passed a pouch with money. I walked away.
As soon as I arrived home I smiled. I went to the kitchen and grabbed that big knife. It was a butcher knife, not that I knew. I stepped out of my dress and left it folded on my chair. I then walked to daddy and I started sawing through his limbs at first, when I got better at it I started hacking, blood spilling over me, staining me making me look like a meadow of roses and autumn leaves. For a moment I imagined it, a beautiful garden, I saw flowers so tall they surround me. But it didn't last long. I continued hacking. Chop, thud, splurt. The floor was bloody, so were the walls, I didn't care. In the end only his head remained, his lips destroyed from the many needles, one of his eyes a mess. Strips of gut and flesh at the bottom of the neck, like an exotic jellyfish. I grabbed a black garbage bag and filled it up with as much as I could. I got dressed in the first pair of clothes I found, they hid the crimson patterns all over my hands, arms, legs and stomach. It was dark and the streets were empty. I rushed with through them, the buildings towering over me, as if they were about to form an arch separating me from the shinning diamonds in the sky. I reached the meadow it seemed to be bathed in silver, patches of snow covering it. With my fingers I scrapped the snow, the flesh under the blood coating was turning red as I did so. A burning sensation filled my hands, it hurt but I continued digging, creating a hole in the moist soil. I chucked the squares and cylinders into the hole, they formed an imperfect castle a kid could have built. I returned home and refilled the bag, I cruised the streets once again and reached the meadow, I chucked the body parts into the hole once again, some of the snow had melt due to the contact with the body. I once again returned home and picked up the last pieces of daddy, including his sadly deformed face and made my way to the meadow once again. I placed the head at the top of the pile underground. I kissed his forehead and looked down at him, he looked back at me with a single eye. I bet he is proud. Now he can talk, talk to the bird, talk to the flowers, talk at the insects as they take him deeper into earth, talk to the tree that will someday grow from him. I covered the hole after looking down one last time. Bye daddy. A strange mix of blood tears, snow and dirt was now laying over daddy. It was pretty. I liked it.
I went back home and I took off my clothes. I grabbed the bucket filled halfway and dropped a cloth in it. I grabbed the cloth feeling under my fingers it texture and how wet it was. I started rubbing my skin with it, the blood, dirt and dust detaching itself from me. The house was empty, I was lonely, I liked it. I heard nothing but emptiness, the occasional drip of water and it's sonnets as I tugged the cloth. My lips were chapped and dry and I passed over my lips the cloth hydrating them. I then moved the cloth through my face, under my eyes, like if I had been crying, I never cried. I continued rubbing my skin, sometimes so hard that it would turn red and itch. I went to mother's mirror and looked at myself, I liked my skin, it was soft when it wasn't covered in dirt. It resembled the porcelain from which I have never drank, pale and polished. I have lost everybody I had, daddy, yet I couldn't feel more happy.
My first reaping arrived, I had been claimed by the orphanage, no big deal. I hated it and I would occasionally evade arriving to it until it was late night. The day I was taken by the peacekeepers to the orphanage I had hidden the house's key inside my sock, I claimed that daddy always carried it with him and that he must have had it with him when his body had been lost to the mines. I usually would go to daddy's house, my home, I would sometimes sleep them and slip back to the orphanage just before it was time to wake up. I got ready and wore the dress. It was an interesting process, they prickled my finger and obtained a sample of my blood. They then guided me to a section where all the 12 year old girls were, they were all trembling as their malnourished bodies were tampered by the wind. Not all of them were pretty, I realized how lucky I was, no. Not lucky, I was smarter than them. I had managed to not depend on anybody else, I was brave enough to sign up for tesserae, they weren't. They were noisy at first and I had to grab my wrist as one of my hands started to twitch. But then the escort came up and everybody went silent. I looked back, in the distance all parents looked nervous, some with watery eyes. I was glad I didn't have to undergo that awkward fixation from daddy or mother. The names were read and it felt exciting as the escort revealed it wasn't me, like if I had won a shared lottery. From that moment I allowed myself to get lost in my thoughts, I didn't care, I just wanted to be swarmed by the pleasant silence.
I returned home, locked my door and sat in my chair, I heard the wind blow and looked down as people went up and down the streets. Daddy's room still smelled bad, the walls were still stained in red and I hadn't bothered to change the bed sheets. They had absorbed most of the blood, drying and forming a rose-like pattern. Out of boredom I put on a coat and walked down to the meadow, it was late summer and everything was golden and blooming. I was surrounded in gold. I walked down to the spot I buried daddy. I looked down at the patch of dirt and rubbed my hand over it. I felt the warmth from the earth and then proceed to start picking up flowers, one by one until I had a handful, they were bright and of all shapes. One was crimson like daddy's blood, maybe it grew from him, waiting for me to pick it. I bet daddy looked after me. Daddy still loved me. I wasn't aware of who was watching me, that anybody at all was watching me, of how much misery and joy he'd bring to me. I returned home with the flowers and emptied an old bottle of wine daddy had tucked under his bed, he had claimed that it waited for a special occasion. That occasion will never arrive. I watched as the liquid that varied from crimson to lavender poured into the sink, it would splatter, not like daddy's wounds it was more calming, I saw bubbles of air as it emptied, plowing their way though the alcohol in the bottle. I filed with with water and placed the flowers inside it. They looked so pretty in contrast to the old wasted emerald-like glass. I placed the bottle in the center of daddy's room. It smelled better, I liked the smell, it was nice. I went to bed and laid with my eyes open. The lights of the district shinning against the opposite side of the room. I liked being alone, I enjoyed the silence.
It was my 13th birthday and it was snowing, I sat in my chair looking out the window, the street was white, everything was white. Nobody was out in the streets, I couldn't blame them, they were all probably hugging themselves for heat in a corner of their houses as they tried not to freeze. I had a stove in the kitchen, I would go early in the morning out into the meadow and would fill a basket with sticks and small logs, it was hard to carry but I was able to do it each morning. My lips would split open because the cold but I'd put on mother's lipstick and they would be alright. I got up from the chair and walked to the stove and sat in the floor with my legs crossed. I stared at the embers as I took in the heat. Then I saw it, the flapping of a moth's wings. It danced around the kitchen as I got up. I walked around stalking it. I stretched my arms and grabbed it, creating a cage with my interlocked fingers. It's wings flapped around tickling my palms. I felt like a demiurge, the moth being my toy. I pinned the moth to the table and grabbed the needles and stitches. I pinned it's wings against the table and carefully began my vivisection. I stabbed it's wings with the needles, they flapped and I could feel it's pain, yet I was unmoved by it. I had stuffed the wings with so many needles that it was completely framed and pinned down. A small rip had formed in the left wing and I was annoyed by it. So at once I grabbed all needles that pierced that wing and tugged them ripping the link. The body of the moth trembled. I then removed all the needles from the other wing, with this wing I was more careful, only small holes were left. I placed the moth in the back of my hand, like some delicate and bizarre jewel. I grabbed a match and lid it. I approached the match to the moth and it trembled in fear, if it could feel fear, I pressed the burning stick to it and at once it's wing lit on fire. I then flicked my hand sending it into the air, could it burn and try to fly? It didn't fly and it just went down in a fireball. I walked away as it continued burning. I went back to the chair and resumed my observing.
I walked into daddy's room and saw the dry flowers in the bottle. Petals have fallen off and dried around it, the stems arched and bent towards the floor. One flower had completely detached itself from the stem and was laying next to the bottle in a beige wrinkle. I missed the bright colors, now they were dull. I had been missing color, I was in love with the ice blue skies over us, they calmed me. I put on the coat and went to the meadows. The breeze was flowing through the streets, as I reached the meadow the buildings dissolved, the breeze was now a larger force that struck wildly. I rushed to the flower patches and tugged the flowers, my hair was wild as it was hit from all sides by the air. It was uncomfortable feeling but I got used to it. I squinted my eyes to not let as much air hit me. I kept picking more and more flowers and placing them in the basket for wood in a rushed pile. I then started walking back home, the wind hit my face and I used my fine hands to shield my hands. I bumped into somebody. I backed a step or two away and looked up my eyes opening completely to see who I had bumped into. He had tanned skin and chestnut hair, his eyes were a dark green and he had lips that were pursed. He was probably a year older than me. I was about to mumble an apology but I didn't. He eyed me with concern, trying to read me.
"Are you ok?" He asked, his voice was sweet and slightly melodic, if that word existed in District 12. It still bugged me, I didn't like voices.
I just looked at him blankly, I didn't even attempt to reply. He cocked his head and bit his lip nervously.
He ducked and picked up a bunch of flowers I didn't even realize I had dropped, they probably flied out of the basket when I bumped into him. "You dropped these." He said as he placed them into my basket in a careful manner. I noticed he kept one of the flowers in his hand, a white daisy. He seemed to wait for a sign of gratitude from me but I didn't show any, I just kept staring with empty eyes at him.
He bit his lip again. "Do you mind if I take this flower?" He asked lifting the daisy so it met my eye line. I shook my head, no, I didn't mind, white was a very dull color anyways, the daisy wasn't like the snow that covered daddy's hole, it didn't have the crimson tears. "You don't seem talkative. My name is James."
I continued looking at him unmoved by his words.
"What is his name?" He asked me as if trying to lure my voice out of my throat.
It came out as a very rough and slightly wild sound. "Gemma." My throat suddenly hurt as if I had been screaming and it was sore. My lips had separated themselves so quickly that I felt how the skin in them had been partially torn. I tasted blood. Then I realized what had just happened. My grip around the basket tightened as I started running down the street.
"No wait! Eh... Gemma!" He had called out trying to stop me. I didn't.
The boy, James, protested and called for me. I didn't stop until I reached home. I locked the door and leaned my back against it. I had spoken. I hadn't spoken in many years. The sound of it had been probably dreadful. I had gone against my own believes in silence and solitude. I hated myself right then I wanted to cry but didn't. I curled in a corner as I thought about what just had happened. I talked, I had talked. The James boy had made me speak and it scared me. He had forced me into doing what I never had. I looked at the basket of flowers and their colors. I snatched them and started placing them into the bottle. These flowers had a stronger smell than the last one, daddy's smell had fled months ago, it caused me to think about him as my nostrils had grown a slight dependence to it, like an addiction caused by the blank grieve I felt for daddy. I had been close to daddy today, in the meadow, why did daddy not warn me about the boy? Why did daddy allow me talk? Daddy must be angry. The smell of the flowers kind of brushed it away, made me forget, my mind was now plagued with James, and how he had made me speak.
I didn't go out of home for an entire week, food was running out and my stomach would churn and moan over it. I was too scared of finding him in the streets if I went out. It was like a process of repair, I'd assimilate it and I'd try to understand it, then I'd try to do something about it, yet I couldn't. just quiet make it so far. The seventh day I couldn't take it anymore. I stepped out the door and I made my way to the bakery glaring with despise at the corner of an ally and the forks in the road. I didn't want to admit it, to accept it. But I was scared that he would appear out of thin air, that he'd make me talk again. I didn't want to talk. I arrived to the bakery and grabbed the four supplies I needed for the rest of the day and paid. The owner had already tried to talk to me several times, he only received blank unpleased looks in return. He eventually had stopped trying to talk to me as time progressed. I made my way back home, locked the door, leaned against it, took a breath. I hadn't run into him. I smiled. I hadn't run into him.
In my second reaping I was more anxious, not because I could be chosen, no. I couldn't care less if I was chosen or not. But I was anxious because he was going to be there. I stood infant mother's broken mirror admiring myself in it as I finished putting the lipstick on me. It must look weird in the other's eyes, most older women won't even wear lipstick themselves, not even in a wedding, or a burial. They prickled my finger and once again guided me to the section corresponding to my age. I was grateful that the boys had their own section. I spend most time thinking to myself, like I always did, it wasn't half as bad this year. The rape incident had every eligible candidate, except me, shaking in fear. They could all be a victim, it was very possible that they could end up being chosen. After the reaping they started freeing us in groups, like the cattle at 10 must be guided to their death. I was in the back of my group and then I saw him, near the front of the group of 14 year olds. He saw me too. As I arrived to the exit of the square I attempted to run, but his hand was around my wrist. I jerked my arm trying to pry his hand free, I looked at James as I did so, he was calm and unmoved by my futile attempts of freeing myself.
"Why did you run away from me?" He asked me. I looked down to the ground trying to evade his eyes. "Why did you run away from me, Gemma?" The use of my name, it was as if he cared. Gemma.
My lips slowly parted slowly, I wanted to reply to him, he seemed to care about me, daddy cared about me. "I-I a-am, I mean, I don't l-like talking."
He released my wrist slowly. He looked me straight into my eyes. He had pretty ones. "Why don't you like talking? Why don't you like talking, Gemma?" His voice sounded caring and had a hint of concern.
I bit my lip before replying "I enjoy being in silence." It was the truth, I was obsessed with silence, it had become such a big portion of my life, if not the only portion of my life. It was like a cult to me.
He seemed interested, some sort of knowing curiosity. "Why do you like being in silence? Why do you like being in silence, Gemma?"
He said my name, he said my name to make me trust on him. I found my voice turned softer and less raspy the more I talked. My throat still got sore but I replied anyways. "It is peaceful, I can appreciate things that others don't." I had sometimes been so quiet that I could listen to the blood flow through my veins, my heart setting a tempo. I could hear the slightest ruffle of my clothes and my faintest breath.
"Can I be silent with you?" He asked, the question confused me. What could he mean? Daddy was never silent with me, not until I sew his lips. He was silent. Silent and dead. I looked for a few seconds at James and then nodded.
He grabbed my hand, I allowed him to do so. He took me through the streets, away from home. He took me into the meadow, to a fallen tree where we sat. He did not say a word as we sat there. I was wearing mother's dress once again and it was getting dirty from the bark of the tree. I will clean it later. We sat there, he still had his hand over mine. It wasn't like the chair's claustrophobic silence. It was a free untamed silence. The voice of the mines and the seam merchants was heard, but distantly heard. I could hear the birds chirping, a low hum came from the fence, it was electrified for the reaping, as time passed the hum itself stopped. The wind caressed leaves and streaks of grass causing them to shift. I turned my face to him, he was unmoved yet he smiled at me, I returned the smile. It felt pleasant to have somebody who wouldn't talk to me, yet be by side. The sun started to set beyond the fence and the stretching forest, it burned pink, red and orange the skyline, I felt like if it was orbiting me, James also orbited me, as if he was an unmoving moon. We got up when it started to get dark and parted ways in the street. I arrived home and admired the flowers in daddy's room, they were drying, I should probably pick up new ones soon.
As I cleaned mother's dress, rubbing and scrubbing. The dirt and bark dust detaching themselves from the dress. It will never be perfectly clean but it was still pretty, I found it very pretty. As I cleaned the dress I thought about James and how he had been silent by my side. When I was done I left the dress drying, folded over the chair next to the window. I went to the meadow to grab flowers but I was stopped midway by James. He was sitting in the fallen tree. He waved to come over to him and showed me a notebook. It was old and the pages were slightly torn, the aging of the paper probably. He has a pen and quickly wrote.
Hey how are you? He wrote, his writing was neat but at the same time it wasn't in a straight line. He passed me the pen.
I grabbed it and scribbled What is this for? I was confused, why didn't he speak today?
He grabbed the pen from my hand and started writing. This is quieter than talking, right?
I smiled as his writing as he placed the pen back into my hand. I like the way you think.
James smiled. Heh, I try my best I suppose. I wonder though, why do you like being in silence so much?
I thought a second or two, why did I like being in silence? Not talking and hiding everything. Was it because daddy? No. I was silent before daddy died by my hands. I just like it. It's nice.
James quickly scanned my response. His eyes flickered for a moment, but eventually he replied, You know, you miss a lot being in silence. Sound can be quite beautiful and uplifting. He grinned. Then again, moments like these arenʻt so bad.
What could I miss? Screams on the streets? Echoes in the walls? It's peacefully, gives you time to think. And regret, what is regret? I passed the notepad to him and he nodded as he read along.
Thinking too much can be bad. He wrote in a quick swipe.
I thought, was it bad? Layers of different thoughts tended to flood my mind, it wasn't bad, just complex. Who said that?
He smiled as he wrote. Me.
I nearly laughed and then wrote quickly. Look I really would love to stay here, talking to you. But I have to go and get the flowers.
He took the notebook and wrote a final question Why do you collect flowers so often? Because it's something I do to keep daddy alive. Because that way I remember him and have something to think about. I gave him a peck in the cheek, a small sign of I caring for him, he cared for me in a way that I was practically forced to care for him as a payback. I left him and went to the other side of the meadow to collect the flowers.
I returned home and placed them all in the bottle, the water I added turned a peculiar color as it mixed with the little water left. My life seemed to gain consistence. It had a routine, I'd wake up and look in mother's mirror, fixing my hair for James. I started wearing more simple clothes, jeans I bought after subtracting a small amount of money of the pension each month. Black shirts I made myself from the cloths I found, stealing the dye from the hob, slipping it inside my coat's sleeve, praying the glass veil didn't break. It wasn't the best of lives but it had James. He'd make me smile, we wasted the pages of his book and eventually found us going near the fence, carving with sharp stones words into tree, decorating their trunks with a language they would never comprehend. We'd rip the bark off when we were done. He'd laugh while doing so, it annoyed me slightly, yet my enclosed lips curved upwards. Once we had cut to deep into a tree that when the bark was gone you could still read what we had said. He found an axe and he chopped the tree for me. Hacked it into small pieces we carried inside my basket to my house. He had never been there. I had eventually thrown away the red blankets and had set the bed on fire, I had collected for three months buckets of water for it, as I threw them over the burning bed, dancing in the smoke, my skin and hair wet with the ash sticking to it. The blood patterns were still there, yet the smoke had been so intense that the walls were grey, I had moved mother's mirror to it covered the blood stains anyways. James looked around the kitchen as we entered the house. He took it all in, it wasn't much. I smiled at him as I knelt next to the stove and placed the sticks we had cut inside it. I was 14, he was 15. The fire sparked after I dropped the match, a small flame that got bigger and bigger, like a tree sapling in fertile earth. We sat with our legs crossed. We looked at the branches and twigs burn with smiles in the faces. He looked at the floor for a second and dragged his finger through the dust. I read what he wrote.
Look towards me.
I did so and I was met by his lips brushing against mine. I was surprised at first but then I felt him press his face against mine, my lips met with his. I hadn't used the lipstick today, it wasn't a special day, until now. My lips were so chapped, dry from not drinking water, they must feel like some sort of rocky desert. His lips in the other hand were soft and comfy, they were plump like a ripe fruit as we kissed, they had a slight flavor of soot, it didn't bother me, I was used to it. We hugged each other, feeling our bodies through the wasted fabrics. We broke apart, looking at each other's eyes. My eyes couldn't be so alive in their morbid manner. We stared at each other and dove back at each other lips, in a long passionate hungry kiss. We kissed, breaking in two to gasp for air occasionally, for what seemed ages. I felt so complete. We ended up snuggling by the fire until we fell asleep.
Time passed like it always does. Way too slow, or did it? James made me feel so happy. We were together, he respected the silence and I liked it. He respected me. Every second I passed with him made me feel happy, pure happiness I hadn't felt until now. All the flowers he gave me could have filled a garden. I loved him. I loved him so much. We will always be together James. We will always be. That is how we aged until we were sixteen.
"Gemma." One day he said. He looked at me with determination
No notebad. Words. Why?
"Gemma." He repeated.
Why was he talking? He knew I would not answer, would I? "J-James..." I murmured, my lips would no longer bleed when I parted them. He had healed them, he had healed me. Why do you want to ruin it now?
"It's been so long. Too long." No. "I don't think I can take it anymore. I want to hear your voice." No. "You are only hurting yourself." No.
"No." I said in a hushed yet menacing tone.
"What I write can't explain what I feel for you. I love you so much. What I feel for you can't fit the pages of even all the books in this world." He said and that's what it took me to start crying, tears started trickling down my cheeks. "Talk to me Gemma. Why don't you talk?"
"No." I repeated once again. I didn't want to do it. Why didn't I talk? It's been so long since it all started.
"I just want to help you. I love you. You are only hurting yourself." He said, he slowly stepped towards me, I wanted to step back so badly. I wanted to run.
"No." I wasn't hurting myself. Was I? I looked down to the floorboards, they were old and as he approached me they creaked under the pressure of his feet.
"Look at me Gemma." He said. His voice was so southing.
I started breathing at a fast irregular tempo, my hands were trembling. Daddy? Daddy? Daddy daddy. Daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy. Help me Daddy. I looked up at his pretty face. My voice was hoarse as I said those words. "I'm sorry." Those words. Those words were the last thing I heard before my mind went blank, shadows had dragged me to the darkest of places. Were daddy's soul rested.
I woke up. My hands were wearing gloves of blood, my clothes, arms and face had been sprinkled with crimson too. I was so confused. James? I cried as I looked myself in daddy's mirror, my tears mixed with the blood, creating a shade of red I had never seen before. My face was filled with horror as I continued staring at myself in the mirror. I ran out of the room and saw him. My James. He was in a chair, his arms were pinned to his torso with an old rope that looked about to snap. His shirt was coated on so much blood. So much blood, that came from his face. His lips were sown. Like daddy's. Daddy? Are you proud? Then what happened next, I had never expected it to happen.
His eyes opened and he looked at me. His eyes were filled with sadness. I must fix this. I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed the bandages, anything that could help me fix what I had done. I now had played all the supplies in an arc surrounding the chair. I hurried myself to untie all the rope that oppressed his gorgeous body. I was about to pull out the needles, I had one hand with a towel soaked on disinfecting alcohol. However he shook his head to one side, away from me. Why don't you want me to help you? His trembling right hand sunk itself into the bloody shirt, his fingers became coated with the liquid. He then moved it, trembling, to his left arm. He started writing, in big letters that ran from one end of his wrist to the other.
S.
T.
O.
P.
Why? Did he want to die? Was I that much of a curse? However I obeyed and I sat infant of him in the floor. His face was now frail looking and he had red pupils, he was now sobbing tears also trickled from his eyes. He stretched his arm and placed a bloodied finger on my cheek. He wrote something, I didn't know what it was.Yet I stayed there, I had stopped. I sat infant of his, we looked at each other for so long I lost the notion of time. We continued staring at each other until his eyes became frozen. He was gone.
I went to mother's mirror and looked at what he had written in my flesh with his blood. I love you.
James... You are going to meet daddy... We will be a family now...
Codeword: Odair
Other:
Age: 16
Gender: Female
District/Area: 12
Appearance: Gemma has flowing black hair that resembles to coal as all of her hair strands are monocolor and lacking of brightness or change in tonalities. She normally has her hair loose and doesn't brush it unless she considers the upcoming day is worth it. Her skin is pale to a degree it seems ghost-like and is completely spotless like the finest porcelaine. Her eyes are calming and slightly dead as they are a bright blue that yet lacks of tonalities in a similar way to most of her other feautures. She is of medium stature and thin for her age due to the malnurishment she has endured many years.
She has a tendency to wear crimson red lipstick and heavy eyeliner that make her dead eyes stand out conveying a mysterious yet beautiful appereance. Her clothes are plain and black, she usually wears black t-shirts and ripped worn off jeans she has tried to patch up many times but always failed. She also wears a golden chain with a white gem attached to it around her neck.
Personality: At first glance Gemma appears to be a shy and reserved girl however after deeper inspection it is learnt that she is a walking nightmare. Gemma has a very cold and calculative mentality as she tries to survive alone without help of anybody else. She has a tendency to look tearful and in the edge to a meltodown when she has to talk with other people as she usually never talks and barely opens her lips other than to drink and eat. As each time she talks she feels the urge to confess her many sins, something she never has, or will.
A sociopathic and lone wolf complex have taken over Gemma's mind as she barely ever wants to talk to anybody. This has grown into an obsession for silence that makes Gemma attempt to flee situations that involve large amounts of noise and talking. Part of Gemma is aware of how truly messed up she is causing depression that urges Gemma to attempt to change but she never has and plainly just continue following her desire for ultimate silence.
She tends to skip school due to feeling uncomfortable by all the noise, when she does go to it she tends to sit in the table farthest from everybody, tending to push it day after day a centimeter or two backwards attempting to with time being as far as possible from everybody else as she can. She also does not communicate with many people from the orphanage, she will only go to it when it's nighttime, sometimes she even stays on her old house to evade the noise of people sleeping.
History:
I don't want to talk anymore, I'm obsessed with silence. Why? You wonder. It's all my fault, the answer. I've done very bad things, things that shouldn't be able to happen, why? I am selfish little bitch. That's why. Me, me, me. Only me, and after me, death. I could have sworn that it was instinct, nothing more, but in the depth of my heart I know it's just me and my fucked up mind. It hurts. I repent myself since he was no longer there.
Mother died giving birth to me, it was a cold night of winter when it happened, everything was grey and morbid. She died screaming in pain whilst looking up the ceiling's cracks, daddy wasn't there when it happened, just the healer woman who used to live in the shack near the meadow before she hang herself. It's said they found her a week after it happened. Daddy arrived home and saw all the bloody mess, he cried, he walked past me, tugged in dirty cloths in the arms of the healer. She hugged mother's pale and cold body for hours. It is said that most babies cry when they arrive to this world, especially in District 12, they cry from what they see will be their life, a life of misery and hunger and despair. However I never cried that night, I remained tucked in between the cloths with a doll-like expression, my dead eyes taking it all in and assimilating the situation.
As mother died she talked to the healer. "Please promise me you will take care of my daughter until my husband is back."
The healer looked nervous, she was probably just desiring to grab the three coins she was promised and run back to her shack. "Yes. I will."
"She is beautiful, her eyes are cold like stones yet she seems thought, strong like a rock." I wouldn't have said it any better.
"Yes." The healer was becoming more and more nervous by the minute. She just wanted to get away as soon as possible. "Yes she is."
"I want her to be called Gemma. It means stone in an old forgotten language." Oh mother you loved me so much, something I never returned. Nonetheless she wasn't selfish and gave her life for me. Bless your rotten body buried under ground somewhere in this decaying wreck.
"That's a nice name." The healer just kept doing her job, a few minutes passed without mother talking, she looked up and saw that mother was gone.
Daddy worked in the mines, he worked really hard to have the money to feed me, he never managed to get enough money, sometimes I'd be covered in dirt and filth as he couldn't pay for water, he usually would have a bucket outside the house for when it rained, he would make me drink from it, it tasted like coal and soot from the mines and some factory in a nearby district. He would also dampen a cloth in the water and clean me with it. I had no friends, not really, the other kids ran around in the meadow. I rather stay on my room, it wasn't much, a old bed with a creaking mattress and no pillow, a chair that faced the window, who's frame was slightly tilted to a side, deformed by the rain that soaked the wood. I sat in the chair and looked down at the streets leading to the square. Id hear the sirens calling the older girls and boys to the reaping and understood that the two picked people would meet death, victors were rare in here. Most people would feel bad for the people who got reaped, I never did. Why? It's life, we are going to die anyways.
When I was 12 daddy got really sick. He'd lay on bed all day, he asked me to sit next to his bed, and to talk to him. I didn't want to. He'd beg me and in the end I would sit next to him, listening his sickening breathing and his voice begging for a reply. I hated it, I wanted the silence, to sit next to my window and be alone and enjoy the peace. Due to him not being able to work we had no money, I had to start signing up for tesserae. One day as I walked through the streets to buy a piece of bread with what I had managed to scavenge I saw a newspaper, lying in a puddle of water. I grabbed it out of mere curiosity, only the rich people bought them, daddy said they tended to only bring misery in them as they'd keep an update on the new rules to ensure maximum productivity. A grin stretched my lips as I read it "To maintain the economical stability of our beloved miner's families we will pay a small pension to those who have lost or lose their parents in a mining accident." I returned home and looked at daddy, he was sleeping in all but peace in his bed, sweat trickling down his face like spiders and his chest rising and falling. I went to the kitchen and to the wrecked cupboard, I grabbed the stitches. I walked to him. I can't remember what I did to daddy, the shadows kept me from remembering what I did. His corpse was too gruesome to describe. However he was finally silent.
I waited for an entire week, his corpse remained in the bed, rotting, some would have said the smell was unbearable, it really didn't bother me. When I heard from the whispers in the street about the massive mine accident I started smiling. I walked to the closet me and daddy used to share and grabbed mother's pretty dress, daddy said that she used to wear it for her first three reapings and that it'd be nice if I wore it someday, it could become some sort of family jewel, passed from generation to generation. I used my fingers to comb my hair and went to the cabinet in daddy's room, the cabinet used to belong to mommy, she kept make up there. Daddy watched me as I played with the lipstick, painting my lips red, enjoying the sticky feeling as the two lips fused together when I sealed them. I admired myself in the broken mirror, it made it look as if there were many of me, some smaller, some bigger. I walked down the streets, it was a weird feeling, nothing too important, but the spurt of excitement as I reached the Justice Building. There was a long line of people, mostly crying widows and sick looking teenagers, I felt stronger and older surrounded by their misery. They didn't talk much. I appreciated it. I waited for an hour as the line shrunk, periodically taking a step towards the table with the pension manager. She looked at me and started asking questions. I nodded as an answer my eyes dull and my lips dropping at the corners. After a short long interrogation she sighed and passed a pouch with money. I walked away.
As soon as I arrived home I smiled. I went to the kitchen and grabbed that big knife. It was a butcher knife, not that I knew. I stepped out of my dress and left it folded on my chair. I then walked to daddy and I started sawing through his limbs at first, when I got better at it I started hacking, blood spilling over me, staining me making me look like a meadow of roses and autumn leaves. For a moment I imagined it, a beautiful garden, I saw flowers so tall they surround me. But it didn't last long. I continued hacking. Chop, thud, splurt. The floor was bloody, so were the walls, I didn't care. In the end only his head remained, his lips destroyed from the many needles, one of his eyes a mess. Strips of gut and flesh at the bottom of the neck, like an exotic jellyfish. I grabbed a black garbage bag and filled it up with as much as I could. I got dressed in the first pair of clothes I found, they hid the crimson patterns all over my hands, arms, legs and stomach. It was dark and the streets were empty. I rushed with through them, the buildings towering over me, as if they were about to form an arch separating me from the shinning diamonds in the sky. I reached the meadow it seemed to be bathed in silver, patches of snow covering it. With my fingers I scrapped the snow, the flesh under the blood coating was turning red as I did so. A burning sensation filled my hands, it hurt but I continued digging, creating a hole in the moist soil. I chucked the squares and cylinders into the hole, they formed an imperfect castle a kid could have built. I returned home and refilled the bag, I cruised the streets once again and reached the meadow, I chucked the body parts into the hole once again, some of the snow had melt due to the contact with the body. I once again returned home and picked up the last pieces of daddy, including his sadly deformed face and made my way to the meadow once again. I placed the head at the top of the pile underground. I kissed his forehead and looked down at him, he looked back at me with a single eye. I bet he is proud. Now he can talk, talk to the bird, talk to the flowers, talk at the insects as they take him deeper into earth, talk to the tree that will someday grow from him. I covered the hole after looking down one last time. Bye daddy. A strange mix of blood tears, snow and dirt was now laying over daddy. It was pretty. I liked it.
I went back home and I took off my clothes. I grabbed the bucket filled halfway and dropped a cloth in it. I grabbed the cloth feeling under my fingers it texture and how wet it was. I started rubbing my skin with it, the blood, dirt and dust detaching itself from me. The house was empty, I was lonely, I liked it. I heard nothing but emptiness, the occasional drip of water and it's sonnets as I tugged the cloth. My lips were chapped and dry and I passed over my lips the cloth hydrating them. I then moved the cloth through my face, under my eyes, like if I had been crying, I never cried. I continued rubbing my skin, sometimes so hard that it would turn red and itch. I went to mother's mirror and looked at myself, I liked my skin, it was soft when it wasn't covered in dirt. It resembled the porcelain from which I have never drank, pale and polished. I have lost everybody I had, daddy, yet I couldn't feel more happy.
My first reaping arrived, I had been claimed by the orphanage, no big deal. I hated it and I would occasionally evade arriving to it until it was late night. The day I was taken by the peacekeepers to the orphanage I had hidden the house's key inside my sock, I claimed that daddy always carried it with him and that he must have had it with him when his body had been lost to the mines. I usually would go to daddy's house, my home, I would sometimes sleep them and slip back to the orphanage just before it was time to wake up. I got ready and wore the dress. It was an interesting process, they prickled my finger and obtained a sample of my blood. They then guided me to a section where all the 12 year old girls were, they were all trembling as their malnourished bodies were tampered by the wind. Not all of them were pretty, I realized how lucky I was, no. Not lucky, I was smarter than them. I had managed to not depend on anybody else, I was brave enough to sign up for tesserae, they weren't. They were noisy at first and I had to grab my wrist as one of my hands started to twitch. But then the escort came up and everybody went silent. I looked back, in the distance all parents looked nervous, some with watery eyes. I was glad I didn't have to undergo that awkward fixation from daddy or mother. The names were read and it felt exciting as the escort revealed it wasn't me, like if I had won a shared lottery. From that moment I allowed myself to get lost in my thoughts, I didn't care, I just wanted to be swarmed by the pleasant silence.
I returned home, locked my door and sat in my chair, I heard the wind blow and looked down as people went up and down the streets. Daddy's room still smelled bad, the walls were still stained in red and I hadn't bothered to change the bed sheets. They had absorbed most of the blood, drying and forming a rose-like pattern. Out of boredom I put on a coat and walked down to the meadow, it was late summer and everything was golden and blooming. I was surrounded in gold. I walked down to the spot I buried daddy. I looked down at the patch of dirt and rubbed my hand over it. I felt the warmth from the earth and then proceed to start picking up flowers, one by one until I had a handful, they were bright and of all shapes. One was crimson like daddy's blood, maybe it grew from him, waiting for me to pick it. I bet daddy looked after me. Daddy still loved me. I wasn't aware of who was watching me, that anybody at all was watching me, of how much misery and joy he'd bring to me. I returned home with the flowers and emptied an old bottle of wine daddy had tucked under his bed, he had claimed that it waited for a special occasion. That occasion will never arrive. I watched as the liquid that varied from crimson to lavender poured into the sink, it would splatter, not like daddy's wounds it was more calming, I saw bubbles of air as it emptied, plowing their way though the alcohol in the bottle. I filed with with water and placed the flowers inside it. They looked so pretty in contrast to the old wasted emerald-like glass. I placed the bottle in the center of daddy's room. It smelled better, I liked the smell, it was nice. I went to bed and laid with my eyes open. The lights of the district shinning against the opposite side of the room. I liked being alone, I enjoyed the silence.
It was my 13th birthday and it was snowing, I sat in my chair looking out the window, the street was white, everything was white. Nobody was out in the streets, I couldn't blame them, they were all probably hugging themselves for heat in a corner of their houses as they tried not to freeze. I had a stove in the kitchen, I would go early in the morning out into the meadow and would fill a basket with sticks and small logs, it was hard to carry but I was able to do it each morning. My lips would split open because the cold but I'd put on mother's lipstick and they would be alright. I got up from the chair and walked to the stove and sat in the floor with my legs crossed. I stared at the embers as I took in the heat. Then I saw it, the flapping of a moth's wings. It danced around the kitchen as I got up. I walked around stalking it. I stretched my arms and grabbed it, creating a cage with my interlocked fingers. It's wings flapped around tickling my palms. I felt like a demiurge, the moth being my toy. I pinned the moth to the table and grabbed the needles and stitches. I pinned it's wings against the table and carefully began my vivisection. I stabbed it's wings with the needles, they flapped and I could feel it's pain, yet I was unmoved by it. I had stuffed the wings with so many needles that it was completely framed and pinned down. A small rip had formed in the left wing and I was annoyed by it. So at once I grabbed all needles that pierced that wing and tugged them ripping the link. The body of the moth trembled. I then removed all the needles from the other wing, with this wing I was more careful, only small holes were left. I placed the moth in the back of my hand, like some delicate and bizarre jewel. I grabbed a match and lid it. I approached the match to the moth and it trembled in fear, if it could feel fear, I pressed the burning stick to it and at once it's wing lit on fire. I then flicked my hand sending it into the air, could it burn and try to fly? It didn't fly and it just went down in a fireball. I walked away as it continued burning. I went back to the chair and resumed my observing.
I walked into daddy's room and saw the dry flowers in the bottle. Petals have fallen off and dried around it, the stems arched and bent towards the floor. One flower had completely detached itself from the stem and was laying next to the bottle in a beige wrinkle. I missed the bright colors, now they were dull. I had been missing color, I was in love with the ice blue skies over us, they calmed me. I put on the coat and went to the meadows. The breeze was flowing through the streets, as I reached the meadow the buildings dissolved, the breeze was now a larger force that struck wildly. I rushed to the flower patches and tugged the flowers, my hair was wild as it was hit from all sides by the air. It was uncomfortable feeling but I got used to it. I squinted my eyes to not let as much air hit me. I kept picking more and more flowers and placing them in the basket for wood in a rushed pile. I then started walking back home, the wind hit my face and I used my fine hands to shield my hands. I bumped into somebody. I backed a step or two away and looked up my eyes opening completely to see who I had bumped into. He had tanned skin and chestnut hair, his eyes were a dark green and he had lips that were pursed. He was probably a year older than me. I was about to mumble an apology but I didn't. He eyed me with concern, trying to read me.
"Are you ok?" He asked, his voice was sweet and slightly melodic, if that word existed in District 12. It still bugged me, I didn't like voices.
I just looked at him blankly, I didn't even attempt to reply. He cocked his head and bit his lip nervously.
He ducked and picked up a bunch of flowers I didn't even realize I had dropped, they probably flied out of the basket when I bumped into him. "You dropped these." He said as he placed them into my basket in a careful manner. I noticed he kept one of the flowers in his hand, a white daisy. He seemed to wait for a sign of gratitude from me but I didn't show any, I just kept staring with empty eyes at him.
He bit his lip again. "Do you mind if I take this flower?" He asked lifting the daisy so it met my eye line. I shook my head, no, I didn't mind, white was a very dull color anyways, the daisy wasn't like the snow that covered daddy's hole, it didn't have the crimson tears. "You don't seem talkative. My name is James."
I continued looking at him unmoved by his words.
"What is his name?" He asked me as if trying to lure my voice out of my throat.
It came out as a very rough and slightly wild sound. "Gemma." My throat suddenly hurt as if I had been screaming and it was sore. My lips had separated themselves so quickly that I felt how the skin in them had been partially torn. I tasted blood. Then I realized what had just happened. My grip around the basket tightened as I started running down the street.
"No wait! Eh... Gemma!" He had called out trying to stop me. I didn't.
The boy, James, protested and called for me. I didn't stop until I reached home. I locked the door and leaned my back against it. I had spoken. I hadn't spoken in many years. The sound of it had been probably dreadful. I had gone against my own believes in silence and solitude. I hated myself right then I wanted to cry but didn't. I curled in a corner as I thought about what just had happened. I talked, I had talked. The James boy had made me speak and it scared me. He had forced me into doing what I never had. I looked at the basket of flowers and their colors. I snatched them and started placing them into the bottle. These flowers had a stronger smell than the last one, daddy's smell had fled months ago, it caused me to think about him as my nostrils had grown a slight dependence to it, like an addiction caused by the blank grieve I felt for daddy. I had been close to daddy today, in the meadow, why did daddy not warn me about the boy? Why did daddy allow me talk? Daddy must be angry. The smell of the flowers kind of brushed it away, made me forget, my mind was now plagued with James, and how he had made me speak.
I didn't go out of home for an entire week, food was running out and my stomach would churn and moan over it. I was too scared of finding him in the streets if I went out. It was like a process of repair, I'd assimilate it and I'd try to understand it, then I'd try to do something about it, yet I couldn't. just quiet make it so far. The seventh day I couldn't take it anymore. I stepped out the door and I made my way to the bakery glaring with despise at the corner of an ally and the forks in the road. I didn't want to admit it, to accept it. But I was scared that he would appear out of thin air, that he'd make me talk again. I didn't want to talk. I arrived to the bakery and grabbed the four supplies I needed for the rest of the day and paid. The owner had already tried to talk to me several times, he only received blank unpleased looks in return. He eventually had stopped trying to talk to me as time progressed. I made my way back home, locked the door, leaned against it, took a breath. I hadn't run into him. I smiled. I hadn't run into him.
In my second reaping I was more anxious, not because I could be chosen, no. I couldn't care less if I was chosen or not. But I was anxious because he was going to be there. I stood infant mother's broken mirror admiring myself in it as I finished putting the lipstick on me. It must look weird in the other's eyes, most older women won't even wear lipstick themselves, not even in a wedding, or a burial. They prickled my finger and once again guided me to the section corresponding to my age. I was grateful that the boys had their own section. I spend most time thinking to myself, like I always did, it wasn't half as bad this year. The rape incident had every eligible candidate, except me, shaking in fear. They could all be a victim, it was very possible that they could end up being chosen. After the reaping they started freeing us in groups, like the cattle at 10 must be guided to their death. I was in the back of my group and then I saw him, near the front of the group of 14 year olds. He saw me too. As I arrived to the exit of the square I attempted to run, but his hand was around my wrist. I jerked my arm trying to pry his hand free, I looked at James as I did so, he was calm and unmoved by my futile attempts of freeing myself.
"Why did you run away from me?" He asked me. I looked down to the ground trying to evade his eyes. "Why did you run away from me, Gemma?" The use of my name, it was as if he cared. Gemma.
My lips slowly parted slowly, I wanted to reply to him, he seemed to care about me, daddy cared about me. "I-I a-am, I mean, I don't l-like talking."
He released my wrist slowly. He looked me straight into my eyes. He had pretty ones. "Why don't you like talking? Why don't you like talking, Gemma?" His voice sounded caring and had a hint of concern.
I bit my lip before replying "I enjoy being in silence." It was the truth, I was obsessed with silence, it had become such a big portion of my life, if not the only portion of my life. It was like a cult to me.
He seemed interested, some sort of knowing curiosity. "Why do you like being in silence? Why do you like being in silence, Gemma?"
He said my name, he said my name to make me trust on him. I found my voice turned softer and less raspy the more I talked. My throat still got sore but I replied anyways. "It is peaceful, I can appreciate things that others don't." I had sometimes been so quiet that I could listen to the blood flow through my veins, my heart setting a tempo. I could hear the slightest ruffle of my clothes and my faintest breath.
"Can I be silent with you?" He asked, the question confused me. What could he mean? Daddy was never silent with me, not until I sew his lips. He was silent. Silent and dead. I looked for a few seconds at James and then nodded.
He grabbed my hand, I allowed him to do so. He took me through the streets, away from home. He took me into the meadow, to a fallen tree where we sat. He did not say a word as we sat there. I was wearing mother's dress once again and it was getting dirty from the bark of the tree. I will clean it later. We sat there, he still had his hand over mine. It wasn't like the chair's claustrophobic silence. It was a free untamed silence. The voice of the mines and the seam merchants was heard, but distantly heard. I could hear the birds chirping, a low hum came from the fence, it was electrified for the reaping, as time passed the hum itself stopped. The wind caressed leaves and streaks of grass causing them to shift. I turned my face to him, he was unmoved yet he smiled at me, I returned the smile. It felt pleasant to have somebody who wouldn't talk to me, yet be by side. The sun started to set beyond the fence and the stretching forest, it burned pink, red and orange the skyline, I felt like if it was orbiting me, James also orbited me, as if he was an unmoving moon. We got up when it started to get dark and parted ways in the street. I arrived home and admired the flowers in daddy's room, they were drying, I should probably pick up new ones soon.
As I cleaned mother's dress, rubbing and scrubbing. The dirt and bark dust detaching themselves from the dress. It will never be perfectly clean but it was still pretty, I found it very pretty. As I cleaned the dress I thought about James and how he had been silent by my side. When I was done I left the dress drying, folded over the chair next to the window. I went to the meadow to grab flowers but I was stopped midway by James. He was sitting in the fallen tree. He waved to come over to him and showed me a notebook. It was old and the pages were slightly torn, the aging of the paper probably. He has a pen and quickly wrote.
Hey how are you? He wrote, his writing was neat but at the same time it wasn't in a straight line. He passed me the pen.
I grabbed it and scribbled What is this for? I was confused, why didn't he speak today?
He grabbed the pen from my hand and started writing. This is quieter than talking, right?
I smiled as his writing as he placed the pen back into my hand. I like the way you think.
James smiled. Heh, I try my best I suppose. I wonder though, why do you like being in silence so much?
I thought a second or two, why did I like being in silence? Not talking and hiding everything. Was it because daddy? No. I was silent before daddy died by my hands. I just like it. It's nice.
James quickly scanned my response. His eyes flickered for a moment, but eventually he replied, You know, you miss a lot being in silence. Sound can be quite beautiful and uplifting. He grinned. Then again, moments like these arenʻt so bad.
What could I miss? Screams on the streets? Echoes in the walls? It's peacefully, gives you time to think. And regret, what is regret? I passed the notepad to him and he nodded as he read along.
Thinking too much can be bad. He wrote in a quick swipe.
I thought, was it bad? Layers of different thoughts tended to flood my mind, it wasn't bad, just complex. Who said that?
He smiled as he wrote. Me.
I nearly laughed and then wrote quickly. Look I really would love to stay here, talking to you. But I have to go and get the flowers.
He took the notebook and wrote a final question Why do you collect flowers so often? Because it's something I do to keep daddy alive. Because that way I remember him and have something to think about. I gave him a peck in the cheek, a small sign of I caring for him, he cared for me in a way that I was practically forced to care for him as a payback. I left him and went to the other side of the meadow to collect the flowers.
I returned home and placed them all in the bottle, the water I added turned a peculiar color as it mixed with the little water left. My life seemed to gain consistence. It had a routine, I'd wake up and look in mother's mirror, fixing my hair for James. I started wearing more simple clothes, jeans I bought after subtracting a small amount of money of the pension each month. Black shirts I made myself from the cloths I found, stealing the dye from the hob, slipping it inside my coat's sleeve, praying the glass veil didn't break. It wasn't the best of lives but it had James. He'd make me smile, we wasted the pages of his book and eventually found us going near the fence, carving with sharp stones words into tree, decorating their trunks with a language they would never comprehend. We'd rip the bark off when we were done. He'd laugh while doing so, it annoyed me slightly, yet my enclosed lips curved upwards. Once we had cut to deep into a tree that when the bark was gone you could still read what we had said. He found an axe and he chopped the tree for me. Hacked it into small pieces we carried inside my basket to my house. He had never been there. I had eventually thrown away the red blankets and had set the bed on fire, I had collected for three months buckets of water for it, as I threw them over the burning bed, dancing in the smoke, my skin and hair wet with the ash sticking to it. The blood patterns were still there, yet the smoke had been so intense that the walls were grey, I had moved mother's mirror to it covered the blood stains anyways. James looked around the kitchen as we entered the house. He took it all in, it wasn't much. I smiled at him as I knelt next to the stove and placed the sticks we had cut inside it. I was 14, he was 15. The fire sparked after I dropped the match, a small flame that got bigger and bigger, like a tree sapling in fertile earth. We sat with our legs crossed. We looked at the branches and twigs burn with smiles in the faces. He looked at the floor for a second and dragged his finger through the dust. I read what he wrote.
Look towards me.
I did so and I was met by his lips brushing against mine. I was surprised at first but then I felt him press his face against mine, my lips met with his. I hadn't used the lipstick today, it wasn't a special day, until now. My lips were so chapped, dry from not drinking water, they must feel like some sort of rocky desert. His lips in the other hand were soft and comfy, they were plump like a ripe fruit as we kissed, they had a slight flavor of soot, it didn't bother me, I was used to it. We hugged each other, feeling our bodies through the wasted fabrics. We broke apart, looking at each other's eyes. My eyes couldn't be so alive in their morbid manner. We stared at each other and dove back at each other lips, in a long passionate hungry kiss. We kissed, breaking in two to gasp for air occasionally, for what seemed ages. I felt so complete. We ended up snuggling by the fire until we fell asleep.
Time passed like it always does. Way too slow, or did it? James made me feel so happy. We were together, he respected the silence and I liked it. He respected me. Every second I passed with him made me feel happy, pure happiness I hadn't felt until now. All the flowers he gave me could have filled a garden. I loved him. I loved him so much. We will always be together James. We will always be. That is how we aged until we were sixteen.
"Gemma." One day he said. He looked at me with determination
No notebad. Words. Why?
"Gemma." He repeated.
Why was he talking? He knew I would not answer, would I? "J-James..." I murmured, my lips would no longer bleed when I parted them. He had healed them, he had healed me. Why do you want to ruin it now?
"It's been so long. Too long." No. "I don't think I can take it anymore. I want to hear your voice." No. "You are only hurting yourself." No.
"No." I said in a hushed yet menacing tone.
"What I write can't explain what I feel for you. I love you so much. What I feel for you can't fit the pages of even all the books in this world." He said and that's what it took me to start crying, tears started trickling down my cheeks. "Talk to me Gemma. Why don't you talk?"
"No." I repeated once again. I didn't want to do it. Why didn't I talk? It's been so long since it all started.
"I just want to help you. I love you. You are only hurting yourself." He said, he slowly stepped towards me, I wanted to step back so badly. I wanted to run.
"No." I wasn't hurting myself. Was I? I looked down to the floorboards, they were old and as he approached me they creaked under the pressure of his feet.
"Look at me Gemma." He said. His voice was so southing.
I started breathing at a fast irregular tempo, my hands were trembling. Daddy? Daddy? Daddy daddy. Daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy. Help me Daddy. I looked up at his pretty face. My voice was hoarse as I said those words. "I'm sorry." Those words. Those words were the last thing I heard before my mind went blank, shadows had dragged me to the darkest of places. Were daddy's soul rested.
I woke up. My hands were wearing gloves of blood, my clothes, arms and face had been sprinkled with crimson too. I was so confused. James? I cried as I looked myself in daddy's mirror, my tears mixed with the blood, creating a shade of red I had never seen before. My face was filled with horror as I continued staring at myself in the mirror. I ran out of the room and saw him. My James. He was in a chair, his arms were pinned to his torso with an old rope that looked about to snap. His shirt was coated on so much blood. So much blood, that came from his face. His lips were sown. Like daddy's. Daddy? Are you proud? Then what happened next, I had never expected it to happen.
His eyes opened and he looked at me. His eyes were filled with sadness. I must fix this. I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed the bandages, anything that could help me fix what I had done. I now had played all the supplies in an arc surrounding the chair. I hurried myself to untie all the rope that oppressed his gorgeous body. I was about to pull out the needles, I had one hand with a towel soaked on disinfecting alcohol. However he shook his head to one side, away from me. Why don't you want me to help you? His trembling right hand sunk itself into the bloody shirt, his fingers became coated with the liquid. He then moved it, trembling, to his left arm. He started writing, in big letters that ran from one end of his wrist to the other.
S.
T.
O.
P.
Why? Did he want to die? Was I that much of a curse? However I obeyed and I sat infant of him in the floor. His face was now frail looking and he had red pupils, he was now sobbing tears also trickled from his eyes. He stretched his arm and placed a bloodied finger on my cheek. He wrote something, I didn't know what it was.Yet I stayed there, I had stopped. I sat infant of his, we looked at each other for so long I lost the notion of time. We continued staring at each other until his eyes became frozen. He was gone.
I went to mother's mirror and looked at what he had written in my flesh with his blood. I love you.
James... You are going to meet daddy... We will be a family now...
Codeword: Odair
Other:
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