abraxas morrigan | district nine | fin

[ a b r a x a s ]

because this time
nothing's okay

He wondered if District Nine would seem like a nightmare to other people. When victors visited on their tours, did their spines quiver with chills? Did they suddenly want their peacekeepers to stand a bit closer? For them, it may have seemed like a nightmarish sort of hell. They may have found the almost red skies, the smoke filled streets, the people dressed in rags with disheveled hair and yellow teeth, the factories that roared against the silence scary. But to Abra, to all District nine citizens, it was only home. It was the only place his black irises had seen in person.

He had seen pictures of forests and ranches from other districts and it was all a sort of pretty he thought too realistic to ever be real. Often times he wondered if those pictures were lies: if the Capitol was just trying to show them how awful living in District Nine really was.

He wouldn't have put it past them. The mere fact that he was doomed to live in such a place was already an injustice in itself, what would stop them from adding to the flames?

He did have to admit that his luck was better than some, though by no means was it the best. In places like district Nine, there was no happiness without war. There was no good fortune, no way of cheating the system. So he decided from a young age that dealing with the devil in the dark of night was his best option.

He worked for a man called Mr. Zamira. He had seen he guy sign death certificates time and time again. He had seen piles of money in his house. Mr. Zamira was a very powerful man, and it was no secret that he would make sure anyone who crossed him would never have the chance to do so again. Abra was never anything special for a while: just another teenager desperate not to starve. He worked for years, trading drugs for cash, trading secrets for secrets, playing with fire on a daily basis. not once did he mess up. Not once did he falter. Eventually, Mr. Zamira took notice in his work, and started helping him out a bit more. More money, more protection, more promises Abra could only hope would come true some day. He was sort of the eyes and ears of the operation since he was confident enough to recruit potential talent, young enough to see things the others could not, and experienced enough to make sure things went smoothly.

It was nice feeling appreciated.

Not that his family didn't appreciate him. His aunt and uncle seemed to enjoy the money he was bringing in, even if they didn't appreciate how he was getting it. His cousins also enjoyed it, but he often times thought they didn't really enjoy him as a person, but as a paycheck. Things could have been worse. He could have been homeless. Or dead. His uncle made it a point of telling him the path he was headed down was the same one his parents went down, and things didn't exactly end well for them. (Hint: they were murdered.)

He was little when it happened, and doesn't really remember them or their faces at all. His aunt told him he has his mother's features: slanted eyes, thick dark hair, pouty lips, and pale skin. He was a great deal taller than his mother, though. Something he must have gotten from his father.

He didn't really like asking about him, since people only ever seemed to have negative things to say about him. From what he had gathered, his mother had been a proud student, and his father was a drug dealer in secret. His mother never found out until they were living together, and by then she was already so in love with him that it didn't make a difference. When they found out they were going to have Abra, he had decided their income wasn't enough. So he sold larger quantities of drugs to larger quantities of people. Before long, even whispering the name Morrigan brought suspicious glances and mumbles lost in the wind.

Perhaps he had become obsessed with his work. Perhaps, like what he sold caused, he had grown addicted to the money. He thought it was a clever idea to sell bad drugs to newcomers, just to make them come back in hopes of a better fix in the future. He thought it was a clever idea to lie and cheat, just to get his way. Eventually, karma caught up with him and his throat was slit in his sleep. As was Abra's mother's.

They found him in the house a few days afterward. He hadn't eaten anything in over 48 hours. His diaper hadn't been changed. It was a wonder he hadn't died. It was a wonder those who had murdered his parents hadn't done the same to him. People said he was lucky -- a boy who evaded death.

The only relatives that would even acknowledge they had been related to the notorious criminals was his mom's brother, who reluctantly agreed to take him in so that he wouldn't grow up in an orphanage. In retrospect, Abra thought perhaps living in an orphanage was a step up from what he had grown up around.

Every time there was an argument with one of his cousins -- who had refused to call him their brother -- they had to throw in the fact that his parents were dangerous people, that he was going to grow up and be just like them. More than once they had told him he was not a part of their family and he agreed. He wasn't. His family was dead.

So, growing up taught Abra all he needed to know about isolation. It hurt a lot, but eventually the pain was so familiar it was more odd when he didn't feel the loneliness scratching at his heart. It made him mature. He didn't like it at times, but he had grown up at a very fast rate, and since he was treated like an adult, he began making adult decisions, though they may not have exactly been in the best taste.

That was his own business, though. They were still his choices to make. And he hated his aunt and uncle for suddenly feeling the need to step in and mentor him when he had learned everything he knew on his own thanks to them.

He hated the people he grew up around.

He despised them.

But he knew they needed him.

And he couldn't -- he wouldn't find it within himself...

To leave them.