jezebel zodiia, district seven

Soft skin the color of an ivory rose stretches across a lithe body. Nearly untouched, unsullied by the harsh rays of the sun, this complexion remains the color of pearls. And underneath the pearly skin, once short bones have reached far into the sky like a beanstalk thriving in the spring downpours. Distant sapphire eyes embedded in a thin, rounded skull, reach into crinkled pages, harvesting stories never to touchdown on the earth.

A waterfall of dark gold trickles down a back turned to the door and spills onto a mahogany desk cluttered with papers and books. An elfish face hangs from small shoulders and a slender neck, positioned to a notepad full of scrawls of ideas and smeared ink. Unruly brows are drawn downwards towards a pixie-like nose.

Beneath this exterior of glass and beauty lies a girl lone wolf and a mind raging with stories and impossible futures, trapped within the walls of her skull until they ultimately spill from her mouth in streams of ramblings, of hushed mutters under her gentle breath.

"Sorcerers . . ."

"Heroes . . . don't always . . ."

"Villains . . ."

"Secrets . . . no, that's . . . liars . . ."

With a fountain pen filled with obsidian rivers, she scribbles down universes obscured by reality and people who will never cross into existence onto paper. Her fingers have been molded into those of a writer from dreaming and hoping and wishing while tucked away in a bedroom at the end of a long hallway.

The sun rises to awaken a darkened sky to blue that matches her eyes. And then it sinks, casting its flames into the air until they succumb to the moon and the blackness brought with the stars. The clock tick tick ticks and tock tock tocks away with the changing light outside, but she is almost ignorant to it. Hands of the clock orbiting around and around bear no meaning to her.

(Sometimes, she even forgets her age and the ages of those around her.)

Her room is a clutter of shelves and journals and books, with just enough space for a small bed. The pages littered across the floor are filled with happily ever afters - a happiness too pure for the world she inhabits. On these pages she has poured fantasies out of her heart. Each word is an extra piece to the escape route she has been forging since early youth. It leads away from the world that has rejected her and her shyness and awkwardness and inaudible mumbling.

Fantasy is the one escape from the eyes of judgement that bore into her skin and the misunderstanding from those around her that is heavy in her heart. There are special souls who take the time and trouble to see through the thick fog of her mysterious aura and untangle the jungle of babbling from her mouth. (But in the end, it is she who utterly isolates herself. It is she who has molded herself into an outcast and shut out all that has reached out a hand to her - though her babbling definitely did her no good. Not worthy, she tells herself, not worthy of friendship or approval.)

It was when her father slammed the door one final time she felt the first shock of cold cold cold, piercing her chest.

He left.

She cried.

Through her eyes, misted by bitter tears, he walked to his grave and fell into the abyss.

He did not want her mother or his twelve children. (And could anyone blame him?)

Ice gradually crept up her arms, folded over her chest, until they were encased in glacial confines, like a straight jacket shielding her from the bonds of friendship. She is left to drift in cold loneliness and ink, her true, natural habitat.

Outcast. The word is burned into her skin, made by a certain group of blazing eyes from school that follow in her footsteps. Easily unlikable, she falls victim to ridicule. Her dour and loathing for the world that pales in comparison to the utopia on her parchment does not often please a multitude of eyes and ears. The seed of her ridicule is her hatred for the world but the root must be at her vocal cords, unable to form coherent words in social situations with strangers.

She has condemned herself to solitude, for that is where she believes is her rightful place. How absurd, solitude in a house of eleven siblings. But she manages, for loneliness is her specialty. She does not wilt with sadness, only wallows in resentment. Sadness has not yet raked its claws across her peace. Death does not hang over her slouched form at her desk. Abuse does not blare throughout the Zodiia home. She is not dangling at agony's mercy.

She is in the corner.

An ice pillar.

Alone.