[D12] The Reaping

and we

soared above

The candle was out when I woke up. Was congealed upon my dresser, white and dried and staining the rotting wood into something uglier than it already was. Because the world is good at that. It makes my familiar, broken things into something that I cannot even recognize and then I cannot love them anymore. They become ghosts to be let out through the attic's drafts.

I am scared of many things. I am scared of the dark, scared of blood. I am scared of the monsters that my sisters keep in the basement and I am scared of the sins in which we all so willing partake. They send shivers down my spine, draw their tongues up my neck until every part of me is consumed by this cowardly fright. And my sisters are like my candles, bright and white and standing tall to chase my fears away. They are the flames to singe hungry monster's fingers.

And I am most scared that one day I will wake up and they will be melted all over my dresser.

The soles of my feet stick to hard wood, earning howls from this creature whose belly we have taken to calling home. I don't think my sisters know that I let the ghosts out every morning, the ones that they collect with every body drained by long gashes up cold forearms. I don't even know if they notice them collecting up in there, howling and crying and unable to move on. I like to think that it makes up for the one man I overdosed, back when times were tough and I was thirteen years old. When I was hungry and I was scared and it was so easy to push the plunger into his tube veins.

He left the attic a long time ago, he was lucky. I am still trapped inside this monster house, opening and closing these window every night.

I cannot bring my candle with me up these stairs, it is rotting upon my dresser and so I am left to ascend into the darkest heaven alone and the only light to guide me is the pale dawn's first flame. And I am scared. I am always scared. Olive the coward. Olive the weak. I'm not made of the same stuff as them, as Eirlys and Celia, of Hyacinth who takes care of us all. I keep waiting to grow up, to shed this child's skin and to start helping around the house like I'm supposed to. Because I don't want them to hate me, to think of me as a leech as the years drag on but here I am. Trying to let the ghosts out of the attic but my hands will not stop shaking.

They are small, stained with blue paths and I remember Eirlys telling me that veins are what bring blood back home. They are like like the little dirt roads I follow from the cemetery; the ones that help me find my way back when our monster-home has disappeared over the horizon. I've always wondered what would happen if I snipped those paths in half, left the blood with no where to go but onto my skin. What would happen to me? I think I'd probably fly out the attic window with all the ghosts and the demons. Probably.

I can feel them rush past my ears as I manage to unlock this trap, howling in appreciation as they reach toward the stars not yet overcome by the sun's vanity. And I smile because even if we have ruined them, they are free to soar into the heavens without this ball and chain that is so tightly wrapped around my ankle. I cannot see it but it is there, it is what would bring me crashing onto the cement if I tried to follow them off of this cliff. It is what keeps me alive but sometimes it seems just too heavy a weight to bear.

The stairs scream as I make my way back to the land of the living, stumbling with my hands on the walls to guide me through ash-blackened plains. I don't know whose room it is that I decide to open, I have no particular rotation. My candles are good to me, no matter how cold their flames may seem.

And it is Celia's bed I find myself curled around this morning, bracing myself against the wall and burying my fists within her soft sheets. Her bark is soft and biting, not as cold as Eiryls' but filled with pride and bravado. I do not fear any of my sisters, do not love one any less than the others because in the end, we are all the same parts of a whole. Our veins are paths to the same home, we share the same poison.

Of all of my sisters, however, I think I am the least scared of Celia melting away.

Everything was so good I suppose I had forgotten to be scared. Today, after all, is so often the setting of my more tame nightmares. It's an irrational fear, that I will be dragged away kicking and screaming from the sisters that I need to survive. Taking me away from any one of them is taking a limb, tearing it away from my body without morphine or antiseptic. It is a death sentence no doubt.

And I am scared as I stand in this crowd, the sunday best that doesn't quite fit held together with Eirlys' help. But I am always scared. I do not have a hand to hold, ushered away from all I have to stand in a herd of boys nothing like me. Braver and dumber, stronger and bigger and they laugh as I cower near the back of the crowd.

I wish that the Littlest Monster's hand was here to squeeze. But she too is in danger this day.

Hyacinth promises that I will grow bigger in time, that I am a white rose yet to bloom and I don't quite know if I believe her, but I nod and I smile to make her happy. I love it when she's happy, it is something similar to the moon and the stars and the heavens above. Similar to the ghosts writhing in an ecstasy stained sky every witching hour. Magical.

"Ladies first," A creature hisses, forked tongue tasting the fear soaked atmosphere we are all suspended within. It is as though the world has stopped turning, only for this moment. "Celia Mortuus!"

(The candle was out when I woke up.)

"No!" It is soft and small, tearing its way out of my throat as I push to the front of the crowd.

(Was congealed upon my dresser, white and dried and staining the rotting wood into something uglier than it already was.)

"Stop her! Someone stop her!"

(Because the world is good at that. It makes my familiar, broken things into something that I cannot even recognize and then I cannot love them anymore.)

"This isn't right. This isn't how it's supposed to be! Stop her! Hyacinth! Annabelle! Stop her! Please!"

(Of all of my sisters, however, I think I am the least scared of Celia melting away.)

This has to be a dream. Another nightmare. I will jolt awake and I will still be curled up at the end of her bed, I will push her hand into my hair and beg for comfort. "Oh, Celia, I dreamt I lost you."

But even the pain of my knees meeting hard concrete is not enough to bring me back to her room.

the town that

never loved me

Cause I can feel it all around

I'm lost between the sound

Her lungs blackened with every inhale. If the Detention Center didn’t execute her first, this Peacekeeper’s cigarette smoke would singe every cell in her body until she disintegrated like dust in the wind. The heating in his cabin was adequate enough to replace the vapors of musk seeping through cracks in the window. The aftertaste of his expired chapstick lingered on the tip of her tongue and mingled with the stench of smoke, completing a miserable concoction that she had grown to tolerate in this line of business. Pale arms were crossed in front of her settling heartbeat; there was nothing exhilarating about this man other than his money and his connections. It was far from interesting to lay beneath his sheets and wait for him to finish his stick of poison.

Don’t die before I do, you geezer.

She sighed and fixed her gaze on his ceiling. The cobweb that had been spun in the corner weeks ago was gone. He must’ve finally tidied up the place now that winter was at its peak, and all of the critters were dead or hibernating.

”I changed my mind,” he abruptly grunted, tearing her silence apart with a harsh rasp. ”I’m not paying for another hour.”

She sat up and poked around for her clothes. That was a dismissal if she hadn’t heard one before, so she didn’t waste time in concealing every exposed part of herself. She often felt stripped to her core, a skeleton in the moonlight with a trench coat draped over diamond-studded bones. She despised the glares of contempt often aimed in her family’s direction. ”You’re all materialistic and rich, but you won’t help us!” Citizens preached envy at her like she hadn’t earned the clothes on her back, spreading her legs and breaking the law to keep the hierarchy stable. She was this district’s beacon of sin, but she was not the devil herself.

”We heal your people when they’re on the brink of death. What more do you want from us?” she had retorted.

They were not a fucking charity.

If they wanted truth, then she was a liar. She didn’t always save the hearts of their patients, especially if it was ripe for profit. She had probably sold the organs of that boy’s relative and he would never know it. The Mortuuses were the darkness of twelve. That was the cost of wealth.

There was a kink in her neck from the night’s shenanigans, and the harsh winter air made it ache further. It was easier to walk home when everybody was asleep, because silence was golden. She shoved as much tranquility as she could into her greedy pockets – yet when she finally slipped through her window and dressed into her pajamas, she remembered that tomorrow was Reaping Day. It was a reminder that her family was not immortal. At a moment’s notice, the Games could snatch any one of them away and reduce them to a corpse in a box.

Some would call that justice.

She woke up to Celia like she always did. Fear was drawn between her heartstrings but she made no obvious indications that she wasn’t as confident as she always was about their family’s luck. They could easily escape the Reaping’s grasp, and just as easily fall flat on their faces believing that they were indestructible. The eldest were made abundant in the Reaping pool – Eirlys especially – but what if it was one of the littles? Precious Olive, innocent Avery, the world would become grey if they were the ones to be punished for a legacy they may never have wanted. Hyacinth hadn’t always wanted it either, but it was everything she knew. It was all their family had.

And each other, of course.

Sunlight was scarce. Since winter had started, the sky was painted grey every morning, and today it was especially obvious. Some could call it symbolic. She didn’t care either way, because nothing would change what fate decided today. Moment by moment, the herd of children would be bent to fate’s will, control having lost its meaning.

It was time to decide once and for all if the Mortuus family would finally pay for their sins.

And the price – Celia Mortuus – was named.

They would be split, my twin and I. Born of the same womb at the same time yet they would not die together, it seemed. Her frozen grip on Celia’s arm tried to anchor her. She belonged at home and nowhere else, and with a panicked realization she thawed the ice around her vocal cords and spoke, voice reduced to that of a weakened, exhausted girl who didn’t want to feel lost after she had finally found her path.

”I’ll miss you.”

The realization was a heartache in itself; she didn’t have the courage to volunteer. There was too much responsibility rested on her shoulders, and the family would crumble without her. They could all be executed within the month.

Forgive me.

Celia separated herself and a brush of cold air replaced her. It was all she could muster when she finally added, ”I’ll miss you when I wake up,” because she was stunned that all of this had happened. Because Celia was always there, and suddenly wouldn’t be anymore.

Did they deserve this sacrifice?

”Then don’t wake up,” she said, mask of bravado ever so flaunted. Hyacinth silently wished that it was possible. Closing her eyes for good wouldn’t take the horrors away; it would only create a dust cloud in her wake and blind everyone she cared about. Whether she would witness it or not she couldn't abandon her family in a state of chaos that she herself had created out of selfish resolve.

As the cries of her siblings rang across the Square, she stood silent and frozen from the inside out.

Empty.

And somehow, life goes on.

And just when I think I know, there she goes

Goodbye for now