crimson mortuus // d12 // [fin]
Feb 1, 2016 21:34:47 GMT -5
Post by arx on Feb 1, 2016 21:34:47 GMT -5
16 . f . d12
Seconds tick, click, tick by, the hands of my watch drawing slow circles on my wrist. They'll be back soon—they'll bring questions I don't have answers to, scalpels I'd rather stay away from—but I only need a few more seconds. They'll never know, never see, never catch me. I've got the art mastered down the second. A few seconds to unravel the tube, a few more to find and press the needle into one of the veins protruding from the patient's arm. Watch as the bag fills, the blood slowly filling the 500mL bag to the brim. In total, the process requires 11 clicks of the minute hand.
And then I'm gone.
The next time I see the patient is when they are in pieces. Liver, kidneys, heart, pancreas, lungs, and on special occasions, their brain. Laid out in containers, coolers with clean handles and a chilled core, I admire them. So smooth, bright red, strong—if I weren't so afraid of knives I might actually enjoy watching the blood pool, liquid red dripping down pale, broken skin. Though if I'm honest with myself I'd grow too distracted, too infatuated. The coppery scent of the liquid scarlet, the hypnotizing swirling and clotting of the platelets as it pools on the floor.
I'm more productive with a hood pulled over my head, shades over my eyes, and a flask of blood hidden in my pocket. ("How much?") Greedy hands claw for a piece of what I offer, but none ever pay the full amount. ("All you have.") Panem is poor, District 12 even more so; it's a wonder the Peacekeepers even have the money to buy from us. But they keep coming back chanting—"More, more, more."—thirsting for chilled hearts and pickled kidneys the way I do for the warm, frothing, liquid life that courses through their veins.
It had started as blood stains on my lips. All the girls wanted blood red lipstick, to look as fierce and as frightening as the Capitolites on the television screens. I was no exception. But tubes of ruby red lipstick aren't the easiest thing in the world to come by; dead bodies filled with blood though, those are readily abundant to a girl whose family has a morgue in their basement. With fingertips stained red and the cracks in my lips sucking at the liquid, I was hooked, tongue thirsty for, 'Just a few more drops.'
The drops turned to cups, turned to liters, turned to gallons upon gallons of blood stored away in my own personal cellar. I've decorated it with syringes and needles, spared no expense when it came to making the forgotten cellar near the fence mine. It's the only thing I truly own, everything else is shared with my sisters and Olive. But this—the cellar, the pints of blood, the empty porcelain bathtub, the needles, the syringes, the paintings and poems drawn and written only in shades of red against rough parchment—is all mine.
It's not that I don't care about them. It's just that they are all pretty fucking horrible. Hypocritical of me, considering my diet and extracurriculars, I know. Eirlys pretends to be a mother, Celia has too many fur coats and struts with her chin just a little too high in the air, Hyacinth plays too hard at saving the family when really she's just a slut, Emeli much too soft and frankly not as good at the sell as I am. And Annabelle, Ridley, Avery, and Olive are just too young to really understand it all, no matter how often they watch their older siblings work.
They drive me mad.
I love them.
And they're lucky for that. Because if I get caught selling, I'll be taking the punishment. Alone. Gladly. Because there was a time when I lived in ignorant bliss, holding hands and braiding hair and huddling beneath bed sheets for bedtime stories and hugging simply because that's what siblings do. We all grew up, but the memories live on, reminding me that buried beneath all the lying, blood money, and corpses are people that I would do anything for.
("Oh, fuck off.")
But all the love in the world isn't going to stop me from calling them out on their bullshit. And in a family like ours, there sure is a lot of fucking bullshit. We're liars, professional bullshitters, and I've been raised to be proud of it. Suppose that's why I don't mind the sight of blood, enjoy the taste of it. I've been raised a lying, greedy, thieving demon. But while the others spend time to wash all that blood away, I fill the bathtub in my secret cellar to the brim with blood and climb in.
Only those with the darkest of hearts survive in this world.
("I love you guys.")
Mine's a work in progress.
crimson mortuus
Seconds tick, click, tick by, the hands of my watch drawing slow circles on my wrist. They'll be back soon—they'll bring questions I don't have answers to, scalpels I'd rather stay away from—but I only need a few more seconds. They'll never know, never see, never catch me. I've got the art mastered down the second. A few seconds to unravel the tube, a few more to find and press the needle into one of the veins protruding from the patient's arm. Watch as the bag fills, the blood slowly filling the 500mL bag to the brim. In total, the process requires 11 clicks of the minute hand.
And then I'm gone.
The next time I see the patient is when they are in pieces. Liver, kidneys, heart, pancreas, lungs, and on special occasions, their brain. Laid out in containers, coolers with clean handles and a chilled core, I admire them. So smooth, bright red, strong—if I weren't so afraid of knives I might actually enjoy watching the blood pool, liquid red dripping down pale, broken skin. Though if I'm honest with myself I'd grow too distracted, too infatuated. The coppery scent of the liquid scarlet, the hypnotizing swirling and clotting of the platelets as it pools on the floor.
I'm more productive with a hood pulled over my head, shades over my eyes, and a flask of blood hidden in my pocket. ("How much?") Greedy hands claw for a piece of what I offer, but none ever pay the full amount. ("All you have.") Panem is poor, District 12 even more so; it's a wonder the Peacekeepers even have the money to buy from us. But they keep coming back chanting—"More, more, more."—thirsting for chilled hearts and pickled kidneys the way I do for the warm, frothing, liquid life that courses through their veins.
It had started as blood stains on my lips. All the girls wanted blood red lipstick, to look as fierce and as frightening as the Capitolites on the television screens. I was no exception. But tubes of ruby red lipstick aren't the easiest thing in the world to come by; dead bodies filled with blood though, those are readily abundant to a girl whose family has a morgue in their basement. With fingertips stained red and the cracks in my lips sucking at the liquid, I was hooked, tongue thirsty for, 'Just a few more drops.'
The drops turned to cups, turned to liters, turned to gallons upon gallons of blood stored away in my own personal cellar. I've decorated it with syringes and needles, spared no expense when it came to making the forgotten cellar near the fence mine. It's the only thing I truly own, everything else is shared with my sisters and Olive. But this—the cellar, the pints of blood, the empty porcelain bathtub, the needles, the syringes, the paintings and poems drawn and written only in shades of red against rough parchment—is all mine.
It's not that I don't care about them. It's just that they are all pretty fucking horrible. Hypocritical of me, considering my diet and extracurriculars, I know. Eirlys pretends to be a mother, Celia has too many fur coats and struts with her chin just a little too high in the air, Hyacinth plays too hard at saving the family when really she's just a slut, Emeli much too soft and frankly not as good at the sell as I am. And Annabelle, Ridley, Avery, and Olive are just too young to really understand it all, no matter how often they watch their older siblings work.
They drive me mad.
I love them.
And they're lucky for that. Because if I get caught selling, I'll be taking the punishment. Alone. Gladly. Because there was a time when I lived in ignorant bliss, holding hands and braiding hair and huddling beneath bed sheets for bedtime stories and hugging simply because that's what siblings do. We all grew up, but the memories live on, reminding me that buried beneath all the lying, blood money, and corpses are people that I would do anything for.
("Oh, fuck off.")
("Shut the hell up.")
("Drink bleach.")
But all the love in the world isn't going to stop me from calling them out on their bullshit. And in a family like ours, there sure is a lot of fucking bullshit. We're liars, professional bullshitters, and I've been raised to be proud of it. Suppose that's why I don't mind the sight of blood, enjoy the taste of it. I've been raised a lying, greedy, thieving demon. But while the others spend time to wash all that blood away, I fill the bathtub in my secret cellar to the brim with blood and climb in.
Only those with the darkest of hearts survive in this world.
("I love you guys.")
Mine's a work in progress.
