twice is a {pattern} / lumiere jb blitz [annika/asha/lilith]

Her unquenchable rage reminds me leaves it's own special kind of mark; bruises on the flesh and lacerations on the mind. She's a howling whirlwind in her own right, tearing down anything in her path only to leave behind her own special brand of destruction. No dignity, no decency and no fucks given. I should hate her for the number of times she invalidated each episode to null so I would feel nothing. The sneers and scoffs at every violation of flesh and the eye rolls at every bloodstain I smeared across our family name in my rages; I swear half of them were from her.

My bandaged hand is pressed against my rib cage and I revel in the repeat thud, thud, thud that follows in every passing second. In the silence I am golden, left in the presence of me and my soft beating heart - it's not long before the whirlwind fades into background noise and then further into tiny obscurity. Still, the throb at the back of my head prevents her from being nothing - a whirlwind always leaves its mark after all.

Each passing second ticks with another heartbeat and the dull throb of ('Where is the method to your madness?') Before the door creaks open and my head rises to meet the intruder. Half of me expects my parents and the other half expects my sister to be at the doorway to leave more destruction in her wake.

I'm quickly thrown off by the fact this is a stranger to me, practically a phantom. "I don't know you, and I don't believe you know me either."

I simply shake my head, she knows me well enough to visit me before I touch a tombstone but not well enough to even shake my hand.

"My name is Annika. Annika Lumiere."

And just like that my heartbeat resumes.

"I- I don't have a cousin called Annika," my reply is instinctive, practically rushed from the tongue. "I only have a sister called Lilith." I finish. How I remember it, I don't recall having any cousins. But then again, I was never allowed to see the important people; madness is bad for first impressions after all.

"Unless you know my parents or sister, but chances are they never would've mentioned me," I stop, holding my gaze in her eyes that are practically a mirror to mine, "why did you come?"

My hand twitches but it doesn't rest against my rib cage, I can feel the rapid heartbeat with every passing second.

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

But I was never the let down.

The hilarity of it all is not lost on me, seventeen years spent with a family and none of them give me the same sensation she does.

She gives me the sensation of staring into an broken mirror. Golden hair cascading down her face and down her shoulders, pointed features and blue eyes - the sight of her sharpens my mother from faded static to a front view. The similarities are all to obvious and I can't shake the feeling that I should know who she is. Not quite the perfect image (she lacks the madness) but still gives me the sensation of staring into what I would've looked like if I was born a female with a stable mind.

My question hangs in the air, as if she's at a lost for words. She should be, there is no cure for madness after all. "I have five siblings, Asha, and even more cousins than that." She begins and I raise an eyebrow. Implications are a powerful tool, and I don't think I like the strength of her implication. "The Lumiere family that I know is quite large, one of the largest families of the district. I took it upon myself to learn each of their names as I was growing up, memorize each of their faces, so I could know who I could consider family."

My hands rest against my knees, each finger tapping gently against my knee. I have a sister called Lilith and a mother or father who condemned me to a life of feeling nothing but I've never seen Annika in my life. Perhaps I've seen her and I just don't remember, I am mad after all.

"But I do not have a cousin named Asha, or a cousin named Lilith. And yet, here you are, sharing my family name and looking the part, as well."

"You look like my mother," I blurt out, staring her down.

('Lilith doesn't do this!')

I always did hate her.

"To answer your question, I promised myself that if any of my family were selected to enter the Games before myself, I would come and see them off myself."

Honorable.

"And if that person happens to be a long lost cousin I've never met, well, then that still applies to you, as well." She finishes and I sigh.

She has my last name and she looks like me, even more than the hurricane Lilith herself - it has to be true. To think that seeing your family off to slaughter others would be honorable. To think that I'm the only mad one here.

I begin to giggle at the irony, the one Lumiere I never knew existed is the one who has come to see me off. "Funny how you've come before my parents and sister, they hate me you know," I say before my head tips back in a borderline drunken laughter. "But that's fine, because I'm going now, I'll never see them again and they'll never see me again, probably for the best, I probably would have... snapped sooner or later." I let out another harsh chuckle, still grinning wildly.

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

I am not a tragic tale.

"I was the best and they left me to feel nothing, but jokes on them because now I'm going to feel something," my head buries itself into my hands, stifling another bout of laughter. "I don't want to die feeling nothing Annika,"

I breathe in.

And out.

I lift my head from my hands. "I don't know what sense of Lumiere pride you and your family have but you won't find it with me because if I sleep in a tombstone they wouldn't get caught dead themselves visiting it," I breathe in, still grinning wolfishly, "talk to Lilith, she's the 'good one'."

('Lilith would never let me down like this.')

I'm not a let down, I swear, I'm just tired of this endless game of pretend.