raisa mortuus, district twelve | [cbd, 1] fin.

( r a i s a )

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Roses fall out from chapped lips, thorns staying behind to protect the secrets within her throat. There’s blood on her chin, but you know cherries are her favorite, so you never stop to smell the rust that’s hidden beneath the sweetness. Mortuus women are born dead, pale skin stretched out over bird bones, but the red on her cheeks makes you trust that her heart is still beating.

She's never been asked to paint a corpse for its burial, but she has practice with the art. She smiles, supernovae on her tongue, but she closes her lips before you can ask for a taste. She is the nectar of the flower that suffocates the fly — the rain that floods after the drought. She has always been the lesser evil, the cracked statue standing among desolate ruins, but the acid in her veins is a birthright.

A receptionist by day and a false medium by night — she spends her mornings filing taxes and smiling with plastic layered over her mouth, luring in desperate souls to the family hospital and giving them false hope. It is rare that her promises are fulfilled, body bags rolled out and a whispered, 'It's best not to look.' She holds them as they scream and cry, consoling them with cold fingers and a soft voice. The songbird in a nest of vultures, but her feathers are still black.

When dusk comes, she gathers her files and arrives like a crow to the doorstep of the damned. 'Remember me?' she asks, and they always do. She doesn't believe in murder without mercy, so she's found a way to the right the wrongs of her sisters. 'I can help you speak to them again. You can tell them goodbye.'

And they always fall for it, hands clasped and arms linked around a kitchen table with candles burning. It's amazing how much you learn about a person once they're dead — what all information a cleverly formatted application can offer. 'I sense their presence,' she starts with an inhale and an inclining of her head, then a question she already knows the answer to is spoken. 'Were daisies his favorite flowers? Like the ones that grow near the border?' They always gasp when her powers are made evident, and she always has them resting in the palm of her hand.

'He wants me to tell you that he's at peace,' — and they always let out a joyful howl, tears falling.

She only blinks.

'How can we ever thank you?' they ask as she steps out the door, pulling her coat tighter and staring up at the clouded sky.

'You don't have to. I don't do it for you.'
— and then she takes wing.

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coding: elegant