zecora prank {seven} fin

↠ Zecora Prank ↞

You're not dead yet? Well, that's rather disappointing.

Oh no, I think you misunderstood me; I don't wish you to be dead, I simply wish you were dead. Still not catching on? That's alright. Most people find it difficult to understand, and I'm sure you will too, but perhaps I can shed some light on my manner of speaking. Perhaps one day it will click for you.

Remember stories from when you were a child, about the house on the street they said was haunted? None of the other kids passed by it without running, because it was said that ghosts filled the shadows cast by the slightly crooked building. It stood tall and ominous, a black spot on your bright and cheery street. You heard whispers about it in school, from your neighbors, even the merchants. They spoke about children locked away in that house, children who faced horrible deaths, whose souls wander through its halls to this very day. Sometimes, if everything is quiet and you have a good ear, you can hear them moaning along with the wind creaking through the bare branches of the dead tree in the front yard.

That's the house I live in.

Of course, we're all very much alive (unfortunately), and we can be quite cheerful at times. But stories still spread through the District like wildfire, and none of the other children like us that much. They give us a wide birth in the school halls, they avoid sitting with us at lunch time, they don't ask us to join their games of ball in the streets. I guess I can't blame them.When there's twenty people living under one roof, there's bound to be rumors.

Twenty, you ask? No, you didn't mishear me. Two parents, four cousins, and thirteen brothers and sisters, mainly comprised by sets of triplets and twins. I never understood why my parents decided to have so many kids. The house can feel overly crowded at times, which is why we spend most of our time out in the streets rather than inside. If you ask anyone about us, the two most common rumors you'll hear are that we're a bunch of orphans, and that there's at least fifty of us. The number goes up every month or so. Of course, neither of these stories are true.

When I was born, there were only five people living under our leaking roof. My parents, and then the three babies my mom had been carrying around in her stomach for the past nine months. I was the middle child between them all. Zeus was the eldest, and Zachary was the youngest, at least for the first year of our lives. Then another set of triplets came. And another. Two pairs of twins. And eventually a single child, six years younger than us and now twelve years old. We took in our cousins as the years went past. Dead parents, mostly. I always asked mom if we could go see the bodies, if I could investigate and find out what happened, but she always seemed horrified and told me no. I thought surely I'd be able to come up with an explanation, if only I could get a look at the corpses. But I never got the chance.

So instead, I started looking at animals in the woods behind our house. (Perks of living in District 7.) Obviously, dead animals were hard to come by, and live animals were even more difficult. So I started setting up little traps, things that would catch them in a cage or string them up by their feet. More often than not, they were dead by the time I got there. Sometimes another animal had discovered them and eaten them for dinner before I got a chance to investigate. I didn't mind. I liked looking at the scene of the crime, scanning over the remains and trying to figure out exactly how the poor thing died.

When I got older, perhaps fifteen or so, I started sneaking out with a knife stolen from the kitchen, and I'd dissect the animals that hadn't been eaten. I was messy at first, but I got better. Learned how to make clean cuts, how to hold the knife properly, where everything was in the body so I wouldn't ruin any organs.

I suppose some of the rumors surrounding our family are true. I don't really mind the weird looks, the way kids avoid us in school. It's nice, actually. Almost peaceful. Sometimes we scare them off intentionally and get a good laugh out of it, sometimes all we have to do is step into a room and everyone turns a blind eye to our presence. Don't talk to the Pranks, it'll bring you bad luck. Don't make eye contact, they might chop you up in your sleep. Sometimes we come home and compete to see who's heard the best rumor that day.

When I stop and think about it, the way I dress probably has an effect on peoples' perception of me. Black shirts and black nails. Torn jeans because I'm too lazy to sew them up. Rough-cut ginger hair because mom is too busy with everyone else and I have to take care of myself. I tell her I don't mind. Grey marks under pale blue eyes, because I can never seem to get enough sleep.

Mom has suggested to me more than once that she thinks I might have insomnia. I started complaining when I was younger, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but I stopped after a while because I realized she had more important things to do, and I was one in twenty. I forced myself to get used to it. Lying awake at night, occasionally reading a mystery book outside when it got really bad. I couldn't read inside, because we all sleep together, and the light would wake up everyone else.

I'm slightly under weight, with high cheekbones and sunken-in eyes when the food gets scarce. Some of my younger siblings are so healthy-looking, you could almost believe they're part of an entirely different family. It's the eldest who don't always get the food they need. We give it to the ones who need it, the smaller brothers and sisters who are growing and need to stay strong. We never complain. It's just the way we live.

{Word Count: 1051}