peyton douglas, district eight | finished [CB]

He wants more.

Not out of greed — he's just tired. You can see it in the shadows that have spread across his face, in the downward curve of his lips and the way his left canine is chipped. His nose twists at an angle, a childhood injury that never fully healed; and there are fresh scars on his knuckles, an old stain on his school uniform that he can't seem to wash out.

Red.

Violence comes to him. Without invitation, and rarely welcomed — but it arrives all the same. He has grown familiar with the guest living in his house, in his room, on the streets where he spends his nights; walking beside him, standing there, lying in silence. He is not angry, he has no thirst for blood, but he's cursed. He wants to be a hero.

And that doesn't happen for kids like him — the ones who can't focus in class, the ones who come from broken homes and no wealth. It's followed him since he was a boy. When he thought it was enough to stand up to the bullies in front of a crowd, to save a cat from the tallest tree. But then the tragedies kept coming, and the misfortune remained. No one celebrates the unloved.

So he smokes cigarettes on the roofs of abandoned warehouses, throws back a few shots of whiskey in a dark alley. He commits his crimes in the cruellest places, always looking for someone to save. Because that's all he has. Those little moments of glory. And maybe someone will notice him, one day. Maybe they'll see the potential; they'll think that he could be a peacekeeper.

They'll think that he could be something.

Or maybe he'll keep hiding
under a sky full of dead stars;
keep exhaling smoke for the wind to steal.

Maybe a hero is simply a hero
— even if the sun does not shine on him.