i wish i could kill my ego [annie/sera + vt]

sera keoch

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being beautified.

Listen, when you live in an Orphanage your entire life, spend every second night shovelling dirt into neat little piles just to pour it back into an empty hole an hour later, you don’t tend to put much thought into your appearance. You lose your hairbrush under a mattress and don’t feel the need to find it again. You wear the same clothes you’ve owned since you were seven years old, telling lies to yourself that the fabric isn’t actually fraying, and that the circulation in your arms isn’t actually being cut off. You stop looking into windows to sneak a glance at your own reflection. Vanity isn’t favoured in District Six.

There’s just something so morbidly depressing about the entire ordeal of being dressed up for yet another fancy dinner party – mostly because I can’t shake the way it feels so eerily similar to making preparations for a wake. They say funerals are for the living, and I tend to agree with that sentiment. What’s the point of dressing up the body of a dead person, making them into something better than they ever were when they were alive? Shouldn’t the memory of how they lived be honoured up until the very last second that their body is returned to soil?

It kinds feels like I’m being readied for my own funeral, in a way. One person combs my hair, arranges the artificial ringlets to sit just right. Another person slips a strapless silk dress over the top of my head that I’d never wear in a million years, fussing over the way the coral material gathers at my hips. There’s blush being layered over the top of my bronzer and perfume being dabbed into the hollows of my collarbones to drive away any lingering traces of death. At some point during the three hour pampering session, someone hands me a clear drink, muttering something under their breath about “wiping the sour look off my face.”

I scull the liquor in one gulp; choose to nurse the refill that swiftly follows.

By the time the stylists are finished with me and directing me towards the floor-length mirror to admire their handiwork, I don’t even recognise myself. No matter how hard I look, I can’t find a single trace of the real Sera staring back at me. I guess that’s the plan, though. Must be hard to market a dirty murderess who spends her spare time playing in cemeteries.

“Thanks… I look… nothing like myself,” I tell them uncertainly, too exhausted to put too much thought into carefully selecting words that won’t hurt their feelings. Luckily, they don’t seem to care. If anything, they appreciate my piss-poor attempt at a compliment and nod proudly to themselves as they pack away their belongings and lead me towards our next destination.

Annie Morrisen’s humble abode. Which, of course, is anything but humble.

The outside of her home is as grand and sprawling as I’d imagined it would be. A perfectly manicured lawn; a balcony that travels three hundred and sixty degrees around the entire mansion; unblemished alabaster exterior walls. A swimming pool in the backyard, obviously.

I’m the only one left on the porch – my entourage has well and truly dissipated, at least for now, and I’m grateful to be able to hear my own thoughts again. Even if just for a few seconds, because I know what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door. A bustling room of Capitolites – partygoers and wannabe-VIPs all straining for yet another glimpse of their exhausted, unwilling Victor.

I extend my hand, take a deep breath, and knock on the door.

Annie greets me looking just as beautiful as I remember. Even more so, if that was possible. Unlike me, she looks completely and utterly at ease in her own skin, glowing with something not even highlighter can recreate. That must be nice.

“Welcome to my home.”

Well, at least she isn’t trying to kid herself into modesty.

“I hope you don’t mind, I told the rest of the party to show up thirty minutes after you got here.” Voice like spun sugar, gentle and placating and so much more than a killer deserves. Or maybe it’s exactly what a killer deserves. She’s been around a long time now; I’m sure I’m not the first Victor she’s welcomed into her home with some repurposed version of open arms.

I blink at Annie, feeling a wave of emotion start to rise inside of me. A confusing combination of surprise and relief at a gesture that probably means nothing at all to her, but as a girl of solitude and introversion, these thirty minutes of privacy mean so much to me.

It feels strangely comforting to be seen in this way.

“As long as you don’t mind if I take off these damn shoes. It literally feels like I’m walking on glass.” I wait until Annie moves out of the entrance before beginning to teeter towards a chair in the foyer, trying to balance on the balls of my feet to provide some relief to my ankles. As soon as I’m seated, I all but rip the buckles off the six-inch heels and breathe a sigh of relief at the cool sensation of marble tiles underfoot.

When the throbbing in my feet subsides, and I remember again where I am, I’m mortified. My eyes whip back to Annie’s face, pulled into a perfect mask of vacancy. She betrays no sign of what she might be thinking or feeling at the sight of the trainwreck in front of her.

“Oh, sorry, this is so rude of me. I’m still getting used to the whole introductions thing,” I murmur nervously, actually wringing my hands together pathetically like a school girl being scolded for talking with her mouth full at the dinner table.

Guess that alcohol was stronger than I realised.

“And while we’re at it, I’m sorry about Circe, too. I know you were helping her.” Not that a walkie-talkie with a five minute daily call limit can really do much for a tribute fighting for their life. But hey. It worked for Flynn, didn’t it?

“For what it’s worth, I really thought she would win. I guess I was kinda banking on her stabbing me in the back at one point or another.” I’m rambling now. Surely making a fool of myself, like I always do when I’m forced to converse one-on-one with literally any other human being on the planet. They just don’t tend to get me the way Iz used to. Not that I’m really expecting anyone to ever match that kind of connection – what we had was once in a lifetime. I think I’ve made peace with that.

But out of the hundreds or thousands of people I’ve met in the time since taking Jupiter Graves’ life, not one of them has made me feel as serene as Annie Morrisen does.