Cora Kyuu, District Four

My wavy dark-brown hair falls down my shoulder like a a waterfall. It flows past my eyes in just the right way. Shielding them from the sharp glares of my friends, but yielding just enough room to give you a glimpse at the sea green irises and the story they tell.

Being from a career district, my appearance is usually in a fairly good condition. My clothes would be considered cleaning rags in the eye of any Capitol citizen, but jewels if I'm standing next to one of those District Twelve tributes I see every year during the Games. My usual gray jacket shows the stains and tears of daily use. My torn black jeans that I managed to trade for is in a similar condition. My black sneakers cover my scarred feet. I only wear them about half of the time anyways. I live by the dock, which is where I spend all of my time. The dock is by the school, which is where I am when I'm not swimming. My house just sits right next to both of these, forming a pretty little triangle. Who needs shoes when everywhere you need to go is right next to you? What do you expect me to wear? A pink ball gown? Honestly, I can't afford, and definitely don't need, a color coordinated outfit for every day of the week.

I live about a half-mile from the District Four dock. Literally. Swimming that much could give anybody the olive skin that hides under my clothes. If there's one thing I could change about myself, it'd definitely be my height. Both of my parents, and even my older brother, are shorter than me. I'm the only one who inherited my grandmother's giant gene. There are some benefits, though. You wouldn't think so, but it gives me a boost when I swim. The extra speed comes in handy.

When I'm deep in concentration, my eyes open a bit too wide, giving me the look of your everyday psychopath. I don't sleep much. Sleep is a waste of time. I'd much rather be down at the dock in my bathing suite. This gives my eyes a rather tired look. It also gives off an aura of an adult in a kid's body. What I mean to say is, my eyes show all of the secrets of my past. When you live in Panem, your eyes do that. Give off a look of life experiences and all. It's kind of hard not to when you've grown up watching your friends leave the Capitol on a train and come back in a coffin.

I'm that quiet person who sits in the back and never answers a question. Now that doesn't mean I'm stupid. Quiet and retarded are two different words. I just prefer my own world to yours. I know everything I need to know: fishing, boating and the sea. That's all you need to know to survive in District Four. Pretty simple, right? There's no point in me sitting in a mathematics class thats completely useless outside of the four walls of my classroom.

I have friends. If you take the time to get to know me, you'll realize that I'm a fairly nice person. You won't know this, for I'm an amazing actor, but you wouldn't be my real friend. The dock is my only real friend. You'll never know me like the dock. So I'll put on a pretty little smile for you and talk about your boyfriends and this cute second-hand dress you found for cheap, and about that new hairstyle your mother made especially for you. I'll talk about anything with you. But I won't tell you the secrets that live in these sea green eyes. Those are for me and my dock. And death. It's alright. You won't know any different.

I have a good life. Well, I had a good life. I don't know what I have now.

I was six years old at the time. My father and Ky, my younger brother, were out at the fishery- wait, never mind. If you're a peacekeeper, forget I ever said that. My dad was at the port or something catching fish. That meant that I was pretty much alone. Except for mom, of course. I don't know. The way mom used to talk, it just got under my skin. Do you know what that feels like to want to punch your mother in the face at six? It's not fun. When it happened, everyone made excuses. They told me that I was only six years old. It was no rational decision. I never meant to hurt her. But here's the thing, I'm a smart kid. I made a rational decision at six years old to kill my mother.

I've always had a bad temper. I just have great control. My collected features mask a madwoman. It wasn't always this way though. I could go from nothing to punching the kid next to me in about 2.5 seconds. On this particular day, it was worse. I remember it all though, even through the blazing headache that was attacking my mind and blurring my senses. She was talking to me. No, yelling at me. I had to go rewrap the day's catch properly or it was a week of scrubbing the top deck of the ship for me. The knife was there. Very there in my mind. I just decided that I'd had enough. My anger went one notch too high. My headache had pounded one to many times. I may have considered stopping, but the knife was conveniently close. Just a few feet away... In my hands... In her chest... I dropped the big kitchen knife and looked down. The blood and silver reflected sickeningly in the light of the dying sun. My eyes lifted for a moment, my sea green irises matching her brown ones. The color of chocolate, the expression of death.

What happens to a girl who murders her mother? Surprisingly, nothing. Like my relatives said, I was too young to mean anything by it. I went to school, talked to my friends and even gained back my status of normality among District Four. I could never quite shake off my father's expression of pure hatred. Hatred aimed at me for killing the thing he loved. Killing it without a thought. So I swam. The dock was always just a bit too close to my house. It's not like there was anything else to do. I swam because I had to. I swam because the water seemed to wash the pain and the confusion and the sorrow away. There was pain because there is always pain in death. There was confusion because I knew that I meant it. There was sorrow because of the hurtful expressions from my father. I never meant to hurt him. Just my mother. Only my mother. All I wanted was to cease her yelling and stop my headache and clear my head. So I swam. So I swim.

The years have passed in a blur. A blur of school, a blur of friends, a blur of life, and a blur of death. Do you remember the day you knew you'd grown up? For me, it was the day that my mother died. I just never saw the world in the same way again. I understood the tributes of the Games. I seemed to know death, almost like one knows their best friend. Well, more like their worst enemy. Do I even know what relationship I have with death? You see, that's the part that scares me. The killing and the looks and the funeral, they didn't scare me. But some part of me wonders if I actually enjoyed killing her. Maybe I'm just as bad as those Capitol people who take my friends and kill them.

My life is back to normal now. I have friends. I have school. I have life. And I have the dock. My dock. The dock that healed me. The dock that knows me.

I'm sorry. I got kinda lazy on the personality. I hope it's enough though.