Julyan Katonna | 3 | COMPLETED

How the hell am I supposed to describe myself? Where on earth do I start? From my hair? Other than saying that it's a weird, dirty straw-blonde sort of color and is perpetually messed up, what else is there?

My face? Sorry, nothing interesting there. I have the pale, slightly sickly pallor almost everyone else in District Three has. It comes from being stuck indoors around high-voltage equipments too often; electricity and blinking computer screens do funny things to people. My facial features aren't anything to shout about, either. Loads of other boys here are way better looking than me. Even my eyes are a flat, dullish color.

My physique... Well, let's just leave it at 'non-Career material'. I'm skinny. Really, really skinny. It irks me a lot, but that isn't exactly something I can change. When everyone's hungry and food is scarce, a seventeen-year-old boy doesn't get much priority.

Oh, I am rather tall, though. It's usually useful, this height. Except that time where they made me squeeze into this tiny little chair at a miniature table overloaded with electronics, expecting me to work while my elbows were jimmied up against the wall. The problem with those Capitol people is that they're so self-centred, it doesn't ever occur to them that not everyone is as small-statured as per Capitol standards.

And, um, I have this metal device on the small of my back which was installed years ago when I was a kid. It's somewhat like a spider, with the main body attached to the lower middle of my back while spindly little 'legs' spread out all over to hook into specific spots on my spinal cord and ribcage. It's the reason I never take off my shirt in someone else's view, no matter what.

The device is not common, no. As far as I know, I'm the only one in the entire district to have the stupid thing 'installed' on me. Basically, it discharges electrical pulses right to my nerves, so that when I get overactive, I can be controlled. It's because of this condition I have, see? The doctors called it some sort of muscular hyperactivity disorder. Since I hang around the Capitol people a lot, they designed the thing specially to kill the impulses that make me move around too much. Wouldn't do to hurt someone important, would it? And trust me, with the skills I have, they put me around important people a lot.

But the main problem is, whenever they shock me with the spider, my mind sort of just shuts down as well. It's like taking morphling, except instead of the crazy high, I go into a depressive, silent funk. I've been told my voice goes all monotonous and my face turns expressionless, like the living dead mentioned in those storybooks of old. The electric pulses kill my personality completely.

Unfortunately, the device is remote controlled, so there's nothing I can do about that either. I don't even have the time or energy to rage at the Capitol and their sick ways, because I'm frequently on duty, working on new project after new project.

I live on a day-to-day basis, dreading the shocks yet finding that with them, I am able to put aside all feeling and emotions and function just as the Capitol has meant it. Sometimes it's just easier to drop everything and go along. Even though - when I can feel it - I hate what they're doing to me, I just don't see how I can change things.

Sure, I'm a fighter. It's the only reason I'm still alive instead of decomposing in a ditch somewhere. But when those people are able to control everything I do - from my movements to my thoughts - what's the point of going against it?

There are long periods of time in which I wished so hard I wasn't born with this ability of mine; or rather that I wasn't born at all in the first place. Either way would work with me, I think. See, I have this uncanny knack with computer codes and programs. I've never had training, but I instinctively know my way around electronical gadgets. They caught me when I tried to hack into the Capitol's communications system when I was ten or eleven. I didn't even know what exactly it was that I was doing, only that I was able to do it well.

Ever since then, I've been their slave. Sure, I still get to stay in District Three, but with all the things I do for them and all the ways I'm connected to them, I might as well be an Avox with his own far-range remote.

I'm no good with people; I scare the living daylights out of kids. I'm the freak, the creepy one, the outcast of District Three. I try hard to find myself in all of this mess, but I'm not getting anywhere. There's nothing I can do about this. Nothing at all.

Besides, what is there to live for if I'm not working for the Capitol? I mean, my family's already dead, right? Yeah, sure, they were killed in an accident when I was still a toddler - or so the people at the orphanage told me, anyway. I can't remember any of them; my dad, my mum, even my two older sisters.

According to the records, they died in "an unfortunate accident". Apparently, my parents were Capitol workers as well and they'd just completed some sort of encryption system when a sudden strong surge of electricity fried them where they stood. My sisters tried to save them and died in the process. Our whole house went up in flames. I was the only Katonna to survive, because my mum had dropped me off at a neighbor's place so that they could work in peace for a while.

If you asked me whether I believed all that the news and reports said about my family, I wouldn't know how to answer you. I guess it's entirely possible for an incident like that to happen, but what are the odds of en electric shock so great, it killed four people? Especially since our district controls its electricity flow very tightly, because of all the important machinery and gadgets we have working here. Also, why were my parents working on something for the Capitol at home? We're never allowed to bring projects back; they're too afraid we'd sabotage them or something like that.

Because there were no bodies to bury - on account that they'd all been burnt to ashes, together with everything else we owned - I don't even have a memorial spot to visit them at, or anything to remember them by. I've grown up without a single possession to my name, except the clothes they put me in at the orphanage.

I suppose you could say that the Capitol's finding me was a blessing in disguise because I finally had something to do with myself, but I'm just not so sure. They have almost ultimate power over my every living second, so I'm not so much a human being as a robot with the Capitol's stamp on. My skills and the thing that keeps me alive is all in my head and at the tips of my fingers; I guess that's why they haven't decided to shove me off a cliff yet.

Oh, did I mention I don't know my birth date? Seventeen; that's just counting the years. No one knows exactly when I was born, so I don't celebrate birthdays or anything. Not that it matters, since I probably wouldn't be able to respond appropriately, seeing as how dead I am all the time.

Um, I'm a pretty good aim? Not that I hunt or use it often, but it's just another dumb gift. It might come into handy if I get picked for a Hunger Games, but since I never had to take out tessera, that'll probably never happen. I've only got two years left before I don't qualify anymore, anyway.