Camilla Selden District 5 {Finished}

Stop. Don't come near me. My god, I said don't come near me! I'm...I'm dangerous.

You wouldn't know it. Or maybe you would, I don't know. If you're one of those people who believe that beauty is a mask for a disfigured soul, then you'd probably think I'm the devil in disguise. You wouldn't be wrong.

I am a swan. The curve of my long neck perfectly compliments the swooping arch of my jaw bone, my jawbone is offset by my ever-so-slightly raised cheekbones, my cheekbones highlight my dark and mysterious eyes. And my eyes, my eyes sparkle faintly like stars in the shadows of my heavy eyelids and dark eyebrows. My lips are full, plump, supported by the soft curve of my chin. I keep my black hair pulled back from the cold white satin of my face. I have a high, smooth forehead and a delicately up-turned nose. My mother used to say I was the picture of feminine grace and beauty. Elegance. She said I put the Capitol peacock-women to shame. That was before I killed her.

My mother and I had a wonderful relationship. I can't say I ever really loved her; I don't suppose I've ever really loved anything. But we got along. She loved, me and I liked that. She made me feel so good, special, important. But even at this time of relative peace between my mother and I, I was already killing things. Mostly bugs because there were plenty of them. Killing was just a strange urge at that time, not a joy as it later became. Mother never knew.

When I was about six, we began to have problems with mice. My mother bought a cat to try and deal with the pests. She thought it worked. For months she would wake up in the morning and find dead mice all over the house. But that cat never did a damn thing. It was me. It was always me. I had an incredible gift for stealth from a very young age, and even in our small house, I could keep her from knowing where I was. In the middle of the night, I would slip out of bed, run around the house catching mice. I did all different things. Some I drowned, some I slit open, some I smothered. I never just killed them though. That would take all the interest out of it. Eventually my mother found out. She was scared, I could tell. Pain and fear, I can sense them, like a putrid scent. She started off by trying to get me to sympathise with the mice. "Camilla, think about those poor little mice. You wouldn't like it if a giant came along and started torturing you. Or what if one day I just disappeared? What if I was killed? How would that make you feel? Don't you see how much pain you caused?"

I didn't understand her. I didn't understand why I should sympathise with a mouse. I didn't understand the concept of putting myself in someone else's shoes. I had no empathy. And I enjoyed pain. It was a recipe for horror, it was only a matter of time bfeore something awful happened. I told my mother that I didn't understand what she was telling me. I told her that it felt good when I killed them, so why should I care? That really scared her. She paniced. She punished me horribly, she beat me, screamed at me, locked me in my room and didn't talk to me for three days. She just handed my meals throught the door. That was the beginning of the end.

Our relationship was never the same. She still loved me I think, but she was afraid of me. She wasn't open or caring anymore. I resented that, so, so much. I wanted her to be normal, to whisper and laugh with me again. Why should a few dead rodents come in the way of that? Why did she care more for them then for me? Being around her no longer made me feel good, or special, or important. The less she let me be the center of her life, the more I made violence the center of mine. I begin to kill, really kill, with joy. To inflict pain because it was an art. Because it made me feel powerful, special. Because it made me feel good. I told you I wasn't safe. I told you that if you thoght I was a demon, you wouldn't be far wrong. The idea of pain and death fascinated me. More and more I began to kill things, just to see how they died, just to watch them struggle for their last breath. The way their eyes transformed from diamonds to pearls as the life went out of them, it was so...fulfilling.

My mother soon began to find more dead animals. Then one morning, she woke up to find the cat completely skinned and lying in the fireplace. She left, without saying a word to me. And that meant I was alone all day, and I could think of what I would do next. I brooded over her abandonment, and I decided there was only one thing I could do. That was when I decided to kill her.

She came home that night, and I didn't let her leave again in the morning. The whole ordeal was horrible, but by dawn the next day, I had left her mangled body upon the floor of our little house as I walked into town. I found the home for children and told them that someone had come and killed my mother, had tried to kill me. It would have been believable, my mother hadn't died without a fight and I was covered in cuts and blood.

Except I presented my case to them with such composure that I know they didn't believe me. Still, it was their job to take me in. But they didn't have to like it. The ladies at the orphan center put me in a seperate room. They weren't nice to any of the children, but they were especially cruel to me. It was because I scared them. I continued to kill things.Pests in the building, other orphan's pets, even one little boy who made me angry. But they could never trace it back to beautiful little Camilla Selden.

They tried to do things to me, things to fix me. That's why I have the scars. All up and down my arms, raised white pinpricks where they injected things into me, jagged little scars where they cut my arms to restrain me. It might have worked a little, because I'm not quite the same now. I'm worse. In some ways I understand now that what I did to my mother was horrible, but mostly because they helped me to see that I owed her something. I still don't feel sorry for the other deaths though. The women made me feel horror at the thought of killing, but they didn't teach me to control my urges. I still killed things, but I both enjoyed and feared it. This new perspective on death drove me to insanity. They said I completely lost my grip on reality. They must be right, because I talk to my mother everyday, it's like she never died. I talk to all sorts of dead people, even ones I didn't kill. Sometimes it's normal, like a conversation with the living. Sometime it's horrifying, a whirl of confrontations with angry spectres and decaying shades. That's how everything in my life has become, an eternal torment of opposites.

By the time I was sixteen, the ladies at the orphan home were frantically looking for a way to get rid of me. They eventually found a lenient Peacekeeper who could provide a living for me away from the public eye. The man owned one of the few remaining dilapedated old ranch houses in our district, and he put me in charge of the upkeep.

That's where I am now. Far away from the rest of civilization, trying to maintain a ratty old house. The Peackeeper never comes to check on me, in fact I've never laid eyes on him, so I'm alone except when mother decides to visit. I live on the small amounts of money which my mysterious Peacekeeper sends me for "helping" him. But let's be honest, he'd probably be just as happy to tear down this old place.

I actually make a decent housekeeper when I'm not having one of my fits-a grueling loss of self which can last from a few hours to a few weeks. The rest of the time, the housework makes for a good distraction. It's weird, I have moments of darkness when I kill, torture, or simply go mad, and I have moments of stunning clarity when I realize what a horrid person I am. But don't count on those moments of clarity.

You see, I'm dangerous. So don't come near me.