Damion Winters - District 10

Monstrous. Hideous. Girls and boys really know how to prick and pry on the weakness of appearance. They mention something off hand and hope it will wound the soul. What is there to wound when no soul exists? At first it was just the hair. Black. No one finds the color of scorched earth appealing. No one wanted to be with a boy who let's something so hideous grow. Just watching the coal colored strands wave in the dangerous currents of the wind makes them shriek. Or maybe it's just me that scares them. Maybe not the hair that lays across my back.

But then again, just the sight of someone like me walking about is terrifying enough. My broad shoulders, my bulging muscles, and those fearless eyes I know that I have. Those fearless, chestnut eyes that can rip into their souls. If they still have one. No one can even look into them if they're talking to me. They shake in terror from the shear appearance of a giant like me, built to destroy. And destroy I will.

Oh but the farmboy look doesn't even match me. The poor straw hat that sits on my head is just to keep that light away from my dark appearance. I can't have the sun touch my skin or it might burn. That's why I'm always in long-sleeved plaid T-shirts and loose jeans. I cover my hands with tough work gloves to keep from cuts, though I doubt anything can hurt me. My boots just help to keep me from touching the ground beneath me. I wouldn't dare let anything beneath me near me.

What does a brute like me have need for friendships? I'm a destroyer. I devastate the world around me and pray that no one is left standing. Why should I pray that no one is standing? Those who cross my path will fall and tremble before my feet. No one should even try to connect with me. All they will do is perish one day, either by my hands or from another. That's the purpose of this world, to be beaten or beat the others before they can conquer you. Those who desire companionship, those who want to bond, they sicken me. I hope for them to die.

But that is not to say that there aren't the little joys in life. There are those animals that we must tend to. I enjoy their meaningless but powerful lives. They don't accomplish anything in life other than breeding and dying for us. They have to make more so we can kill more. And what's more is that they will not scream, cry, or beg for some other fate. They are too stupid to know what is to become of them. It's brilliant. So much beauty in the demise of an animal that it chokes me with happiness.

But then I am a hypocrite in a sense. There are those that I share bonds with, those that think just like me. Those that think like this because they understand what it means to survive. Maybe they have loved and lost like I had. Maybe they understand what it means to try so hard at being like all the others only to finally have it all ripped from you. I only bond with those people, all the others may be crushed for all I care.

I had a hopeful youth like most. Even in the capitol we can sometimes be happy it seems. I had a caring family, people who would look after me and always try to lighten the world around me. i didn't even have a moment of remorse for that life though. It was gone within an instant because I learned how childish it was to be hopeful. I learned how stupid someone can be to try and on the world in a good view. And I remember the demise too well. It all started when I was seven. My sister, who was seventeen, had to enter the arena because her name was drawn. I believed she could win. I believed she would come back home to me. But then to watch her murdered on my birthday. The day I turned eight. I let the thin veil of innocence shatter.

Then I just grew up physically. My mind was already at the peak of understanding that I no longer had to try and know anything else. Every day at school I would just focus on making my body something bigger and better than it was. Intelligence was wasted when put toward me. The capitol is superior. I understood that. The only way I could stand on level with it would be to become stronger. I needed strength to overcome all the trials. If I could not become something better then I would not fail like my sister had in the arena.

But I could find a simple joy when it came to working on one of the livestock ranches. The animals there were innocent like I had been at one point. I loved how they could hold onto that stupid innocence until the end of their days. And then the exhilaration of the kill was beyond belief. I started with the machines that they had given us, tossing the little animals like chickens into the blades. But then I became fascinated with the axe. I enjoyed cutting them apart when the machines were not enough, putting the separate parts of their bodies into different piles. Sorting out what was edible and what was not.

But, then again, these rarely happen for me. I just have to toss the animals like a blind messiah into the chopping machine. The machine I wish I could be. I can only hope that it is enough money for my family though. My mother couldn't work after what happened to my sister. Her entire body went into shock and the doctors said that she would not be able to function properly anymore. My father is still able to move on, having that stupid dim look of hope in his eyes. He always says that I would never get picked for the games but I couldn't give a damn what he thought. I will make it in the games if I am ever there. My body and mind are trained for the capitol. I am the weapon that they are looking for.

I am Damion Winters.