ELSPETH ANASTASIA MORENO // DISTRICT ONE

I don't people would be as interested in me if they knew quite how twisted I am. As if the outlandish hair colours, the piercings and my disdainful expressions weren't enough of a hint. Truth be told, I'm almost definitely one of the single most vindictive, malicious people you will ever meet. It's been this way as long as I can remember. At least, under the skin. When I'm not presenting a facade for the world to see. Call it subterfuge, but there's something particularly amusing about being able to disguise one's true self with little more than words.

Today is no different. Scant minutes after getting dressed into what can only be said to be a rather fetching set of clothes, I'm dancing with another hapless fool. My smile is false. His is not. He thinks he's netted me. How he wishes. Call it a superiority complex if you will, but truthfully, I am very much one of his betters. Not least because his dancing is comparatively atrocious... His hand moves unbidden down from my waist to rest upon my hip. A light smirk dances across my face. You'll pay for that one lover boy... I cannot stand people invading my personal space. Live a life in an arena for long enough, and every hand becomes a knife.

Starting to lead, I manage to pull him aside, waltzing past my mother, who raises an eyebrow at me at my somewhat intimate position with this boy, who, emboldened, has both hands placed firmly on my hips, pulling me tight to him. It's all I can do to not slit his throat now. To bask in his blood... Sweet delectable vitae... But unfortunately, he is someone. An unexplained death would be somewhat inconvenient. The door comes up quicker than I thought it would, as I slam into it, his body pressing into mine. I shudder. He thinks through excitement. It is actually through rage. How dare he presume to have earned this in the slightest... His lips grace my neck, and I laugh, a short, seductive exhalation. If only he knew...

My hand slips down to open the door, the other snaring his shirt, biting my lip, mind whirling in a red maelstrom, demanding blood, terror and horror to be elicited from him, unwillingly. I pull him through the room. And he so graciously pulls the door shut. The only decent thing he's done all night... He looks excited, which only increases as I spin him into a chair. It's evident in his face. The way he sits. The elevation of his breath. The flush in his cheeks. Like mine. But for completely different reasons. My smirk widens as I saunter over to where he is seated, before straddling him, his breath catching. I laugh, the same seductive laugh as before. He has no idea what's coming...

I let him live the moment for a while, his hands wandering over my body. I live for these moments. The build up before the break. One finger traces a line down his chest, teasing, but not undoing the buttons on his shirt. His breath catches once again, as I reach behind me. So blissfully unaware, the pathetic cockroach... The look on his face is first one of pure pleasure. Before the butterfly knife flicks out, dancing in my hand, an elegant twirling of deadly cold steel. My smirk remains fixed on my face as confusion tears it's way across his own. And so it begins. The fly in the web I span...

Don't you want to play baby? This is my favourite game... The look on his face as the knife finds his throat, lingering there is exquisite, the finest of wines, the most succulent of delicacies. My free hand traces the outline of his jaw, muscles in his neck twitching involuntarily through the sheer panic at now being at the mercy of a girl a good foot shorter than him. Amazing how a since blade can change a situation. For fear of death destabilises all playing fields. Once again, I surprise him, licking his face, tormenting him, for I can tell he enjoys it. The knife of the throat moves to his chin, lifting it slightly, before dropping down to that hollow point above the sternum. Oh how easy killing him would be...

Why so hesitant? You seemed all too willing to try it on with me earlier... Cat got your... The blade wanders up to his mouth, prising it open, teasing his tongue, smirking as I bit my lip. Tongue? His reaction to me is perfect. He stays completely motionless, as though afraid moving wrong would kill him. I laugh once again, the alluring tone in my voice drowned by the dangerous, sadistic, malicious notes. The point crawls down his flesh, tracing his jawline. My smirk remains on my face, pulling the short dress up, revealing a small latticework of tally marks across one rib. The knife came to rest at his throat again, my free running over the small raised scar tissue, smirking at him.

You know what these are? No? Each denotes someone I've killed. Nine. Plenty of room for more, don't you think. My voice, barely above a hiss causes a shudder to run up his spine, before my flesh tingles with the excitement of the power I hold over him, for it is such a sweet feeling. It's now he starts to move. The quivering, the wide-eyed fear, his hands twitching. My smirk widens, blade pressing into the flesh, as I turn the blade slightly, before leaning forward, tongue licking his cheek. It's now that he finally cracks. A tiny squeak of terror. A laugh, derisive and condescending, before standing up, blade flicking in my hand, my smirk turning to a snarl, fist lashing out, slamming into his face, the blade following, slashing at his chest, once, twice, three times. He curls up, a defensive and pathetic gesture of supplication.

That's for touching me. No you'd better run. You just made improper advances on a lady of the house. Now leave. Leave. Before I take your hands from you permanently. The cold fury in my voice terrifies him further, as he runs whimpering from the room, out of the back, the door slamming, silence descending. A brief check in the mirror, rearranging myself, so not a hair is out of place. Straightening the dress out, cleaning the knife, before slotting it back into the concealed hip holster behind my back. I wander back out, my mother looking at me expectantly.

He touched me. I didn't like it. My smile is dangerous, feral. She at least understands me. Even if she doesn't strictly approve. But what can she do? What can anyone do? The rest are none the wiser, my smirk fading to another false smile, sliding back in the twine of dancing bodies. A wolf among sheep, barely sated from the meek offerings of the night. If only they knew the monster in their midst...

They say when you go looking for blood, you find it. With my parents, this was definitely the case. I suppose you probably know the basic details. They were both Career prospects. Wanting to compete in the games. Neither managed to get into the games. Ya blah ya blah. A load of self pity and regret. Somehow, they hooked up, suddenly, making babies, and nine months later, they had their first child. End of story, go get jobs and make do, right?

Wrong. They decided that if they couldn't have the fame themselves, they would be as tied to it as humanly possible. To raise the perfect little Tribute, so to speak. I was the first girl to be born into the family. Reyes my older brother. Pathetic little Ezen my younger. Flanked on either side by two sons who seemed to not share mother and father's vision of glory for our family. Where Ezen read books, and Reyes trained with casual interest, I was a fanatic. Not for the usual things. Like using a massive cleaver to decapitate someone. I was far too small for that. I always found, thanks to darling little Ezen, that fear was the single most effective weapon you could ever wield.

It all properly started when I was around nine. I, for once, was actually being a good girl, and not terrorising Ezen. For good reason. I had found something else to terrorise. A strange blob thingy on the ground. That hummed and buzzed dully. Something that I insisted on poking, probing and prodding with a stick. It was only when Ezen went sheet white and mouthed 'tracker jacker' at me that I knew exactly what I was playing with. A nest. A pretty sparsely populated one albeit. Trust Ezen to know, the stupid bookworm. And trust him to not tell me earlier.

Needless to say, the few insects that were in there didn't appreciate my investigation. I was stung twice. Ezen managed to get clear before any got to him. But I remember that day vividly. It's hard not to. Everything became so much more horrific. To describe it, it was pure and utter sensory confusion. You know that feeling when you're lost? And things start happening? Not necessarily scary things, stuff like leaves dropping, twigs snapping, a rock being kicked by your foot as you walk? How it sets you on edge? Imagine that. Except everything is twenty times more intense, you vision twenty times less focused. Where you know it's not real, but can't help believing everything that happens.

The terror that gripped me was paralysing. I was afraid to walk, lest the ground collapse beneath me. Afraid to call out lest I inhale the neon blue gas, that I now realise was dust. Afraid to remove the stings, lest I tear my leg from myself. Fading in and out of lucidity. The conscious part of my brain screaming in a perverse way that this is how it must feel to be truly terrified. And in that single realisation, everything clicked.

The moment I recovered, my reign of terror over Ezen began anew. His panic attacks? I claim much of the underlying reasoning behind it all. His paranoia? Try waking up to messages like 'I'm coming for you' carved into the ceiling every morning. And of course, I played it all perfectly. Never implicated, perfectly innocent to all but Ezen. Reyes had his suspicions, but never voiced them. It was a lot to accuse, particularly when he had nothing to pin me with.

Three years down the line, we had another ten kids in the house. All a similar age. Naturally, myself, Reyes and Ezen were mightily confused. Until we were told what it was that we were expected to do. Of course, we three were competent, Reyes more so than I, and I more so than Ezen. And it was here that I began to find myself properly. The terror I so enjoyed afflicting upon Ezen began to trickle down into the other kids. Even Reyes awoke to some threats. Most of my antics were anonymous. Messages on the walls. Things moved around in their sleep. Placing a blade at their throat while they slept.

The kick soon wore off. The terror lessened. Until Ezen died. I of course had very little to do with it. I tell a lie, I showed them the exact way to get into where he slept without waking him up. But I honestly didn't know they were going to kill him. But after that... The gloves came off. The reaction from my parents was uncaring. As though it were little more than a dog being put down. My first experience killing was thrilling. The boy had something of a crush for me. Understandable, I was, and still am, a very attractive girl. But this rose has thorns that seek the heart. He made the mistake of trusting me. I 'slept' in the same room as he did the night I took his life.

Of course, I did little sleeping. I watched, and waited for him to drop off. Crawled over to him, flicking the trademark butterfly knife out from my hip holster, holding it at his throat before waking him up. The rush that I felt as I saw his eye widen in terror was the single most memorable experience of my life. Not my most theatrical of kills. A simple push of the blade, puncturing his windpipe. The fear that oozed from him, as he fought to prolong his life, attempts that were valiant, but it vain, his last dying endeavors and struggles to stay alive. I could not have pictured it being anything like as empowering as it was.

It was as though a flood gate had opened within me. At the age of fourteen, I had taken a life, and enjoyed it. Call me twisted, but it is what I am, what I was, what I always will be. Daddy's little murderer, mommy's little killer. Ironically, it coincided with my lip piercing, and the colouration of my hair. By the time Reyes was Reaped, I had claimed seven, each one done without anyone realising, until I let people know, with message written in blood, whether my victims, or my own. Them waking up with me pointing my knife at their throat, only for me to leave them quaking in terror. For me, killing is not enough. I like to play with my food. I like to toy with it, keep it on edge for my own pleasure.

Since the debacle with Reyes at the games, I have two marks denoting those I have ended. Perhaps not as many as some. But each one was an exquisite masterpiece in the art of death. Mother and father have redoubled their efforts to make me more presentable, now that I'm coming to my 'true Career years'. Functions, parties, dinners, dances and the like. And the introduction to fashion and shoes. How I love shoes. Odd isn't it? How someone as bloody minded as me can enjoy the simple prospect of delightfully elegant and sexy footwear.

And then the Reaping came. And it went. At least we got a tribute in. But did it have to be Jae? Not least because I so desperately wanted to victimise him next. But I refused to leave a job undone. And truth be told, if I were to pick any girl outside our family for tribute, Ms Harper would be top of that list. Not for her subtlety, but her utter discipline. Her no-nonsense attitude. It impresses me. I wonder, secretly, how she would handle someone like me...