Eric Matlin--District 1

Nathaniel Matlin won the genetic jackpot. He got his father’s sturdy stature and his mother’s easy grace and charm. His fraternal twin Eric did not. He got stuck with his mom’s short stature and lack of muscle mass and his dad’s watery, unhealthily pale skin that makes him seem a little eerie. There is no muscle or fat to cover Eric’s bones, so his knobby knees and elbows are rather prominent and his are easy to count. His long, boney fingers never stay still. Eric is always fidgeting with something or wringing his hands.

Despite the fact that to many children in District One, Eric is the boogey man, he actually looks pretty friendly. His thin lips break into a coy smile regularly, and it isn’t particularly uncommon for him to even show his crooked teeth if something makes him really happy. Eric’s eyes have a tendency to light up when he meets people or gets an idea. The dark rings beneath the teenager’s eyes are more a sign of malnutrition than tiredness. Eric has medium length blond hair that he pretty much just brushes out of his eyes.

When selecting clothing, Eric’s main goal is to be inconspicuous. If he isn’t noticed, people leave him alone. He sticks to dark shirts and blue jeans and eschews anything remotely flashy. He sticks to water proof boots so that his feet don’t get too wet as he trudges around beneath the streets, but most days when he gets home for bed, Eric’s feet are wet and shriveled. He is fond of thick leather gloves to keep his fingers from being bitten and to keep his prints off of crime scenes.

To most people, the first word that comes to mind to describe the younger of the Matlin twins is shy. This kid honestly make Laura from “The Glass Menagerie” look like an outspoken socialite. When he was alive, Nate Matlin was Eric’s sole confidant. Now, Eric saves his low, fluid voice for the rats. They may be disgusting rodents, but the young rat catcher finds solace in the fact that they can’t hurt him like people can, so he talks to his food before eating. Sometimes, when he is in a really good mood, Eric will even sing while he works. His voice echoes brilliantly in the watery tunnels and he is a beautiful singer, but the song stops as soon as human footsteps approach.

No idiot could successfully murder people twice his size and trained in combat. Eric is clever. He remembers almost everything he sees or hears and can recall and apply information with ease. Eric can almost always discover and exploit a career’s weaknesses, so that he never has to come face to face with his victims as he introduces them to deadly toxins. Eric’s intellect has also kept him out of trouble. A Matlin crime scene is void of incriminating evidence every time.

Eric is an optimist. He sees the world for what it can be rather than for what it is. On some level he probably knows that no matter how many careers he kills, he can’t change the brutal dynamic of the uppermost district. But he will never stop trying. Fueled by his love for his late brother, hate for career tributes, and his burning desire to put a stop to children training to be murders, Eric will continue his homicidal campaign until his death.

Eric Matlin may be a serial killer by definition, but he is not really a bad person. He suffers severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from witnessing his brother’s murder. Sleep is elusive for the poor kid because his dreams are plagued with fierce, trained assassins bludgeoning him and his brother. Although their occurrences are rare, Eric is no stranger to terrifying hallucinations of his dismal past. He tries hard to forget that afternoon in the alley, but Eric Matlin is a disturbed youth who is simply not capable of leaving the horrors of his past behind. He is really a kind and gentle child. He is generous and helpful and in no way malicious to the other children who have to live in fear of the torments of the careers. Several of the local beggars have fond memories of the teen killer sharing what little food he had with them. Eric’s intentions are in his mind completely noble. The careers are murderers. They killed his best friend and they prepare to steal the lives of more innocent children. They deserve to die for their atrocities. And District One deserves to be freed of the monsters created by training tributes.

Like many children in District One, Eric is the son of a career tribute who never made it to the arena. Abel Matlin was a strong, promising, sixteen year old career with everything going for him when he met Melinda Blake. She was the beautiful daughter of a well to do merchant and the two fell in maddening lust at first sight. Within a few months, Melinda was pregnant. Enraged, her father kicked her out of his home with nowhere to go. She found refuge with her Abel who quit training for the Games to work as a rat catcher to (sort of ) provide for her. Melinda gave birth to twin boys, Nathaniel and Eric. Melinda and Able got married the month after the boys were born.

Just in case someone is reading this who does not know what rat catching is, it is basically going into the streets and sewers to trap and collect rats. The district commissioned Able to tend to the vermin problem by paying him a meager fee, but the real income is in the form of the demonic little rodents. Nasty as it may sound, they are actually a decent source of protein. Rats have been known to carry disease, which could have accounted for the alarming frequency with which Melinda and the children fell ill. Able Matlin, was pleased to hold a stable job that as long as his traps caught rats, put food on the table for his wife and kids

When Nate and Eric were two, Melinda Matlin got very sick. It might have been something she ate. Melinda developed an extremely high fever and threw up everything she consumed. She knew she was a goner after she began coughing up blood. It only took a few weeks of her disease before Melinda died, leaving her now eighteen year old husband alone to care for his toddler sons. Since Mrs. Blake-Matlin’s death, life took a downward spiral for Able. He continued to work and get food for his kids, but he became nothing more than an empty husk of the lively teenager he used to be. Able forgot to do anything more than work, and come home to eat, sleep, and feed Nate and Eric. The shack the Matlins called home fell into complete disrepair and eventually fell down around them. Forced out onto the streets, Able continued his practices of subsistence rat catching and barely maintaining a sad existence for himself and his sons.

Eric and Nathaniel went to work with their father when they were seven. Their daily schedule included school, work and searching out a dry place to spend the night with Able. Since rat catching was basically the only means of survival Eric had seen, he was not disgusted by the filth associated with the job. The same could not be said for the other kids at school. Weak, timid, and vulnerable, Eric quickly caught the attention of several students who were preparing to represent the luxury manufacturers in the Hunger Games. At first, the bullying was just teasing. Verbal harassment about rats and sewers became a daily ordeal for Eric. But it escalated quickly. Two years later, Eric had to hide in the halls and sneak home after school to avoid serious beatings. Nathaniel provided what protection he could, but even though he was the stronger of the starving twins, he was not capable of warding off trained killers for long

Eric was eleven years old when four older careers decided to use him and his brother for “Games practice” in an alley after school. The mob used planks of wood to bludgeon the brothers to make sure they could kill. By some miracle, Eric managed to slip down a grate into the street drainage system after only being hit a few times and breaking his shoulder, hip, and a few ribs. Nathaniel was not as lucky. Right off the bat, he took a well-aimed blow to the thigh that kept him from getting away. When the careers were finished with him, all that was left was a mangled and disfigured corpse that a woman found in a dumpster while taking out her trash. Nathaniel’s killers were arrested, but because of some corrupt peacekeepers, they were released with little more than a slap on the wrist.

Able Matlin responded to his son’s death in much the same way as he did to his wife’s. He was empty and defeated. The same could not be said for Eric. He was fueled by a newfound, passionate hate for all careers. They were all deplorable animals that deserved to be taken off the street like rats. For the first time in his life, Eric has a purpose in life. He is going to kill as many careers as possible.

Eric was scared to kill at first. It took him two years to take the life of the first scumbag. His name was Fury. He was one of the best in the district with a club. Eric knew this firsthand and he had an ugly two year old scar on his shoulder to ensure he would never forget the frightening club skills of Fury. After training, the brutish career made a habit of devouring an entire hamburger. It was easy for the inconspicuous Eric Matlin to waltz into the kitchen of the training facility during the workers break and add some extra strength rat poison to the meat on Fury’s sandwich. Eric was gone before the boy started to get sick. Within an hour, Fury was no more.

Fury was Eric’s first victim, but not the last. Eric has spent the last two years picking off the worst scumbag careers he could find. The boy knows that his killings will most likely lead to his own sticky end, but he cares only about avenging Nathaniel’s death and protecting others from a similar fate.