D2 // Scar

D2 // Scar Aug 19, 2013 7:01:01 GMT -5

Quote

Post by florentine, d4b ❁ on Aug 19, 2013 7:01:01 GMT -5

[presto]

scar
eighteen
district one

[/presto]

"You kidding? I would rather be doing this than be stuck in a house with work and school and normalcy. Fuck that, this is what life is about. Freedom, depravity, the tingling in your head and your heart - oh, and don't forget your crotch. I sure haven't."

INFORMATION

NAME

Scar

AGE

Eighteen

DISTRICT

Two

OCCUPATION

Circus Freakshow Performer

FACECLAIM

Felice Fawn

CODEWORD

Odair

BIOGRAPHY

The liquid burns my throat, and I grin. My fingers are wrapped just a little too tightly around the glass bottle, and I swig eagerly, eyes closed and head tipped back. (It's not like I need the confidence that the moonshine brings, but as it goes down it stings and I can breathe just a little more easily.) Exhaling heavily, I let my arm drop as low as it can within my bindings and roll the empty bottle across the floor. My heart is pounding in my chest, the darkness enveloping my being. "We are your fantasies," the smooth voice of the Ringleader spills out across the stage. Oh yes. "Your desires, and your devils."

The crowd is not quite silent, and I can feel hundreds of onlookers edging toward the front of their seats, eyes wide with trepidation. The spotlights fall, one by one, and anticipating hangs heavily in the air. My body writhes gleefully, and I cannot help but try to consume every moment of the atmosphere. (It weighs down heavily upon my chest and runs through my veins like whisky and pills and adrenaline.) Each detail is clear and complete as the first and second spotlights flood the stage. Still, I am hidden in the darkness. They are waiting for me. And I am waiting for pain.

The time is now. Hungry eyes consume my body, chained and twisting in it's bindings, straining so hard against the metal that blood already drips in twisted trails to the ground below. I cannot contain the pulsing hysteria that slams against the walls of my chest. (I am a sinner, and I cannot wait to continue my dangerous ways.) Teeth plunge recklessly into my tongue - calm yourself, you must wait another heartbeat, another footstop, soon - and I wet my lips with the taste of my own blood. (It's bad blood, but it tastes so good.)

Feverish and ready, I count the footsteps it takes for the Ringleader to reach me. "Pathetic puppets, meet the freakshow!" he roars, and I look out over the crowd with a grin and wild eyes - they might say I look insane, but this is the closest to normality I ever feel. The crowd is tentative but enthralled already - and they show is only just beginning. The lights twinkle, bringing an eery darkness to the otherwise dim room. Everything is ready. The Ringmaster moves toward me, in a sequence we have rehearsed far more times than was completely necessary. I can't see his face - a silhouette is outlined against the backdrop of sweaty individuals and a dusty tent. I arch my back, exposing the rough, scarred skin that forms an uneven canvas. Now, to make art upon it's page.

The first strike burns, and I can feel the red welts forming after a single stroke of the whip. It cracks, a harrowing sound that sends a shiver of pleasure running down my spine. A gasp from the audience is enough to steel the grin upon my lips, and I wait eagerly for the second strike. It comes quickly, anything but heavy-handed - fine workmanship. The tender flesh it lands upon is torn instantly, leather between sliced skin. I purr affectionately, letting the pain consume me. (Those who think I do not feel the agony my job brings are wrong - I am not numb like Zombie Boy, immune to the harsh sting of nerve endings and mental weakness. But I revel in it, enjoying the way it rolls across my body, becoming my very being.)

"Again," I gasp, and sure enough, he obliges. The whip cracks and plunges down through the air. I savour the hiss it makes as it swings - cutting through the space between the Ringleader and I before meeting it's target. I reel backward, unstable in my chains. Letting my hands collapse at my sides, I feel my knuckles against the cold floor. The shadow looming above me retreats, and I know I am alone for the next part of the act. White teeth shining in a twisted smile, I reach as far as I can for the sword. (I don't concern myself much with who sets everything up, but my tools are always exactly where I need them.)

I turn the blade over in my hands, refusing temptation. It is not often I bother to fight my desires, but for now I have a job to do. I drag the blade across the bare skin of my chest, just deep enough to let blood run freely. A sound escapes my lips that echoes around the room, for the audience are all waiting in silence, holding their breath. (Can they tell that when I finally succumb to death, it will be at my own hand? But not now, no. There is more fun to be had.) I wriggle in an attempt to get as upright as possible and lift the sword high above my head.

Parted lips, sweat mingled with blood. It enters my mouth and I taste the metal against my tongue before slowly sliding it down into my throat. Some fight their gag reflexes when teaching themselves this trick, but I never had one to begin with. (It's almost as though I was born for this moment.) The blade slides down my throat easily, and after a moment I release it from the shaky hold of my hands. With my head tipped backward and my eyes closed, I light a match and let it burn between my forefinger and thumb. Slowly, carefully, enjoying every moment of the attentive eyes that rest on me, I remove the sword and toss it backward in one flowing movement. I do not hear it hit the ground, so I assume that the Ringleader has done his job well.

I hold up the small bottle that rests just within my reach, and allow the light to make the label easy to read. Whispers run through the crowd - "What does it say?" "Toxic." - and I cannot help but laugh. They fear for me, and I adore the pain. I lift the gasoline and take a mouthful before glancing at the match once more. It has burned right down now, a tiny fleck of orange light digging into my fingers, scalding them. Very carefully, without a care in the world, I breathe in through the horrible, oily liquid that fills my mouth, and then breath out.

Fire plumes from my mouth - and I am a dragon of fear and tantalising pain. (They do not want to suffer in the way I do, but each and every person wishes they were as strong as I.) My heart feels warped in my chest - the base of my throat tingles with a pleasure I will never be able to describe correctly. The flames reach out with fierce tendrils, filling the room with a burst of life that symbolises death - the perfect contradiction. "Ladies and Gentlemen," I sing out to a world of dropped jaws and unmoving eyes, "I give you the mutilationist."

I live for this. And one day, I will die for it.

. . .

Backstage, the world is almost mundane. (Here, we are all wild. All of us freaks and fools, but it is nothing like the thrill of the show.) Many hours have drifted past since the roar of applause died down and we were left alone with ourselves, but still my wounds throb. They serve simply as a tantalising reminder of where I could be. I don't appreciate them so much now, not now they only bleed a little and ache a lot and cease to burn. Uncomfortably, I sit in the eves, legs folded over a beam designed to hold up the roof. Instead, it holds me, forcing splinters into my flesh.

Tonight echoes a night many years ago, when my very best friend and I stumbled upon a building. ("Perhaps it's from before the war?") That night was one of bared teeth glowing in the darkness, reckless hearts and the desperate yearning for rebellion that comes with being twelve and never really left my lion-cage chest. We sat up there, dangling our legs precariously into thin air. I wondered, then, if it would hurt to fall. Just topple ever so easily, the shifting of weight, a slight overbalance and the rush of air and the rush of blood and not flying, but landing heavily and feeling the crush of bone upon bone.

I smiled, wicked even then. "Do you want to jump?" I felt blood - didn't taste it, not yet. Just listened to the rush of it in my ears, spinning around my head. (Alive. Alive. Alive.) I glanced at the boy who had been there since before I knew what a friend was, and he looked back at me with a level gaze. "I'm already dead." It wasn't a nod of support, just a fact, blunt and hard and dull. It landed on my mind and broke the bubble of excitement that had begun to inflate. (He was always the only one who knew how to say stop in a way that didn't make whatever was forbidden all the more appealing. Part of me is afraid that one day he will stop bothering.)

I sat there for a long while, just breathing. Feeling the weight of the pills in my pocket, tucked there with a tube of red lipstick and a cigarette. I was only twelve, but I already knew how to coax flames from the world without the aid of a match. Consequences have always been the barriers of fools, for me. Time passed - it could have been minutes, or hours. But I kept on swinging my legs, feeling agitation growing within the confines of my body. He was dead, and I wasn't, and that annoyed me. "I could be dead, too." It was a dare, more that anything. (I have always been the Queen of dares, but I lost out at truth every time.) When he didn't reply, I licked my lips, trying to taste fear. I think I lacked it in the same way Zombie Boy lacks pain.

That was the night I didn't. Didn't kill myself, because I saw enough of that boy to know that despite his beliefs, he wasn't truly dead. (And what if my demise didn't work out the same as his? What would we do if I wasn't the words and the wit and the stubborn-minded rebel and he wasn't the silent guide of what we were really doing?) So that night, the tiny child that was me bit her lip. And tasted blood for the first time. Addictive. The kind of enthralling that starts with once upon a time and ends with a blank gravestone, with nobody left to engrave it. Although some days I want to cut myself from clean from whoever Scarlet is, I can't quite bare the thought of cutting myself free from other people - alone is not a state I do well in.

Some might say it's strange that a girl so hesitant to be by herself would run away. I was thirteen, and I fled my home without looking back or stopping to think about the parents I left behind. (They'd have more kids, or get a dog, I figured. They didn't need me any more than I needed them.) It wasn't an escape, and I wasn't chasing pavements. I was chasing chances, thrills, the promise of pain and pleasure mixed in a dazzling arena of dropped jaws and shocked faces. It was all I ever wanted to do - live, hurt, bleed, dare. Feel eyes digging into every inch of my body, marvelling at the things I could endure. Wishing they had the guts to step up and take the lead themselves. And knowing they never could. (Because I ran away with the circus and I couldn't be more proud.)

Now, I sit on a different beam not so far away from that night. Tonight, I don't entertain the thought of falling. (I hold it at arms distance, content with the knowledge that I will die one day.) For now, all I need is a blunt blade, a little plastic bag of a substance I can't quite recall and the almost empty bottle. Once darkness settles a little more, I might find my feet and stumble out into the street. Find something to break. (Find someone to break me, maybe.) Not yet, not now. For now, it's another swig, another cut, another shiver of pleasure as I become one with the monster inside of me. Almost, I have released it.