★ {MALLORY PERRI} ★ D10 [FIN]

★ { n a m e } mallory "mal" aurelia perri
★ { a g e } sixteen
★ { g e n d e r } female
★ { l o c a t i o n } district ten
★ { s e x u a l i t y } heterosexual

Found a way to blue
And another ghost to follow
Said "it's only up to you"
And that's the hardest pill to swallow

★ { a p p e a r a n c e }

It’s cold tonight. And not just pull your jacket a little tighter and huff warm breath into cupped, trembling fingers cold, but really cold. The kind of cold that that slides ice-edged knives across smooth, cream-colored skin that isn’t quite used to being exposed to the elements just yet, the kind of cold that gnaws its way all the way down into your bones and feels like it’s freezing the marrow itself. Teeth chattering no matter how hard you try to keep them clamped shut and shaky breaths shuddering from between pale lips in puffs of steam cold. There’s an icy alertness that comes along with being this chilled to the bone, a painful awareness that only serves to remind me that I can’t quite feel my toes or the tips of my fingers. Maybe that’s why I’m not wearing a jacket tonight. It’s better to freeze than to burn.

I’ve been doing a lot of that lately – burning. Every time pale blue eyes flutter closed with a sweep of dark, thick lashes I find myself ablaze in memories I can’t seem to claw my way out of, flames flickering behind the backs of my eyes every time I so much as blink. It’s the fire-filled nightmares and daydreams that have me sitting on the barn’s cold tin roof tonight, arms and legs bare and riddled up and down with chill bumps as my body cries for heat or shelter from the bitter cold that creeps icy and chilling into my veins. I press my thumbs lightly against the thin, slightly raised streaks that line the soft undersides of my wrists, at the warmth pulsing beneath the jagged skin. I’m not too fond of the sight of blood, but lately I’ve been seeing quite a lot of it. I have to. I need to. I need the agonized awareness the sharp edge of a blade brings to my sleep-deprived mind, I need the escape from the flames that sears its way into my dreams and destroys everything I have all over again every time I close my eyes.

I need the scars just like I need this. The cold breeze against my skin, feet dangling over the side of the roof as I peer over the edge for a quick glance at the ground far below. I need the little bubbles of fear that rise up from the pit of my stomach and send my frail limbs trembling, thin frame shaking and shuddering in the cold and the threat of agony looming just out of reach. And I do reach for it. Thin fingers grasping in the air in front of me, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes and my body leaning forward further and further and further until I’m gone, sliding right off the edge of the roof, chestnut-colored hair fanning out behind me like a dark auburn flame as a scream tears from my throat and adrenaline shoots hot and cold and searing through my veins and then I’m laughing, laughing and screaming and crying as the ground comes rising up to meet me, because I’m not burning anymore. I’m flying.

You never get to choose
You live on what they sent you
And you know they're gonna use
The things you love against you

★ { p e r s o n a l i t y }

The barn’s the highest point on the property, as far as I know. My aunt’s run-down little estate is quite a big chunk of land and I haven’t gotten the chance to explore it all yet, but until then I’m going to spend my nights sprawled out on my back along the tin roof of the shabby, over-sized shack of a barn, taking in the stars or soaking in the rain or freezing in the wind or whatever the weather may be on any particular night. You may think I like it up there - why else would I spend so much of my time there? – but I don’t. In fact, I hate it. I’m not too fond of heights, darkness creeps me out, and the way the rusted metal roof creaks and groans beneath my weight absolutely terrifies me, thoughts of the tin giving out and sending me crashing to the ground far below running circles through my mind every time I’m up there, but that’s just the point, isn’t it? Sleep holds far worse horrors than a broken arm or a shattered bone, and the wide-eyed alertness that such endless fears bring serve to keep my mind on edge instead of drifting off into flame-fueled dreams and disasters. My bed’s been cold for two months, and not because the sheets are too scratchy and the pillow smells like stale hay and moth balls.

No, it's the fear that has me climbing up onto the roof every night, teetering precariously on the edge whenever I get too close and letting out the occasional terrified squeal each time I almost go lurching over the side and spiraling down into fireworks of agony and splatters of blood on the long unmowed grass. As if I haven't before. As horrible as it sounds, terror and pain are the best ways to send adrenaline pumping thick and fast through your veins and send white-hot stabs of awareness into a tired mind. It's better than the alternative - burning alive in a nightmare that seems to never end, all my dreams going up in flames before crumbling into dust every time I close my eyes. I haven't slept in what feels like months, but can you really blame me? My dreams now are simply a broken record stuck on repeat, relaying the worst night of my life over and over again in the darkest hours of the night. Even awake, that night haunts me. Sometimes I think I can still feel the intense heat searing against my skin, still taste the smoke on my tongue and hear the screams of my parents echoing in my ears.

I know it terrifies my siblings, my problem. I dance with Death every day, and it seems as though they’re all holding their breaths, anticipating, waiting for the day when I finally trip and fall into its open arms. Logan is a nervous wreck to begin with, usually the one to come barging out of the house whenever he sees me up on the barn’s roof and demanding that I get down this instant, young lady, before you fall and break your damn neck. Juno is often not far behind him, a little more stoic but still staring up at me with wide, worried eyes. No telling how many times she’s found me crumpled in a heap at the foot of a tree or sitting in my room, rolling a razor around in my hands contemplatively. She used to yell at me when such things happened, but now she simply holds me, petting my hair and treating me as though my bones aren’t what’s broken. I don’t like it when she gets like that – she’s supposed to be the steady one here – but all I can do is smile and insist that I’m fine, sis, don’t you worry about me. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. And frankly, I don't believe me either.

I do a good job of pretending, though, I think. I try to be the same old Mal I was two months ago, with the fiery temper hidden beneath a layer of pastel-colored clothes and a soft smile. I try to be the witty, sarcastic little fireball I used to be, who always knew how to bring a smile to someone’s face but knew how to tear one down, as well. I miss that Mal - a lot - but I don’t think she’s coming back any time soon. She burned up two months ago along with everything I ever knew, burned up along with two people I loved and took for granted far too many times to not feel the guilt that gnaws at the space behind my ribcage. She burned up along with my home, my parents, my life, and you know what the worst part is? She’s still burning.

One foot in the grave
One foot in the shower
There's never time to save
You're paying by the hour

★ { h i s t o r y }

I don’t like this place. I don’t like it all. I don’t like the way the house seems to creak and moan whenever the wind blows hard enough or how the roof leaks during a storm. I don’t like how the only think keeping the lights on and the water semi-heated is an old generator around the back of the house that looks like it was assembled from old car parts and duct tape. I really don’t like the outhouse - we don’t have the luxury of toilets that flush anymore. In fact, a lot of the luxuries we had before have been snatched away from us, everything from my make-up bag to my television set reduced to ash and blown away in the wind. It’s a literal riches to rags story, princes and princesses of the district torn from our cozy chateau and dropped off in the hick house of the year with an aunt we didn’t even know we had. We went from clean, cream-colored walls and polished wooden floors to a four-bedroom shack on a farm.

The house wasn’t built for a big family, and I have to say - I’m not liking my new living quarters. Aunt Elsa’s got a room to herself, of course, the biggest one. Logan and Lucas are sleeping in my cousin, Harvey’s, old bedroom, while he moved to the couch in the living room. Juno and I share a room, as do Sloane and Josie. Back when we still had a home, we each had our own bedrooms, and the only time anyone ever slept on the couch was when we’d fallen asleep watching television together. The last time I shared a bed with anyone was once a few months ago when there’d been a particularly violent storm raging outside my window, rain and wind beating against the glass and the low rumble of thunder drumming inside my ears until I left, padded down the hall to the nearest bedroom, and crawled up into Sloane’s bed. I haven’t done anything like that since – I’m not exactly the most affectionate person in the world – but I suppose it doesn’t matter if Juno and I share a bed. I don’t sleep in it anyway.

We’re all starting to adapt, I think, but not exactly in ways considered healthy. Logan, for example, is so incredibly paranoid that he freaks out any time one of us so much as stubs a toe. He used to be a kind of mellow guy, a regular big brother type, but now he jumps at his own shadow for fear of it lunging out and devouring one of us, and it seems all he does now is boss us around and tape the corners of tables so that we don’t bruise our shins on them. Lucas is more or less the same, still a crackhead, but now deprived of his drugs. He’s gotten more and more irritable lately, jumpier, a kind of tired, almost crazed look in his eyes. I was never really close to him to begin with – he’s more temperamental than I am, and fire and fire together only serve to simply make a bigger and more destructive fire – but now I hardly even talk to him. Sloane’s starting to scare me; he’s gotten a lot little thinner in the past two months, and the endless optimism he acts like he still possesses seems fake and caked on like the make-up I used to have by the bucket-load. Josie hasn’t changed much, still the innocent little girl she always has been, but she’s been talking to her imaginary friend a lot more lately. I guess that’s not all that bad, though, even though most thirteen year old girls have kicked that habit by now. And me? I’m an insomniac who jumps off buildings.

Juno seems to be the only one that’s still got a good head on her shoulders. She’s always been like that – level-headed and calm in any situation, much more of the eldest child of the family than Logan or Lucas. She’s really stepped up in these two months after the fire, become a sort of mother to us all. She cooks and cleans, makes sure we all get to school on time and that we’re all doing okay. She’s been spending a lot of time with Harvey lately, too, but that makes sense seeing as our long-lost cousin knows what it’s like to support a family. I been doin’ it all my life, he said once when we’d first moved in, and I don’t reckon I’ll stop now. He’d made us feel real welcome, I remember – he’s a nice guy, a real Southern gentleman, and fairly well educated despite the fact that his accent is so thick that sometimes I can’t understand a word he’s saying. While he and Juno get along swimmingly, though, he and Logan clash regularly. Harvey’s not used to having another alpha male living in his house, and Logan’s pretty set in his new paranoid, bossy ways. You can almost smell the testosterone saturating the air whenever they’re in the same room.

The absolute worst part about this place, though, is Aunt Elsa. Think wicked stepmother, and you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. She’s vindictive, she’s hateful, and she’s always got this horrid scowl on her face like she’s smelling something foul. She’s pretty useless, too, content to just sit around and make Harvey do all the work. When I look at her steely gray eyes and frizzy, dirt-brown hair, I can’t believe she was ever related to my mother. Mom was all kind smiles and flowery perfume, not overalls and muddy work boots like our dear new Auntie. At first, I’d felt betrayed that my parents had kept an aunt and her son hidden from us all our lives, but seeing this stone-cold woman and the way she looks at all of us like we’re filthy mutts she’d like to beat away with a rolled up newspaper, I can kind of see why they’d felt the need to keep her a secret. The thought of having to have spent every Thanksgiving with that woman is enough to make my toes curl.

The place does have its perks, though. There are the stars, first and foremost. In the heart of the district, the glow of street lamps and the lights shining from the windows of all the homes clustered there was enough to fade the night sky into a blank, indigo-black with nothing but the moon and a few faint silver dots spotting the sheet of darkness. But here, where there’s just the wind in the trees and the melodic creaking of cricketsong humming in the air, the night sky positively glows. The horses in the barn, too, have proven to be good company. I’m thinking about asking Harvey to teach me how to ride, and the thought of sitting up on one of those horses, leaning against the wind as it gallops through wheat-brown fields and rolling hills under a blazing southern sun or a star-studded indigo sky, it’s a kind of flying that might make the burn just a little more bearable.

Slipping through the bars
Aware of the danger
Of riding in the cars
Taking candy from strangers

{ o t h e r }

★ { f a c e } anya summers
★ { p l o t s } perri family plot
★ { s o n g } falling awake by gary jules
★ { c o d e } oDair