{FIN} иเφђ†мลяэ {₫10}

n i c e  t o  m e e t  y o u ,
w h e r e  y o u  b e e n ?
i  c a n  s h o w  y o u  i n c r e d i b l e  t h i n g s .

    Next thing I knew, my thoughts and feelings were champagne bubbles in a glass I could only look at and never touch. I don't exactly remember the irrational snapping of a fifteen year old faced with the Reaping. All I remember is that the third time I had to register my name for the fish bowl of death, I made what felt like a pact with the devil.
            I think the devil got the better end of that bargain, but I got what I needed. Strength. Strength in a world where having it is the difference between the devil coming to collect my soul now or fifty years from now. 
            Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. Baby, I wasn't the fittest. The stretch marks like long, slender bruise-scars can attest to how much I used to weigh. My mother called it "curvy." My sister called it "plus-size." My father called it "adiposturally endowed."
            My brother called it fat.
           He had always been the most honest one of my family. Always. Always always always. I trusted my brother the most. When I had asked him, hoping to hear the same kind encouragements the rest of my family offered, he had said, "No, Mare. You're fat."
        Ten years old, hearing the person you look up to the most call you fat... meh. I'd say devastating, cause it was. But it gave me part of my motivation to get fit. To work my ass off-- literally!
          Now, I'm strong as an ox, agile as an antelope and fast as the wing beat of a hummingbird.

magic
  maddness
h   e   a   v   e   n      
S  I  N

        "Mare, go over to Auntie Lilac's and ask her for something to bring down your father's fever," the gallantly graying matron said, wiping her hands on her apron as she emerged from her husband's sick room.
        "Is he going to be okay?"
        "If we get the medicine in time. So, hurry."
        Nightmare scampered across the worn wood floors and out the screen door, hearing the hinges and spring squeal and then the loud crack of wood against painted wood. The gravel poked the bottoms of her feet, as well as the infernal sticker burrs, but she kept running.
        "Aunt Lilac?" she shouted, banging on the old woman's door. "Aunt Lilac! It's Mare. We need some medicine."
        No answer. She glances behind her as a hulking black crow lands on the road and pecks at the sparkling rocks.
        "Aunt Lilac?"
        Pulling open the screen door and pushing open the door, Nightmare paused at the smell of putrid flesh, her legs twitching as though trying to get the muscles to move in the opposite direction of the smell.
        "Liiiiiilaaaaaaac?"
        There she was. Slumped on the cot, rats in her lap and her hair. Maggots in her eyes, wriggling and squirming as much as Nightmare was at the sight of the necrotic old woman. 
        She saw the box-- the medicine box open on the wicker chair next to the bed, Auntie Lilac's hand resting against the seat, as though she were reaching for the box in her last moments.
        The head jerked, flipped forward and rolled down Lilac's chest before bounding off the bed, hurtling towards Nightmare. A rat emerged from the neck, wriggling its little pink nose as it sniffed the air.
        That's when she started screaming. And running. Out the door, throwing herself off the front porch and into the waiting sticker burr patch. She ran back to her home, her empty hands jerking through the air as she balanced herself in the sprint, her chest heaving as it drew more acrid summer air into her lungs.
        "Where's the medicine?" her mother demanded as Nightmare took a seat in the hallway chair to pick wood splinters and stickers out of her feet.
        She opened her mouth to answer, but another round of coughing started, followed by the sound of a lot of choking. Her mother flew into the room and Nightmare watched from the doorway as mother turned father's body over onto his belly to get gravity to clear out his throat.
        Nightmare watched as the blood dripped from her father's lips onto the floor with a light tapping noise.
            He wasn't coughing anymore as scarlet liquid life dribbled from his mouth to the ground.

s a w  y o u  t h e r e  a n d  i  t h o u g h t
o h  m y  g o d  l o o k  a t  t h a t  f a c e
y o u  l o o k  l i k e  m y  n e x t  m i s t a k e
l o v e ' s  a  g a m e -- w a n n a  p l a y?

    Mom and my brother died two weeks later of the same thing. 'Zelle and I still had the house. She was nearly 18 and our parents had a little money saved for disaster. I was eleven. It was a year until I had to register for the Reaping. Every night, I prayed to the God who took my parents to beg him to not take my sister too.
        He must've heard me, because 'Zelle turned 19 right after the Reaping and she was still here, helping me with homework and getting me a job at the cattle ranch when I turned thirteen.
        God, that cattle ranch was a mistake. I wish I had never worked there. If there's one thing I regret, it was working for that ranch. That's where I met Huron.
        He was tall. Dark. Handsome. Forbidden because he was the son of the owner and nearly five years older than me. But I loved him. I was gooey-eyed at first. I spent all my free time during the ages of thirteen and fourteen working out so I could lose weight and daydreaming about Huron. About the love of my life who passed me by with a quick glance that, deep down, I knew held disgust.
        Fifteen. Fifteen came. Fifteen, I felt good about myself. Working outside so often had given my dirty blonde hair a good near-bleaching (plus, I think it lightened with age), had kissed my skin with a golden sear and my hips had widened. And I'd gotten boobs. The boobs were a significant improvement, since they kinda balanced out the ass I'd always had.
        'Zelle was busy taking care of her new husband and their twin boys. I lived with them, sure, but they didn't have much time for me. I was in my room doing a lot of writing and push-ups. I wrote a few novellas. They're still in a box under my bed. I don't take them out. They're mostly garbage about romances between Victors and the tributes they're mentoring, or a Peacekeeper falling in love with a young woman in the district he defends.
        I knew he was staring at me. I counted the cows as they walked through the gate in the evening. We needed a specific number of cows from Pasture C. I don't remember how many. 
        I'd worn the jeans that used to belong to my sister, so they were just a little too tight in the ass. I mean, good to showcase my backseat, but kinda uncomfortable, you know? Not the kind of jeans you want to do agricultural work in.
        "What's your name?" he'd said. He leaned against the side of the barn, under one of the huge lights used to help the guards watch for vandals. His leather boots with their fancy threading were scuffed and his pants were tight in the right places and his shirt-- I got a nice view of his incredible pectorals.
        "Nightmare," I'd responded. "Did you need something, Sir?"
        "Not really. Say, you got anything to do this evening? A bunch of my friends'll be having a bonfire tonight. Wanna come?"
        He was twenty. It hadn't dawned on me the differences between fifteen and twenty. Five years. I should've been worried. I should've said no.
        "I'd love to. When?"
        

' c a u s e  w e ' r e  y o u n g  a n d  w e ' r e  r e c k l e s s
w e ' l l  t a k e  t h i s  w a y  t o o  f a r

          Firelight flickered like a group of heathens dancing in a wood pile. Nightmare knocked back another gulp of the alcohol that burned the roof of her mouth and back of her throat. The burning followed her esophagus to her stomach, like she was swallowing that fire in front of her, and sat in the pit of her belly.
          She had probably had too much to drink. No, not probably. Definitely. But she wasn't going to let anyone else know that. 
         Huron's crystal blue eyes glimmered like melting ice in the glow of the bonfire. He sat, lounging against the back of a huge log, bottle in hand and occasionally sipping at it. When he ran his fingers through his hair, Nightmare felt shivers run up and down her spine. 
            As the night dragged on, blood alcohol levels rising like the half-moon above them, the others began to slip away. First the blonde and red haired girls. Then the black haired boy and the brunette girl. Then the dark-skinned boy and the pale girl in a midriff-baring top.
          Nightmare's thought processes where slowly dying from a bright fire to mere embers, so it took Huron walking over and laying down next to her for her to realize that they were suddenly alone on an open plain, backs flat against the Earth, eyes towards the stars. She sat up quickly as soon as he reached for her hand.
          "I should be going home. My sister is going to kill me." she said slowly, focusing on making her words understandable. Her tongue felt as heavy as her brain.
          "She shouldn't mind. You're old enough to do whatever the fuck you want."
          "She will. I should go." The words became empty as she made no move to get up.
          "You're going to stay then?"
          "I think she'd be more worried if I stumbled home drunk."
          "You can always stick with me," he said casually, stroking the back of her hand. "We always got room at my place."
          Her heart beat quickened like a horse going from a trot to a gallop. "You sure? I don't want to im-impose."
          "Absolutely," he murmured, leaning in towards her face. "It'd be no trouble at all."
         His lips brushed hers and she instantly closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, letting it meld with the smell of the campfire and the wind that was like his kiss: slow and insistent. One of his hands went to her waist, the other her upper thigh. 
          It was like the slow, insistent wind blew away the warning bells and the sounding alarms and the impulse to stop before anything became too heavy. All she knew was that she liked the taste of his alcohol-soaked lips and the firmness with with he held her close to himself and that she wanted that closeness to be even closer.
          The sun had hit its highest arc by the time she awoke in his bed with a heated pain in her head and a soreness she couldn't quite place. 

i t ' l l  l e a v e  y o u  b r e a t h l e s s
o r  w i t h  a  n a s t y  s c a r

          'Zelle only raised her eyebrows when I told her that I'd been with some friends and we'd decided it wouldn't be safe to walk home as late as it was. It was the kind that told me she knew I was trying to bullshit her, but she wasn't going to lose sleep over the consequences I'd probably have to face for reckless behavior.
          "Mmhmm," she'd said before turning back to the dinner pot. A few thick bones floated in some water with some root vegetables, simmering along the surface as it let go of its steam.
          Three months passed. Many of the nights of those months spent by Huron's side. On Huron's arm. I had always tried to please others-- especially the people I liked. Huron was no exception. When he wanted a demure, pretty girl to add beauty to a room, I was his bauble. If he wanted an animal behind closed doors, I was his tiger.
          He started commenting on my weight. That was the first sign of trouble. My stomach had never been flat, but now it was becoming rounder. You can already see where this is going.
          I tried to remember the last time I'd had my period, but I couldn't. It'd been way past due. 
          "I'm pregnant," I'd told him. "We're going to have a baby. Isn't this great?"
          "Shit." 
          My face dropped. "What? Aren't you glad?"
          "Why the hell would I be glad, bitch? You been fooling around. That's the only explanation. It's not mine."
          "No, it is! I'm telling the truth! I swear, Huron. It's yours. I've been faithful to you. I've done everything you've ever asked. You said I was everything you'd ever wanted."
          "Ripred," he'd said. "I knew you weren't bright, but I didn't think you were such a dumb bitch. You're dumber than a box of rocks. Dumber than a sheep. No. Dumb as a sheep. That's all you are. A sheep."
          "You have to marry me!" I'd screamed. "This baby," I'd clutched at my partially swollen belly, "is yours, goddammit!" 
          "Not anymore." 
          He punched me. He punched me in the stomach and I felt something inside of me break.
          "No!" I'd screamed. "No, get--"
          Huron pummeled me to the ground and began to kick. Something was going wrong. He was supposed to be glad. Happy. Not--
          The pain was excruciating. Emotional. Physical. Spiritual. I was powerless to this man who decided my life and the life of the child he helped create where worth nothing in his eyes.
          I knew where I stood and I wasn't going to stand for it.
          He sat down next to me after he was satisfied with his work. I quivered against the floor, my chest aching with every breath I took. My lower belly cramping and crying out in pain. He'd tried to talk to me. To "make me see sense," as he'd put it. 
          I'd lost the ability to speak as I stared blankly at him.
          "There was an accident at work," Huron had said after he'd carried me from his home to my front porch. "I was told to bring your sister to you."
        "Oh my God! What happened?!"
         "She was standing on a fence and fell into one of the cattle pens and knocked herself unconscious. A few of the cows must've stepped on her. It's a miracle she's alive."
          I never bothered to correct him. Ever. To this day, my sister thinks I lost my baby and my job because of some sweet, stupid cattle. They'd compensated me for my work and dismissed me. Good references, of course-- part of me wants to think he was just scared and didn't know what to do-- so I got a new job after I recovered.
          But nothing was really ever the same for me. I stared with numb eyes and a numb heart at everything after that. When I had to sign up for the Reaping again when I was fifteen, I stared at the glass bowl of death without any fear-- for the first time, I felt nothing and it felt good. 
          My sister calls my nothing-feelings depression, but I call them invincibility. 
          

g o t  a  l o n g  l i s t  o f   e x - l o v e r s
t h e y ' l l  t e l l  y o u  i ' m  i n s a n e

          They call her a "man-eater." A nightmare dressed like a daydream. She walks around looking just like everyone else, but she lures you in. She lets you think you're getting what you want until she turns on you and she destroys you from the inside out. 
          But they're only rumors, right? The list of lovers longer than her 5' 9" body. The past with the Huron boy who committed suicide last spring. They're only rumors and we shouldn't set any store by them. Look at her-- she's hot and sexy and fun and everything you could ever want.
          Nightmare sits against the log this time, across from the fire she started herself. A new boy has joined the circle. Long, slender legs. Strong arms. He looks flexible and she likes them tall. Maybe he can show her how to throw that knife of his.
          She takes a gulp from the skinny-necked bottle in her hand and plays with the dirt with the other. Maybe she should let him go. Let this one slide. Let him escape.
        No. Don't let the man escape. Don't ever let your prey escape. You wanted him. You go get him.
          Standing up on powerfully-shaped legs from exercising horses, Nightmare saunters over to the man. Sits down right next to him. On the side not occupied by the girl who wants to play rivals.
          Sorry, baby, but Nightmare don't do rivals. She doesn't give a fuck one way or the other if you want to get into the man's pants. She can always come back and squeeze something from him-- maybe even from you in the process.
          But the way his whole body shifts to focus on herself tells Nightmare all she needs to know. She'll need to borrow that knife of his to add another notch to her bedpost.

b u t  i ' v e  g o t  a  b l a n k  s p a c e ,  b a b y
a n d  i ' l l  w r i t e  y o u r  n a m e