Quinera Layver :||: District 1 :||: FIN

NAME :: Quinera “Qibby” Layver
AGE :: 18
GENDER :: FEMALE
DISTRICT :: 1

:: TAME MY SOUL ::

They told me I would never be the same. They told me that colors of the world would mix and blend and sing to me. They told me that I would feel fire when there was snow and ice when there was only sun. They told me I was alone.

Please sing to me, I said to the color blue, wrapped in its warm embrace. Sing my favorite song. And blue knew what it had to do because Mother Father Brother were gone. And orange would try to comfort me but it was really green that managed to smooth my wild hair. Just like your Mama’s, Father once told me as he stared out the window. The window was just a window that day, but Mother and Brother became something more. Their particles mixed with the air that I breathed in, the white and red and black that flew around me as I realized they are now a part of me.

Father became a part of blue and green and grey and red, their fingers reaching out to him until they finally had him in their grasp. And yet they also comforted me that night too, whispering sweet whispers as they cradled me to sleep. No one knew that I was the only person in the house and yet I didn’t feel alone in the month that I enclosed myself with the 4 walls of my room. The bright yellow color on the walls had softly licked at my skin as I sat there and the colors consumed me. They told me that I had somehow managed to survive, that even though I was alive, I looked decimated beyond repair.

But they fed me. They fed me with words and embraces and heat and comfort. I was well-fed because they had looked out for me.

:: ONE MORE TOUCH ::

I craved for the sensation of skin on my skin. The colors satiated my hunger but there was nothing like the explosive feeling that erupted from the center of my chest when a warm hand was rested on my face neck thigh. It was the only form of human connection I had, the only way I could relate to other people. At first, I had tried to be honest about it, asking people to remain with me so it didn’t look like I was only using them for their touch, but it became clear that I could not connect with humans emotionally, not when the colors did a better job.

From the girl with the wholesome family, I became the girl who craved for the one night touches, who craved for the sensation of warm skin sliding across mine. Nights were easier for me to find such companionship; men always sought out girls when the night was deep and black cloaked them well. I could never tell if they were hunting me or I hunting them for we would always meet in a dark corner and we traded words until one spark erupted from our hands and then he was my room of yellow. In the deep of the night we were covered by the soft tongues of yellow, darkness unable to penetrate our cover.

I would feel alive. I would feel the heat of red yellow orange consume me as it had Mother Brother. The pale yellow would erupt every few minutes as my body became invigorated and craved for more. And his tan hand would become tangled in my dusty, wild hair, holding him closer to me so I could feel more of this sensation. Then the night was over and the black would creep back into the corner of the earth where it hid from the sun until the sun retired to its own home. I would never see this man again, but the ocean in my eyes would drown his image into my brain.

:: BE MY FRIEND ::

The sharp sounds of knives cutting through air and fabric had once filled my ears but that was before I became enveloped by color. My parents had raised me to be a career child but on the day that the heat finally became unbearable, I had lost myself and my will. Red was the first one who had greeted me, gesturing me to join Mother Brother as they became engulfed by red and its friends orange and yellow. Its warmth and heat comforted me as I shuffled my feet toward him before a pair of strong arms prevented me from joining Mother Brother. Black started to come into my view but it was scattered, unable to become a true form, and yet it coated my skin my lips. I inhaled it deeply, the burn in my nostrils lungs strong but welcoming. Father said that I could have died.

But these are my friends. Why would they hurt me? I had told him, looking into the soft grass green of his eyes. Had they always been so vibrant? It was as if I could see them vibrating behind the clear screen of tears that they hid behind. Don’t be scared. Come out and play with me, I had told them, ignoring the clear droplets that were falling down Father’s tan face. My face, my mother had told me when I was little. “You look just like your Papa,” she would coo, as she cradled my small face. Perhaps that was why people would say Brother and I had looked alike. It was Mother with the strong features, the sharp cheekbones and clear eyes, and it was Father who had the softer angles, the gentle smile, the rows of white.

:: SHATTER THE MIRROR ::

Shards of glass surrounded me as I picked up each piece and stared through the clear screen that showed me the truth behind the white light. Colors erupted from the other end, snaking around to surround me so that each color mixed with the soft tendrils of the pink of my skin. Red would find its way to the floor and on the edges of the glass, and my fingers would grave over the soft bumps across my skin as I watched my life’s essence flow out in a trickle. It’s okay. You’ll take care of me, won’t you? I asked purple, my eyes watching brown move slowly over my skin. Yes, I will be okay.

Before, I had used the shards to feel the sensation of pain, to feel what it really meant to live, but now I only saw the beautiful colors that erupted from the millions of pieces that surrounded me. I never knew how they ended up on the floor around me do you feel a draft in the room, green?, but my senses could only detect the patterns of red as my blood moved away from me. Many times my relatives would come in and have to take care of me for a week, but they always left. People came and people left, but the colors always remained. “They are a part of me now,” I would tell people. Relatives, friends, doctors, no one understood me like the colors did.

Sometimes the clear glass was not clear but would reflect my own face. Father’s face. Sometimes it would show the brilliant mosaic of Mother with her grey eyes pink lips yellow skin. Sometimes it would show the rugged landscape of Brother with grass eyes tan skin soft cheekbones. But when it showed my face, I could only look at the deep blue that held my memories emotions desires needs.

:: LIFE AND LESSONS ::

After Father became consumed by blue and green and red, I didn't leave the room for the first three months. My muscles became weak from lack of training, my brain became weak from lack of school. But I didn’t need the education inside those 4 grey walls; my own pale yellow walls would teach me how to live my life: interacting with blue and purple while avoiding orange or brown. My pale yellow walls nourished my brain with stimulation in a different way and I knew I no longer needed school. There were no colors to whisper into my ears, there were no colors to dance across the table, not when I was in the classroom.

I never knew if I was in trouble. They told me that I wasn’t taking care of myself, that I was putting myself in harm’s way. “But I was playing with indigo,” I would say as I tried to explain my fractured arm. “Green challenged me to jump off the cliff,” I would say as my femur remained broken. “Red was calling for me and it was warm,” I would wheeze as I tried to rid my nasal passages of soot. They told me that I was reckless, insane, crazy, so I shut myself in the house, refusing to answer the door because red wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t get past red.

But then the pale yellow that coursed through my body emerged when for the first time in months, I felt another human’s contact by chance. At the time it was just a spark, a shock, a jolt to remind me that the colors cannot provide everything. I fought it, resisted it, told myself that the colors were enough for me to live, and just like the tan ocean, I sank deeper and deeper until my small body was finally pressed against another. Hold me. Put your hands on my lower back. Touch my skin. And I would shudder from the heavy sensation that started from my head to my toes.

I had survived. I was a survivor. I am a survivor.