[ Imago 'Zero' Kolspets ] x [ Avox ]

Imago 'Zero' Kolspets

They call me Zero. I can't correct them because they have stolen my ability to speak. So, instead, I brood on why they would call me after a number that means nothing.

Most likely because that's what they think I am: nothing.

Yet, I am stared at. I know why they stare and makes my heart burn all the more. With the passing of the 72nd Hunger Games, before which I had been free and happy at home, I was transformed from a citizen of District three to a slave of the Capitol - a slave that was made to look like a victim of the very District I was stolen from.

After some handful of surgeries, some seeming never-ending plucking and poking and prodding, I was made to look like a boy who had so recently died. Why? Only because I was deemed similar enough that the work they would have to do on me wasn't "extensive". If what I went through wasn't "extensive" then I would hate to see the lengths they would really go to just to make their ideal vision come through.

The darkest irony in all of this is that they now treat me as both a slave and a celebrity. I am a model to pose and be adored, but I am also a dog to be beaten when I don't do as I'm told. The collar around my neck - actual and not figurative - can be choking. Each time I step I am always ready for the smack that will come if I do it wrong.

What did I do wrong this time? What did I do that was wrong enough to stick me here?

I grew up in the wrong District and when I attempted to correct that, they snapped me up and deposited me onto the operating room table. When I next woke, I had no tongue and a new face. My eyes are the only thing they left the same, the only sign that I am not the boy they've made me to look like.

I have always had dark hair, as he had. The fact that they don't have to colour it every month must have made them happy, and must have been part of the reason why they had chosen me - of everyone - to change into someone from the past. My cheekbones have been broken and reshaped, falsified into something they were never meant to be. I was starved of my boyish looks to seem more hardened and worn. While I was never plump, I hadn't exactly been thin either. Now, though, I am nearly entirely muscle and am forced continually to maintain a slim and fit physique.

The one thing they have done to me that I am actually proud of is the tattoo circling my right leg just below my knee. They made it look like there was a fracture there, as though my leg was stone or glass and something had struck me hard there. There's another tattoo on my back between my shoulder blades that looks like a lightning bolt.

They dress me up like a doll, placing me in different outfits just for their own amusement. I am a puppet to them, a toy to play with. I despise it. The removal of my dignity is worse than the removal of my tongue. If I hadn't tried to escape from the District I shouldn't have been born into then I would never have been put in this situation. I have no one to blame but myself, and still I blame them. They are the ones who did this to me, and no matter what I may have done to deserve it in their eyes, they are the evil ones. Someone needs to show them that they do not have control over everyone and everything.

That person is not me, because I bow my head so as to not get hit.

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I was born in District three. My parents work traditional District three jobs and we lived in a traditional District three house. We ate traditional District three food and lived traditional District three lives. Yet, I was never content.

Ever since I had learned about the sea, I had wanted to see it. From the moment in class when we were taught about District four, I wanted to live there. For years I harbored the unending need to go to District four. I planned for nearly a year before I attempted to leave for the first time.

I had been eleven; old enough to think I knew everything I needed to, but young enough that I didn't really understand the proper consequences of what I was undertaking. My father caught me, having heard me attempt to sneak out of the house and following me to the edge of the District, his hand circling my wrist as I was about to slip out into the forest. I was given a stern talking to, but my parents were never the type to hit me. Even now, when I must have given him the biggest scare of his life, he only raised his voice and not his hand.

After that, I had stayed on the straight and narrow for the next couple years. I contented myself with reading what books I could about District four. I knew better than to ask too many questions, and when I was asked why I was so interested in District four I had fabricated the notion that I would become a Peacekeeper and wanted to be stationed in District four. This would normally deter the adults who eyed me curiously.

When I was thirteen, Leon Krigel and Siren Baitwell faced off as the final duo of the 67th Hunger Games. District four was guaranteed a victor for the first time in living memory. All of the suppressed longing for the ocean welled up in me again like a buried spring being rediscovered. When Leon went on his victory tour I eagerly went to see his speech. I don't remember anything of what he said, instead I was so focused on the fact that he must have been around the sea his entire life. Jealousy, awe, and despair were clawing at me to the point where I was unable to face Leon even to so much as shake his hand for the fear that I would make a fool of myself.

I was hard pressed to keep myself from attempting to sneak onto the train that was taking him to each District. My father, evidently sensing something about my returning fascination, kept a close eye on me until Leon finally left District three, taking my hopes of seeing the ocean with him.

From that point, I was back to planning how I would get to Four.

I didn't find the opportunity until shortly after the end of the 72nd Hunger Games. With a victor from District three, everyone was ecstatic and there was much celebration of having another child come home. The intense, close fight between Atticus Manor and Ezero Laffan had been watched without breath until Atticus had finally struck Ezero down with a blow to the chest.

Just like that final blow had been enough to take Ezero down, so the Tsunami was enough to wipe the strength from District four. The rescue and aid efforts provided me the perfect cover to sneak into District four. What I didn't expect was the level of security on the trains that were transporting workers.

They caught me almost immediately, and I didn't help my case by attempting to lie my way onto the train. When they grabbed me I fought back, kicking and punching. I had taken a knife from my home and stabbed a Peacekeeper in the leg. That was when they arrested me and flew me by hovercraft to the Capitol.

That was when I lost my tongue, and later my dignity.

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My name is Imago Kolspets. I am the carbon copy of a boy who died to the victor of my old District. I want to see the ocean, but I have been denied. Instead, I am drowning in a sea of hidden hostility and copious amounts of glitter. I have been robbed of my tongue, my passion, and my own identity.

They call me Zero because I have nothing left to give.

They call me Ezero because I look like him.

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[1] Lightning bolt tattoo: here