ELNORA SOREN // D9 // FIN

[Onyx]

elnora soren
fourteen
female
district nine

Dark. In the dim light of Elnora’s bedroom, pupils which are usually tiny pinpricks dilate until they almost fill her almond-shaped eyes, eclipsing the washed-out blue of her irises. She blinks, scrunching her eyelids tightly together once- twice- three times, a habit that she’s developed which is a sign of her natural nervousness. The blackness around her is stifling, and she waves her hands in front of her face as if checking how viscous the space is. Two pale birds, the whiteness of her skin unnerving, with five long and naturally curling digits that spread out like claws. Elnora doesn’t go outside much. Slowly, she brings them towards her face until they are in sharp focus. From spending so much time working in close-up, she has developed a slight short-sightedness, but it doesn’t impair her. Pressing one to her cheek, she is relieved by how cold it is. The palm is smooth and, underneath her fingers, her prominent cheekbone is equally so. She knows that having spotless skin is a trait that runs in the family, just like her thick dark hair and long sportsman’s limbs. She’s lucky on that count.

Craving more reassurance that she still exists in the swamping void of her room, her fingers travel down from her cheekbones to her wide jaw. Too wide, and square, like a man’s jaw. It contrasts sharply with her thick lower lip and feminine cupid’s bow. She follows the line of her jaw sideways, to its joint, and then traces the shell shape inside her ear. They’re neither big nor small, sitting close to her face and usually hidden by her brown curling locks, which she tends to let hang loose and wild. To her, there are more important things than always looking pretty. Next Elnora studies her triptych of a forehead, the two sides sloping outwards and the front a plane cliff face that ends in her thin eyebrows. Down the bumped bridge of her nose she takes a detour with her thumb, lightly pressing on the thick bags under her eyes. These give her the impression of perpetual tiredness and, combined with her blinking, are the marks of a regular insomniac.

Cold. As she turns slightly to find a more comfortable position, she discovers the reason why she’s woken up at such an hour. The hand that rested on her sharp collar bones while the other inspected her face shoots under the blanket and presses tentatively on the bedsheets around her hips. Damp, and freezing. Just to be sure, she lifts the hand to her wide nostrils and breathes in. The sour tang of urine confirms her fear. What else could it possibly be? An involuntary shiver of embarrassment runs down Elnora’s spine but she suppresses it, as she has done since the bedwetting started. Only she can fix the problem, and one day she will find out how. In the meantime, what’s most important to her is making sure that no one else finds out about this problem. Slowly, she sits up, her excellent memory marking exactly where the noisy spring is so she can avoid it, and puts her feet on the ground. First, she pulls up her nightdress and lays it gently on the floor, the wet patch clear on the cream material now that her eyes have adjusted. Then, naked, she stands and begins to methodically strip her bed.

For Elnora, everything has a routine and that routine is what will stop the task going wrong. The order in which she deals with her ‘problem’ is very precise, and that betrays how frequently she does it. The issue itself is suspected as the result of Elnora’s fears, irrational and ever-present, but Elnora treats it as if it were a normal occurrence for a fourteen year old girl (though inside she burns with secret humiliation). Having spread the undersheets out next to her nightdress, Elnora pads across her bedroom and retrieves a half-empty bottle of writer’s ink from the table. Personally, Elnora sees writing as a stupid habit – and prefers tasks that allow her to create something physical. It’s why she loves the time she gets to spent with her father in his lock shop, casting keys carefully and fitting the cogs inside locks, all the tasks that he himself can’t do with his old and trembling fingers. However, she tells her family, (lies to them, with ease) that she writes just so her method for disguising the wetted sheets is logical and believable.

Carefully, with patience that many teenagers could only envy, Elnora smudges the ink up the side of her right hand, and then smears it from there onto the sleeve and lap of the nightdress. It spreads through the damp fabric as if it was spilled, not dabbed expertly by this ‘artist’. She tugs the nightdress back on, grimacing at the smell of urine mixed with thick ink, which she reassures herself will be gone by the time her mother sorts the laundry. Most of Elnora’s confidence comes from events which have already happened, because that’s the only way she can be completely certain of an outcome. Setting to work on the bedsheet, Elnora repeats her method, dabbing the ink first onto her forearms and thighs, and then sitting on the sheet, hunched as if she were writing furiously, and letting it run naturally onto the fabric beneath her. The perfect excuse for an impromptu change of bedding. Overall, the duty takes no longer than twenty minutes. Elnora changes her nightdress silently and gathers the laundry into a bundle.

Quiet. There are four floorboards that creak between Elnora’s room and the stairs, as she knows from years of practice leaping across as silently as possible. Even before the bedwetting started, around the time that the little girl learnt of the real life nightmare that had befallen her aunt and two cousins for the first eleven years of Ivy and Indigo’s lives, she had played games trying to get from one side of the landing to the other without a sound. However, after the evening when she was eleven, her cousins fifteen, and they were explaining again for Elnora’s father how they were the product of the kidnap and rape of their mother, his sister, the game became much more important. It was only by accident that she heard the account at all. After her bed time she was creeping downstairs for a glass of water when she heard the trio walking past. Darting quickly into the kitchen, Elnora closed herself in the dark of the pantry so she wouldn’t be spurned for being out of bed. The conversation was slightly muffled, but Elnora's hearing was sharp and she made out almost every word.

Suddenly, after learning the truth of why her cousins and aunt had moved in with the other Sorens - for refuge, from a psychopathic father who kept the girls in a cage underground for over a decade - the pantry no longer seemed like a safe place to be. With her vivid imagination stimulated, Elnora looked around her and saw not the stacked shelves and cabinets, but cold iron bars, closing in on her. The panic was like nothing she had ever felt before and it wasn't subsiding at all. Her breathing quickened and her face grew hot, and before she knew it she was whimpering audibly, and the conversation outside had stopped. Elnora didn't hear the chair scraping backwards, the heavy, hurried footsteps of her father, or the pantry door squeaking open. All she saw in her mental cage was a twisted male face peering at her, a hand coming closer. It was too much. Overstimulated and afraid, Elnora let out a shriek and backed into the corner of the pantry, away from him. It was suffocating, the walls seeming to move closer together to push her forwards again. Elnora was contorted with fear, tears streaming down her face. It was a memory she could never forget.

Elnora grew more introverted from then on, both embarrassed by being found in that state and desperate to suppress the thought of her mind-cage, and the monster who reached in to pluck her from it. It wasn’t just the pantry that triggered a panic attack, but any small space at all. Her trauma had developed into acute claustrophobia, and rooms with only one door always increased her anxiety. The condition made her nervous around people, afraid that they would laugh at her for being so pathetic. She spent time by herself in preference to around her friends, and even began to stop talking to members of her family. When Ivy was killed in the 63rd Hunger Games, just after Elnora’s 14th birthday, this reached a schizoid level. The weight of her secondhand memories and own issues made her almost totally self-reliant. And that’s why it was imperative that no one, especially not her own family, found out about her night-time problem. Careful to stay as quiet as she was on the way to the laundry room, Elnora checks the pile of bedsheets is positioned in a way that looks natural, but allows the soaked patch to dry, before turning and heading back to bed. Another successful mission. It may not be a step towards recovery, but it was practice for a future where Elnora could simply pretend her problems didn’t exist, like she was already beginning to.

[cass]

*SQUEALS*

[/size]