voice unkind, death rewind [Asha; day 4]

[kousei ♚]

a s h a

{It's in your stare and at your core}

Immortality was slain thrice over today, twice by my hand and once by my negligence.

Always the practical thinker, I make a mental note to skin them for their fur later and consume the meat that's buried within.

"Am I the perfect career son yet?" Barely below a shout, nine digits fumble and twirl the card at my finger tips. I do not dare to read the letters scrawled along the surface of the storm.

Look at the letters that spell Asha Lumiere and 'good' is not in the plethora of labels and presumed definitions chaining tired feet to the ground. A training score of ten, blood caked underneath my fingernails and a wry grin in the face of a raven in the corner of my eye. Along with presumed definitions come synonyms but it's dangerous to use the term 'perfection' so loosely. They spat in my face and told me beauty could not be found in shades of grey, but perhaps a good career son can.

I crushed District Four's skull with my fists before she could find a voice. Simply because she was in my way and I wanted the shiny thing in her hand. The key to my freedom was to be found in visible shades of red and pried from snow white fingers that could not budge without being attached to a name I do not remember to this day. Adrenaline coursing through my veins, blood lust thawing my heart; I wonder if I was the perfect career son in my father's eyes at that moment.

Or perhaps it was to be expected from a madman who threatened to gut him one too many times behind knuckles long since swollen black and blue.

I cannot find the balance between the past and the present, back pressed against the stone wall, I vaguely recall never quite finding the balance between the glory and the gore. As if fiction could overwrite reality and stain whitewashed walls red and reveal the ugly truth reveling deep beneath the camouflage and breathing behind the smoke. I would proudly saunter up to my father, covered head to toe in the blood of a dummy, and he would shake his head and scoff.

('What was the point in that?

You're making a bloody great mess on the carpet!

Where is the method to your madness?')

No method to the madness, but I've made a big mess.

"I can't fix it."

My eyes followed the blackened blood trail all the way to the black gorge across Mitchell Laws' throat. Veins and arteries severed, voice box permanently silenced, a first glance told me I could not repair what was permanently damaged. Words and sentences that would never be tumbled out in coughs and sputters while he choked on his own blood. No amount of time spent in the first aid station fixing fabrications or sewing over an extension of fiction itself could prepare me for this. I did not smile, I did not wince, I just breathed and I wasn't even grateful.

Mitchell Laws was no angel, but not even he deserved to have his wings clipped so prematurely just so he would feed the crows.

I can pierce trembling flesh and put people in death's door with the swing of steel and clenched fists along with bulging knuckles, but I never possessed my mother's gentle healing touch. Long before the crevasse of insanity swallowed my mind whole, she would wrap red scrapes along my knee and bruises from being hit one too hard with the wooden sword.

('You seem to like getting hurt, Asha.'

'Not really.'

'Just keep working hard towards the finish line sweetie, I'll always be there to catch you when you fall.')

Promises at twelve are nothing when the reaper's scythe narrowly missed my obsidian flesh and clipped the white wings of my ally. If it had been me who bit the hollow bullet and inhaled the ash not even my mother's gentle touch would have rescued me from death's door. No amount of bargaining or dealing can save me now, just as no amount of bargaining or grieving will raise Mitchell Laws from the dead so he can take the card I do not dare to read from nine fumbling digits that won't turn it around.

My mother's gentle touch kept me up for years, but not even the hand of a goddess could mend a fragmented mind with no method to guide its way. She forced me to bargain with the shrink and the threat of a thousand bullet holes if I dare told a lie, she tried medicine ('please Asha, just take your fucking medicine!') and had father force it down my throat with a mouthful of painful profanities. It didn't quite have the same effect as a plaster upon a scraped knee or an ice pack on flesh dyed black and blue.

"How can I be the perfect career son when I -"

- failed to pay attention?

Look at the letters that spell the name Asha Lumiere and there is no synonym for 'aware' anywhere in the bundle of presumed definitions and chains. Just. Rust.

Even the most well-oiled machine malfunctions once in a while. Bolts begin to unscrew, hinges begin to hang loose, parts slowly begin to wear and tear. Breakdown; it's not a new concept.

I've been defective since my age struck thirteen, but evidently there is no room for error. The canon of Mitchell Laws that's itching to sound is evidence of that. I stared at the downed (friend acquaintance comrade?) deep into his eyes and then deeper into the slit in his throat. I do not remember the color of his eyes and the color of his hair is but a blur (black, blonde, brown) but he still healed my wounds all the same when I knew nothing but desperation and panic with a hole in my hand and neck.

I did not watch to hear the final seconds tick down.

I could imagine Lilith now, the sister I always hated.

('Getting a bit sentimental, Asha?'

'This is why I was the better career'

'Let's see who's got the better aim.')

And she would be wrong of course, a heart encased by ice can only be thawed by bloodshed. Look at the letters that spell Asha Lumiere and they cannot be rearranged to form 'sentiment', it's just not part of my plethora of labels and presumed definitions.

I giggle to the ground and keep twirling the card in my hands, I am careful to avoid the printed on the surface of the storm by the hand of a dying man.

He handed the card to me as a gift, the ace of spades he called it. A silent gift parted from the finger tips of a dead man; it should feel hollow across these perfect career shoulders, chiseled by the perfect metal of District One itself and following the sound of every click and clank. Nothing gets in the way, those are the typical words of the perfect career son.

I still accepted his gift without a word and I turned my back to Mitchell Laws and his congregation before his final seconds ticked down.

Just like I accepted the family that materialized from the shadows along with background noise when I pressed the reaper's scythe against my wrists and laughed. I wonder how long it took for Annika to realize what her cousin really was and turn off the television. Somehow, I doubt she's cheering at the career son who cannot taste perfection, but scorning the madman dragging the precious fucking Lumiere name through the dirt. I never cared for family legacy anyway, especially not when the final gifts of a dying man rest in the tips of my fingers.

Honing the radar of the perfect career son, nothing gets in the way when I set my sights. I stop twirling the card and read the words of a dead man on the surface of a storm.

'Don't lose your mind.'

The corners of my mouth twitch upwards.

(And a canon sounds in the distance.)

My eye twitches when I allow the hilt of my sword to slip through my fingers and my fingers to tighten around the handle of the axe. Nothing gets in the way, my radar is set on the Capitol beast that tore its claw across Mitchell Laws' throat and in ten steps I am viciously hacking and hacking. Cutting through sinew, arteries and bone until the soft spine severs and blackened blood sprays across the ground and drips heavy from the blade of my axe. I do not stop when I have buried my axe half way, I do not stop when I feel joints begin to ache and fatigue begin to dig its claws into muscle, bone and spare parts.

('Don't lose your mind.')

Look at the letters that spell out Asha Lumiere and it quickly becomes apparent that perfection is not a suitable synonym. I will never be the perfect career son while I still slowly rot in the whitewashed corners of my mind.

"Too late."

Fingers blackened with blood entwine with the matted black fur and drag the bleeding head of Mitchell Laws' killer across the ground under the cover of twisted laughter riddled with beautiful imperfections.