Thalia Court {District Six}

[Cameo {RIP Charlie}]

Thalia Court

District Six

17 yrs Old

Time sped and paused in the very same moment. Chaos swam through overwhelmed thoughts, burdened by the clock ticking away the chances of salvation. Memorized facts swirled in desperation to pinpoint the answer being requested, while in turn it only blurred the words of her mind to solely an unattainable blubber. The lethal injection delivered it’s final drop into the innocent rabbit, who’s breath and survival she’s managed to maintain for an entire six months now - a new record, though one timestamped with a length that her siblings surpass more often then not. Her heart raced as rapidly as the small white fur-ball’s, her eyes dashing between him and the hourglass dripping away his seconds before the antidote will no longer aid him.

“What is the answer, Thalia?! You’r patient is dying!” Regina, her cruel Creator to this unforgiving realm, barged for the perfection she expects from all of her prodigy offsprings - furiously annoyed by the continuous stupidity that derives from her second youngest. All other eyes carve into her in most likely a mutual disgust, their stares burning holes into her skin; while her own remain shifting between her precious Rabbit, that she’ nurtured and care for for so long now, and the hourglass threatening his existence.

Thoughts continued to scramble, crumbling to silence. The seconds swiped by through the hourglass unnaturally fast, while each of those specks of sand collapsing down halted time entirely. Her Rabbit began to seize to it’s conclusion, the timer expiring entirely. “I don’t know!” She screamed in desperation to be as perfect as her siblings. “I don’t know! Please! Please! I don’t know! Please! I’m sorry! Please!” Begs hurdled from her lips as though it were her own life on the line.

A jolt from Regina bustled her desk in seek to snap her back to reality, flinching her at the very same moment her Rabbit’s final breath exhaled from his poor lungs - though she knew her Mother would never lay a finger upon her in follow, she’d never leave evidence of her cruelty for other’s to see. “Stop it, Thalia!” Demanded from her pursued lips. “No amount of pleads will save your future patients! Only you can! And if you don’t get your shit together, you’ll kill all the patients you’re given!” The raise of her voice weaved in stench despite her pristinely cleaned and minty breath, a volume only the Court offsprings would ever endure. To the outside District Regina and Wynn Court were perfect, their Offsprings bred to be as perfect as them one day - aside from Thalia Court though, the black sheep of failure amongst the pristine family of gods.

~ ~ ~

Hollow eyes pierce upon her reflection in a blank stare. Brown abysses, speckled with gold that once shined back with hope and care, now glance back from the muggy aging mirror, unkempt unlike the Doctors’ bathrooms, with numbness where faith once resided. That faith had vanished years ago, with the glow of her rosy pale complexion and gleam of her irises, when she still strived to make Mommy and Daddy proud, when she still hysterically attempted to maintain her animal friends’ breaths from their threatening demand for her to be perfect. No longer do they balance innocent animals’ survival upon her failure and success, though her failure remains - and the unbalanced scale of other’s survival refutes to disappear or fix from that consistent defeat.

Paleness does continue to linger upon her exterior however, untainted by the sun’s rays with far and few moments beneath it - time mainly spent studying the craft of healing in darkness, or in the Hospital, or in the Church, just as it’s always been since memories first formed. And though the routine of her days remain identical from then, her features do not. Blonde locks frame her sullen face, in short length from her silent rebellion to her unforgiving Creators. So many whisper of her lack of resembling the family, in both internal and external manners, might as well match her hair to the minuscule beauty that separates her from the rest of the immaculate Courts.

A short disposition lowers her from the others as well, as if in physical representation to her inability to reach the standards all the other Court offsprings seem to maintain easily. Slight muscles embark her structure in another unspoken protest to her Creators, desperation to gain a smidgen of control upon her own life - though it presses her further into the unattractive category in comparison to the breathtaking female Courts; while leaving bags beneath her eyes, as nonexistent free time for the failure child has a portion of hours for sleep wasted in her strive to maintain some control. If failure is inevitable in her Creators’ field, another skill can at least be secretly indulged.

~ ~ ~

Silence consumed the Hospital hallways of Olympus’s, owned and ran by the notorious Court family, just it often did on a nightly basis. Crises were mainly few during the moon’s hours, though it felt as though the reaper’s claws grasped more so at such times. Shoes echoed down the halls, with no voice to follow in warning of the approacher - as if feared that normal volume may awaken the entire floor to mayhem. Though mayhem and death still crumbled in tenfolds compared to the chaos of the sun’s shine. But within this facade of peace, even whispers could be heard by the nearby, like the blonde Failure tiptoeing through the building hours past her shift to retrieve a forgotten folder.

“Poor fellow passed with little warning.” She heard a nurse discussing with another, from the room designated to her own patient. Even softer her steps approach the conversation within the room she was already headed to, to capture the folder of a patient she was determined to finally succeed in saving. “Always happens to whoever’s put under the care of intern Thalia. It’s as if she’s cursed or something. I don’t understand why her parents even try with her anymore. They should save their energy for the three that actually show great potential.” The same disgust she’s heard from Regina and Wynn, Natalie and Winston, weaved the nurse’s voice, directing fault to solely one. “She won’t even care when she discovers another one of her patients passed away. Maybe she even purposely ensures her patients’ ends.” Petty. Accusation. Hate. The blonde Failure had heard it all before.

But she’d never intentionally lead any of her patients to their demise, or endured such an assumption. Instincts pulled her steps backward, as if she were already caught in an area she’s permanently banned from. Hope and desire to heal always settled her heart in the right place, in a struggle to cure the unfortunate souls sent her way. But caring had been ripped from her abilities, just as success seemed to have been, while still the guilt and self-hatred always remained upon the depths of her core. Guilt. Regret. Failure. She stumbled into an unknown object, as if blind and foreign within the territory she was practically raised in, inducing her escape before the nurses certainly investigate the unexpected collision.

~ ~ ~

Water flushes down her face in seek for retrieval of her stolen emotions. Another death marks her negative score of success rates, yet tears no longer cascade down her cheeks in result to the catastrophe. Sorrow weighs in the darkness of her pit, while it spreads no further - it doesn’t consume her as it used to. Knees crumble her to the tiled filth, of the bathroom for the low class employees and failures such as herself. Strength drains from her numb existence, anger overriding her where sadness once lingered - though the regret and guilt remain all the same. Anger, however, has overtaken the majority of her daily temper.

The rough walls, neglected by cleanliness of the Janitors, support her forever dwindling frame. A fist rams behind into it’s grime, raged partially by deficit abilities, though mainly be another innocent soul stolen by her stupidity. Her own life had been robbed by her desperation to save theirs’. Childhood and teenage-hood had been embezzled by the Creators determination to craft her into the perfection she’s not, nor ever will be, - that pristine Doctor like them, and her Siblings. And here she sits with absolutely no success, upon a bathroom floor designed for her failure, unable to save a single existent.

Not all the pristine Courts were cruel at least. One remained pure despite their Creators’ crave to corrupt. Surely as talented as the rest, while still containing a heart unlike them. Even when failure continues to envelope the blonde Failure, Collin would never pierce his stare at her in disgust. An understanding, a soft spot, an actual sibling love, formed between the two youngest. When feelings seem to become unreachable to her, he proves to her that a heart still holds a beat beneath her chest. She’d cry when he did, even if she couldn’t when she needed to cry for herself.

~ ~ ~

Numbness was beginning to creep upon her, during the time she traveled to her next poor victim, of her studies, room, though it hadn’t full overtaken yet even if it was expanding with every passing day. But the moment her eyes collapsed upon her new patient, emotions returned brutally like the first gust of wind to the welcoming of spring. A small girl, with strangely hair and raggedy clothes, sat upon the bed in hesitation to the future to come. A charity case of sorts, though the blonde Failure would never label it as such, as solely the very rich could afford care within the famous Olympus Hospital.

Each minute available, upon all of her shifts and rare breaks within them, the blonde Failure spent with her patient - with a rediscovered hope in her abilities. Every detail was gathered about the youngster, even beyond the necessities of what’s required. Hours passed sitting beside her bed, learning of her symptoms, life, and history alike. A bond between a patient and wannabe healer formed as she never had before And though every night was spent sleepless in determination for a solution… the Youngster’s fate was just like the others cursed by the blonde Failure.

~ ~ ~

Fingers weave through those short blonde locks, starving for an understanding to the life given to her of being a Failure. Expectations were set upon her, raised to heights of towering Capitol Buildings, from the first sound of her hushed cry at birth - before pictures of skyrocketing structures were even flashed before her infant vision. The entirety of the Olympus hospital staff gathered in awe at the third of four prodigies to follow in their parents legacy, to heal all rich enough and cure any ailments inflicted upon their existences. Her eyes shut, blocking the cruelty of the Panem if solely for a moment, into the depths of darkness… yet peace. The brutality of the fluorescent lights still blurred past the lids of her vision, as she tempts to locate when everything went wrong - not solely why she continues down her Failure path, but how she got upon it in the first place.

Uncountable animals were placed upon her care amongst the sweetness of her childhood. A kitten gifted by Collin after she assisted him in his cat’s delivery. A baby bird she just coincidently discovered, after her Mother surprisingly shoved her outside to play, chirping in it’s heartbreaking song of pain from falling out of it’s family’s nest. A baby Rabbit limping across the road on their way to Church. So many and more innocent souls happened upon them all, to form a bond with, purely for their parents to cruelly dangle their existence before them - fating their next breath on a correct answer. Panic would always induce upon the blonde Failure when the threat approached, her heart plummeted in races as if it were own life fencing upon the line. Perfection and insensitivity was their goal; and though it took the blonde Failure longer then her siblings, the end result was far from perfection… only an ability to stuff her care to near nonexistence.

Proper eduction is positively not at fault for her lack of skill. Regina and Wynn Court train them theirselves from their first words to now, switching off depending who was required at their Hospital. Money isn’t the issue either, as they have it in plentiful compared the main populace. An entire Hospital belongs to them, where solely the richest of the rich could afford their care. A lack of time doesn’t linger as the problem either, as purely studying, working in that practice, and the Church, consumes all of their days. The issue? Solely in herself, which is exactly where the reasons for her patients’ deaths remain as well. Palms cover her sullen features, like she may hide from this truth.

~ ~ ~

The room had cleared hours ago, yet the blonde Failure remained. The death certifier came and went. The nurses had left. Even the Youngster’s deceased body had been taken for the morgue. And still Thalia was unable to budge from the seat in which she collapsed into, or was forced into from her desperate struggle to bring back the dead. Lights were even dimmed by another, as she became invisible to all cleaning and exiting the room. A fly on the wall to the nurses outside conversing in hushed tones. “Perhaps Thalia’s not cursed… I dug a bit into her patients’ files, and her parents give her all of the ones with extremely slim, to mainly nonexistence, chances of surviving. Capitol Docs would probably not have better odds with these cases… Maybe she’s just better at handling patient deaths more then others.” The nurse, who rumored about her months ago, spoke of sourly sweeter gossip. But she didn’t easily absorb any of the deaths that resulted from her attempts. For her entire life she proved no potential. Maybe the nurse had simply misread the files. It wasn’t unfortunate cases. It was her. She was the black sheep of the pristine Court doctors after all. She was the blonde Failure.

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]