Helloooo there! This is written for Starvation (Third place last time on my first try! Woot!). I was really hesitant at first to write about the Morphling from six, but then when I thought about the prompt more, I realized exactly how I wanted to do it. Also, I'm going on Spring Break, so my other stories are on a temporary one week hiatus. Anyways, hopefully this is original enough!
And I laughed that the prompt was a Tupac Shakur quote ("Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.") So here's one to start:
"I reject your reality and substitute it for my own." ~ Adam Savage
Poppy.
It was such a simple name, but she could understand the beauty hidden within it - the way it flowed smooth and supple across her tongue, the gentle pop of the "P"…the high, piercing ending that faded softly and slowly, like an echo in a cave. Collected together, the sounds formed the short, delicate name that was almost (But not quite) as delicate as her.
People never really understood Poppy. Even before she won the Games, they thought she was strange, though it wasn't like Poppy understood them either. So she saw it, and her isolation, as a moderately fair trade. Besides, why waste (Such a nice, fluent word) time trying to win people's affections, when there are so many beautiful things in the world that deserved her time? What would the colors and sounds and shapes do if everyone's attention was spent on the people around them? They needed to be noticed too, no matter what the others said. Without the attention, Poppy feared they would wither and die likes daises in the winter. Though unlike the daises, they would never return with the gentle lull of spring's voice.
After her Games, when she returned with blood on her hands and a mind so much less innocent, she wholeheartedly gave all of her attention to them. Unlike people, they couldn't hurt her in a way so strong (At least, this is what she thought) that humans could. They couldn't uproot her out of her perfect, innocent life as if she were a vegetable that was ready for harvest. It just wasn't fair - but she realized that people weren't fair. She was much better off living in her dream world of colors and shapes and sounds, though much more deeply than she used to as a little child. They were her first method of escape, her way to leave the nightmare of reality and keep it at bay.
She gave the colors her gentle affection through her paints - through the soft baby blues and fiery blood reds that painted themselves across the canvas with each stroke of her brush. To them, she held up a mirror and said "Here - see your beauty? See the soft way you color the morning sun, or the greenish-blue tones of the sea? See how much more beautiful you are then me?" But the colors never seemed to want to cheer Poppy up, not like the other children did to their friends. Instead, they tore her down, lowering her self-esteem and riling up just a hint of loathing for herself inside of her. However, she knew that it was for the best. The colors were proud and beautiful, while she was anything but.
For the sounds, she listened. She lent her ear to the way people talked - hearing their slight inflections, soft accents, and emotions in the noises they made. To her, there were no words - only sounds and tones and emotions that were easily uncovered if one looked hard enough into a person's voice. And to the sounds, she strained to hear and said "Listen - hear that? See how beautiful you make the world? See how smart you are - allowing communication and music? See how much more smarter you are than me?" But hearing the sounds just left her more sad than she had been, but she didn't care anymore. That was just the way things were.
To the shapes, she gave her time. As she went through her day, she would stop, feeling with her hands and feet whatever was happening. Taking it in not through sight or sound or smell, but touch, the least accredited of the senses. For a fraction of a second, she would take in the rough outline of bark against her back as she read a dirty paperback in her yard, or the shape of a silken ribbon sliding through her hands as she tied it into her sister's hair. She felt the scars on her arms, the soft covers of her bed, and smooth curve of the metal pendant on her mother's necklace. And for the shapes, she called out "Can't you feel it - how perfect you are? How whole and untouched? How vital you are to life? See how much more important you are than me?" And thinking about how measly - how insignificant she was to life itself - made her just want to die.
No one seemed to notice this though, because no one seemed to notice Poppy. It was just a trait she had - she spent so much time alone and away that when she was there, she just blended into the background, part of the scenery. Her increasing depression was left to fester cold and alone.
This was about the time that Poppy - sweet, delicate, little Poppy - turned to the morphling.
The first time she used it was on a whim. Her fellow mentor Leaf, who was six years her elder yet pretended to be much more wiser, was already hooked on it. Four times she had caught him with it, and even if she couldn't bring herself to stop him, it scared her. However, on a day when she was feeling especially down and no amount of painting or listening or feeling could help it, Leaf offered her some. He said it made the pain go away. It turned the hurt into a fairytale, a place where nothing bad ever went wrong and you could never feel sad.
So she did it - she didn't particularly want to, nor was there an astounding revelation. She just did it because she wanted the pain to end. It was simple, really. Leaf always carried some with him. All she had to do was stick the needle in her wrist, close her eyes, and wait for the dreams to take her up and sweep her away.
Leaf had been right. It was beautiful over there, wherever the morphling had taken her. Everything was so beautiful, so effortless. She felt like she was walking on clouds, bouncing on the balls of her feet with each step and breathing in the now-sweet air that surrounded her. The colors seemed brighter, the sounds softer, and everything so much more interesting. It was enthralling - something totally new that she had never experienced before. She was in a bubble of perfect, unbreakable paradise, a world so much like her young childhood that it made her believe that was where she was.
When she came back, though, all that was left was the memories of that beautiful reality and the smug, knowing smile that stretched across Leaf's craggy, yellowing lips.
The second time it happened was out of desperate need. Her whole family was gone now, buried in the ground and left in this reality only as rotting corpses. She was the only one left. She didn't want to be the last one - it just intensified the pain. She needed to escape. She needed to go back to that dream land and away from death and Snow and a world who expected her to be a weak, pliable Victor.
So she crept into Leaf's room, taking his morphling and injecting all that she could find in his hiding spot.
And once more, she was in her bubble, dancing through fields of pretty little poppies with only the soothing numbness accompanying her. It was a relief - she was Poppy once more. Everything was going to be okay.
Then came the third, the fourth, and finally the eleventh time it happened. Her body started to change - her pale skin became yellow, her ribs showed through ripples of sagging skin, and her eyes turned dull. But she couldn't bring herself to care - why should she? She was in her dream world, a perfect bubble of happiness.
She started to go in for longer and daily, until the dream world was all she knew. She couldn't stop, but it was better this way.
Because she needed it. She needed her reality. She needed those colors and shapes and sounds that had once been so entrancing to her when she was a child, but seemed to have disappeared after she left District Five for that Game. When she had it, she felt whole. She was no longer the Victor, the woman she barely knew that lived in a world of nightmares and pain, but Poppy once more - beautiful, untainted, unbroken Poppy. And for that she would give anything - even her sanity.
Because sometimes, dreams are so, so much sweeter than reality.
If you read this far and liked it, drop me a review! You know you want to...:)