Glitch's POV
I don't remember much except for the fact that I had just been raped.
I was nine; it didn't happen often back in those days, but when it did, it overwhelmed and destroyed me. I ran away, vowing to stay far from home for the rest of my life. I had nowhere to go, nothing to fall back on, so I was left wondering.
When I saw a fire and a girl there, and she waved me over, I found that I didn't have a choice. I went, as much as I wanted to go back. She had her neat fire, a backpack, a couple of folded up blankets a tiny stuffed dog sitting on top of the pile.
She looked about 16, a gray bandana wrapped around her head, her rusty, reddish hair tied in a tight braid. She had two scars on her face, both across her left eye. The larger one went the whole way down the rest of her face and pulled her lip up. The other was smaller, and together they formed a lop-sided X. She wore cargo pants, a leather belt with no weapons I could see in it, and a puke-green T-shirt with many rips and tears.
I was terrified; I ducked behind the fire, trying to shrink and fold awy into a small box the size of her palm.
"Want some bread?" She held a piece out to me, and I took it with shaking hands, knowing full well I wasn't allowed to eat it.
She flipped her braid over her shoulder, while I nibbled on the bread and watched. She took out some mystery food and started cooking it over her fire.
"Don't be afraid," she said, watching my wide eyes. My stomach flopped, my eyes wide with fear and guilt. I knew I shouldn't have been eating that. I should've brought it home to my parents, I knew, because I ruined their lives and I owed it to them.
I took one more bite (it was so good to feel warm and have something to eat) before pocketing it.
"Eat," she said, shooting me a look that made me shrink even further and obey her wishes. I nibbled on my bread without a word, and she watched me quietly for a long silence.
"Call me X," she said, and I looked up, glancing at the scars across her left eye that formed the uneven letter X, and wondering if that's why.
"What's your name?" she asked, watching me.
In her expectant glance, I panicked; heart pounding, eyes widening, I realized I probably looked like such a dummy in that moment. But the girl's rusty, reddish-brown eyes looked old and wise, experienced and motherly, so I trusted her.
The only investment of my trust that didn't explode in my face. Well, it did, but it wasn't her fault. That's a story for later.
"G-Glitch," I stammered. She blinked, and I had to add quickly, "It's my real name. I'm nothing but a glitch, not supposed to happen, and somehow I was able to ruin two entire families."
By that time I had heard it so many times I had become numb to the fact. Besides, that was a time that I had barely understood what it meant, nor did I ever give it a second thought.
Even now, my childhood years are a blur, a constant day-to-day basis. After one day, I forgot the pain and looked to the next day.
As my uncle got more and more irritable, he touched my mother, abused her, and made me watch, knowing that I couldn't do anything to help her. Later, she took everything out on me. My cousins beat me up, lead by the oldest of them, a brat named Rasputin that was seventeen at the time. My aunt turned a blind eye to everything, staying pretty and silent in the kitchen. I got the runt of dinner, if I even got dinner at all. My Dad took his anger out on me, and he was the worst because he was always unafraid to break my nose.
As time went by I was abused and raped more often, my uncle told me it was my fault his brother is miserable, it's my fault that we're nobodies, and I deserve everything I get.
Eventually, the day-to-day approach began to fail as I realized that each day coming would only get worse than that proceeding.
I dwelt and lingered on the past, long and sleepless nights followed; I am the glitch, the reason everyone I live with is unhappy, the scapegoat, a bastard child, the last to bathe and eat, the abused and molested, the unlovable, I am.
But no, I can't run away, "Because you already destroyed everything, so you might as well stay and try to make up for it." If I run I'll be the worst kind of villain: I'd have ruined their lives and then ran away before I could improve them.
The night my uncle died and we were kicked out was a disaster to my parents, having to force their way into the homeless community of the Smog. To me, though, it felt like being freed from a prison. One less chain on my ankle.
I could never have said that out loud, though. Definitely not.
Anyways, I've gotten lost in my nightmares again, as usual.
It's been happening a lot more often lately. Making me want to cut, to die; nightmares, god-awful nightmares, all thanks to the people that surround me and have ruined my trust, and have spit on me and laughed at me, taunted me and tortured me, gave my black eyes and broke my glasses…
There I go again.
Off on a tangent, falling into my own misery.
Lost in my own nightmares, drowning in my own darkness, trying to do anything to claw myself out but ultimately falling all the way back down again.
X's lips turned down in a crooked frown, the scar interfering with the motion. She glanced at me with sorry, pitiful eyes.
"That's awful, and untrue. It's not your fault."
When I was 9, I didn't believe I could possibly be the cause of so many problems. I had a hope in my heart that maybe I had a purpose here, that everyone is born for a reason.
Oh, the good old days, the days when I had hope, the days before I wanted to reel over and die, the days before I slit my wrists, and my stomach, and my thighs.
"Never believe it's true," X said quietly, "Please."
I nodded, firmly believing that I would never let them get to me.
If only that had lasted.
She gave me more bread, and forced me to eat it. "There you are."
I nibbled on the last of my piece of bread and watched her.
"You're going back home?" she asked.
"I never want to go home," I said, feeling comfortable. It was better than I had been treated in a long time.
She looked ready to say something, but stopped herself. "Right."
We sit in silence. She messed with a metal fishing hook in her hands, and I watched quietly, not keen to talk, eating my bread. In the moments that followed, nobody talked and yet I felt especially close to her. She was going to protect me, and I was going to be all right. For once, I was at peace.
The next time she spoke, she looked up and I could see her faint freckles in the firelight. "My name if Fujita. I'm your genderfluid, wandering street rat that also happens to be number one or two on the Capitol's Most Wanted List."
I squeaked a bit. "Wh-What did you do!?" My stomach dropped.
"I'm a, uh, radical. They don't like that."
"Where are you traveling to?"
Her jaw set, emphasizing the unevenness of her lips. "I don't know. I'll wander until I make it home, die, or…" she bit her lip, "Get captured."
"You could get captured?" the thought made me sad.
Her frown wavered into a confident smile that gave me a surge of hope. "Yeah, but I've only been ambushed twice in a year and a half." She traced the two scars over her eye. "Whips," she said, "They want me alive, so nobody shoots."
Her expression wavered for a second, darkening, "That may not be the case for very much longer…"
She tossed me the rest of her loaf of bread, sliding into a beat-up binder, putting on a heavy brown jacket, and clipping the braid of hair up to the top of her head. X didn't do much to change, but somehow in that moment looked completely different.
"You didn't see anything, got it?"
"Yes, Miss Fujita-" I was shushed quickly.
"I'm not a Miss anymore, kid. Call me Fuj." The way he said it sounded like "fudge." "I'm gonna get some shut-eye, and you're welcome to stay however long you want. I'll probably be gone by the time you're awake, though."
I decided that sounded like a fine idea. "Thanks!" I curled up into a tiny, comfortable ball by the fire, and felt a blanket draped over me very gently before I dozed off to sleep.
.
The next morning, I woke up to an exclamation from a very familiar voice.
"Aha! Wake up, brat!" My eyes flickered open, and the world was very blurry. By the time I found my glasses and put them on, I was yanked off the ground by the scruff of the neck, yelping.
Just like that, Fuj immediately snapped awake and into action, rolling up from his sleeping position.
"Put him down!" His eyes were stone-hard and his crooked lips curled into a death scowl that made me want to cry.
"Who are you!?" demanded my oldest cousin, Rasputin.
"My name is X, and I suggest you don't mess with me. Put him down."
"Snot, tell your guard dog friend to back off!" The attention was quite suddenly on me, and I panicked, tears coming to my eyes that I tried to fight away.
"Leave," says Fuj, "Leave now. And leave the kid."
"No way. I'm bringing him back home!" Ras spit, his grip on me tightening.
Fuj began to bristle a bit. "I'm feeling nice today, so I'm going to give you one last morning." He was completely a different person than I had talked to the night before.
How X was so many people at once, I'll never be sure.
Not knowing anything better to do, Ras dropped me and lunged for Fuj, fists raised and coming fast in a punch. As if expecting the attack, Fuj grabbed him by the wrists, hauled him around, and pinned him tight to the wall with a shiny dagger to the base of his throat. Ras gasped but didn't scream, his gray eyes wide and slightly terrified.
I wanted to cheer, but I kept my mouth shut, still shaking and unsure what to do.
"Forget you saw anything and go home while you've got your life and all your appendages," Fuj growled. He sounded completely different than the girl I had talked to around the fire, and part of me wondered if he really was a different person, even though I had watched X change the previous night.
"You know, I'm a little turned on right now," Ras finally said with a smirk.
Fuj didn't play any games with him. "I swear to God I will cut your tiny dick off. Go ahead, test me, I dare you." He flashed Ras a sweet smile, but even I could see that the intention wasn't very sweet at all.
"Such a cute little girl," my cousin cooed, "With your dumb hairdo and your cutesy freckles…" He'd done that to me before. He's always won fights like that, by exposing weak points and insecurities to throw off his opponents.
Fuj stood strong, dagger coming closer to Ras's throat, unfaltering. "Actually, friend, I'm very much a man, and my dick is so fucking big that not even your big-ass mouth can handle it!"
Ras faltered first, obviously repulsed that he had just tried to flirt with someone very much a guy like himself; his smug figure dissolved and his face turned a dark shade of embarrassed and angry red.
"F-Fine, psychopath, I'll go home and I won't say anything!" he stammered. I wanted to hug Fuj, but figured I should wait until Ras was gone.
"Damn straight!" growls Fuj, "I'm a trained assassin, and I've never been caught before. You'd better listen to me and never ever touch Glitch again, understood!?"
Ras wasn't happy, but he nodded anyways. As soon as Fuj let him go, he fled.
"He shouldn't be a problem anymore," Fuj said, collecting his stuff and re-pocketing his weapon.
"What if he catches your bluff!?" I asked.
The response I got was a blank stare and a couple of blinks. "You think I was bluffing?"
"You… You weren't?!"
Fuj's lips turned up into a lop-sided smirk. "District Two, trained assassin, is there really a difference?"
I laughed a little bit, but the statement was truer than I knew at the time.
He placed the stuffed dog he had when I first saw him in my hands. "Take this. I don't need him anymore. His name's Sparky. He'll protect you."
I didn't know what to say. I had never received a gift before in my life, and never ever had dreamed of having something this nice to call my very own. "Th…Thank you…" It was all I could make myself say.
I wish I would've said more.
"Take care, Glitch," Fuj said, "Maybe we'll meet again someday."
I nodded as he slung the backpack back over his shoulders, nodded to me, and took off in the direction of the fence.
I watched him fade off into nothing and wished I could've gone with him.
Then, I sighed, surrendering to my fate of damnation here in this terrible District, surrounded by a terrible family, and decided to try and make the best of it.
So, I put the dog in my coat to hide it so they'd never take him from me, and slowly started to shuffle my way home.
~.~.
Sometimes, I'm not even sure if I ever met X. Sometimes I think that the whole event was too surreal to have been real, and I dreamt it all up with a nine-year-old's imagination. Then I remember that 1) I was not a very innocent or imaginative nine-year-old, and 2) I didn't even know what being genderfluid was at the time, so how could I have made it up?
Besides, I know I wasn't dreaming, I know for sure, because Ras never even did as much as look at me funny ever again in my entire life. In fact, he talked to me sometimes, and he seemed like he was trying to make an effort at times.
He fought Tom once, in a whirlwind of curse words and insults, and won, though he took some pretty catastrophic injuries for it. I don't think that had to do with me, though. Maybe it did.
Ha, yeah right.
Sometimes when I would lie awake at night, I would hear Fuj's words to me and take comfort in them. Sparky smells like the homely, smokey campfire that we sat around that night. He makes me think of the warm bread, and of the wise words of someone older than I am, rooting for me to succeed.
And so, on this reaping night of the 21st Hunger Games, I sit awake next to the snoring Tom, my heart heavier than ever and my entire body aching and complaining, and think about the person whose words gave me hope to stick with it for this long.
I haven't heard anything from the time I was nine about Fujita, Fuj, or even X, but I don't have a single doubt in my mind that he, she, they, are out there and still fighting through all of it.
And I should be, too.
