It's strange how different people look without front teeth.

This was the first, almost clinical, thought that passed through my head as the girl in front of me brought one hand up to her mouth.

I had had a friend, once, a long time ago. We'd finished school for the year, and when we came back, both of his two front teeth were missing, a gap in an otherwise flawless smile. It had given him a slight lisp that had my other friends and I giggle to our seven-year-old selves.

The girl in front of me coughed, strings of blood flying out between her fingers. She gurgled, her eyes wide with horror and alarm as she tried to step back from me.

Once in the playground, a girl had accidentally tripped over some uneven pavement and fell, impaling her hand on a loose screw. She'd howled, clutching her hand and crying as she was rushed to my mom, the best healer in District 1. Mom had pulled the screw gently out of the whimpering child, smiling kindly before washing out the wound and giving some morphling for the pain to her mother. I remember the girl smiling over her shoulder at my mom as she walked out the front door.

I easily matched the pace of the girl in front of me before smashing my spear into the back of the hand she clutched over her bloody lips. The pointy, metal head went straight through her hand and as I pulled the spear back, it wrenched out of her skin with a wet sort of thump. The girl with violet eyes screamed, her voice hoarse and high-pitched as more blood spewed from her ruined mouth. A tooth, broken at the base, hit me on the cheek. I didn't look down as it dropped to the blood-speckled dirt.

I remember the time when we had to go to the factory for work experience. It was part of a school initiative to have us prepared to assume our jobs as workers, making everything that was beautiful in the Capitol.

The factory I was placed in made furniture. We were only to monitor, which was fine by me. I was more enthralled with the LED display of my phone then the actual job. I was always going to go to the Hunger Games. Factory work was never going to be an option of me.

It was the scream that finally stole my eyes from the cellphone screen.

A fifteen-year-old boy, the same age as me, had been standing near one of the machines. A little too near, actually. One of the pistons had hit him in the jaw and broken it. I remember it sagging open, unnaturally, as he tried to cover it with his hand. He was immediately set upon by others, but not before he choked, coughing blood onto the pristine white furniture, splattering the otherwise flawless upholstery with pink spots.

She fell over, staring at me with something akin to begging in her eyes, before trying to crawl away with one hand, the other, pierced one, dragging uselessly in the dirt beside her. I stood on her ankle and once again smashed the spear into her mouth. Something snapped. Probably her jaw. More blood spewed out from between her destroyed lips as she gurgled once more, panic in her eyes, her one good hand scrabbling around her throat. Her mouth gaped open and I could see that there was no intact teeth left in their originally positions, and her tongue was a ruined pulp. Her nostrils flared, and she tried to cough, but nothing came out of her throat except for a slight whine.

I watched as she choked to death on her own blood, spittle and teeth dribbling out of her mouth as the light in her eyes finally went out.

People look different without any teeth at all.

For Caesar's Palace.

Prompt: Choke

On a personal note, I've tried to Americanize the spelling in this fic. Since I'm a native Australian, I have no idea how I did. Please, feel free to point out any errors.