The Writer Games | Once In A Lifetime & World Edition

District Nine Female: Liz Short

"I always  love to see a new tributes join us... We'll never know what they'll be  like, or what they've got up their sleeves." -Fillius Ravenscar

Name: Liz Short

Age: 17

Gender: The mysterious one. You know, them.

District: Nine. (Great film.)

Physical description:  Medium height. Not short, thank you very much, and definitely not tall  because wouldn't that be ironic. Haha. Funny. In fact, like her height,  she appears average on the most part, with medium length brown hair that  never seems to go where it is told, and a body that is neither fat nor  thin, too curvy or too flat. The only part of her that stands out is her  face. Her pale skin contrasts with her bright blue eyes, and she has  full, red lips, all framed within high cheekbones and thin eyebrows that  are full of expression. If you ask her, she'll say that her face almost  makes up for the rest of her, but she is, by all accounts, a pretty  girl. Not model standard, but pretty pretty.

Personality: If it has  to be summed up in one sentence, her personality is unfortunately cut  down to this: Elizabeth Short, child of Richard and Eleanor Short,  suffers from sever depression. There is no reason, no environmental  reason at least; she simply suffers from a chemical imbalance in her  brain, and it is all too often crippling. Before the depression fully  set in, she was almost popular, with her looks and a sharp wit. She was  slightly self-centred, but, as this was in her early years, it can be  excused. She was getting better. Now, however, she has cut herself off  from her friends. She wants to be alone, needs to be alone, but somehow  it only leaves her feeling worse. It's odd like that, her depression.  She can never seem to win. She has just started on medication, which  dampens the effects somewhat and leaves her able to lead a normal life,  but she sometimes suffers from hysteria and severe mood swings.  Sacrifices have to be made.

Craft: She excelled in school before her depression hit, but still has intelligence despite a lack of general knowledge.

Skills: Tactically, she  will be one of the best of the tributes. Her physical skills are  lacking, however. She can run at an all right speed, for a respectable  distance, but it isn't anything special. Her traps could be a main  feature of her games, providing she trains hard. Which is a big  condition.

Weapon of choice: Fear.  (Not really. That's not even a weapon. Anything she can get her hands  on, though she does think that a hammer would be... well, cool.)

Token: A sunflower. To  remind her that, no matter how she feels, there is always light. Most of  the time she hates the damn thing. Sentimental rubbish; not everything  gets better.

Backstory: I kind of put  the backstory in the other bits, so a brief summary will do. She used  to be quite popular and excelled in school, her depression hit, and now  she has cut herself off from friends, bunks school more often than not,  and has only just returned to normal life with the help of medication,  which gives her mood swings and brings on occasional bouts of hysteria.

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Liz Short: District Nine

AgileBeast

It's the day of the  reaping, and I feel terrible. Not due to anxiety, though there's plenty  of that too, but because my medication, which I started on three weeks  earlier, has side effects almost worse than the disorder they treat. It  has been two months since they diagnosed me with clinical depression.

The only thing that  keeps me going, taking the wretched pills day after day after day, is  the knowledge that, without them, I am useless. I used to be popular.  Clever. About a year and a half ago, though I can't pinpoint exactly  when, I started my long descent into loneliness. Every day I cut off  another friend, stayed at home another hour, skipped another class,  until, eventually, home was all that I had left. I slept, though not  well, ate, though not much, and lay on the floor wanting to cry and to  hurt myself and to end my excuse for a life. My parents, bless them,  noticed. They took me to a doctor, and when he refused to diagnose me,  they took me to another. He put me on Prozac, and I've been taking the  things ever since, no matter how much I vomit or how little I sleep. I  can go out and talk to my friends without wanting to run and hide and  deepen the scars that run down my upper arm, and that's enough to  outweigh any side-effects. Even the mood swings. Even the violence.

I ought to have my  therapy every week, but here in district nine we have few counsellors,   and even fewer good ones, so instead I visit the clinic biweekly,  talking about what I think and feel, and why I am how I am. It feels  good, to talk. The weight on my chest is lifted somewhat. Last session,  however, did nothing to qualm my fears. We spoke of the reaping.

I pull my best dress on  over my head, staring blankly at the mirror as I thought back. There was  no need for him to ask how many times my name would appear in that  bowl. There was no need for him to comfort me, to quell my growing  hysteria as I told him the number and began to shake. He deserved to be  hit. I haven't seen him since then.

The clanging of the  clock jolts me from my reverie, and sets a flurry of movement in motion  as I comb my hair, style it, collect the jewellery strewn across my  floor and fling it on, check myself in the mirror once more, and rush  downstairs to meet my mum, who's glaring at her watch as she waits.

"Have you taken your meds yet?" she asks, hurrying me on with her eyes.

I slip on my favourite pair of high heels, a pale blue that compliments my dress. "I had them a few minutes ago."

"Good. All ready?"

I ignore the knot in my stomach and nod. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"We'd best be off then!"

I grimace at her  cheeriness, a pathetic attempt to raise my spirits, as we leave the  house and head down the bustling streets in the heat of the mid-morning  sun. The justice building isn't far; we arrive in just under ten minutes  and are ahead of the crowds, which is just as well as it takes hours to  break off our embrace. I kiss my mum on the cheek and turn, half  running to where the children are congregating.

As I file in, a couple  of girls smile at me. I twitch my mouth back. I obviously knew them from  school, but hadn't seen them in months, and now all but my closest  friends had been forgotten or blurred into one. I go out more often  these days, yet somehow, even with my medication and even in the middle  of a crowd, I still feel alone. I want someone to hold hands with.

A beautiful woman with  long, curly, brown hair and a slender body struts onto the stage,  cameras following her every move, and I know that it is almost time. I  press against the scars on my arm, relishing the distraction that the  pain provides. I don't want to pay attention. It will make it worse.

Her speech seems to last  a second, the pause another, and then she's at the bowls. How is this  happening so quickly? Why can't they pause and let me breathe and think  and bloody scream? My breath is quick, my heartbeat quicker, and as she  plunges her hand into the bowl of girls' names I feel myself go dizzy.  One hundred of those slips of paper are mine. One hundred. At my very  lowest, before I saw the doctor, I had applied for as many tesserae as  they would allow me. What did I care if I was picked? I would have an  excuse to die without feeling selfish.

Now, however, I regret the choice. She closes her hand round a slip, picks it out, and unfolds it.

Two words: "Liz Short."

I faint.