Kyle Chambers D8 {Fin}

Most comfortable when simply sitting on a deserted park bench, Kyle tries to avoid large crowds, as he is rather agoraphobic, becoming extremely anxious in situations where he perceives the area to be difficult to escape. So for one, he can’t stand wide-open spaces, such as the district square, as well as social interaction type situations where he’d be unable to affect everything that happens. Going to great lengths to avoid being embarrassed by these events, one will rarely find him doing anything but feeding birds in the park.

Given his phobia, most would assume that the most he has to fear is the games, for what could be worse than being trapped in a closed off arena of death? But no, what he is more afraid of then that is the crowds that come with it. His panic attacks are more related to the amount of people rather than the wideness of the space he is in, and the thought of the entire country watching his every waking move haunts him more than potentially having to kill other people.

Live and let live is his creed, an outlook he doubts that few others share. His district has never done well in the annual games, and many of his contemporaries seem a little jaded. It is simply another reason he stays away from others. He has only a few friends, and even then he is highly defensive when anywhere but his little place of quiet solitude. It is his opinion that people consider him to be an odd duck, but it is one that he welcomes. The more he can blend into the background the better.

Born and raised in the eighth district of Panem, Kyle has always identified with the industry of clothing, finding the ownage of such to be one of his most endearing hobbies. As a child he sometimes accompanied his stepfather to work, getting to toddle around the inside of coat factories, or sweatshops for sweatpants. His true father is unknown to him, though as a teen he managed to figure out that the man he called father was not really such, owing to the lack of any features that he shared with him as well as his age compared to years his parents had been married.When confronting his mother about it, she had confessed that two years before she had met and married who he began to refer to as his stepfather from that point, she had had a one night stand with a traveling peacekeeper who had left for some other district within the week.

Going back to his "fathers" profession; It was during one of his inspections that Kyle developed his phobia of crowds, but it didn’t happen quite how most people would imagine. On a routine check of raw materials, Kyle had wandered away from his father and somehow, wound up smack dab in middle of a sheep pen. To this day neither his parents nor he himself are certain of how he managed to do so;but that’s beside the point. Wandering around the midst of those animals was suffocating. They watched him with their beady little eyes, judging him in the way only they could, bleating inanely and aimlessly milling about. Young Kyle had been quickly overcome when a sheep or two began to nip at him to make him move, and he began to wail, only to be rescued by the pen owner and his father. Though he is no longer afraid of those animals (or so he tells himself) the incident has stuck with him his entire life.

Throughout school and even his every waking day, he finds solace in avoiding people, for in any place where they congregate, he is reminded of his childhood and what he endured. Most of his days have been spent in the company of his feathered friends as he tosses them bread crumbs. He has real desire to interact with anyone for any reason, whether it be for love, companionship or any other myriad definitions anyone could think of, content to have his clothes and his bench. Not having many friends is alright in his book; After all, what are the people of Panem but sheep belonging to the Capitol?