{reef baitwell} D4

[while we're on the subject
could we change the subject now?
i was knocking on your ear's door, but you were always out]


Reef Mako Baitwell.
Fifteen.
Male.
District Four.


[looking towards the future
we were begging for the past
well we know we had good things, but
those just never seemed to last, oh please just last]

Reef is rather short and small for his age, at only 5'7, but he's built fairly stocky with a decent amount of muscle from his work and training. His hands are large and extremely calloused from rigorous labor on his father's boat. His face is wide and rounded off at the chin, with very soft contours as opposed to sharply defined features. His nose is slightly large, and he's been self-conscious about it on more than one occasion, and he has fairly full lips as well. Eyes are brown with a few flecks of blue, a trait he inherited from his mother.

His hair is often messed by wind while he's out sailing on his father's boat, and he never really takes care to fix it; it seems counterproductive, considering it would just get messy incredibly fast once again after doing so. It's dark blonde in color and he keeps it an average length, not trimmed really short but definitely not long either. It's a practical style for working, (and training, though he doesn't like to think about that) one many Career males in his district make use of.

When it comes to dressing himself and clothing, Reef really couldn't care less, as long as it's not his training jumpsuit that he abhors (mostly because of what he's training for, not because of the actual garment). He usually wears khaki or denim cutoffs and a tshirt, sometimes accompanied by a jacket on a windy day. His outlook on fashion is more practical than stylish, which really is to be expected. He'll put on something comfortable for going outside and working on the boat, plain and simple. Besides, he doesn't like drawing attention to himself, so why get fancy?

[everyone's unhappy, everyone's ashamed
well we all just got caught looking at
somebody else's page]

It's rather difficult for others to get the feel for Reef's personality, mostly because he likes keeping to himself and isn't a fan of interaction. He has a couple of friends, mostly the other boys whose parents make them attend Career training who really would rather be anywhere else. He's fairly funny once you get to know him - he's never without a joke to crack, or something witty to say - but these jokes are usually at his own expense, as a result of his low self-esteem. It's no surprise that he doesn't think highly of himself; he's spent fifteen years being told he isn't good enough, isn't strong enough, isn't fast enough or dedicated enough to ever make something of himself like his older brothers and sisters. He's the failure of a Career, and everyone knows it. Particularly him.

He's actually very bright, though he's never truly gotten the chance to show it because schooling in District Four is far overshadowed by Career training. Here, it's less about the questions you can answer and more about the strength of your fists when you have the urge to punch something out, and the last thing Reef wants to do is become the punching bag. So he keeps quiet when he is in school, as if you have any choice, avox-boy, avoiding being dubbed with the term 'teacher's pet'. It's a much safer way of existing.

His higher level of sensitivity when compared to other boys his age probably indicates that he'd do well in a romantic relationship, but he'd never liked anyone - okay, well, mostly no one had ever liked him - enough to find out. But Reef is desperate for a true bond with someone, anyone, romantic or platonic, and deep down he can't help but long for someone to see the good in him, instead of just his skittish, extremely cautious exterior.

[well nothing ever went
quite exactly as we planned
our ideas held no water but we used them
like a dam]

The youngest child born to Mussel and Saline Baitwell of District Four, it was clear from the start that Reef was different. While the other two children - eldest, Ray, and Siren - had an apparent affinity for the rough-and-tumble playing encouraged in future Career children, Reef was a rather sensitive, mellow toddler, with a strong aversion to fighting in general. In order to fit in, he would grit his teeth and take his brother's and sister's playful punches and partake in their Games reenactments, but never with the same smile on his face as they sported. His parents turned a blind eye to this; surely he would come around. Surely, just like all other Career children in Four, he would fall prey to the tantalizing promises of a Hunger Games victory.

But time went on, and Reef never grew to like the fighting and roughhousing as he was meant to; instead he would escape whenever possible, out to sit on the beach and skip stones or just run his toes through the sand and feel sorry for himself. At age eight he was meant to begin agility, speed, and strength training, just as his siblings had, running laps, doing situps, lifting weights. "Come on, Reef, be tough! Just like your brother and sister." However, upon entering the training gym he would always begin to reflexively shake; his parents were sure that this, too, would disappear with time, but vanish it did not.

One thing Reef did rather enjoy, though, was working on his father's fishing boat. From a very young age he loved to fish, loved being out in the open air, feeling the sea spray, smelling the fishy smell of the ocean. He loved making a catch and reeling it in, all the while wondering what it was going to be. He loved skinning fish after fish after they caught them, preparing the filets to be shipped to the Capitol or sold to the market. He even liked the grunt work; it took his mind off of other things, like his training. His father allowed him to work extra hours on the boat after managing to convince himself and his mother that the work would be a good supplement to his training. So while Siren and Ray battled it out in the gym for hours every day, Reef would spend half of that time sailing out on the open ocean.

As soon as he was old enough to remember watching the Hunger Games, he hated them. They revolted him, horrified him, and, most importantly, scared him practically to tears. While his sister and brother cheered on the District Four tributes every year without fail, commenting rowdily on every fight and every failure, claiming that they could do so much better, it was all Reef could do to keep his eyes open and continue to watch. "Did you see him swing that axe? No form, none whatsoever. Despicable." "That wasn't bad, what sucked was when Seah couldn't catch that rabbit! Call yourself a District Four and you can't even manage to trap an animal." Reef would attempt to make remarks as well, but all were forced; he was merely trying to keep up appearances, because how could he possibly tell his Games-centered family that he was scared stiff of them?

Once he hit Reaping age he could not shake the feeling that the end was near every time he followed Ray and Siren to the district square for the ceremony. While they were biding their time until they could volunteer and achieve the glory, fame, and fortune that came as a result of victory, Reef was praying beyond all hope that he would not get chosen. He harbored a crippling fear of being Reaped, ascending the stage, and having no one offer to go in for him, because they were so sure that this was what he wanted. Wasn't it what he pretended to want, after all? Why would anyone think any differently of a boy raised in one of the district's most eager Career families? There was no escape. Or was there?

Reef spent many sleepless nights thinking of alternatives to facing the Reaping, frightened out of his wits, every year until he was eighteen. He could come up with none, though - at least, not at first. He had no survival skills; he wouldn't be able to make it the wild if he ran away. But there was another possibility; he knew of delinquents from the districts who had committed crimes so severe that they were taken from home and made into avoxes, then forced to serve Capitolites for the rest of their lives. But life was the key word; they lived, even though their tongues were cut out. They lived, which was more than Reef would ever be able to say for himself if he were Reaped.

The plan was fairly simple, but definitely would be an elaborate procedure for someone who was only fourteen-years-old. He started it a week before his third Reaping, after hiring a drug-dealing street rat of an escaped criminal calling himself Hammerhead - whom he found after gathering information from other homeless district citizens - to help him. Hammerhead would lure a Peacekeeper into a dark alley one night, then catch him unawares and knife him to death; after he was dead, Reef would position himself beside the body and fall asleep, where he would remain until someone inevitably spotted the dead Peacekeeper and his supposed killer. "You sure you want to do this, kid?" "Totally sure." The deed was done and soon enough a passerby took notice and alerted the authorities. Reef was arrested without a second thought and sent to the detention center to face his fate.

There it played out just as he had suspected, but the pain of his tongue being removed from his body had been far worse than he could've ever anticipated. And he hadn't predicted the horror of never being able to speak again, either; though he had been a boy of few words to begin with, losing the ability of speech was almost too much to handle. But he did, and though life was hard from that point on, Reef never ceased to thank his lucky stars that he no longer had to fear being reaped again. Sure, maybe his priorities were absolutely skewed; but he wasn't dead, and that was what mattered to him.

Three months into his new life as an avox, he was assigned to serve tributes in the training center before the start of the Hunger Games. Reef didn't much enjoy this - everyone consistently stared at him because of his young age, surely wondering what he had done to merit this sort of punishment - but he gritted his teeth and bared it, as he was so used to doing in many aspects of his life. It was after the tributes were shipped off to the arena, though, that his life changed drastically once again; the Peacekeepers had caught Hammerhead, who had been a wanted criminal for quite some time. And on top of that, Hammerhead had admitted to framing Reef for killing a Peacekeeper three months before. He had neglected to say that Reef had hired him to do it - whether it was a stroke of intended goodness or a way to get back at him, Reef would never know - and instead had portrayed him as completely innocent. After a lot of debate and controversy - the Capitol did not like admitting that they were wrong, after all - it was decided that because Reef was so young, he would be allowed to go free and live back in his District just as he had before... except, of course, minus a rather important body part.

It was Reef's worst nightmare. If he had been scared stiff of being Reaped before, at least he could say he didn't draw anyone's attention; he always preferred to fly under the radar, which he had in the shadow of his far more impressive brother and sister. Now, however, everyone he met seemed to know his story, but only half of it; they assumed, just like his family and everyone else, that he had been wrongly accused of a crime, suffered for it, but was lucky enough to have been let go, which was something the Capitol didn't do often. And on top of that, he was forced to resume training at his parents insistence. Now he was back where he started; frightened, different, an outcast in his own mind. Except without his tongue, which was even worse. Ironically, Reef doesn't regret what he did; what he does regret, though, was the stroke of 'luck' that allowed him to be let free. He would've much rather preferred to spend his whole life in servitude than face the looming threat of the Hunger Games.

[we were certainly uncertain
at least i'm pretty sure i am
well we didn't need the water
but we built that good goddamn]

[oh and i know this of myself
i assume as much for other people
we've listened more to life's end gong than
the sound of life's sweet bells]

actions. 77533d
writing. 5f7b9a
thoughts. italics