Phyllis Roman, District 3

Name: Phyllis Roman or The Young Mother
Age: 15
Gender: Female
District/Area: District 3
Appearance:

She has blonde hair. Naturally silky, naturally shiny, gorgeous, kind of clean hair. It falls just down to her shoulders. She has a blown out stomach. From recent pregnancy, it is larger than her chest. She had a very large baby. He had a very large father. She has a beaten down body. Her physical features are blackened out like charcoal because of her bruises that never healed. She has multicolored skin. From purple to blue to black. That’s why she always wears clothes that cover her skin. She has a scared face. It is one of a child about to jump off a high dive of a pool, only more intense, and always present. Her eyes are always at alert. They have lost their baby blue tint and are left with a gray, dark, blank color you couldn’t find in a box of crayons. She is short. She’s been beaten down too much to grow.
Her arms are long and straggly. They are sore from holding her baby boy. Her nose is smashed in only slightly. She would be striking, if only she was pretty and all of her features were reversed. She has dimples, but you’ll never see them. Her teeth are surprisingly straight. Her blonde eyebrows are barely visible, along with her unbelievably long eyelashes. She is blonde and frail. Fragile. She is… me… Phyllis Roman. But I’ve only ever been known as “The Young Mother.”

Personality:

Like a turtle, locked in it’s shell forever. Hardly speaks, and never flinches when beaten. I want to be strong for my baby, even though it is a burden to me. I am strong, but in a quiet unspoken way. I am very quiet, and sweet. I only care about my baby, and how he will make it out of this gang alive one day. I will convince “The Thief” to take him away and run. Then I will die. But I will die a triumphed death. I don’t talk to anyone besides “The Thief”. She understands everything. We both have a spunky, outgoing personality, but I conceal mine completely while she blurts it out to the world.
I am not forgetful, not at all. Especially the things I will never forget. I am mortally terrified of men, any men, sometimes I find myself flinching from my own son when I am changing his diaper and realize he is not a girl. They are so powerful and have no mercy for young girls. Only a desire to rape them, it is disgusting, I have no other words for it. I’ve learned to run from any man who approaches me.
My baby’s father is the most terrifying to me, though I believe he does have a soft spot. He sometimes, when he isn’t approaching me or touching me in the way I have come to recognize, gives me a layer of protection. Not from the Master, but from other men. When he is home, which is not often, if any man even lays their eyes on me he gets them away. I don’t know how, but they often disappear into an alley and only he emerges. I have these feelings for him all mashed up inside me. I do not speak to him, but he always lingers nearby. Sometimes I think he protects me because I am his prize. His trophy, and the only one he’ll ever share me with is the Master.

History:

: I was born into a large family, or so I was told. A family in District 12. My father was a rapist, and a very cold-blooded, heartless man. That’s how I and all my siblings were born. He raped my mother many times. I don’t know how many. I don’t remember anything about my parents. I don’t know why he wanted so many children, because he sent us all to an orphanage when I was four. I had twelve sisters and fourteen brothers. I only remember Joe and Jacob, and Sarah, Ally, and Raige. They told me the stories of Dad and Mom. How he beat her and harassed her. I cried every time they even spoke of mother. I wondered what happened to her. It’s all a blur. I shut out Joe and Jacob when I was old enough to understand all the things Dad did to Mom. I thought they would inherit his ways and attitude. I was afraid of men. Boys. Males. All of them were a threat to my privacy and well-being in my mind.
But one day I befriended a boy. His name was Leonardo, but I called him Leo. We both lived in the orphanage, and he was in my grade at school. He protected me from the headmistress at the orphanage. I would often speak up for what I wanted or what anyone else needed. She didn’t scare me one bit, but she scared Leo. He thought she was going to murder me before I got out of that prison. After one of our fights, Leo said he would keep me safe, that he was sure she would throw my body out by the morning. So, when everyone was asleep, he came into my bed with me, and kept me safe. He did this every night from there on out. And he would slip out of the room at sunrise, an hour before we all woke up. Sometimes, if I was awake I would walk him to the door. This one day, I was awake and I followed him into the hallway in between the boys and girls quarters. “Leo! Wait!” I called. “Keep your voice down Phyllis, what is it?” he responded. I looked at him for a moment. I don’t recall his appearance clearly, but I remembered his eyes. They were a bright turquoise-green color that seemed to glow in the dark. I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him into me. I stood on my tippy toes and pressed my lips into his. My grip on his shirt loosened, and he moved one hand over my neck so I couldn’t escape from our embrace. He moved the other hand to my waist, it felt so unusual there. No one had ever touched me like this, but I felt so safe. I knew Leo wouldn’t hurt me. I ran my hands through his hair, down to his ears, and onto his neck. I kissed his chin and ran back into the girls room giggling. After that, we were together constantly. He walked me to all my classes, we kissed in the hallways of the orphanage, and he took me on long walks through town. I loved him with all my heart. He was my life. He was the only one I talked to. He was and is the only man I will ever love.
“Leo, wake up. Honey, Leo?” I shook him awake, he hadn’t walked out of my room that night and it was fifteen minutes after sunrise. He moaned and rolled on his side. “Haha, very funny, c’mon Leo, baby, you need to go back to your room.” I felt his bare chest, he had taken his shirt off last night and it lay in the floor next to him. He was covered in sweat, but it was the dead of a harsh winter and the orphanage had no heaters. He had all the covers he could get though. He leaned over the edge of the bed and spat on the floor. I looked over him and realized he had thrown up. Leo was sick. “Oh. Leo, stay here, I’ll go and get medicine.” I restrained to leave, but I did. I left out the exit we made out to the roof and slowly made my way down the fire escape. It led into a dark and smoky ally. I was running out of the alley when I was attacked. My attacker covered my eyes with his hand and gagged me with a piece of cloth from his shirt. He had come out of nowhere! I wiggled and screamed, but no one was there to help. My attacker was a man; I heard it in his voice. He tried to speak to me, but his words slurred in a way that I had never heard. I made out his first sentence, barely. “Leo said you were beautiful, but can you provide?” He smirked. Tears streamed down my face. He hit me in the stomach so hard I blacked out.
I woke up tied to a chair in a dark room; my eyes strained themselves to see anything. I made out a large and dark figure. He walked toward me. Without a word he ripped my jackets from my body. I wiggled and squirmed. “Ssstayy still,” he said, his words slurred together. He lunged at me with his body knocking me and the chair into the floor. He slobbered and kissed me all over my neck. He took his clothes off while doing this. Then he proceeded to take mine off. I was speechless. I knew what he was doing. He lifted me up off the ground and over his head. Then he slammed me down onto the ground breaking the chair below me. He jumped on top of me, forcing a piece of the chair to cut into my back. My body wanted to react and throw him off of me, but I was too terrified to move. I made myself screech at the chair piercing my back. He rubbed his body against mine. I went unconscious from the pain and misery and emotional stress.
I woke up in another foreign place. A bed, a nice bed. I was alone with straps holding me to the cushy surface. I had forgotten about last night. Until my attacker came in. He spoke to me, his words less slurred. “Welcome.” That was all he said. He moved toward me and I closed my eyes, wishing I would just black out again. I heard another man walk in. One of them, I’m not sure which one, undid the straps holding me to the bed. I didn’t dare to move. “Get. Up.” One of them said. I opened my eyes and saw that there were four men in the room. Two were at the door and two were at my bedside. My attacker yanked me out of the bed and gave me to the two men at the door. Where am I? What are they doing? Were questions my mind could barely put out. All I was thinking was these are men, terrible men. They dragged me to a room with two other girls. The men let go of me and the girls pursued me with hugs and helped me over to a couch. I blacked out again when they told me why I was here.
I was to be part of this group that begs for money on the side of the street in District 3. I was to give my money to one of the men that dragged me in here. I was to have a baby. And be a poor young mother begging for sympathy on the street. And I was to get over my fear of men if it came to that. Months passed while I was pampered compared to the treatment of the other children. I was pregnant, but as soon as my baby was born I was thrown onto the street to do my job. Earn money for a helpless lazy man. I soon figured out that my attacker and rapist was called The Right Hand Man and I couldn’t help but realize he always followed me around, never let men get near me other than the head of the operation, The Mastermind, and the other children in the operation. Along with mine and his son of course. I have been living like this for a year now, with my only friend being a girl called The Thief.

Codeword: odair
Comments/Other:

For those of my fellow tributes reading this.... Yeah, it sucks.

Don't let that fool you.