★ LOTTIE SOREN // D9

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INFORMATION

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BIOGRAPHY

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Her name is Carlotta Soren, and although she isn't supposed to remember, she does. She remembers waves crashing - not against the shoreline on the television in the 61st, but against her body. In her dreams, she tastes salt and sand the bitter promise of warmth in a cold sea breeze. (If you were to ask Lottie where she came from she would look you right in the eye and tell you to fuck off.) Inside she would be thinking of a place they promised her she had never been.

Many years ago she concluded, as any sane person would, that she was probably dead. If she had lived before - and there was no doubt in her mind that her memories of District Four in summertime were real - then she couldn't be living any longer. (On her tenth birthday she convinced her brother to hold her hand and leap from the highest branch of the tallest tree they could.) It was a test, of some kind. Just checking her own destructibility. She concluded, as he ended up in hospital and she managed to land crumpled over him, unharmed, that she was invincible.

She was glad of it - carelessness came easily after that, the kind of shocking daring and recklessness that nobody suspected stemmed from the belief she could not die. (They tell her the cigarettes will eat her lungs and the spirits will burn her tongue and yet she breathes, maybe.) She's jealous of the pain that everybody but her can feel - the bleach poured into her small sister's cereal at twelve was no accident, although it was swiftly tipped away and dismissed as such. All the child wanted was to feel her own searing agony, and yet no matter how much she tumbled and fell and bruised and bled, she was numb.

Lottie never did look like them, either. Their distinct dark hair and defined features matched so perfectly - she felt like a circled mistake in a far too obvious game of spot-the-difference. (They told her she was adopted when she was eight, but she remembers life before.) She's ethereal, entirely strange, with large, widest eyes and a pale complexion to match her blonde waves. "You look like a mermaid!" accused the boy who lives next door, years ago. (She heard it as an accusation but it was probably more a taunt or an observation or anything but.)

Her family is set apart from her in more ways than one. They are honest, and she lies. It is as though the wild child lacks in moral compass and grounding - she is simply unable to understand what others might be thinking or feeling. (It translates into a twisted disregard for everybody else, but she's enchanting and her siblings at least love her all the same.) She'll do almost anything you phrase like a challenge and reject almost anything you don't.

At first, when she ran away, they searched. The very first time was the same night she arrived home from the orphanage - six years old with shining eyes and a withering gaze. She clambered from her bedroom window and down the side of the house without a second thought, and it took many a set of strong hands to haul her back inside. (A lock was installed on all the upstairs windows, but somebody forgot that the hatch in the cellar opens up to outside.) Her escapes are impulsive, unplanned and often unprovoked. Suddenly she feels chains holding her down and she must run and run until she is quite sure she is free of their hold and only then can she return.

They fear for her, her parents. One day it seems she will stumble right over the line of what is alright and what is unforgivable - in the eyes of the law she may declare something that cannot be taken back. Her stubborn nature leaves her unable to respect someone for a simple badge - they must prove to be worthy of her rare smiles. (Her family places bets on what will land her in the Detention Center first despite her parents banning the practise three times already.)

When she flees her home, she never does reach the district edge. They're certain if she wanted to, she would, and so she doesn't. (She wont return to District Four, though. She studies old books on survival and lights fires with her hands as practise, because she'll live in the forest, she says.) They tell her to hush - but despite her constant stream of lies and impulsivity, this is one promise they are quite sure she'll keep.

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COMPLETE

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