✯ Animus Valentine [D9]✯

Name: Animus 'Ani' Valentine
Gender: Male
District: Nine
Age: 17

Okay firstly, don't you ever, ever use my surname; I fucking hate it. If I catch you using it I will do my best to personally make your life completely miserable. That's not a threat, that's a cast iron promise. I mean what kind of surname is Valentine? I don't want to be named after a 'romantic' day, I've never even had a valentine in my entire life anyway, or a girlfriend for that matter. It's not that I'm homosexual, I can assure you I have no sexual interest in men, it just hasn't happened yet, not that I've been trying awfully hard. Bonds like that develop over time, they don't just happen, anyway no girls have shown interests in me so far so I shouldn't have to force the issue. Still, it pisses me off that my last name is named after a romantic day despite the fact I've never had a girlfriend.

Four-eyes, nerd, lanky, I've heard it all, people often like to make fun of me but I just allow their fruitless insults to bounce off me. I have built a wall of stone around my heart, nothing can get to me because they just bounce of the mental barrier. I'm very tall, I easier tower over most of the kids on my class, standing at 6'4. I can only name like 1 or 2 people who are taller than me but they're just giants. I always had a stupidly high growth, I was always taller than the other kids in my class growing up. You'd think that cos I'm so tall people would think twice about insulting me but they know I don't react, I refuse to put myself down to their level by retaliating. In addition to my tallness I'm also really skinny, only weighing at 156 pounds, I know this because a friend of mine owns a scale and I checked on there.

They like to make fun of my glasses as well. These glasses cost us a fortune and left us starving for weeks. I need them for my eye sight without my glasses everything is blurry, sometimes I can't tell who is who if I don't have these glasses on. But when I do wear them people start calling me names such as four-eyes, just cos they don't have bad eye sight.

I have short black hair, sometimes it does look a little brown because the sun makes it lighter, it's not so short it's close cropped but it doesn't really wave in the breeze or do anything fancy like that. The most I do to it is wash it with soap in order to clean it, nothing fancy like gel, no we'd never waste out money on that, we need to be buying things such as food. I'm Caucasian, although my skin is a bit on the paler side when compared to most people. I don't really get out of the house a lot unless it's school, I'm mostly buried behind books and such. My face is cleanly shaven, no facial hair really grows there and I think I prefer it that way. Although I am obviously growing hair on other parts of my body, arms, legs, armpits, chest. Sometimes my brother brings back factory things such as shaving cream and soap, not too much, only one bar or two so we can keep clean. I used to have a h acne across my back but it's slowly starting to fade and I hope it will be gone soon, but there's still quite a bit if redness and spots there. It is quite a hard life living here which is clearly evidenced by my appearance.

Even the clothes on my back simply scream my families lack of finances. My brother is the oldest and most of my clothes are second-hand from him: second hand jeans, ripped shirts, tattered shirts, old shoes that are slightly tight. Sometimes I do get my own new clothes, but they might as well be old, just bought from the market most of the time, but they're really cheap, probably only costs three or so coins to buy. I know my parents are trying so I just accept them gracefully and wear them the next day, I'm usually a grateful person, especially to my parents and brother who work so hard for me.

Like I said before you'd never really find me hanging out in the District for fun, I'm more of a secluded person, I like to keep myself to myself, this means I mostly hang out in my house when I'm not at school. But I'm not alone, not by a long shot, I am surrounded by books, books will keep my adequate company during the day. I don't really have friends, actually I have absolutely no friends. Personally I think it's because they're secretly jealous of me and my talents. No one really reaches out to me and I don't reach out to them, the only thing I reach out to are the books. They keep my company, I read them and they give me their knowledge in return.

I like to think of myself as a natural genius. I'm not exaggerating when I say I am really bloody smart. Maths, English, Science, I love all of them. School is always boring because it's too easy to understand, I wish I lived in a district that used their creative brains more, like District three of District six. People call me wannabe as well, District six wannabe they call me cos I'm such a nerd. I'm always reading, or solving an equation of some sort, or doing something academic. I'm not very sociable (people call me a social retard), I'm not very physically fit but I sure as hell am smart. Unlike the other losers in my district I actually have high ambitions, hopes and dreams for my future. District nine holds me back, I could be doing so much more with my life but instead I'm fighting a war against starvation with my family. I want to do something with my brain, something, anything productive.

I honestly dislike District nine, it's horrible, it's a waste. The people are tacky and stupid, they think their empty insults and attempts at 'banter' can get to me. It draws harsh chuckles from my throat every time they attempt to get into my mind because they don't realise I've built a wall of stone and ice around my brain and heart so no petty insults can get to me. Their insults are not fire, they cannot get past the walls, their insults are not boulders; their insults are small pebbles that have no chance of getting to me. District nine, it's a shame I have to call it home, in plain words it sucks. That's another thing about me, I am painfully blunt, if something is inadequate then I will tell them it's inadequate. I don't like lying, I don't like liars, I am a truthful person. District nine sucks, and that's the truth.

Even before I was born our family was never quite... up there. It was quite simple how they met, my father made stuff in the factories, my mother made stuff in the factories. One day my father screwed something up and my mother bailed him out because in her eyes he was 'cute' so she managed to bail him out. He didn't lose his job or get punished because my mum was just that good at lying and they just hit it off. My father has told me this story lots of times. I will admit it is quite interesting to hear. So I guess they got closer and had my brother first, a year later they had me. I will admit I do feel bad sometimes because when I was born that's when things started going bad for our family. That's why my brother had to start working pretty early so we didn't all starve.

I was always more advanced in terms of smarts compared to the other kids, sure they'd call me nerd, know it all but honestly I never really cared. We're all poor, we all live in this district, they're no better than me, if anything I'm better than them. Me being smarts made my parents bloody proud of me and it still makes them bloody proud of me. It made my brother a bit jealous though, to be honest he is quite talentless, only a year older than me. The only thing he is good at is working in factories, making soap, gel, metal. Sure it's boring, uncreative and shameful but it still keeps me alive so I'm not complaining. We're brothers and we still care about each other.

Living in District nine is tough. We live in a medium-sized house bit only one bed, so we kind of rotate, me and my dad will sleep on the bed one week, me and me brother get the bed the next week. When not sleeping on the bed we usually get a blanket and sleep on the floor (no we don't share the blanket) for the week. It's a fair system in my eyes so I'm not complaining. Of course it was a shaky balance of getting food and such to be able to eat for a few years. But then we realized I needed glasses, as I grew my eye sight just got worse and honestly if I didn't get glasses I'd be blind from straining them. This meant a complete save up of money. When we did eventually buy my glasses we went hungry for weeks but anything to keep me from losing my eye sight. This happened when I was about eleven, my brother was pissed with me because he was starving and all.

But for now I am still in school, I have talent but I have no idea what to do with it. I have ambitions, I have goals. I just hope I don't waste away in this place before I can fulfil them.

[ODAIR]

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