Ted Riddle//D2//FIN

Name: Ted Riddle
District: 2
Age:16
Fc: Lucas Steele


Have you ever wanted to be someone different? I have. Since the day I turned seven I've wanted to be a turtle. I had never told anyone about this of course, but it's always been in me. Well, on my sixteenth birthday, while out for a walk, I pretended to bonk my head on something while three bystanders watched in horror. They took me there and from then on, with a backstory I crafted at the age of nine, I fall into the roll of little turtle Brownley, a turtle who has lost his family, and finally live my dream...

Heads in, heads out, look to the left, look to the right. The shells on our backs keep us safe and are our gifts but they are also our burden, for their weight keeps our feet firmly planted to the ground in times of strife.


I crawl on all fours and dress only in greens and browns. It's what my parents and extended family would have wanted from me. They were turtles. They had just died last week. Hit by a train. I just barely managed to avoid being hit myself.

I somehow managed to roll myself away. I almost saved Grampy Sheldon but as I tried to escape with him, a badger came by and I panicked and chucked my sweet shelled grandfather at the ferocious and frighteningly clawed beast. I watched in horror as the monster ate my Grampy. After that I crawled for miles across the grassy meadow that had for years been my home, until I'd reached an unfamiliar civilization. Upon arriving, a man and woman seized upon me and claimed me as their child. They acted strangely, as though I had always been theirs. It was confusing but comforting nonetheless.

I have been staying with them since I got here. I have been acting as though I "remember" everything and have never been the child of a loving turtle family so that they do not grow concerned. They say I might have "brain damage" as I continue to move about in the way that I was raised. I think that that may be an insult and as Aunt Turnip would always say," Turtle noise turtle noise hiss water swooshing turtle noise".

Ahahahaha. As I slowly crawl my way down their stairs (face first, of course) I contemplate the ways in which they see me. Their child? I'm not. A human? I'm not. I mean, what do these people even know? Nothing probably. Dumbasses.

At the bottom of the stairs there is a mirror and I make sure to study it closely upon arrival. I've always been a rather beautiful turtle. My snout is moderately long and thin, a little bulbous at the end. My eyes are much bigger than the average turtle's. They're also more colorful. My crazy ass mom was the only other turtle to have eyes with a color that isn't black and that's only because they were pecked out by a vulture once while she took a nap. Anyways, I've always been extraordinary in comparison to my brethren and that is why they loved me as much as they did probably. Except for maybe Grampy Sheldon as he seemed a bit upset at my having sacrificed him.

To get to my "parents'" eating areas I did a barrel roll from the mirror where I checked myself and then did a small but well executed shell spin. The mothering figure of the household briefly looked at me disdainfully before handing me a delicious bread slice. I absolutely adore bread slices. They are the one thing that I think I would miss were I to go back to my turtle family. I know I wouldn't miss the mothering figures head fur, after all.

After supplying me with sustenance, the mother figure does a squat and then looks deep into my eyes with a sort of seriousness I'd not seen before.

" Do you know about... the games?", she asks me.

I gargle affirmatively to let her know that I am aware. This women is stupid and I'm tired of her shit. The games do not apply to me. I am a turtle. Not a smelly flesh bag like her. I pee on her a little to let her know she is a fool. Ahahaha. A fool.

Water leaks out of her eyes and she does one of those human gurgles. I gurgle laugh heartily and crawl up the stairs in my usual way. I think to myself as I crawl. If I were to enter those stupid hillbilly human woopdy-doos, though I know that would dominate. No one can stop such a powerful little reptile as I. I would bite and spit and use my Gompers to sword stab. No one can stop me and that's just how it would be. No one's scream gurgles could ever stop me.