Sylvania Legend, District 2

Sylvania has white-blond hair. It is straight and reaches to her hips. She likes to let it go free, to float about her head and sway with her body. She has honey-brown eyes, full lips, and a sweet smile.

She is very tall and very skinny, and she is also quite pale. She burns very easily, especially her face. Because of this, she almost always wears a wide-brimmed straw hat. On occasion, people think she is a ghost. Her friends like to call her Phantom.

She doesn't have use of her left arm due to an accident when she was fourteen (more on that later).
She also has a long white scar down the inside of her left arm, from her elbow to her wrist (more on that later, too).

Sylvania is a very dreamy girl. She can be found sitting at the edges of town, staring up at the sky, daydreaming, or just thinking. It is easy to make her smile, but hard to make her laugh. Most people say her smile is enough, though.

Her parents are both doctors. When she was thirteen, she fell from where she was sitting very high in a tree. Luckily, she only broke her shoulder. Her parents gave her morphling for the pain. Her life wasn't very good at this point. Her sister Arissa had just died in the hunger games, and she was having a hard time coping with it. She found that when she took the morphling, not only the pain in her shoulder went away, but the pain in her heart, as well.

After Sylvania woke up one morning with no feeling in her left arm, her parents took her off the morphling. They gravely declared that she would never be able to use her arm again. She snuck morphling from her parents to drown the pain. The pain from losing her arm, and the pain from losing her sister.

She quickly became addicted to morphling. Many times, she wanted to stop, but she couldn't. By the time she was sixteen, she'd spiraled into a deep depression. She couldn't get out of her depression, she couldn't get out of her addiction. So she tried to kill herself. She slit open her arm and waited to die.

She woke up in a hospital bed, angry at the world. She spent a lot of time being mad at her parents for saving her. She was even more mad when they cut her off from her morphling. Fighting her addiction wasn't easy. She couldn't sleep, she didn't want to eat, she threw up all the time, and her muscles went into annoying little spasms. But eventually, her body learned to live without the morphling. In time, Sylvania changed back into the sweet, dreamy girl everyone loved. She was happy. At least, that was what she made everyone believe. She was still angry at her parents for everything. For not saving Arissa from the Hunger Games. For saving Sylvania when all she wanted was death. And for taking away her precious morphling. Though her body didn't crave morphling anymore, her brain still screamed for it. She wanted it. She needed it. After her body had recovered, she started trying to find ways to get morphling again. She couldn't live without it. How did others do it? How did they go through their day without morphling by their sides? It was hard to get out of bed. Hard to imagine going through the motions without morphling. Her parents had locked up their supply, and she couldn't find the key. She was stuck. She couldn't get the morphling she needed to live. And she knew she would die without it. When people talked to her now, she had trouble understanding what they were saying. They spoke too fast, their words blurred together, and she couldn't make sense of a thing. But the most frustrating thing was when she got up to get something and forgot what she was doing. She would stand dumbly in the middle of the room, waiting for someone to rescue her. She hated feeling so dependant on others. it was hard to sleep at night. When she looked in the mirror, all she saw was a stupid, ugly girl who made stupid, ugly mistakes. She never should have tried to kill herself. She was happy with the morphling.

Her friends and family think she is getting better, and maybe she is. But Sylvania is just waiting, waiting to leave District Two. She can't be happy here anymore. She won't keep pretending she's alright. Everyone and everything in District Two reminds her of morphling. She has to get away from it. She wants to be herself again. But she doesn't think she can find herself in District Two. So she will wait until she finds someone who will leave with her, because she knows she doesn't have the strength to leave on her own.

Sylvania is the youngest of two children. Her older sister Arissa was four years older, and they were very close. They always played together, bringing their parents little "treasures" they found on their adventures. She was twelve when her sister went into the Hunger Games. She watched her die in the bloodbath. Sylvania partially blamed herself for her sister's death, because she could have volunteered to take her place. Anyone could have, but no one did.

Sylvania's parents changed after Arissa's death. They used to be fun parents, playing with their children when they were young, and always making sure they had time for them. But after the death of their oldest daughter, they became more quiet and reserved. Talking to Sylvania and seeing her face only reminded them of Arissa. They started to avoid her.

Her parents didn't realize Sylvania had a problem with morphling until she tried to commit suicide. They hadn't noticed the warning signs because they were too busy avoiding her. They made her quit the morphling. After that, she seemed to get better.

Sylvania's parents realized they had to spend more time with Sylvania. They had to deal with Arissa's death. They became a family again. Sylvania knows she will break their hearts when she leaves, but she doesn't care. Thay sheltered her too much as a child. She'd had to learn how cruel the world was on her own. She had to leave District Two. Partially to get away from her parents, and partially to find out who she was, to have a fresh start. She needed to start over, without the morphling, and without Arissa's death haunting her. She had to get out.