Kova Raquel -- District 3

K O V A // R A Q U E L

GENDER: Female
AGE: Sixteen
DISTRICT: Three


APPEARANCE:

Kova is easily identified by her large, owl-like eyes. It is her most distinctive and enchanting feature, paired with long eyelashes and gently colored irises that match the seas of blue in the skies above. They wander, seemingly unblinking, and stare into empty space as if focusing curiously upon a single, fixed point. They absorb every shape, color, and detail that is presented in front of them without fail. Some even believe that her sight functions at its best during the night, as if she were a nocturnal feline. Anything worthy of her interest cannot escape the clutches of her captivating gaze.

Sculpted around the pair of eyes is a an average face with a slightly curved jaw line. Her lips--pink and chapped from exposure to dry air--are small, with her upper lip appearing slightly thinner than the bottom. Her medium-sized nose is nothing of importance, whilst her eyebrows, dark and thin, tend to draw attention to her eyes. Her complexion is pale with a natural light-pink tint to the cheeks, and gently flecked with small freckles, especially upon the forehead. This tone creates a noticeable contrast between her skin and her chocolate strands of hair. Falling slightly past her shoulders, her fringes maintain several shades of dark brown with very little streaks of light brown from the sun. It is naturally straight, curling into small waves towards the center, and suffers from split ends. It is usually seen dangling upon her shoulderblades or worn in a carefully crafted braid.

Kova is lightweight and falls under the petite category. She has little muscle mass in all areas and cannot lift heavy objects to save her life. This weakness leaves her vulnerable and somewhat fragile in fights, though because she is not a career and she chooses not to stir trouble, she has faced no dangerous confrontations. Despite a lack of strength, however, she is granted speed and agility by the light weight of her body. She has also been blessed with a good sense of balance.

With bare feet and straight posture, she stands at about 5 foot 5, an average height for a female her age, and as a result of her small frame she has undefined curves and appears to be blessed only in the chest area. She unintentionally hides this fact with her choice of clothing, which normally consist of loosely-fitted T-shirts and grey or blue jeans. She chooses not to divide her wardrobe into two different categories like her parents. She uses work outfits as everyday outfits. They do not become grimy or filthy in the factories because she is not an average factory worker; her clothes remain relatively unstained and clean. She is also keen on personal hygiene. She takes the time to shower every night, brush her teeth twice a day, and uses cheap perfumes and deodorant to leave a fresh, scented trail. Other than this she does not use any other products to alter her appearance. Make-up and specialized hair products are foreign to her. Her mother may insist upon her use of them, but she does not approve. There is nobody she is wishes to impress, so why bother?


PERSONALITY:


Kova's sheltered life leaves her at a disadvantage in social situations. She responds timidly to her peers and purposely isolates herself because she finds that she has nothing in common with anybody. People regard her as being the silent loner who sits on the swingsets and stares up at the sky as if anticipating something. She is polite when others approach her but she does not willingly start conversations with them. This is not a result of lack of courage or fear of interactions - she merely prefers to sit by herself. The others never want to discuss the same subjects she does. It's always about gossip, drama, boys, and beauty. She has no interest in these aspects of life.

District three feels like a polluted wasteland. For this very reason Kova seeks out the few patches of forestland that still remain and explores to free herself from the poisonous atmosphere. Her powerful curiosity and attraction to vibrant colors keeps her occupied for hours. Sometimes she even finds herself lost, but with her memory of landmarks and similar distinctive features she manages to trace her steps back out. She has a passion, almost an obsession with nature, and often uses similies relating to occurances in nature to explain events in her life. Her method of thinking is very poetic, though in contrast her speech is simple and usually bland.

If there is one thing Kova cannot bear, it is the suffering of innocent people. Screaming in particular frightens her beyond comprehension. Previous experiences leave her weak and shaken at the sight of bloodshed, and during the broadcasting of the Hunger Games each year she sits infront of her television with her knees to her chest and her hands over her ears. She simply cannot handle watching the pain and suffering of others. If possible she would do everything in her power to help save a victim from further harm and death. She dreads the Hunger Games each year, and at the Reaping, she sheds a tear of good luck to each tribute.

Kova's conversational skills are somewhat weak. She tends to reply with one word answers and refuses to look a person in the eye while she speaks. Her eyes constantly wander, making her seem distracted, but she does not appear indifferent and uninterested on purpose. This is merely how she functions. Under extreme distress, however, she stutters and stumbles upon words and anxiously shifts her eyes. If upset by something her responses become unclear and fragmented. She will start a sentence, pause, then include the rest of her statement as if unable to translate complete thoughts into words.

Kova may have a list of oddities and flaws but she is a genuinely a compassionate person. She loves people, nature, and animals, and wishes to protect them from harm and suffering. Pain is a part of life that she does not like to address; she has a strong sensitivity to it and does not want others to experience it. Despite her original guardian being a psychopath, she still believes herself to be a "little angel" sent from the heavens. And as an angel, it is her duty to protect every living being on the planet.


HISTORY:


Fate has not been kind to the Raquels. On the day following Kova’s peaceful birth she was snatched out of her cradle by a mentally disturbed maniac. His history is difficult to describe and painful to imagine. He was a active serial rapist and murderer who lured prostitutes, desperate women, and sometimes innocent passer-bys into his home where he would force them into his basement and commit his gruesome crimes. His mother’s lack of compassion and his ex-wife’s betrayal were two main factors that tempted him to follow this lifestyle. There was one thing that was missing, however, besides the bloodshed and the endless power over helpless victims: a child of his own. He decided that since his wife would deny him a child and abandon him, he would find one on his own. Adoption was not an option because his mentality could not be trusted. So, he turned to kidnapping.

Kova's parents were absolutely devastated after discovering her disappearance. Kova, on the other hand, was an unsuspecting child. She believed the man to be her true father. She was fed lies about her family’s history and her “miraculous” birth. The man told her that her mother had passed away after giving birth to her and that she loved the both of them dearly. He raised her like any single father would, but his overprotection and obsession concerning rejection and loss coerced him into sheltering her like a toddler, even when she began to grow older. The majority of her life was spent within the walls of this home. Whenever the man was working, a babysitter would arrive to care for her. When school started he would escort her there and back, refusing to release her until they reached the front doors. He was kind, nurturing, and happy. Almost.

The screaming started when she was eight. Temptation was too great for the man to resist, and his victimizing commenced once more. Kova was sound asleep in her room when she heard the first woman’s screams. The sound absolutely terrified her. After a long internal debate, the curious child slipped out of her bedroom and crept down the hall. The source of the screams seemed to originate downstairs from the basement door. She was too shaken to approach the door, but sooner than she expected the screaming ceased. As silence lingered in the empty air, she stood for a few more minutes, waiting for the screaming to start again, but the sounds never came. Relieved but still frightened, the child crawled back into bed and continued her night of slumber.

The second incident occured only two years later. Age ten. When a woman’s screams interrupted her sleep yet again she woke with a start and lay still, wondering if she was suffering from a nightmare. She waited, and waited, and waited, motionless as a boulder beneath her bedsheets until finally, all went silent. This time she was unable to fall back into sleep. She could only stare into the darkness and listen to her own racing heartbeat.

A small statue of an angel rested on her nightstand. It was daddy’s gift for ”His little angel”. She would cradle it in her arms when he read her soothing bedtime stories. It was this same statue she snatched into her arms when the third woman began to scream. It occurred only six months after the second incident. She clutched the figure against her chest as she curled into a tight ball beneath the covers. A storm was raging outside; thunder temporarily drowned the screams after the flashes of lightning created strange, dancing shadows in her room. The combination left her frozen with fear. There was no hope to escaping the noises either, because the man’s attacking became more frequent. The time span between each victim shortened until his hobby became a weekly routine. Kova did not understand why there were screaming women in her home. She figured it was her imagination - portions of previous nightmares that continued to haunt her. It wasn’t until she witnessed a screaming girl firsthand that she realized what the dilemma was.

Screaming is associated with fear and pain. That is what she discovered when the little girl on the swing fell and shattered her ankle upon the cement. The sound frightened Kova into hiding, but it brought her an understanding. The women screaming in her home - they were real, and they were in pain. They needed help. They needed her help. And so she decided that she would save the next woman from harm. She would not allow her to cry and suffer from terrible agony.

Kova considers herself bold for crawling out of the comfort of her bed that night. Heart racing and palms sweating, she slowly approached the basement door, where the screams were as loud and petrifying as ever. As the wooden door creaked open, the shrieking became so clear that she wanted to run back into her room and curl beneath the sheets with her angel statue grasped for protection. She did not back down, however. She swallowed her fear, determined to help the woman in agony, and silently crept down the basement stairway. Her bravery was struck down soon afterwards, when the sound of a grunt and a pair of heavy footsteps echoed within the room. A large shadow indicated that a tall figure was heading for the stairs. Terrified of the beast, she fled and retreated to her room where her bed welcomed her. She knew in her heart that this would not be her last attempt, though.

Kova devised a clever plan several days later. The screaming women were on a fixed schedule, allowing her to predict when the next one would require her help. That same day she decided to hide in the basement closet and wait for the woman to arrive. She did not yet understand the horrors that were in store for her.

Through the crack of the door she forced herself to watch her beloved “father” drag a bound, defenseless woman down the steps and rip off her clothing. When the sexual misconduct began she could not tear her eyes away from the scene. She watched through hot tears as he raped the woman and sliced her tender flesh with carving knives. The pooling blood brought on a wave of nausea, and Kova was forced to scoot into the corner of the closet and silently control her retches and sobs as the woman on the other side slowly perished. She slammed her hands against her ears and tried to muffle the noises - the sound of her only parent dragging the corpse away and cleaning the disgusting mess left behind. She remained in fetal position the entire night.

A loud bang drew her out hiding the following morning. Her surroundings told her that the entire basement had been thoroughly washed clean by her father. Not a single spot of blood could be seen, but Kova knew that what she had witnessed was real. Not just a figment of her imagination - not just a nightmare. She was facing reality for the first time in her life.

Upstairs, Peacekeepers barged into their home and dragged her “father” away. He shouted for his little angel as they cuffed him, and he lunged at her as if longing for her embrace. Kova said and did nothing. She stared impassively the evil man in front of her. She was not sad to watch him leave. In fact, she was relieved when the Peacekeepers escorted her to the orphanage. There were no screaming and bleeding women lying there. Instead, Kova’s true parents arrived to retrieve her. They had been informed of her location and arrived to the orphanage immediately to pick her up.

Kova experienced difficulty accepting the fact that these two complete strangers were her parents. The only part that convinced her was that fact that she actually bore a resemblance to them. She shared her mother’s large eyes and nimble body, and her father’s nose, ears, and complexion. They also had a framed picture of her as an infant. The situation overwhelmed her to the point of isolation. For months she refused to speak to either of them and remained in her bedroom; an unfamiliar place that brought her discomfort the first few weeks of her stay. Even with the angel statue at her bedside she did not feel content. She missed her old home, where her old father would tuck her in and tell sweet bedtime stories about her mother while she held the statue like a child's babydoll. She quickly reminded herself that her old father was a wicked psychopath and that in this new home, the nights of complete silence were the things she had prayed for for the longest time.

Gradually she began to adjust to her new lifestyle. She reluctantly addressed her parents as "mother" and "father" and willingly spent some of her free time with them playing games or chatting about school. She is a quiet and somewhat reserved child, so a social life at school remains nonexistant for the most part. When the time arrived for her to start earning money, she was placed in a small factory to work some of the machinery used to assmemble parts for computers. It was terrible labor in terrible conditions, but Kova proved to have a keen eye for detail, especially when examining her computer parts. Whenever she discovered flaws she would report them to the team leader who would then inform the boss and have the part recalled. With this newfound talent she was invited to work as an inspector for aircrafts in a seperate facility. The pay the is greater and the conditions are more favorable. Kova does not mind working in these facilities. Searching for flaws in complex machines is an easy task for her eyes.

CODEWORD: Odair