Dignity Ryder, District Seven{Finished}

My name is Dignity Ryder. I've been dead for a while now. Not physically dead, but dead all the same. Funny that a soul can die and a body can go on living, isn't it?

History:

I lost both my parents to the Hunger Games. They also took my older sister and both my cousins. So you can see why I hate the Capitol.

My parents were both sixteen when my older sister Faith was born. Two years later, I was born, and a short two months after that, they were both reaped in the Games. Faith and I were left in the care of my father's brother Rome, and his wife, Iona. They had two children already, Arabea and Arak, who were five and four at the time.

I was eight when the Hunger Games hit me. I knew they were bad. They'd taken my parents, after all, and forced me into a house where my uncle abused me and my Aunt hated me. But that year, things were different. That year, Arabea was in the Games.

Arabea was a better sister to me than Faith. We were best friends, despite the age difference. Though not as wild as me, Arabea was still a thrill-seeker. We were partners in crime. Whatever I got in trouble for, Arabea got in trouble for too. We were inseparable. The year she became a tribute, I watched her struggle to live past the first day. I cried with her every night. She was killed on the fifth day by a Career from District Two. She never made a kill. I guess the thrill of the Games was too much for her.

After Arabea's death, Arak was a great comfort to me. He was calm and quiet. He sat with me when I cried, and he listened when I talked. But he, too, was ripped away from me by the next Hunger Games.

All I had left was Faith. She was a poor excuse for an older sister. She was always hiding in a corner, weeping. She didn't speak. I knew the sound of her voice once, but she hadn't spoken for years. I never knew why she stopped talking.

She left, too. And despite being a poor sister, I was still devastated when she left. She had been the only person left in the world who I could call a friend.

After Faith died, Uncle started drinking. The abuse probably would have gotten worse, but for some reason, he wasn't violent when he was drunk. But eventually, it did get worse. He started hitting me more when I was thirteen.

I started working when I was fourteen. Uncle said I had to, had to start being worth something. I guess being his punching bag didn't count. My job was to cut logs into planks using a machine with sharp, rotating blades. It made me nervous, but it was comforting too. That thing could hurt me if I got close enough. But I didn't get close enough. I just pushed wood at it. Ha-ha. Can't touch me. I pretended it was my Uncle sometimes. Can't touch me. There's a wall of wood between us, and the wood likes me. The wood will protect me. Maybe I was a little crazy.Maybe I still am.

But the worst came just a few months ago. Aunt was at the market. I had just gotten home. Uncle was drunk. I should have seen it coming. I should have left right then, but I didn't. He raped me. I screamed, but of course, no one came. The neighbors were used to hearing me scream. They had stopped caring long ago.

I didn't want to pretend anymore. To pretend that I was anywhere near happy. I took to drawing lines of blood on my skin with a knife, slicing through the vulnerable flesh. I never did it on my arms, or places people could see. Just my legs, my stomach. Can't touch me.

He didn't do it just the one time. Whenever we were alone, just the two of us, and he was drunk. I stopped screaming after a while. I accepted the fact that no one would save me. And not long after I stopped screaming, Uncle stopped raping me. I think the one of the reason he hurt me was because he liked to hear me scream.

It didn't surprise me when I found out I was pregnant. I moved out of Uncle's house. He wouldn't take this child, mess it up like he'd messed me up. This baby was going to change things. Life was going to get better. I'd been saving up my money for a while, so I had enough to buy a tiny two-roomed shack. It wasn't much, but it would do for now.

I only have one worry, one fear. That Uncle will find me and hurt me more than he ever has before. That he is so angry I've left that he'll torture me and kill me. I don't go out in the streets except when I have to. I don't want to risk running into him.

I feel hopeless. I feel empty, like all my emotions have been sucked out of me. And if this baby doesn't fix that, I might have to die.

Appearance:

I have my mother's brown hair, naturally straight. Her eyes, a dark jade green. Her height, her body. Hell, I could have been her twin. At least, that's what Aunt told me. But I was sure my mother never a ugly pink burn scar all the way down her right arm. That was Uncle's doing. He stuck my arm in the fireplace just to hear me scream. I was thirteen when it happened. When the doctor Aunt called for came, Uncle told him I'd stuck my own arm in the fire. Said I was probably crazy or something. And maybe I am. I lost the feeling in parts of my arm. The doctor said the nerves just burned away, and that they wouldn't grow back.

I hated that scar. The pink flesh that began just below my shoulder, rippling down to my hand. My hand, that should have been so badly burned that using it was out of the question. But for some reason, I'd gotten to keep the feeling in my hand, and only skin had burned there, nothing important.

My Uncle's abuse was worse after that. It was if I was some great big tree and he had this axe of abuse, and he wouldn't stop hacking away at me until I'd fallen.


Personality:

When I was young, I believed the world should revolve around me. All attention should be mine. If it wasn't, I did something to make people notice me. I was seven when I learned the thrill of jumping from trees and the rush of running through the parts of the forest where trees were being felled.I got yelled at a lot for things I shouldn't be doing. Shouldn't be traipsing through the forest alone, especially where people were working, and I shouldn't be skipping school to climb trees. Aunt Iona had expectations for Faith and I. We were to be proper young ladies, the type any man would want to marry, so she could get rid of us as soon as possible.

Aunt Iona had told me that once upon a time, before she and Uncle had married, Uncle had wanted to marry my mother. She was beautiful, free-spirited, and wild. But of course, she turned him down. She married my father instead. Uncle never forgave her for that. And I looked and acted just like my mother. It was more looks, though, since I'd stopped acting like her after all the deaths. It had broken my spirit some.

Three years in a row, the Hunger Games had taken someone from me. I stopped trying to make friends. What was the point? They would just leave me in the end. When people talked, I didn't answer, except to snap at them and tell them to leave me alone.

I fell into a depression after my Uncle raped me. I didn't want to live any more. I just wanted life to be over. He'd broken me. But I kept on living anyways. I had a baby to think about now.