KITTY DEWITT // D3 ♕

---

INFORMATION

---

---

BIOGRAPHY

---

The selfless give more to life than they take from it; because of that they are lain to rest more empty than they began. It was during the ninth year of my life that I became selfish. (The hands of time took my Mama from me before they should have and I needed to cling to everything else I could.) That morning flickers behind my eyes like lightning in a storm when they close each night - it dances at my temple until morning. The day it does not linger I will know I am insane. "What do you see?" says Iggy.



It's a story so cliche I'd usually refuse to tell it - but Iggy is the one asking and I tell him absolutely everything. So I let my eyelids flutter to a close and whisper to him, explaining what I can. "It's dark, Ig, because it's really early in the morning, before even the birds get up." I'm shivering - the cold air reaches me from a place so far away.


I don't want to go on, but I feel him insisting. "At first, I didn't know why I was awake, because everything was so still," I breathe in and I swear I can still taste my mother's perfume that lingered on my sheets, the fresh air of the district in the early morning. (Everything is so terribly familiar.) "Then I heard voices downstairs, just whispers, but filled with a kind of fear that reached for me in my dreams."

My body shifts ever so slightly in the real world as I watch my hands fumble with the laces of my shoes and feel the soft fabric of my dressing gown. I was ever so curious, even then. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I had not gone down the stairs to investigate, skipping every second one and holding my breath as though it would surpress the gentle creaking.(Nobody heard me as I stood in the doorway of the kitchen.)

"Mama was standing by the door in her hat and coat, arguing with my father about something I don't understand even now," I say, barely breathing as I speak. As the door slams, the house shakes all the way down to it's very foundations, and my father turns in despair. He takes a seat at the table, his head resting on his old, weathered hands. If I had gone to him, perhaps things would have been different. "I went out the back door and followed my Mama up the drive and out into the street."

It was deep in the heart of water; so cold that even the water drainage was deep and frozen. Usually, the area of land that officials left clear for irrigation was dry, but that night was the first without rain for weeks. (Perhaps if the sun had come up, right then, she wouldn't have chosen to walk across the ice to avoid going all the way around the streets.) Maybe then she would have made it to her sister's house.

"She didn't slip or fall - the ice simply crumbled as she reached the center, it's hands reaching out and pulling her down." Mama didn't have time to scream, but I did it for her. My footsteps were quick and light, and I reached the gaping hole within moments. There were a couple of seconds that went on for hours - perhaps they stretched out for all of eternity. (Iggy holds my hand as I remember the droplets of icy water on my cheeks, mingling with my tears.)

I gasp, feeling all of my life give way before me. The tangled mess of her hair sunk from view and she was gone, like that. (In the darkness I could see no movement beneath the sheet of ice that somehow held my tiny body.) "They found me in the morning, curled up on the ice." That was the night Iggy came to me - I was lonely and he sat beside me and held me.

I open my eyes and the world returns. Stable. It was just a nightmare; but the nightmare was real. Because of it, I'm different. I cling to my father even when he has no time for my words. (I insist that Iggy has a place at the table when we sit down to eat.) And, although I refuse to agree when people tell me it, I'm selfish. When father moved in to become the man my cousin's household, he dragged me with him. I told him I wanted to stay behind but he said I had a new family now. So I smiled and I let myself become immersed in their lives, always eager, always up for whatever challenges they set.

(Often, I set my own challenges, or me and Iggy think up plans and throw ourselves into them with everything we have.) I feel in vidid colours; express each emotion with wide gestures and facial expressions that cannot be faltered. Here, I am known for trying, and perhaps just as widely known for failing. Unlike the others, mistakes do not lead me to feel ashamed. I smile. "Iggy! Iggy, don't run away from me like that! Come back here!" The house is never quiet when Iggy is about, knocking things from their place and refusing to admit to breaking them.

Like my cousins, I'm pale - Iggy is pale, too, with strawberry blonde hair and a cheeky grin and freckles. I don't like mirrors much - they remind me how different I look from my parents.(My hair is dark and my eyes are a pretty chestnut, but I yearn for the blonde hair and blue eyes of either of my parents.) My own face reminds me that I don't fit in - not in this house, not with anyone I love. My slender limbs and tiny frame suggest a child of much younger age - I'm usually mistaken for at least a couple of years younger than I am. Apparently Iggy is a childish kind of friend to have, but he's all mine and I know that nobody will take him away.


"Tell me a story," Iggy demands, and I do. It starts out with a girl who goes on countless adventures with her best friend - (she wants to win the Game, you see!)They might think it's the kind of Game where you kill people, and they'd be right. But if they thought it was the kind of Game with tributes and Gamemakers, they'd be very wrong indeed.

"She wanted to win at chess, because that's what her family wanted." And my story went on like this, until the girl called Kitty
came up with a plan and took down the King of her own accord, even though all of her cousins said she wasn't big enough yet to join in their missions. (At the end of the story her father looks at her and smiles and she climbs into his arms with Iggy and everybody is ever so glad she's alive, and ever so proud.)

---

COMPLETE

---