Ingrid Todd // District 9

My name is Ingrid Todd, but please, call me Dark. My sister refuse to call me that but I still refer to myself as such, and introduce myself using the shortened form of my middle name. I am twelve, but you might mistake me for much younger sometimes. Don't be fooled. I'm a girl, if you haven't noticed. I live in District 9, the grain district. Not too bad.

My hair is unmistakably raven black and curly-puffy, contrasting against my smooth pale complexion. My piercing blue eyes dig into your thoughts, morbid curiosity running through every cell. My small round nose and thin little mouth make me appear cute. I have a fragile little face, and can easily trick you.

I am short and frail bodied, with not much muscle to me. My clothes are raggedy, mostly much too big on me. I prefer to go barefoot, and I also enjoy hats that shade my eyes from other people. My hair is always worn down, never ever up. On reaping day I wear a mourning dress for my parents, and usually my sisters fight with me to get a bow in my neatly brushed hair.

Since my parents' deaths I haven't been the same girl. I have grown a strange curiosity of the dead and anything creepy and crawly. The spiders are my friends, black my comfort. I enjoy imagining ways to die. I watch the hunger games, but the entire time I am thinking of ways the person could have avoided a certain situation. I am the type of person who laughs at a funeral, just so you know know.

According to my sisters I should be dancing and laughing and playing, I prefer to sit away from the other children though, and play with my ragdolls, tearing off their heads and reattaching them. I hardly ever cry, and I'm very much a loner. I am clever though, and very smart. I'm sneaky too - so watch out! I am avoided for people know of my thieving ways. But unless I'm caught they can't accuse!

Sometimes I stop and stare blankly into space. This is what you see, but what I see is much worse. I see so vividly the deaths of my parents. Over and over. Always. When I awake I grab my books and run to the alley, where I can read in danger and unsettling atmosphere.

I was born to Wence and Carol Todd, the youngest of three. Perhaps my middle name was foreshadow of the events to come. As a young child my sisters watched after me well, keeping me out of trouble and making sure I made plenty of friends. I tried, but often failed, though I did gain a few. I remember Avery and Mella well.

It really started when I was seven though. It was my oldest sister's first reaping, and my parents were to frightened to allow her to go. We tried to skip the reaping altogether, and after the first few minutes we heard a knock at the door. Thump, thump, thump. Mother threw my sisters under the bed and shoved me in the cupboard. I don't know what happened next, but I heard voices, then she yanked me out of the cabinet and began to run. I didn't see anything, but I knew my father was behind us. I didn't know why we were running. We were stopped long before we reached the supposed destination - the fence. Or as my sisters told me. I was the only one there besides the peacekeepers who saw it. My mother - shot in the head, falling with me in her arm to the ground. And just as I made my way out from under her I saw the blow to the head given to my father, and as he fell unconcious to the ground, the shot in his back. My sisters say they'd been building up to running away, meaning to bring them all, but it had been cut short. We went to the community home. I didn't open my eyes, I closed them. I became me.

I always had to deal with bullies after that, but I got rid of them with threats I was okay with going through with. "I'll put snakes in your bed!" I would yell to the freckled boy who teased me for my puffy raven hair. He would go to bed that night with snakes in his bed. "I'll shave your head in your sleep!" I would tell another girl who dared tease my manner. She would wake up with a rather crude haircut. I was a troublemaker, and by the age of ten I was relying on what I was able to steal. I refused any help.

When I was eleven my sisters and I went out together, just on a walk, and just talked for a bit. We spoke of random things, such as our parents, other people in the community home. We even discussed our favorite things. We were much to bored to care what we spoke of, and a few secrets may have been spilled. Let's just say I know enough to blackmail my sisters if I want to.