Galen Creed - District 8

Name: Galen Creed
Age: 16
Gender: Male
District/Area: District 8
Appearance:

The pitch black mop of hair that sits atop Galen's head is always dirty and always a mess. It never seems to have a certain style to it because it just seems to fall wherever it wants. The boy's hair is short enough that it doesn't have any true length to it (maybe two inches), but too long for it to look neat when he does nothing to it. His go-to hair style is just waking up and leaving. The black mess often sticks up at weird angles around his head, but it doesn't bother him. On Reaping Day and special occasions he smooths it down flat.

Most of the time Galen has facial hair. It is normally a small beard and a mustache. He has found that the facial hair makes him look older and tougher and that can come in handy. Sometimes he does shave and it's then that he looks like a sixteen year old boy again.

Galen is fair-skinned and clear of freckles. He has high cheeks bones and tiny dimples when he smiles. If he smiles. His lips, moving or not, are a fair pink colour but are usually chapped from all his time spent outside. His teeth are straight and white because his parents made sure they were done at an early age (when they were still around). He has just passed the age where puberty was a bitch to him and because of it still has small traces of acne across his face. Galen has never wished that his eyes were a different colour than the extremely dark brown that they are.

For a District 8 resident, its a wonder that Galen is as muscular as he is (not that he is super muscly). Most people in the district work with clothing, and that doesn't exactly build a lot of muscle. Galen runs almost every day. He has done so much exploring of the district his whole life that is seems like a crime not to be outside all the time. The outside always changes, and the best way to see it is by running. He has built up his leg strength because of this and his pre-running exercises have helped tone his torso and arms (though it isn't very much). He is an average height for his age, standing at about 5'10"

Across his back are long scars, some of which have almost completely faded. They are from his minutes tied to the whipping post in the square. More often than he would have liked, he has been caught stealing something and has been punishing for it. On the another occasion he was caught stealing by a store owner but was not sent to the post. Galen has the scar on his neck to prove that the store owner thought he would teach Galen a lesson himself with the knife he pulled from his boot.

Being outside so much usually leaves his fingernails caked with dirt. And sometimes there is nothing better than running around with your shoes off, which often leaves his toenails in the same shape. The bottoms of his feet of partially callused from running barefoot so often. He constantly tells himself that he needs to stop doing that but the soil beneath his feet always helps him think easier.

Galen has a small wardrobe. It consists only of two pairs of dark pants and three t-shirts that are various colours: green, black, and gray. He has a black hoodie for days when it is cold out along with a gray scarf. He has a dark blue tank to he wears during summer and a khaki pair of shorts. The only shoes he has to choose from are ratty black running shoes and a pair of gray sneakers. He doesn't spend much money on clothes.

[/size][/blockquote]Personality:

Memories. Keepsakes. That is what is important to Galen. He obsesses about it and doesn't really understand why. Life is so short and there are always terrible things happening. It is important to hold on to the things that are solely yours: your memories, your thoughts, your opinions. Galen keeps things. It something happens that he wants to remember, then he will take mementos with him. He has a small box under his bed where he puts everything. On days when he feels hopeless or lost, he opens the box and remembers.

Collecting memories became so important to him over the years that it is now a compulsion. He takes things, steals them. Often so many times he has walks into a store only to see something and remember a thought lost to him long ago. And without a further thought, he will take the object. Some people in the district think he is a thief, but he has only ever stolen what he needed, what he could not live without. If he hadn't have stolen some of the memories they would have haunted him.

Galen is more observant than most and maybe that is the reason his memory is so split. He is able to remember almost everything he has ever said or seen or heard, but he has to have a trigger. A key element to recall the entire scenario.

In his early years of collecting, Galen was caught several times. Because of that he has learned to be stealthy and quiet. Most people don't understand that collecting is just something he has to do. He isn't trying to break the law or steal, he just sees something that he needs in order to remember and he takes it. Over the years he has become adept at finding places to hide and nooks to squeeze into.

An overwhelming sense of curiosity is probably Galen's biggest flaw. It always gets him in all kinds of trouble. He often doesn't finish assignments or even get to work everyday because he curiosity leads him elsewhere. He probably knows every inch of the district better than anyone else because he explores and he remembers.

The good thing about Galen is that when he does get in trouble or get caught, he never makes it into a bigger deal than it needs to be. He is able to stay calm in almost every situation and keep a clear head. If he is being punished, he takes it with no remarks and lets it happen. Galen doesn't see the point in making something bigger than it needs to be. Often times he sees people fighting peacekeepers and refusing and then the situation just turns to shit.

Galen has no sense of self. He is not sure who he is or what traits define him. He is kind and caring to those that he thinks are deserving of it and impartial to those who don't. He is not violent and does not go out of his way to be mean to others, but he does what he thinks needs to be done. Often times he finds that he feels empty and that he clings to his memories in an attempt to fill the space.

[/size][/blockquote]History:

Rodrick Creed and Emily Falen had grown up together. They were neighbors their wholes lives and both avoided being reaped. When Emily turned 18, Rodrick finally proposed. He was three years older and wanted to make sure that they had both escaped the reaping before they made the next step. Two years later the Creed's gave birth to Rebecca. When Rebecca was three, they decided that she was in need of a playmate and so, Galen was born.

Unfortunately, their plan backfired and Galen was not the playmate that they had hoped he would be for Rebecca. Galen instantly became the model child. This caused Rebecca to be very jealous and she never really got over it. All of his child was spent alone or being shunned by Rebecca because he was trying to follow her around.

It was during this time alone that Galen first started collecting. Even then he was extremely curious and would learn to follow his sister around without her noticing. She would meet up with boys in the district and he would often wonder if she was trying to make friends because she would be entered into the next reaping. During these days he would take something to remember what had happened so he could try to remember each of the boys she talked to since they were usually different.

A flower that was only found in the area of the district where she met up with the lanky, pale skinned boy. A piece of fabric that he watched his sister rip from her shirt because it was hanging off when she met with the red-headed boy. A rock from the small stream near the fence where Rebecca played with her childhood friend Marcy. Galen constantly wished that these were his own friends. During this time he would go through his collection box over and over to remember the people and wish that he could talk to them too.

When he turned nine things around the house became stricter. His parents forbid Rebecca and him to leave the house (which of course they did anyway). Dinner became a roll and some brown soup that talked of grass. There was less of early and his father stayed out later and later. His mother got new wrinkles on her forehead and bags under her eyes. Rebecca always seemed to know what was going on and was even meaner to Galen, treating him like he didn't understand anything. "Dad is being watched, okay? Shut up and go to bed, you baby."

A few months later a half dozen of peacekeepers entered their home during dinner and took Galen's father. He was munching on his roll when there was suddenly two guns pointing at his face. Rebecca started crying and his mother started to scream. His father was yelling back at his mother to be quiet because he didn't know what they would to Galen and his sister. Galen stood there quietly, watching the whole thing. The guns did not bother him. That was the way of the world and he wasn't going to cry about it like Rebecca. "Shut up, you baby," he shot at her.

Things happened fast. A peacekeeper slammed the blunt of their gun under Galen's dad's head and grabbed the unconscious body to drag away. His mother fell to the floor sobbing uncontrollably and still screaming obscenities out the front door. Rebecca curled up in the corner and cried herself to sleep. Little droplets of his father's blood lay scattered on the floor from his head wound. Galen went to the kitchen and retrieved a knife. He then proceeded to cut a small square around one of the droplets and then carried the piece of carpet away to be put in his box.

After that, things changed. Rebecca was even colder than usual. It only took a year until she'd had enough and she moved out at 13. One of the families on the other side of town took her in. She devoted all of her time to finishing school early and starting work as soon as possible, even though she might have still been entered in the games. That left Galen alone with his mother. In the year since his father had been taken, she slowly became addicted to Morphling.

The doctor had given it to her in the beginning because he said that it might help the pain of her broken heart (or really of the headaches and the anxiety attacks). She slowly began to take more and more doses of it. It became so bad that the doctor cut her off from it and she began to buy it under the table from District 8's blackmarket. Galen knew all of this because he had become very good at trailing Rebecca. His mother hid all of the Morphling because she was afraid Galen would find it (which he did, but wasn't the least bit interested in it). She hid it under he mattress, in the top cabinets, taped underneath tables, and inside her pairs of socks.

Galen was out of the house most of the time because he didn't like being cooped up with a zombie. The year he turned 12, Galen came home one day to find his mother lying on the floor in front of her bed with no heartbeat. Rebecca had come to see them take the body away and ensure them that she was taking care of him. Then after they left, so did she without even a word goodbye. Galen was left alone in a house full of morphling with no family, no food, and no money.

With no other alternative, he starting selling the morphling back to the blackmarket to get money for his living expenses. He saved most of his money and signed up for tessrae even though he technically no longer needed it. Galen is sixteen now and he has saved up a few hundred dollars (not everyone can afford to buy morphling). He still has long since gotten rid off his mother's stash and has instead been buying some of his own to resell, though he has never used it himself.

Galen dropped out of school to work at a textile factory. He makes peacekeeper uniforms and now truly understands what his father was taken for. His father was a rebel, and a rebel with good connections. It is amazing what someone can learn with friends in the black market and an overwhelming curiosity. Galen was able to get the job in that particular textile factory because of a connection in the market. He isn't very ambitious, so he has yet to make any further contact or moves, but figured that being able to have the uniforms at hand could come in very useful one day.

[/size][/blockquote]Codeword: odair
Comments/Other:

Faceclaim : Aaron Yoo

This kind of really sucks and I'm sorry.

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