Clementine Theodora||District 8

Your name’s Clementine, eh?
That’s a pretty name.
A pretty name for a pretty girl.
A pretty girl like you could make lots of money.
It’s easy.

Clementine has always been quite pretty for her age, and she knows it. She doesn’t flaunt her beauty around though, but she does use it to her advantage.

First off, the girl has long hair, in which she usually puts up in a blue ribbon that she has. She especially uses it when she works in the factory, because she has seen first hand accounts of women getting their hair stuck in the machinery. But when she does have her hair down, it is curly and wavy. Unfortunately, because she is quite poor, the ends are very choppy and uneven. Her locks cascade a bit past her chest, and she usually has it in the front of her body when it is down. She has short, choppy bangs too that she usually pushes to the left side of her face. Occasionally, she will have them split down the middle. Her hair is thin, but she likes it that way. She would rather have it thin and easy to handle rather than thick hair and hard to put up.

Her eyes are what gets most people. It is her most notable feature, and she likes it that way. Her eyes change colors from time to time, but the difference is the range of green her eyes possess. It can range from a sea green, which is what it is most of the time. It also changes to an emerald green, and lastly, it can change to a dark green, though it is rare when that color is showing. No matter what color her eyes are, they always seem to have a hint of gold lining the pupil. It does not stretch out far, but the gold circles around the dark pupil. When you look into Clementine’s eyes, you can see a cheerful and bubbly personality. Don’t look too far though, because she masks her real personality deep in her eyes. The whites in her eyes are pure and the color of the snow that falls upon the ground in the winter months. Her eyes are also almond shaped and lined with long, dark eyelashes that define her green eyes. The one downfall about her eyes is the dark bags that are always under them. She has very late nights and does not get much sleep, so the bags are quite definite.

Clementine’s face is round, giving her an innocent look. She has thin eyebrows, and the left one is usually covered by her bangs that swoop down. She also has freckles that scatter her face, but they are very faint. The most recognizable freckles are the ones that are under the bags under her eyes that bridge up onto her nose. They are the darkest, and they are described as a salmon color. Her lips are thick and a pink color, but they are small horizontal-wise. When she smiles, her teeth are a bit yellow because the hygiene is not the best in District 8. But you’ll also see her dimple of her right cheek when she smiles. Her cheeks are rosy most of the time against her skin, especially in the winter. She has a short chin, and she has a philtrum, which is the crease in between the end of your nose and the middle of your top lip.

Her skin is quite easy to differentiate among other District 8 citizens. Her skin is extremely pale, and they possess freckles on her arms. Her skin is quite smooth too, except for the small scars she gets from working in the textile factory. She usually has splinters in her fingers, though she can’t have too many for her late job. Clementine’s skin sometimes seem to glow in the winter because of how pale it is, but in the summer, her pale skin just seems red because of the wicked sunburns she gets. She will normally get blisters because there is no way of protecting herself from the sun and the fumes from the factories that bounce off of the sun. She will wear protective clothing in the summer, usually wearing a long sleeve white shirt and tan pants that are lightweight but cover her pale skin. The hair on her arms and legs are dark, though she tries to keep them trimmed for the sake of her pale skin against the dark hair.

She is a petite girl, both in height and weight. She is underweight, as most of the money she gets is put towards the food for her and her son. She has been slowly gaining more weight though and is closer to normal weight than ever considering she has been making a lot more money. Clementine stands at a short height of 5’1”, which is a bit strange for a girl who is eighteen. Nonetheless, she does not mind her height, as it makes her more innocent looking. She also weighs about ninety pounds, but she is growing in her weight by eating more food. She has a flat stomach, but she does have a scar right under her stomach. She hides that as best as possible though because it is a secret she has been hiding for years. She has long legs for a girl her height, though her arms are long as well. She has stubby fingernails considering she has to trim them for work and long nails just get in the way. Both her hands and her feet are small, in which she doesn’t mind. When she needs to be somewhere quickly, she can run pretty fast, though she doesn’t know how to climb. At night, she carries a small pocket knife just in case as well, but she has only had to use it once. She is small too, and she can fit into small places when most others cannot. She also uses her appearance to her advantage, in which is has gotten her quite a lot of money.

My pride fell with my fortunes,
but I stay strong.
Though it is not because I want to,
but more likely because I have to.

Let’s talk about the person that everybody thinks Clementine is. First off, Clementine is a very sweet girl. Whether she does know you or she doesn’t, she is respectful to all. She is also very social. She isn’t afraid of public speaking nor is she afraid of talking to people she doesn’t know. When she does talk though, she is very energetic and bubbly. She usually has a smile on her face and will be very polite to anyone she meets, making sure to use her pleases and thank-yous. If you do get to know her more, she is very trusting with other people. She will keep any of your secrets close to her heart and not tell a single soul. She seems like the flawless girl that everyone sees--pretty, energetic, and trusting. Yes, she might be all of those, but you will never know the real her no matter how hard you try to get to know her.

That energetic, beautiful person is only the girl’s outer skin. Deeper inside, she is a dark person. Someone who is mentally scarred from both her past and present. She most likely suffers from Compulsive Lying and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which she does not know considering there are no doctors that can tell her that. She is a pathological liar as well, as she cannot stop lying to her friends and hiding from her truth. She is starting to believe her lies as well, in which she cannot control. She feels as if she needs to tell someone everything about herself to get rid of all the lies, but she knows she would be judged to the extreme, and she does not feel as if she could deal with that.

Clementine relives her past too, sometimes having flashbacks that she cannot control. She will sometimes have them around her friends, and she makes up an excuse to cover them up. She is a fantastic liar as well as a good actress. One minute, Clementine could be happy and kind, and the next minute she could pretend to care about someone else’s problems. She is the least honest person that you will ever meet, but she is so caring that it is hard to realize her madness. She portrays the perfect factory girl who does her work and smiles as she does it.

Despite her double identity, she does work hard for everything she has earned. Clementine has never accept charity from another person nor has she even stolen. She feels as if stealing is pointless, and you have to work for what you get instead of easily stealing someone else’s work. She believes those people are lazy. She is hard on herself, no matter what she does, and she is quite the perfectionist. If she even makes the littlest mistake, she will beat herself up about it. It will linger in her mind for hours, or even days, until she makes it right or until she makes another mistake. If she does make a large mistake, it will be in her mind for years. It seems as if it is permanently marked in her brain, and she cannot help but go back every once in a while to that mistake and figure out what she could have done. She is always focused on the past and future rather than the present.

Clementine has closed herself off, not from social or emotional barriers, but those more dealing with love and pride. She does not allow herself to love, because everyone she has ever loved has betrayed her. She only cares now, and she refuses to have the feeling of love. You could say that she is semi-asexual, but maybe it is because she has not allowed herself to love in quite some time. Or maybe it is because she has not met the right person to open herself up to. She may never experience love again, but she doesn’t mind. Maybe love is just a waste of time in her mind.

Her pride is another story. She may be fun and bubbly with her coworkers and friends, but her pride has diminished into almost nothing. She lost her pride long ago, along with her true happiness and her feeling of love. When everything had seem to be horrible, her pride was what she had left. Her self-identity. But now, neither of those matter. She has a new cause to work for, leaving both her pride and self-identity somewhere deep in her mind where she cannot reach it any longer.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
when hope was high, and life worth living
I had a dream my life would be
so different now from what it seemed
now life has killed the dream I dreamed

Clementine Theodora Disen was born in the year of the 47th Hunger Games. Her mother and father, Mr. Kale Disen and Mrs. Frances Kopsky-Disen were both quite rich for District 8’s sake. Her father was the foreman of a cotton factory and her mother was the head accountant for the same factory. Her father eventually became the Vice President of that factory, only being lower than a rich Capitolian who owned it. He was in charge of the whole factory, and that made the Disen’s pretty rich.

They lived near the Victor’s Village in a two-story home. Clementine was an only child who was quite spoiled. She had learned to smile in front of houseguest and be a very polite young lady. But behind closed doors, she was neglected. Not in the way of being abused so much, but more of her parents not caring about her. They always had work, and she was left alone in the large house a lot. The only noticed when she did bad things, which she never did. It wasn’t natural to her. Bad things always had bad consequences. But then, something unexpected happened that led her life to become a living hell.

She had always gotten good grades in school, been the model student, and was happy. She knew some kids envied her wealth, and with wealth came popularity. She then started dating the mayor’s son, who at first seemed kind and caring. Clementine thought that he loved her, and she gave into his sadistic personality. He then pressured Clementine to have sex with him, and she simply refused, telling him that she wasn’t ready considering she was only fourteen years old. He kept pressuring her over and over again, not just over a couple hours but over a couple weeks. He threatened to break up with her if she didn’t do it, and her parents were starting to pay attention to her because they were now close with the mayor. She knew that if they broke up, everything would be all over. So she did it with him. She hated every minute of it, but she did it. He then left her a couple week later because she had gotten ‘boring.’ She had lost her virginity to someone who only used her for popularity.

Strangely, after the break-up, she started getting sick, but she also gained weight at the same time. She would throw up on a daily basis, even if it was from a certain smell or even just looking at a piece of food. She realized that the worst had come--she was pregnant. Her parents always threatened her that if that ever happened, there would be no pity. Clementine, only fifteen years old, was scared and alone. Nothing would never be the same. She started staying home from school because she knew students would question her growing stomach. She would stay home, and for quite a long time, her parents didn’t realize her absence. But then they started to wonder about her sickness and her constant throwing up. When she was about six months in, they realised she was pregnant. Her mother walked upstairs in tears, and her father just sighed. ”Pack your bags now. You’ll be living with your grandmother now. You are a disgrace, Clementine,” were the last words he said to Clementine. She packed a bag of four outfits, two pairs of shoes, and left to her grandmother’s home.

She had only met her grandmother once. The woman was in her fifties, though she looked like she could be eighty. Her name was Patria Disen, and she was her father’s mother. She had stopped working and lived on the money that her husband left her, which wasn’t much. She lived in a one-room shack near the silk factory. Clementine then had her child in the summer of the 61st Hunger Games. She knew she couldn’t take care of the child herself, as she was too poor. She took it to a man and a woman--the man was a foreman at the silk factory and the woman was a stay-at-home woman and always ate. They said that they would take Clementine’s daughter in, who she named Ava, and keep her a secret--for a price. That she would have to work in the silk factory and also give them twenty coins a week, which was all of her pay. If she declined the offer or refused to pay, they would tell everyone that the Disen Daughter had a child and had committed adultery. If she couldn’t pay, Ava would end up on the streets as well. Clementine knew she couldn’t bare that kind of judgement or sacrifice, so she accepted.

With being broke and working for free at the Silk Factory along with going to school, Clementine knew that she was going to starve and, if that happened, her Ava would die as well. She needed to get another job, but because of her young age, everyone declined. She was in a rush, but one evening, while she was out on the streets looking for food, she met a man. It had only been three weeks after her baby was born, and he offered her a job. One that would lose her pride and self-identity, but she would be able to feed her baby as well as herself if she accepted. She had already committed adultery, lost everyone she had ever loved, and she had been exiled from her own home from one simple mistake. She accepted the job, and she was the youngest of the ladies. The ladies called themselves the Fallen Women of the Night. Clementine was now one of them, and she started to be the most popular customer. She gave almost everything she earned for her poor Ava, and she hoped that soon, she would have enough to buy a home for the both of them.

To this day, Clementine still works for the Fallen Women. She has never told anyone what she does, not even her grandmother. Her grandmother does not really think anything of her mysterious disappearances because she doesn’t care very much. Clementine is still bubbly and fun as the girl who once was, but everything she now lives is a lie. The man, who she pays to take care of Ava, harasses Clementine at work. She knows that she is helpless, as if she does one wrong move, they will throw her poor baby out on the street. She sees Ava once a month, and Clementine is determined to take her out of the wretched people’s hands. Because of all the money she does make though, she plans to take Ava out of there in a year and for them to get their own home. She also plans to get a new job and to quit her secretive one, but she doesn’t know if she can considering if she does stop, she might go back to starving again. She worries about Ava and how she will grow up, but she hopes that Ava will stay strong and have a supportive mother, unlike Clementine’s mother was to her.