Laurinda Kimberly Marrinan

Name: Laurinda Kimberly Marrinan
Age: Looks 14, but actually turned 15 a while ago.
Gender: Female
Looks: Laurinda is very thin and somewhat short for her age, being only 5 feet, about. She has short, dark red, almost brown, hair cut into a bob. She also has brown eyes.
Wears: Whatever she can steal---erm....attain. Usually shorts and T Shirts, all of which are too big on her and have many un-identified stains on them. Even she doesn't know where most of them came from.
Personality: Her life has hardened her. She understands the cruelty of this world, and is very down and belives that no one has good in them. That everyone is the same. She doesn't believe that anyone would truly want to help her, and that they all have alterior motives. She hates being around people, thinking that they'll only hurt her eventually. She is a very bitter little girl, hurt by the ways of the world. She hates to be treated like a child, yet she acts just like one sometimes. Though other times she can be very grown up; after all, she's seen more of the evil of this world than most girls, or boys for that matter, who are older than her.
Biography: Laurinda's past is a strange one indeed. She grew up with two loving parents, and was a sweet little girl. She was very close to both of her parents, since she was an only child. She had always longed for a sibling, however. She loved being around others, and hated being alone.

When she was 7 years old, a fever put both her mother and father in bed. They made her stay in her room most of the time, not wanting her to get sick. One day, when she went to check on them, they weren't moving. Weren't breathing. They had died.

She was sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle, whom she had only met once before when she was 4 at a family reunion. She hardly remembered them. They seemed nice, but as soon as they had her alone at their house, everything changed.

Her Aunt went out that first night for groceries, and her Uncle told her to do something. She messed up, and apologized, but he abused her. He hit her, over and over. She cried and screamed, though this only made him hit her again, so hard she passed out. When she woke, she was lying on her bed, as if nothing had ever happened. But the bruises on her arms and cheeks told her differently.

She told no one; he threatened that if she did, he would kill her. She didn't understand why he wanted to do these things to her, but she wouldn't, couldn't, do anything about it. Her Aunt said nothing about her bruises; it was as if she knew.

School went on normally; no one asked about the bruises that showed up more and more often. She hardly felt the pain anymore; it was a normal thing for her. He drank, and that was why he did it, as she found out later.

This went on and on until she turned 13. She came home one day, and he was waiting by the door for her. She knew what was coming, and it seemed that she had lost her will to fight long ago, a few months after it began; she accepted her fate, refusing to show that it hurt.

It got worse after that. The beatings were more brutal. She came to school one day with a black eye, and one teacher questioned her about it. So did a friend. She told them nothing. She couldn't.

She was 14 when she finally got the courage to tell someone. She was in her room, looking at the phone. She picked it up and dialed her friend's number, and just as she picked up, she began to speak, but her Uncle stopped her, unplugging the phone. It got even worse after that, since he knew what she had been trying to do.

She was 15 now, and she had finally had enough. She fought back this time when he went on another one of his drunken rages; she hit him back. Her Aunt watched in the background, silent tears streaming down her face. Apparently he did the same thing to her, yet she just stood there each time and watched as he did it to her every time. Laurinda hated her for that.

She lost the fight, of course. He was bigger than her; stronger. That night, as she lay in bed, she decided. She packed up the few belongings she could, including the journal her father had gotten her, cut her hair short with a pair of scissors so she wouldn't be recognized as easily, stole some cash from downstairs, and climbed out her window. She took the bus to the next town, then the next, and the next. She finally stopped when she thought she was far enough away, and began living on the streets for the next few months. She became an almost expert pickpocket, and stole many things from those who passed by her on the streets. She was almsot arrested once, and they seemed to know about her, so she ran. She ran and ran, and took a bus to the next town. She did this several more times, until she was almost on the other side of the country. There she began again, though she still lived on the streets. She started to go to school, somehow managing to get in without her parents having to meet anyone there. She was a very good liar, and she had to be to get money from people or steal it from them.

She only goes to school to retain some normalcy in a life that is anything but normal anymore. Every night monsters haunt her dreams, demons of her old life threatening to come back and consume her.

Race: Human
Likes: Food, showers (they're a rare thing for her), warm places, her journal, quiet, school (she still goes, so that she feels 'normal'. She uses a fake name, and won't let anyone know anything about her. She just goes to retain some sense of normalcy in her life. Plus, she can get food there.), animals.
Dislikes: Being treated like a kid, chaos/confusion, her Aunt and Uncle, school at times (but she still goes), sadness, mean people (everyone, in her opinion).
Fears: Having someone find out that she's homeless and try to take her back 'home', truly opening up to someone and getting hurt again, large crowds (she's claustrophobic), her Aunt and Uncle.
Other: She has a journal that her mother gave her years ago. She just recently starting writing in it, when she ran away. She recorded all that happened at her Aunt and Uncles' house to get it off her chest, then starting writing about what happened each day before she went to bed. It's almost full.

She's also very thin, only eating what she gets at schools and what she can steal on other days. And dirty. She's covered in dirt most of the time.

Also, her bruises have mostly faded, but the unseen scars remain.

She's also taken to breaking and entering, when she's very desperate, though usually in houses that are empty, with the owner's on vacation or something. She will use them to eat, take showers, and rest before moving on again.

One of her favorite memories of her parents is them at the circus. She was amazed by all the things things there; people who could walk on tightropes, juggle fire, all those things. She always tries to remember this when she gets sad.