DORCAS MEADOWES • TWENTY-ONE • FC: KAILEY HSU
Sit up straight. Don’t chew with your mouth open… especially not in public! Get your elbows off the table, young lady! Don’t be innocent, but don’t be a know-it-all. Dorcas had heard all the things she shouldn’t be, but never what sort of person she ought to be. While other children were able to discover themselves, Dorcas was limited by a lifetime of barriers that never allowed her to develop herself.
Born a Meadowes, Dorcas was faced with the lights of the camera everyday, and for that reason only, she would be made a well-mannered lady of society. Her parents had made it clear from the beginning that none of their children would embarrass the family name, less they wished to face the consequences. Not only was the threat of losing her family pushing down her shoulders, but the pressure to be society’s image of a perfect girl pushed her down further, causing her anxiety throughout her childhood and being physically pained by it.
It was her school that killed her. That killed the worried little girl and replaced her with an empty shell. Kids can be cruel, she had heard. Kids can be cruel, but so was the rest of society and there was only so much a girl could take until she couldn’t. She isolated herself completely, working through her depressive state slowly, but surely. She was well on her own. Rebuilding the girl she remembered she was. Until her mother came to visit her. If they said kids could be cruel, they must have took after their mothers. At first, Dorcas had hoped that she was there to comfort her and help her recovery; instead, she called her weak. Called her weak for trying to be moma’s little girl; Called her weak for trying to adhere to society’s ideals.
She had left, and she couldn’t do it anymore. She self-destructed the person she had been rebuilding: crushed her until there was nothing left but ash, and then she blew it away into the sea. She was so tired of being someone else’s person. She couldn’t care for it any longer, and couldn’t care for what society had to say about it. She rebuilt herself into the girl she thought was strong, and would surpass her mother’s expectations of her with a defiant glare.
She was finishing up her PhD in Mathematics when the outbreak struck the world into chaos. She had been living in Paris for her schooling, making sure to stay far from the toxic people that had ripped her apart those few years ago. She was forced to abandon her possessions in Paris to return home to Ireland, where she would be staying in a safe place with her family. Although reluctant, she followed the orders after watching her fellow Parisians killing each other on the streets, unable to think them as anything but human beings at the time. She was escorted to the airport and last to be allowed on the plane thanks to her family’s money. As they rose up into the air, she had felt safe; until one of the passengers ate another.
The plane had crashed somewhere in Britain. A small group of people had found her alive as they came to look for survivors and supplies. Hesitant to help due to her attitude (she did possess some unkindly traits), they eventually cut her down from her seat and let her wander with them until they got what they needed and went back to the Facility. There, she was quarantined, and eventually integrated into the community.
Training to become a Protector was not on her mind until she finally decided she was bloody tired of doing nothing all day. And she may never admit it, but she also did it because she actually cared about the people down there. Cared enough to want to risk her life for them. It was something in-habitual in her mind, which was why she would have never thought of it before she came back up to the surface as a Protector.
[ - ] Inconsiderate, Controlling Distant
[ + ] Intellectual, Respectful, Driven
TAKEN and written by MEL.
