Meela Paireerak

[Lamps]

Name: Meela Paireerak
Gender: Female (She/Her)
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: 4X Strategy Games, Programming, Cooking

Appearance: Meela is a 5”0 Thai girl with shoulder-length wavy black hair, dark brown eyes, round ears and olive skin. Her head is nearly a perfect circle, though more tall than wide, and her cheeks are slightly round and puffy. She applies makeup semi-regularly, preferring to use deep red shades of lipstick. Meela is averagely proportioned and slightly overweight from physical inactivity, though it’s difficult to tell from an onlooker’s perspective due to her baggy attire.

She’s not particularly muscular or athletic and appears to be reserved in her attitude, avoiding unnecessary movement and exertion. Exceptions to this are occasions where Meela flares up in anger or frustration, in which case her demeanor shifts almost entirely - she appears full of energy, prone to waving fingers around and red in the face from the blood rushing to Meela’s head. She often has a displeased expression on her face as though perturbed about something - this is true regardless of whether she is or not. She rarely smiles.

Meela’s choice in clothing consists of a swamp-green hoodie bearing a cutesy snake pattern design on the back, which she wears almost constantly. She tends to wear comfortable shorts and avoids socks, opting for sandals when leaving the house. Her wire-frame glasses sit loosely on her nasal bridge, approaching the tip of her small nose.

On the day of her kidnapping, Meela was wearing her usual green hoodie with a plain white t-shirt underneath, clearly unwashed and bearing a few stains, a pair of brown camo cargo shorts and tan leather sandals with multiple straps. The state of her makeup could be considered rushed and minimally applied.

Biography: Meela Paireerak was born in Boulder City, Nevada, though she never grew up there. Her family, including her parents Jon and Chalai Paireerak as well as her older sister Lyn, moved to Las Vegas when Meela was 3. Despite Boulder City being the Paireeraks’ first home, there were several reasons behind the move - they’d experienced racial discrimination in the area for a long time, which only seemed to be rising in its frequency by the time Meela was born. Not wishing for their youngest daughter to go through what they did, the Paireeraks looked towards Las Vegas as a preferable alternative city to raise her in. The family also sought to reconnect with the state’s Thai community, which is located prominently within the Las Vegas area.

She’s a third-generation Thai-American, with her grandparents emigrating from Bangkok to the US in the mid-60s in the midst of the Vietnam War. Her first language is English but she does have some fluency in Thai thanks to her family using it at home and at occasional social gatherings. Her relationship with her family is generally positive, with Jon and Chalai supporting Meela as much as they can while her sister Lyn assumes a less caring role more typical of an older sister. It was clear to Meela from a young age that Lyn found the attention she was receiving somewhat irritating, likely due to deep-rooted jealousy.

Meela was a naturally gifted student growing up, especially in mathematics, though she didn’t make a lot of friends in either elementary or middle school. She was quiet and preferred to be alone, opting to sit and read books instead of playing with the other bigger, more active kids. One of the friends she did make, a girl called Samantha who sat behind her in class, stole her lunch one day when she’d left her backpack unattended. This gave Meela the distinct impression that she couldn’t truly trust anyone not to ruin her day - not at school or anywhere else - except her own family. Even then, not even her sister completely liked her.

After finishing middle school, Meela soon became interested in computers - a now lifelong passion - after her dad set up a PC in her bedroom to help her with studying at her future high school - Southwest Red Rock High School. Soon, her attention would turn towards PC gaming - one of the first games she downloaded to play in her spare time was Sid Meier’s Civilization V which she’d play every evening with games usually spanning entire nights, particularly on weekends. She would become knowledgeable in programming with C++ as she developed mods for the games she played, expanding her understanding further. Meela favored civilizations like Austria, Siam and Greece that favored a diplomatic playstyle - the idea of managing lots of little city-states appealed to her greatly, as though she had someone on her side for once.

Meela’s distrust of people had developed into a distaste, or rather a strong aversion, since joining Southwest Red Rock High School. Dealing with other students now felt like a chore, with several students now flocking to her for her technical know-how when she would prefer they leave her be. It seemed, to her, that she was the only one in the entire school who knew how to defrag a hard drive or how a VPN functioned - two of the most common issues she ran into. Though she wasn’t unpopular per se, she now wishes she could hide in the woods for a while to avoid people asking her to turn a laptop off and on again. Deep down, though, she does enjoy the newfound attention even if it infuriates her.

Advantages: Meela is remarkably intelligent, able to formulate plans and adapt quickly to her situation. She’s also short-statured and light on her feet, useful when hiding behind obstacles to avoid potential attackers as well as crawling through small spaces. While unlikely to be of use during most of the game, her programming expertise may prove to be vital under the right circumstances.
Disadvantages: Meela isn’t the most physically active person - she tires easily and can’t sprint for very long, needing to take breathers often after exerting herself. She may also come across as rude, dismissive or even callous (intentionally or unintentionally), which rarely leads to good things in a deadly survival scenario.