Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Eve Morgan Zima
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, makeup, vlogging, longboarding, urban exploration

Appearance: Eve is fairly petite, standing at 5’3” and weighing 114 pounds; she has an hourglass figure but is not very curvy overall. She is Caucasian and has a pale complexion with scattered freckles on her neck, shoulders, and arms. Eve’s hair is black and straight, worn in a choppy-layered bob that falls just short of her shoulders, and her eyes are oval-shaped and dark gray. She has a beauty mark just below the left corner of her mouth. She has a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and a defined jawline, which she softens this with makeup.

Eve typically dresses in darker colors and prefers to layer to deal with Massachusetts’s frequent cold weather. She enjoys jewelry and makeup and wears lots of both. Her favorite jewelry pieces are bracelets, which she tends to stack on both arms; she also has her ears pierced once in the lobes and usually wears small pendant earrings or studs with chain and cuff attachments. Eve’s makeup, like her clothing, tends towards darker colors, though she does like to vary up her palette. She usually wears eyeshadow in black or metallic shades, mascara, and various darker lipsticks, as well as foundation and contouring to soften the shape of her face and even out her brows. She also frequently paints her nails to match her outfit.

On the day of the abduction, Eve was wearing a black long-sleeved UnderArmor undershirt beneath a royal blue knee-length kimono style cardigan with a pattern of black birds, along with gray jeans and gray suede Ugg boots. She also had a pair of faux fur earmuffs and black, lined leather gloves on to deal with the cold. She had stacked several thin silver bangles on each wrist and was also wearing small dangling earrings in the shape of crescent moons. She was wearing a dark silver eyeshadow, black mascara and eyeliner, and black lipstick, as well as her usual foundation and contouring. Her fingernails were painted a glittery shade of silver.

Biography: Eve was born on January 11, 2003, about 30 minutes before her twin brother Eden. The twins’ father, William Zima, was a banker and their mother, Candice, worked in tech support. Though the twins had been planned and were welcomed into the world by loving parents, William and Candice began fighting frequently during their early childhood. Because Candice primarily worked from home, William often wanted her to look after the their children instead of paying for a babysitter or daycare. Candice was annoyed with her husband’s attitude and apparent belief that she didn’t do a significant amount of work and had a lot of free time that she could devote to caring for Eden and Eve during the day.

The tensions were somewhat mitigated by the family’s existing social circle at their local church. William and Candice had first met at church and much of their extended family attended the same one; they mostly kept up with it due to the social benefits and the entire family is only nominally religious to this day. Eve and Eden did get their names due to the religious influence, but it was mainly because their parents liked the sound of the names as a pair. William and Candice were able to work some of their issues out with guidance from friends and elders in the church, and the community there offered them assistance with childcare too. Some resentment lingered between the couple for a while afterwards however, and they would continue to snipe at each other over small issues until things finally settled when the twins were a few years older.

As a result of this volatile environment in their early years, the twins quickly learned to be quiet and stay out of their parents’ way; they got along well and were happy in each other’s company, easily entertained by their own imaginations and games they made up with each other. Even when first entering school, Eve and Eden stuck together and rarely played with other children. They also rarely spoke to anyone other than each other, something which concerned their teachers when it was noticed that they shunned socialization with other children and struggled to speak up in class even when called upon. This behavior wasn’t extremely uncommon for twins, but when it began affecting their performance in class, their teachers and parents encouraged the two of them to branch out more.

Even when the twins slowly began to socialize more with their peers, Eve remained more introverted than her brother. She learned to read earlier than most other children in her class and preferred to sit alone and read to herself rather than play if she couldn’t stick with Eden. This also became a habit for her at home, especially when her parents argued. Though teachers continued to note that she was rather withdrawn, she got better at speaking in class when required to, and she never struggled much with coursework, so they let her be. Eve’s favorite literature from a young age were mythological stories, though in the beginning she was only exposed to the versions of tales that had been sanitized for children. She devoured collections of fairy tales and stories from Greek and Norse mythology and was soon pestering her parents and teachers to find new things for her, which received similar treatment.

Eve managed to coast in this way throughout elementary and into middle school. She made a few close friends but never had a large social circle. Other children occasionally teased her for being quiet and nerdy, but she did not take this passively, instead snapping back when she was irritated. The friction between her parents had eventually settled once the twins were in school full-time and didn’t require as much hands-on care, but they still fought at times, which stressed Eve out. She had learned early on that words could hurt people, and she was prone to making rude comments and mean-spirited jokes about others if they bothered her. Even Eden was not spared from this treatment, and he usually responded in kind, leading the twins to fight and sometimes requiring them to be separated when things escalated from verbal to physical.

As they progressed through school and were more often in different classes, the twins didn’t get on each other’s nerves as much, but the close relationship they had in their early childhood began to drift apart as they spent less time together. Eve was a decent student but largely uninterested in putting forth much effort into things that didn’t immediately capture her interest or that she didn’t excel at right away. Her grades in English and history were nearly always high A's, while her other classes sat at B’s or lower just because she would neglect assignments out of disinterest. She could be coaxed, or more often forced, to complete her homework if her parents monitored her, but they didn’t have the time and energy to do so constantly.

In middle school, Eve developed more of an interest in taking care of her appearance. Several of her friends started wearing makeup, and she followed suit with enthusiasm once she was introduced to the variety of looks that one could create. She spent a lot of time poring over magazines and beauty blogs, as well as following YouTubers who did makeup tutorials. Eve’s parents objected to her new fixation on makeup, worrying that she was too young for such a thing, but they were at a loss on what to do about it. She bought her own makeup with the allowance money she had been given, so they didn’t want to confiscate something that she’d chosen to purchase herself, and Eve insisted that it would be embarrassing to be the only girl in her friend group who was forbidden from wearing makeup. Since her social circle was small to begin with, the concern that she might end up ostracized for something so petty swayed William and Candice to let her continue.

Eve’s parents did, however, police how she dressed. They would make her change clothes before school if they thought that she was showing too much skin; this only received further resistance and complaint from Eve, since they did not give Eden the same treatment. Arguing with them had little result other than stressing everyone out, and though Eve didn’t drop the matter completely, she did withdraw more to stew on her feelings rather than fighting with her parents constantly.

One day after a heated argument, Eve impulsively recorded a video of herself on her phone, ranting about how she felt her parents were unfair, and uploaded it to her YouTube channel, which she had previously only used to follow other people. She deleted the video out of embarrassment once she had calmed down, but she found that it had been somewhat therapeutic to vent her feelings in that way. She began recording video diaries more regularly, though she didn’t upload another video to the internet for a while; reflecting on her day and activities improved her mood, even when she didn’t have anything to rant about.

Eve began recording videos about more specific topics, such as her makeup routine and discussing books she had read and whether or not she enjoyed them. These she did upload to YouTube, and she gradually developed her own style of video editing and content. She started buying different brands of makeup within her budget to review them and test new looks, and she would also do more in-depth reviews of books. Her most popular videos tended to be the ones where she was more negative about a book and made snarky comments or ranted about why she thought it was bad. She has a particular hatred for young adult fantasy and romance literature, finding them juvenile and formulaic; this provides a wealth of things to critique since they are such prolific genres.

Eve’s following on YouTube is quite small, and she hasn’t tried to monetize her channel. Her low follower count and the fact that she often swears and doesn’t shy away from discussing sexual and violent content means that her videos aren’t advertiser-friendly. She maintains her channel for fun and does not consider it a potential source of income.

Towards the end of the twins’ middle school years, William and Candice both saw positive changes in their careers. William was promoted to an executive position within his bank, and Candice left her freelance tech support job for a full-time position with the IT department at Salem State University. This meant more combined income for the family, allowing them to move into a larger home; for Eden and Eve, it meant that they could each have their own bedrooms instead of sharing. William was now traveling more for work and sometimes working longer hours, and Candice no longer worked from home, leaving the twins to their own devices much more often. This increased privacy and freedom was a blessing to Eve, who felt more relaxed when she got to spend time alone and unsupervised.

In high school, Eve also began spending more time out of the house, sometimes with her friends but sometimes just wandering around Salem by herself to enjoy the sights of the city. With her parents working more and paying less attention to what the twins did, she was able to get away with staying out later some nights and not necessarily keeping her family updated on where she was and who she was with. With some of her savings, she bought a longboard to travel around town more easily than on foot. She initially got a longboard just because it was faster than foot travel and easier to carry with her or store than a bike, but she soon grew to enjoy just skating around town while listening to music or filming her surroundings on her phone. When she has a lot on her mind and just wants to move around aimlessly, she usually turns to longboarding on her neighborhood streets or further downtown.

Eve documented her explorations of the city with video, and she especially enjoyed spending time in and around the many historic buildings in Salem. She liked finding secluded and seemingly-abandoned places and documenting interesting architecture and graffiti. She didn’t upload all of her pictures and videos from these outings; not all of the buildings that Eve visited were public property, and in cases where she wasn’t sure, she kept the evidence to herself to make sure that she wouldn’t get in trouble for trespassing.

Also in her teenage years, Eve decided to get a part-time job for extra spending money and something else to do with her time outside of the house. Retail or food service work didn't appeal to her, but most job openings she found that would take someone her age and with no experience were some form of customer service. She eventually settled on a tour guide job at one of Salem's historic home museums, as she found the history and the story behind the building interesting enough to appeal to her and somewhat balance out the demands of interacting with people. She mostly works weekends, and while she finds it tiring some days, the tour routine is something she can do on autopilot at this point, allowing her to perform decently at her job even when she has low energy.

Things got rockier between Eve and her twin throughout adolescence. As they grew older and wanted to develop their identities separate from each other, Eden started to get somewhat hostile whenever he and Eve ended up participating in the same activities. Eve’s attitude didn’t help much with this, as she usually turned to mocking and provoking him instead of actually discussing why he didn’t want her to be involved in all of the same things he was. This was also exacerbated by what she saw as Eden developing a theatrical streak about his feelings; she has come to consider his expressions of angst to be attention-seeking, and she mostly ignores him when she thinks he is being melodramatic.

Though her life was mostly routine and comfortable, in her junior year of high school, Eve began feeling fatigued and unmotivated. She found herself less interested in her hobbies, uploading fewer videos to her YouTube channel and even reading less. She made an effort to keep up her physical appearance, worried that people would judge her if she stopped, but even simple tasks felt difficult and tiring. Eve has been frustrated by these feelings of listlessness, and sometimes has felt compelled to take risky behavior, like exploring dangerous places or longboarding too close to traffic, in order to shake herself out of her funk. She has never harmed herself, but she has thought about it, mostly out of morbid curiosity as to whether it would give her some kind of catharsis. The online culture that surrounds mental health, particularly the way some people glorify the experience of mental illness as special, has only exacerbated these feelings. The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, disrupting school and forcing Eve to be confined to the house with her family most of the time, amplified her depression too.

Eve is doubly frustrated with the fact that she doesn’t feel that she has a reason to be depressed, given how normal her life is. Telling her parents that she didn’t feel well was met with assurances that all teens felt that way sometimes, and that she would feel better soon. She partly blames Eden for their parents not taking her seriously, thinking that his dramatics had trained them into believing she was doing the same thing. She hasn’t really considered that Eden might be experiencing the same thing that she is and has just been outwardly expressing it in a different way. Eve hasn’t tried to speak with a counselor at school as she expects that it would get much the same response as with her parents. With friends, she downplays her feelings with her usual dark humor, as she thinks that it’s useless to acknowledge her feelings in any other way with them when they can’t do much to help her, and admitting that she feels hopeless and self-destructive would only worry them.

Eve’s current relationship with her family is somewhat distant. She prefers it when her parents are less involved in her life, as she enjoys the freedom that comes with their greater absence. She and Eden have continued to drift apart throughout their teen years. While they care for each other, they can also be volatile together and often fight. Eve frequently complains to her friends about Eden’s behavior, as well as making remarks about him in her vlogs, but she has made a point to not join in if anyone else tries to give him a hard time and will sometimes snap at people who do. She values her close friendships and puts the most effort into maintaining those relationships.

Eve is straight and has dated a few boys throughout high school. She appreciates physical affection and finds it comforting, but she is resistant to developing deeper emotional ties. Her stance is that she doesn’t think any of her classmates are people that she wants to spend the rest of her life with. She has a habit of dumping boyfriends when she feels like things are getting too serious, which has led to some lingering bad feelings with her exes.

Overall, Eve equally wants to finish out high school so she can move on to something else and dreads the prospect of having to be a proper adult. She has no idea what she wants to do with her life aside from continuing her hobbies, but she doesn’t see any of them as a career. She enjoys her tour guide job well enough, but she doesn't intend to pursue it as a long-term career. She plans to attend college as an undeclared major just to see what it has to offer her. She isn’t optimistic about her chances of getting into a high-quality university since her grades are mediocre and she lacks extracurricular activities, but she has made several applications and has heard back from a couple of in-state colleges.

Advantages: Their sometimes-rocky relationship aside, Eve has a likely ally in her twin. She is skilled in exploring urban environments, particularly older buildings; in such an environment, she would have a better chance of identifying both potential hazards and safe areas or places to hide than others would. She tends to withdraw rather than engage with others for the most part, which could help her avoid hostile situations or escape from the fallout of things like a breakdown of group dynamics.
Disadvantages: Eve struggles with depression, which most often manifests in a lack of motivation to care for herself and urges to engage in self-destructive behavior. Her tendency to withdraw from others makes it more likely that she will find herself without help when she needs it. She is often sarcastic and harsh to others, which could provoke people into hostility. Additionally, there is some bad blood between her and a couple of ex-boyfriends, which could escalate in the island environment.

Designated Number: Student No. 117

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Designated Weapon: Bear skin (authentic)

Conclusion: Hope you appreciate that, I caught it fresh just before you arrived and it'll look very aesthetic if you die wearing it. - Josie Knight