Mel Barton (Free)

Name: Melissa (Mel) Barton

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Species: Human

Appearance: Wavy black hair with bright blue eyes with just slightly paled skin. 5'4" with a thin, almost fragile-looking build. Tends to wear outfits that don't show a lot of skin.

Origin: Penrose

Special Abilities: Nothing inhuman. She's good with painting, especially landscapes. The forest is her favorite subject, and she occasionally draws it in surreal or macabre styles.

History: Melissa was born and raised in Penrose with the rest of her family, and is the younger of two children. Since she was raised here, she knows a lot of the stories about the forest, and while this has given her an interest in painting it, she refuses to go anywhere near it herself. As a child, she was occasionally bullied, leading to her quiet and reserved personality, though she retained her quickness to trust others that so often got her into trouble.

Ever since she was little, she seemed to love scribbling, and eventually moved on to trying to draw, following in her brother's footsteps (as he also had a knack for drawing). So when Mel was about 12 years old, her parents invested in an easel for her to practice on. She quickly grew to love it, and would often drag it out into the backyard so that she could try painting to forest. Though at first, it ended up as little more than blobs of green, her skills have flourished over the years. These days, though Mel has made some good friends with other children in town, she remains a reserved person, typically more focused on her artwork than socializing.

Personality: A shy girl with a meek demeanor, Mel isn't a very noticeable person unless she's painting. She is easily persuade by others, and rather trusting once she befriends someone, though that makes her rather easy to fool or trick. She doesn't openly hold any grudges, but she doesn't forget those who've hurt her by abusing her trust. Instead of taking out her anger on the person directly, however, she instead takes out her emotions onto her canvas, occasionally painting very dark themes into a landscape. Inversely, when she's feeling happy, her paintings turn out with a very bright and calm look.

She's more superstitious than her brother, believing that there has to be something very wrong with the forest for everyone to avoid it like they do. Despite some other differences with her brother, Tom, and occasionally getting into arguments and fights, the two seem to have a close relationship.

Study: High school junior

Other: Lives with her mom, dad and older brother (Tom).