Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
Hobbies and Interests: Drawing, singing, playing guitar, writing poetry, journaling, psychology
Gift: Verbal Emotional Manifestation
Power Details: Leila’s power is that her words have the potential to either physically harm or heal the person she is talking to, depending on the emotional impact her words have on the person she is talking to. The physical harm done by Leila’s words can come in the form of cuts and bruises, ranging from a mild bruise to a large gash that would cause the other person to lose a lot of blood in a short amount of time. While Leila has never killed anyone with her power, there have been some close calls, especially when she was a child and didn’t know how to control her power. The locations of the injuries caused by Leila’s words mirror where in the person’s body they are felt. If someone feels pain near their heart or their stomach, due to something Leila says, then a wound will appear there. If, for instance, someone feels an ache in their chest when Leila hurts them, they will first feel the emotional pain and then shortly after a physical wound will appear in that same area. However, the wounds that Leila causes start on the outside of a person's body and get deeper the more emotional pain they cause. For small injuries her words would only cause a superficial cut on someone's chest (or other area), but the more emotional pain they feel, the deeper the external wound becomes. Leila's healing power works from the inside out, so that when her words help someone heal their organs (if damaged) would heal first, followed by muscle, then skin.
On the flip side, when Leila’s words have a positive emotional effect on the person she’s talking to, they can heal the other person’s physical wounds, whether they were originally caused by Leila or by something else. There has to be some intent on Leila’s part in order for her gift to work, but it’s not guaranteed that her words will have the intended effect. For instance, if Leila is intending to hurt someone by insulting them, her words could do a great deal of damage if Leila’s opinion matters a lot to the other person, but have only minimal damage if the other person doesn’t care much about Leila or what she thinks of them. Similarly, if Leila hurts someone badly and then tries to undo the damage by apologizing, the other person will only heal as much as they feel a positive emotional reaction to Leila’s apology. If the other person still feels too hurt to take Leila’s apology to heart, the injury will not heal very much. In terms of healing non-verbally caused injuries, if Leila comforts someone after they’ve been hurt, then her words will help them heal faster.
Limitations and Drawbacks: While Leila has control over the words she says, she does not have control over the impact they will have on other people. Sometimes she will hurt people she’s not intending to hurt (such as saying something mean in an argument and the other person suffering a nasty wound because of it, or on the flip side saying something mean to someone who’s bullying her, intending to hurt them, but the other person might shrug it off and walk away unscathed if Leila’s words don’t have any meaning to them). Likewise, Leila’s healing power has some limitations. She can generally mend wounds and gashes, but her power is less effective at healing things like broken bones and is generally ineffective for healing diseases. Leila’s healing power might not have much of an effect for large wounds. Generally speaking, it is much easier for Leila to cause a lot of damage than it is for her to heal the same amount of damage. Recordings of Leila’s voice do not carry the same effect, Leila’s words can only inflict damage or help with healing during an in-person interaction.
Appearance: Leila is a caucasian girl of average height at 5’ 6” and slightly skinny, weighing in at 120 pounds. She has pale skin, light blue eyes, and straight black hair that falls to her tailbone. Her face is an oval shape, her nose is average sized and slightly pointy, and she has thin, pale pink lips. Her clothing style is casual goth, preferring to wear sleek, dark colored clothes that are also relatively comfortable. On the day of abduction she was wearing black skinny jeans, a black and red horizontally striped tank top, a plain black hoodie, and bright red All-Star sneakers. She keeps her makeup fairly casual, usually wearing foundation, moderately heavy black eyeliner, and dark red lipstick. She usually wears her hair loose, although sometimes she will tie it back in a ponytail or in braids. She paints her nails in a variety of colors, usually neon plain colors. On the day of the abduction, her nails were painted bright blue.
Background:
- Leila was born to Sharon and Mark Merin on June 19th, 2003. She has one brother who is four years younger than her.
- Leila’s parents divorced when she was 10. Leila and her brother live with their mother. Leila’s father moved out of state soon after the divorce, and has since started a new family. Leila does not see him very often. Leila and her mother have an unhealthy dynamic in their relationship that will often alternate between affectionate and antagonistic that often feels unpredictable to Leila and has sometimes been hard for her to navigate.
- When Leila was thirteen her mother put her in therapy to help get Leila's emotions in check. There were two particularly bad arguments they'd had before that point where Sharon ended up in the hospital with wounds from Leila's power. While Leila resented the fact that she was the one in therapy instead of her mother, she likes being in therapy and feels close to her therapist. She still sees the same therapist, and has learned various emotion regulation techniques like exercise and meditation. Her therapist also encouraged Leila's artistic tendencies as a way to work through her feelings.
- Leila has always been drawn to the creative arts, although the medium she’s interested in changes. She tends to make friends with other artistically inclined people.
- Leila recently started taking an Intro to Psychology class and has found it very interesting. She even downloaded an illegal PDF of the DSM-V and has read most of it on her own. She likes to share psychology facts with her friends and spends a lot of time journaling.
- Leila is a good student and mostly earns As and Bs in her classes. She is sometimes approached by other students for tutoring help, although whether or not she agrees to help them depends on her current mood and how much she likes the person who is asking her for help.
- Leila likes to run on a regular basis. It's one of the emotion regulation techniques she was taught and she finds it's a good way to work through some of her more difficult moods. She often likes to listen to music and daydream while she runs.
Other Skills: Running stamina, emotional attunement to people she’s close with, insulting people.
