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[BASIC PAST] ₴₳ⱠØ₥é;      Is the name of the girl born on February 14th of the year 1751 to two scientists who'd give up anything in the name of science;  including their daughter's life. ₴₳ⱠØ₥é was lost in early September of 1758, due to an experiment gone wrong— one with a survival rate of 19%. The girl had barely lived, and so little is known of her.

The ₮Ⱨł₦₲ was kept up until its 18th birthday,  when it snapped at its keepers, the event so traumatic that it was completely blocked from her mind. 

Salem was the name her grandmother would call her as a young child.  Salem is the name of the green-haired girl who owns one of the few and biggest libraries in town.  It is the name of the girl she tries to be,  for Salem isn't a name for a monster:  ₴₳ⱠØ₥é is.

[INHUMAN CHARACTERISTICS] green hair; currently sage green, getting lighter as time passes. sharp canines, hiding until she is hungry.   keen sense of smell and vision. cold skin.   thirst for human blood and flesh.   lack of weight, leading to her floating.   lack of a beating heart.   no need for sleep or human foods, though both can be enjoyed.   aging slowly, almost unnoticeable— stops when her hair turns white. dark eyes that turn purple when she feels love and red when she is hungry. can see ghosts.

[BACKSTORY] Salem was essentially a human lab-rat. She was starved and tested on for countless hours a day, as well as isolated. She aged normally until she was eighteen, when the hunger— bloodlust— got the better of her. That day was when she ran away from home after accidentally murdering both her parents, a memory so traumatic for her young underdeveloped brain that she has no recollection of it. It was that event that triggered her slow aging to begin, as well as why she blacks out and loses consciousness when she feeds. She was alone on the streets for what felt like an eternity in that moment yet in her memories is barely any time at all, until she stumbled upon a library. It housed a lady in the upper floor, a woman who took in the girl. Salem was cared for with the woman, a better mother than her own though she had no children. Those were the best years of her life, ones she holds and cherishes in her heart. The woman was a human though, and sadly died from old age, leaving the library under Salem’s name.

[DIET] to her, a meal would be to eat a person fully, but blood can keep her settled. animal meat barely does anything, animal blood it more helpful. she is be able to smell people's blood even when they aren't bleeding, but if she isn't hungry, which she tries to never be when not alone, she can ignore the smell and focus on the person themself and their scent, not their blood's scent. animals won't seem appetizing until she's really starving. she learned to identify which animals blood scent belongs to which, or at least a characteristic of theirs— with humans, she can tell their blood types ( it takes her a while to realize which is which ). she used to only feed from animals before, for the longest time, and only recently realized how much more appetizing humans smell, drinking and eating humans is new to her, and she isn't fully sure how to feed from their blood without hurting them/killing them in the process. her teeth are sharp in order for her to be able to feed. when hungry, she gets moody, and avoidant— as she doesn't want to hurt anyone. even if starved, lack of food will only weaken her, not kill.

[FUN FACTS]

1.   The last time she received a hug was right before her death. It was a form of her parents justifying their actions— their choice to use and kill her— so for the most part, she associates anything beyond a high five or a handshake as a threat, and she's still weary of both those things. She needs time and to build trust with someone before actually wanting to touch them, but once she's comfortable, she will initiate physical contact.

2.   She really dislikes her name— not Salem, but her birth name: Salomé. It represents someone she actively represses after centuries of walking the Earth;   the innocence she lost, and thus she uses Salem as an alias. Salem is also a nickname given to her by her maternal grandmother;  it's one of the few things she remembers being called as a child.

3.   Salem isn't the type to hide the fact that she's paranormal. Partially because she sucks at lying. But she also doesn't know how to bring up the fact either, so a lot of the time, people find out with her going through things or floating.

4.   Due to her being half dead and having already died before, Salem is practically immortal. She has no beating heart, and she can't exactly bleed out. Yes she can get hurt and she can get sick, but nothing is ever fatal for her. She doesn't like that.

5.   Salem doesn't actually need to sleep. Her exhaustion is something no amount of sleep can cure, since it was caused by her death.  However,  similarly to mortals,  lack of sleep causes her vision to blur,  and her mind to mush facts together,  leading her to guess what she's seeing  (usually incorrectly).

6.   The grandmother she often references in stories isn't actually related to her— it's the woman that took her in after she ran away;  the previous owner to the library. Her name is Charlotte;  Salem would call her Lottie. 

7.   Salem has horrible posture. It gets worse whenever she reads or feels insecure— she tries to make herself be smaller to occupy less room, even in her own house.

8.    A few months after she left her parents, she decided that the best thing to do would be to try out many things and see if she'd still "live". She'd grown tired, bored, and something she'd only admit in her journals was that she didn't want to live. Her recklessness is how she found out that she can't really die.

9.   She bites her nails and the inside of her mouth a lot as a habit from childhood. She does it a lot when she's reading, nervous, distracted or (over)thinking. 

10.   Going back to her sleepiness, in the rare times she gets sleepy, Salem gets clingy. She doesn't let herself show when she is tired/sleepy until it either gets too much and she is literally passing out, or she trusts the person she is with, simply for the fact that she becomes very clingy and will need physical contact. When she is sleepy, she lets her guard and defenses down, so she basically becomes very trusting and gets very attached to who she's with.

11.   The mere action of touching someone she feels comfortable with is enough to keep her grounded and focused on anything, whether it is a conversation, not floating, a task— anything.

12.   Her voice is very soft— she sounds constantly tired though, which causes her voice to rasp a lot. Her tone rarely changes from that, though she sounds slurry when she needs sleep, and when she's excited her voice cracks a little, and she gets slightly louder.

13.   One of her not-as-often displayed flaws is the fact when she gets attached, she gets attached. It mostly only happens to non-living things, but she will guard them with her life. Though she may seem frail and weak, she will not hesitate to find ways to hurt people for hurting her belongings if she knows it wasn't an accident.

14.  She has a very faint British accent. It has nothing to do with her origins; the previous owner of the library had one, as she was British, and it rubbed off on Salem. It faded with time, but it's still there sometimes. That's also why she calls people 'love'.

15. Her favorite color is purple. Though most things she owns (clothing wise) are black and gray; even though her house is decorated with browns and greens, her favorite color is purple. However, she barely has anything that color.

16. When she first left home,  she couldn't tell the difference between the dead and the alive.  She'd been isolated for so long,  only used to seeing her parents,  that they looked the same.  It took her a long time to notice what differentiated ghosts from the living.

17. On the topic of ghosts—  why can she see them?  She's not fully dead,  but she's not fully alive.  In her eyes,  both life and death rejected her,  leading her to be stuck in an in between state.  This in between allows her to see everything dead or alive,  as well as things stuck in the in between.

18. Due to the age she died she'll never quite reach that maturity that leads her to accept her true self. Not on her own at least. So she'll spend endless centuries hating the poor little girl she used to be.

19.  She finds the whole "falling in love" thing unattainable for her because of how she'll live forever.  Love itself isn't something she understands well due to her childhood— it took her months to open up the the lady that took her in and years to admit she felt a familial bond to her—  so the thought of falling in love with someone? Not only that,  but proceeding to carry that sentiment regardless of if they live with her or die?  Not only does she find it unrealistic, but because of her low experience with love she doubts she's even capable of it.

20.  She also struggles a lot with keeping a consecutive personality around people once they stop being strangers because she actively chooses to repress her true side (even though she'll slip up on accident) so she loses track of herself and who she is and how she acts. a lot of her behaviors and actions are based more on her mood at the moment than how she actually is.

21.  Likely due to all the neglect from her childhood, she's not only touch starved but attention starved. She's like a stray following you around, lost and craving attention and affection. Though she'll never admit it, feeling wanted makes her want to cry (in a good way). But she's afraid to show how much she likes attention, she she hides it. It's why she's drawn to clingy people— they give her attention even when she hides how much she desires it.

22. Originally, Salem's parents meant to bring her back from the dead, testing necromancy. However, their plan backfired when a storm hit, a rabid animal caught in the crossfire as well, wrecking all their progress of restarting her heart. They'd given up long before she woke up. And when they kept her around,  it wasn't out of love nor pity, but out of curiosity and greed. They only saw what they could gain from figuring her out, not their daughter. And in truth, salem herself doubts they ever saw her as more than that, even before her death. It's why her parents are a sore subject for her;   not because they killed her,  but because they didn't love her.

23. Though Salem reads fast, she only tends to read what she enjoys (unless she's researching).  But in occasions she finds herself caring for someone in any way she makes an effort to read their preferred genre at least once.  A part of her does it to impress the person with her knowledge,  but it's mainly a subtle way to show she cares. 

24.  Similarly,  Salem makes an effort to remember what types of books her regulars like.  She gives them recommendations based on what she thinks would interest them,  what she's noticed them taking,  and things they say during conversation.

25.  She's had the library for so long that she's read at least half the books once,  and she remembers fairly well the majority of them.  It started back when it wasn't hers yet;   she'd spend nights reading some whilst re-shelving.

26.   Keeping the library open late is a habit she got from the previous owner.  She'd been the superstitious,  witchy type,  and though she hadn't been able to see ghosts she could sense them.  She never closed up until she couldn't feel a single one around;   Salem doesn't close until she's sure they've left as well.

27. Her primary love language is physical touch. Similarly to how she believes she can't love, and due to her trauma with it, she avoids physical affection for the most part.

28.  One of the few ways—  if not the only way—  to grab her attention when she loses control of herself when she feeds is saying her name.  Not Salem—  no,  Salomé.  She isn't aware of this,  and due to her feeding off strangers primarily,  no one has ever tried.

29. She smells faintly like cinnamon and caramel.

30. The library always smells of coffee; she brews several batches a day, and occasionally she shares with her favorites. She doesn't need the caffeine to stay awake, she can do so on her own, but she likes the taste. However, if she learns that who she wishes to share her coffee with prefers tea, she'll make that instead.

31.  Salem doesn't swear.  She may every once in a while in her inner monologues,  or when she freaks out,  but out loud?  She does not swear.  It's not really her style;   she likes to challenge herself by trying to find different ways of expressing how she feels that don't involve swearing.

32. She keeps tabs on the family/descendants of those she grew to love. She views them as a sort of extended family, and it's something she does mainly for their deceased family.

33. Her least favorite holiday is Valentine's day. It's her birthday and she hates it with a burning passion.

34.  In theory,  she can dye her hair.  However,  the scent of bleach  &  dye is too strong for her liking,  so she's always avoided it.

35. Despite her skin being very cold,  she does feel cold when it's chilly.  She often forgets she can,  having grown used to the lack of warmth from her body,  but there are occasions she does get cold and regrets forgetting she could do so.

36. Her body can get warm, if enough heat is produced by something external. If someone with a high tolerance for cold temperatures (dead body cold) were to hug her for long enough, or there was a fire near her or something, she'd get warm.

37.   Her eyes are the most expressive part of her.  She tends to avoid eye contact when lying because somehow people can always tell when she lies if they look in her eyes—  as if that doesn't give her away just as easily.  One of the things that make them so expressive is how they change color.

38. She has a black cat named Sugar who she stole when he was a kitten from some jerk who wasn’t caring for the cat properly.

39. She writes in her free time as a hobby. She doesn't suck, but she doesn't love it either.

40. She legally doesn't exist. When she was born, no paperwork was filled out since she was a secret, and by the time she realized her lack of identification, it was too late. So there are no records of her anywhere.

41.  Part of the reason she assumes people will be mad when she reveals her undead status,  and anything regarding it really,  is because the first reaction she ever received (cough her parents cough) was very bad.  It was a mix of anger,  fury,  accusation,  and then just pure greed.  The second reaction she received,  which was the previous owner of the library,  was fear masked by anger.  She assumes people will resent her or even hate her for something she can't even control;  a fate out of her choosing  &  was forced upon her.

42.  She has deluded herself into believing the previous owner of the library was a good person.  She refuses to think otherwise,  because she was so young when she met the lady,  and the idolized her for so long,  that acknowledging the woman's flaws would send her into a spiral.

43.    The worst thing that could ever happen to her is her heart being restarted.  It isn't impossible,  but she doesn't know it could happen.  It would lead to her becoming mortal—  not human,  because she lost the possibility of being a normal person the night she was brought back.  But with how little she knows of how to care for herself,  as well as how her 'human' side would reject the current diet that she needs and would keep needing in that scenario,  she would die very quickly.  And she would die a girl who never truly lived.

44.  Salem doesn't actually want to die.  She wants to be human,  to be normal.  She was never given the chance to be that,  nor will she ever get it.  What would make her seem like she wants to die is her outbursts of when she gets sick of herself—  when she needs an outlet for her loathing what she is.