Name: Leila Celotu
Nicknames: LeeLaa
Age: 18
Black Cat Talent: Tracking down criminals and posting missions
Stress Factors: As a normal girl she is under constant threat of being attacked by criminals because her father is a policeman. She still suffers guilt and fear for the death of her mother and friend and it’s caused her to become withdrawn. As a Black Cat she is a target by both criminals and the law, which creates deep turmoil inside of her. Nightmares torment her, so vivid that sometimes she is unable to tell her dreams from reality. If she is woken up she may run from or even attack the person because or her dreams.
Likes:
- Drawing
Warmth
Sunlight / Day Time
Feeling Safe / Protected (being at peace)
Jewellery
Dislikes:
- Water
Cold
Darkness / Night Time
Being Threatened / in Danger (anything scary)
Nightmares
Fears: Anything that appears in her dreams haunts her even when she’s awake, which could be everything. Most often though her dreams focus on demons and violent deaths, which are liberally distributed to both herself and others. Still this causes her to be paranoid when around something that reminds her of any nightmare she’s had recently.
Personality: Leila is a fairly normal girl on the outside. She loves to draw and can almost always be found sketching something. She also dabbles in photography but would much rather create a picture with her own hands. Generally she’s kind and pretty smart, though not outgoing which is a shame because she’s very charismatic and pays close attention to body language. Instead Leila would rather stand back and watch then active participate, though her friends know her to be able to get a secret out of even the most closed up person when she really wants to. She also is very good with electronics and hacking, making her a computer whiz.
This transfers over into her secret life. Leila’s job in the Black Cats is to find people who’ve committed a crime but were never caught or punished, track them down and post a mission for the others. Once she’s found a target she then draws up their face and writes on the back of the poster their crime(s) and a designated punishment or suggestion of punishment. This informative paper is pinned onto a wall where any Black Cat can take it. Additionally she is very good at interrogation and will also draw the person she wants brought to her for questioning. But she sends everyone out of the room, keeping her methods to herself. This bothers some people but she has never failed the task so they keep quiet.
Very few others have any idea she suffers nightmares. Only three people have ever known fully: her father, her mother and her best friend. Of the three, only her father is still alive. She blames herself for the death of her mother and her best friend, and still seeing them frequently in her nightmares. This is why she’s never let on that she’s quietly going insane, instead making up excuses as to why she’s so tired or nervous.
History:
Leila was born to a small family with her mother and father. Her dad works as a policeman and her mother stayed home to take care of her. Everything was normal until Leila began to have extreme nightmares. Since she was a toddler she’s woken up in the dead of night shrieking, sobbing and thrashing violently. Sometimes she was too devastated to speak and would only sit, shaking and staring at the wall as tears ran down her cheeks. As she grew older the nightmares only became worse, eventually driving her parents to medicate her but it didn’t help.
When Leila was twelve though she met a girl named Maya and they became good friends. Leila told Maya all about her nightmares. Maya counselled her and though the dreams didn’t get any better, Leila slowly became less fearful while she was awake. On many occasions Maya would come over and spend the night just so she could wake up Leila and comfort her when she started to have a nightmare. They were steadfast friends and it was good for Leila and (supposedly) they had no secrets from each other. But what Leila didn't know was that Maya was a Black Cat.
Maya would have told Leila about the Black Cats but didn't want her friend to suffer more nightmares, especially ones where Maya was in danger because they would cause her to panick. What she did tell Leila about was her boyfriend, Rick, who went to a club she liked. She didn't show any pictures but talked about him and expressed how deeply she felt about Rick. Leila, though she'd never met him, was glad her friend had found someone to love and be loved by.
When the girls were seventeen Leila’s mom was taking them to a movie when they were stopped in the road by a riot. It was so bad they were forced out of the car and onto the road. Suddenly, from the mob of people a man ran out. He was an ex-criminal that Leila's father had put away and had recognized her and her mother. He yelled something about revenge and their father and pulled out a gun. In an instant Leila’s mother collapsed, dead, and Leila felt a bullet enter her shoulder.
Leila woke up believing that it had all be another nightmare until she found herself in a hospital bed. Her father took her home after an extensive stay at the hospital. She learned her mother had died and she had been put into a medicaly induced coma for almost two weeks. Maya had died too, the police thinking she had tried to run for help as her corpse was a little farther away. They would not tell her any more than that about Maya despite how she plead.
But what was worse of all was that no one had seen the man clear enough to give a lead to the police. Leila couldn’t remember his face while she was awake so, though it terrified her, Leila took frequent naps and went to bed early. Then, one night, his face appeared and she could feel and heard every bullet and every scream. Every wound and crash and gurgle of death. She woke screaming and grabbed a pencil and piece of paper. Her father ran in panicked to find his daughter furiously scribbling, eyes still wide with fear until she shoved a picture in his face. It was a nameless picture, but it had the face of the killer and in one month the police had found the man, and he was jailed, the credit to the capture going to Leila. But this wasn't enough. Leila still felt she hadn't done enough for Maya and her mother. It was around this time she heard about the Black Cats.
Leila received an invitation to the Black Cats, giving her the opportunity to save others from experiencing the same injustice as she did. Being a policeman’s daughter means that she has access to a criminal database and is not suspected to be a Black Cat. But what this does mean is that she is an active target for criminals. Although this experience didn’t stop the nightmares which were still progressively getting worse, this gave her an outlet for them. Ever since she has kept a spiral near her to confess all her nightmares to, as she believes that it was her nightmares that got her mother and Maya killed.
Other: Leila is very good at drawing. She likes to draw people and animals but the things she draws most are her nightmares. Certain scenes that make her tremble, faces that make her look away, and anything she can tolerate drawing. After recreating these scenes on paper she’ll stash them away. She’s never shown anyone these pictures and never intends to because they’re not just pictures: they’re her reality.
