CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS
Leah
Leah had always been outgoing and a very happy child, until her father walked out on their family. She found this time in her life very difficult and ever since she has kept to herself a lot more and is very quiet and spends most of her time studying.
She has fond memories of being young and happy, which sometimes leads her to act child-like, make rash decisions and act naive.
When her mother remarried and had her little sister Millie (even though it was tough at first) it gave her hope that she could have a happy family again. But this time she is so desperate to make sure nothing can go wrong. She keeps quiet and does what her mother tells her so there are fewer arguments. But keeping all those emotions build up leads Leah to have a temper at times.
She loves her little sister but gets jealous that she has the life Leah wanted and that their mother gives Millie a lot of attention. Millie and Leah are similar in many ways especially for their love for animals and sapiens. Leah is a very caring girl and also very protective of her sister.
She doesn't see her cousin Johnny much anymore as he is on her father’s side of the family. But when Johnny calls her mother asking for help at the farm as his father is away, her mother sees this as a positive thing so Leah and her cousin can stay in touch. Leah feels awkward about doing it as she hasn't seen him in so long but listens to her mother and agrees to help out for the weekend.
When she gets to the farm and realises how similar sapiens are to humans, Leah takes on her big sister role and her protective side comes out. Especially when she witnesses all the cruelty and sees the babies being taken away from their mothers and it reminds her of her family being split up too. As Leah knows how that feels she can't just watch and do nothing. When she finds out about Johnny’s money problems, will she use it against him to save the sapien?
Unfortunately with a mix of passion and naivety, she may have good intentions but she may not always make the best decisions.
Johnny
Johnny is an only child. He is twenty-eight-years-old and his mother died a few years ago. His whole life he has lived on a farm with his father and hopes to take it over one day. He is very hard working and ambitious. His father is very strict and grumpy ever since his wife died and has given up on the farm. Johnny has a caring side but tries to hide it, as he doesn’t want to appear weak to his father. Jonny is very rational and comes across hard with his emotions. He enjoys working on the farm but it takes up all his time and he doesn't really have a life outside it.
He doesn’t have many family members but family means a lot to him, so when his Uncle and their family stopped seeing him after his auntie and uncle divorced, it made him feel even lonelier.
Johnny needed his fathers help and they were in serious debt. His father had gone off to clear his head and left Johnny to it. His slaughtering licence had run out and he couldn’t afford to pay for a renewal. He also didn’t have enough money to pay for all the sapiens that needed slaughtering to get slaughtered, so he slaughters them himself, illegally. To make sure he doesn’t get caught he hires a licenced slaughter man every now and then so people don’t get suspicious. He had also run out of medicine to give to one of the sapiens that is ill and can’t afford to buy more so was planning to get it slaughtered. He needed someone to help out at the farm until he fixed his money problems but couldn't afford to hire anyone or have someone who new about farming that would realise he was going illegal practices. That's when Johnny phoned up his auntie to see if Leah was available to help him out.
Johnny always remembered Leah as a happy and outgoing child and they always got on well when they where children. However when Leah came to help out he was a little surprised how much she had changed. She was a lot quieter and didn’t really seem like she wanted to be there. Johnny started to feel like he had made a mistake inviting her but thought he would still see how the weekend played out. However he didn’t quite expect for it to go as badly as it did when Leah takes a disliking to the way the farm his run and finds out about the money troubles.
Pregnant Sapien
This sapien is thirty-years-old and has lived in fear her whole life. Due to the traumas
of living on the farm she is very untrustworthy of anyone. She has so much love to give
but finds it hard to show it as all her babies have been taken away and some killed.
She has learnt to be very strong willed, but can never control herself and becomes
very protective and aggressive, when it comes to the same time each year where she
knows she has to go through having her babies and then having them taken away
again and again.
When one of her children find her again she feels so happy but so scared as to what this
may mean.
Timid Sapien
When she was born she was immediately taken away from her mother, so has always felt lonely and that something was missing in her life. Ever since her life has been full of constant misery and pain.
Now at sixteen-years-old not much has changed she is still as timid and
scared. She keeps herself to herself and has never felt like she fits in.
Her most recent torcher was getting inseminated, she didn’t know what
was happening and it caused her a lot of distress.
A few weeks later she was in a lot of pain and couldn't face eating. She
new something wasn’t right but she had learnt a way to numb the pain
in her life.
When she first met Leah she was surprise she didn’t feel as intimidated
as the farmer made her feel. But she was still unsure, as she was human.
After a few days of getting used to Leah she felt comfortable that Leah
wasn’t going to hurt her.
One night when Leah came to let her out the field, she felt scared and confused, as that's all she had been used too. But after a few shoves she realised she trusted Leah.
The first thing she wanted to do was find her mother, after searching all night she manages to and feels so relieved, complete and happy. But the next morning brings her the most fear she has ever felt.
Mother
Judith had always had the ‘perfect’ life, she had loving parents; she always got good grades, she had her dreams job, a hard working and supportive husband and a beautiful baby girl even though she had her child at a young age it was the best choice she had made. She always thought her life was going to carry on that way until unexpectedly she found out her husband was having an affaire and was going to run away with his new girlfriend. This made her life feel as if it was crashing down and always blamed herself for being so oblivious and not knowing what had been going on, and believes if she had known there might have been a chance she could have prevented it from happening.
She was about to give up on life, when Leah became her guardian angel. She couldn’t forget about Leah and be selfish. She finally realised she had a purpose. After months of miserly she decided she could carry on crying or pick herself up and give Leah the life she disserves.
Judith started to regain control back in her life and do the best that she could for Leah. A few years later after finally becoming content with her life, Judith met a man through mutual friends and they clicked instantly. After only a short amount of time they got engaged and had a baby called Millie.
Having Millie completed her life as she could have a proper family again and finally be happy.
Now at 40-years-old Judith is a loving, slightly controlling, busy mother. She now has worked out the perfect balance between family and work (which she feels was part of the reason her marriage failed last time). She does everything for her children and cherishes and appreciates everything she has a lot more now.
When she unexpectedly got a call from Leah’s cousin, she was apprehensive at first as it brought back bad memories (as it is the cousin from Leah’s father’s side of the family). But when he asked for Leah’s help on his farm, he sounded really desperate. She new he was having money troubles and felt she needed to move on and let Leah keep in contact with her cousin.
Sister
Millie is a three-year-old outgoing, intelligent girl who gets lots of attention from her mother. She
is well behaved besides being noisy and loves to sing. She looks up to her elder sister Leah a lot
and they are very similar. They both love animals and are very caring. She is a very curious young
girl who always has to know what’s going on. She gets a lot of attention from her mother and father
but she is also very independent for her age. She loves to learn and read her picture books.
Slaughter Man
He had a very rough childhood, his father used to be very violent towards him and his mother.
When he got old enough he ran away from home. He was homeless and jobless for a while
until one of his friends told him about a job going as a slaughter man. He was desperate so
applied and got the job straight away.
He has been working as a slaughter man for thirty years now and is very used to it and it
doesn't bother him. He is now forty-six-years-old and he is slightly overweight and doesn't
talk much. He cares little for animals and is very hard when it comes to his emotions.
