“What the heck are you doing up so early? I thought everyone would be asleep.” Gigi commented tightening her ponytail and watching Allison scramble for her soaked paper. Sighing lightly Gigi handed her some napkins that were lying on the table to help cover the mess that had been made.
“Up? Well, that would imply I was ever asleep in the first place” Allison sighed, pressing her lips together at the mess in front of her. “Thanks” she said as she took the napkins, smiling briefly “why are you up so early, anyway?”
Nari preferred making it to the dining room early before most of the others woke for the day. She liked some granola before her morning run. Usually she was quite alone, but this morning there was another in the dining room, and within seconds of Nari entering, the other spilled something all over the table and whatever she was working on.
Before the liquid could fall from the table to the floor, Nari froze the puddle on the table, including the piece of paper Allison had been trying to save. “Is the writing still legible?”
Allison’s gaze followed the drip of the orange juice as it ran down the table, mentally preparing for it to fall onto her sneakers. Strangely, the drops never reached her feet. Confusion washed over her as she stared at the frozen scene in front of her. The mystery was solved as she turned around and noticed Nari close to the doorway.
“Oh god, thanks. I’m sorry, I’ve got clumsy fingers” she mentioned with a nervous laugh “Yeah, it is legible actually.”
Terror flowed through her as she noticed the words on the page. ‘Please... Home ... I know it won’t happen again ...” seemed to jump off the page as she scanned it, and she wondered if Nari had seen anything. She quickly crumpled the letters up and pushed them into her bag, her fingers feeling a slight sting from the ice.
She began to wipe down the rest of the table, smiling timidly and avoiding eye contact. “That was amazing... what you can do I mean” she told her “I’m sorry you had to waste your ability on me. I wasn’t really writing anything important.”
Lex had no intention of waking up this early, dreams were always something he had welcomed when they weren’t causing him to wake up in a cold sweat. The sun was just coming up but he knew he wouldn’t be getting anymore rest. Going through the motions he traveled the famikiar path towards food.
The halls weren’t as occupied as they usually were, kids enjoyed sleeping in andbhe couldn’t blame them. He paused when he heard the familiar curse word and followed to the source.
“What’s up-” he answered as he watched her trying to save whatever had gotten wet. “Shit, pass them over quick before the words become illegible.“
She winced her eyes shut, avoiding turning around as she heard the voice of Alexius. ‘Great, of course someone has to see this, freaking fantastic.’ As she felt her frustration begin to grow she forced herself to breath, not wanting to take it out on Alexius. She’d always found herself rather fond of him, in a weird way. It’s not like she talked to him often, or anyone for that matter. But she knew he was intelligent. and she thought that maybe one day, if she needed it, he could help her understand the aspects of her powers that were out of her reach. Or maybe that was just in her head.
She quickly jerked her head backwards when she heard his offer to help her. Reluctantly, she stared down at the ruined papers and shuffled them together, handing them to him silently. Usually she would have done anything to avoid someone reading them, but it’s not like it mattered anyway, the pages were beyond repair in her eyes.
“It’s okay, I don’t think anyone could save them at this point.” she told him, albeit still curious to see how he would try.
Allison tapped her pen against the table and looked down at the her half-written letters. Her eyes darted between the blots of ink on the page and the glass of half-finished orange juice, noticing the ring of condensation that was forming around it. After another restless night she had found herself in the dining room, trying to ignore the rising sun that was reflecting off the table and into her already blurry eyes.
Swiftly, she picked up her napkin and wiped down the glass, knocking it over in the process. The orange juice spread across the paper, her words bleeding underneath it. “Oh shit” she muttered to herself, trying her best to salvage the soaked paper. She almost jumped out of her seat when she heard the footsteps come from behind her.
Every time Jules was done with training she felt drained. Training always left her frustrated, always left her thinking she could have done better. She wasn’t improving fast enough, or she wasn’t as strong as the others. Practicing outside of training wasn’t something she did often, but today it seemed necessary. She could feel someone watching her minutes before she stopped and got up. “Are you going to keep watching me?” She finally asked.
Allison had intended to train that day, or at least, to attempt to train. When she spotted Jules, however, her first instinct was to flee. She wasn’t stupid, she knew how pathetic she must look to everyone else. The girl who can barely lift a weight, who hyperventilates after running even one kilometer.
She was barely out the door when she noticed something about Jules. She couldn’t quite pinpoint it - but there was something about the way she moved around the gym. A certain sense of determination? Insecurity? She couldn’t tell. She drifted further into her thoughts, until she noticed Jules’s mouth begin to move. Crap, she had no idea what she said. She shuffled backwards, closer to the door, stumbling over her own feet.
“Oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I was just, uh, Sorry.” She turned back to the hallway and tried to escape hastily.
· When did they realize they were a mutant?: Growing up, Allison picked up on various hints of her uniqueness. For example, she noticed that the path she walked to school each day during the year would subtly wither away each day she strolled through, a reality that only became apparent when she noticed the flora that seemed to bloom in each direction except the proximity around her footsteps. Her first real confirmation came as a bitter surprise, however, when during her first year of high school her closest (and, only) friend Dianna was diagnosed with Leukaemia. During her first round of Chemotherapy, Allison found herself highly affected by the surge of unfamiliar emotions, and often broke down after her visits to the Seattle Children’s hospital to visit Dianna during her treatment and check-up days. Dianna became particularly unwell one month, and as she noticed Dianna’s skin turn a light shade of grey which seemed to blend with her glossed over light-green eyes, Allison experienced a surreal wave of emotions. She could feel her heart beating quickly through her wrists, each beat thundering through her mind as her eyes began to blur. Almost unwillingly, she held Dianna’s hand, and for the first time, witnessed her capability. Forever scorched into her memory remains the image of Dianna’s veins becoming the colour of ink, branching out across her small wrist, resembling the sprawling roots of a tree. Allison could only hear the high-pitched beeps of the ECG machine, barely noticing the shadows of the people that rushed into the room. That was the first-time Allison truly understood the poison that ran through her DNA.
· What is their family life like: Allison relationship to her parents can only be described as fragile. Growing up as the only child to two extremely conservative and obsessively religious parents, she developed a close bond with her mother, who worked from home writing faith-based children’s novels. Although her family could rarely afford extravagances beyond the occasional Christmas present, she was spoilt with attention. Her physical resemblance to her mother only strengthened this bond, and Allison aspired only to follow in her mother’s footsteps. This became particularly difficult as her family began to notice that Allison seemed to possess what they, at first, called “a stroke of bad luck.” Her goldfish never seemed to last more than a few days, always passing in peculiar ways that the PetBarn employees could never explain, and the slight infestation of cockroaches always seemed to be naturally repelled by Allison room and belongings. Their worries were only confirmed after the incident with Allison’s friend Dianna, and Allison would often hear them whispering about devil’s blood and curses as she lay awake at night. By the end of the year they had pulled her out of school, never truly explaining the situation to Allison. She was rarely allowed to leave the house, and she would notice the distance (both physical and emotional) between her parents and herself grow larger with each passing season. It was particularly difficult for Allison when her mother became more and more uncomfortable when Allison made a note of their resemblance, with her mother’s reactions ranging between desperately denying their alikeness or completely ignoring her comments. As she grew older she saw less and less of her parents, and as she packed her things for the Academy she knew of the burden she was releasing them from. In their eyes, she was a force of evil that had taken over their once angelic daughter. In Allison’s eyes, she thought of herself in mostly the same way.
· Give four detailed bullet points about your character’s biography:
Years of isolation have nurtured Allison’s restless mind, and she often finds herself invaded with thoughts that make her fear her own capabilities. Initially, her parents tried relentlessly to ‘cure’ Allison, inviting priests and occasionally so-called ‘spirit-whisperers’ from the small town they grew up in to their apartment. These strange men and women would wander into their house and stare at Allison, always ensuring to keep an arms width between them, as though she would become possessed with a need to pollute them with her wicked touch. As much as she hoped these visits would cure her, within a few weeks she would find herself over excited at a dragon fly that hovered around her, only for her slightest touch to propel it to the ground, its wings suddenly weak and its body heavy. As such, the visits stopped occurring after her 16th Birthday. The voices, however, that would call upon Allison to release the evil within her never seemed to cease. Sleep is something that comes rarely to her, with anxiety creeping through her dreams and reforming them into nightmares. She often finds herself reliving memories as she sleeps, only they become twisted and odd, as though she’s viewing them through a filter. She particularly remembers visiting a butterfly sanctuary as a young child with her parents. Her father had pointed out the different types of butterflies as they floated around them, and he would tell her “See? God creates beauty.” In Allison dreams, however, he turns to her and, in his sickly sweet tone, adds “and see? You destroy it.”
Even before Allison discovered her mutation she had difficulty connecting to others. She never seemed to have more than one or two friends, although this never bothered her much. With a naturally soft voice, Allison’s words were always easily suffocated by her louder classmates, and her habit of zoning out with an intense stare certainly didn’t help her social status. Nonetheless, the connections she does make are often extremely deep, and Allison finds herself extremely protective of the people she loves. To this day, she would still confidently take a bullet for her parents, and her love for them was never lessened by the look of disgust in their eyes when they stared at her. Many people consider Allison to be a strange person, largely in the last few years due to her habit of people-watching. It’s never Allison’s intention to stare, but she can’t help but imagine the lives of the people that pass by her window each day. She would do anything to be amongst them, although she knows that would be unsafe. For now, she is only an embodiment of a disturbance to organisms, and she can’t bear to do any more harm.
Spending most of her formative years studying, Allison’s knowledge on poison and molecular activity is vast. With, literally, years of time to kill, she studied almost all day in her bedroom, and still finds herself drawn to the isolation of her room to explore the ever expanding library of articles on chemical reactions and the like. She only wants to understand her abilities, to learn how to control them, or even how to completely rid herself of them. This is difficult for her, as she doesn’t really understand what her mutation is. She seems to only be able to use her abilities unwillingly, and she often gets a strong feeling that she’s capable of more than she knows.
For a long time, Allison has truly feared herself. In the past there have been many nights where Allison would sit alone, huddled up in the corner, trying to control a fire that burned in the pit of her stomach and spread through her body. It started subtly at first, where she would cry silently at the hushed laughter that filled her house each year during the holidays. During these days, her slightest touch would leave rough marks on her skin. She would trace abstract shapes down her arms and legs, and watch as her fingers left a trail of burnt, red freckles. She could feel her lungs tighten on these nights. This ability only got worse as she got older, and she found herself wearing long sleeve shirts and gloves to avoid contacting her skin, as she was no longer able to stand the pain. Although she was only able to use her own abilities to harm herself rarely, the thought of how much harm she could inflict on herself often scared her. Additionally, she was convinced that the strongest force of poison amongst her was her thoughts. She tried to block them out, but often terrible things would hiss through her mind. She doesn’t like to think about these times anymore, considering the thoughts seemed to have ceased since she arrived at the Xavier School, but something inside her knows that they are not gone forever.
· Give two positive qualities about your character:
Kindhearted: Allison knows the harm that she’s capable of, but she would never harm someone with intent. Her studies unintentionally led to a great deal of knowledge of Buddhism, and she strongly believes that the three poisons of the mind (Delusion, Greed, Ill Will) can be just as harmful to a human than any form of physical poison. She tries to only see the good in people, and to focus on acts of selflessness. She feels a great need to repay the world for the horrors she has bought it, although she’s still figuring out exactly how she can achieve this.
Intelligent: A devoted reader, Allison can understand even the most complicated concepts with relative ease. Although she finds herself particularly enjoying studying Chemistry, she also retains a great deal of appreciation for works of great literature.
· Give two negative qualities about your character:
Distant: Allison isn’t the best with people. She finds it hard to let herself go around people, and this often makes people believe she’s stiff and serious. This is devastating to Allison, as she wants nothing more than to have someone to laugh and goof around with. Deep inside, however, she knows it’s best for everyone if she keeps her distance.
Low Self Esteem: Although Allison tries to never allow herself to become overwhelmed with negative emotions, she can’t help but harbour a deep-seeded self-hatred. It seems to her that no matter what she does, it causes havoc. This leads to Allison keeping most of her thoughts to herself, knowing they would only disturb others.
The power to create/generate variety of poisons. User can generate, create, emit or otherwise produce poison/poisonous substance and somehow inflict the victim. For the sake of clarity: poison, toxin and venom are terms for any substance that injures the health or destroys life when absorbed into the system: poison is the general word, toxin is a poison produced by an organism (plant, fungus, animal); it is especially used in medicine in reference to disease-causing bacterial secretions, venom is especially used of the poisons secreted by certain animals, usually injected by bite or sting.
No one knows what its like to be terrified of your own skin. To cover your body with layers of clothing and to keep people at an arms distance. No one wants to get close to someone who can’t touch, who’s so dangerous because their power is uncontrollable. Its a vicious cycle really, the more anxious you get the more out of control your power gets. You pray for a cure at night and its devastating but you think, maybe this place is really a sanctuary, maybe just maybe you can turn everything around if you try hard. You’ve hurt someone before, the look in their eyes, the look your parents gave you - it was enough to send you running and never look back. It was an accident but you’ve never forgotten the looks, the whispers and the fear. You’re moody and aloof but who can really blame you after what you’ve been through? What you’re going through. You spend all your time cooped up in your room or studying ways to help control your power. You’re tired of hearing it takes time and it will one day happen, you want it to be now, you don’t want to be dangerous, you want to be normal, desperately so.
Age: 20
Faceclaim: Hannah Murray
Codename: Aconite
Name: Allison Ridgeway
Availability: TAKEN
Aconite @allison-ridgeway-blog - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
