#open infected

[the-colony-roleplay]

Kostya Vladislav | Twenty Six;  Survivor

House: Brink Security Class: 3 Status: Infected — Telepathy

[ ** TW: gun violence, physical and sexual abuse, death, drug use ** ]

History

Kostya Vladislav was born on October 22nd in an overcrowded Ukrainian clinic to two parents too poor to feed themselves, let alone a hungry, newborn baby boy. He grew up watching his Ukrainian father work two jobs while his mother—Filipino, beautiful and deeply sad— worked one, leaving him in the care of his older sister much of the time. Eating didn’t happen every day, and when it did, it was rarely a good, warm meal. Kostya’s father, a hardworking man who was paying the price for a misspent youth, died when Kostya was only 5. A year later, his mother had taken an interesting sort of job in a place called America where everything was much, much different. 

He still didn’t see his mother a lot, her “special job” (also known as a sex worker and masseuse at the local rub and tug) kept her away from home most of the time and so Kostya grew up idolizing his sister, Katya, and she became more of a guardian to him than his mother ever was. Nevertheless, living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wasn’t necessarily the worst thing that could have happened to the family. Money was still tight but there were food banks and churches that would feed them if they were starving.

All things considered, Kostya would have said his new life in America was an improvement. At least until his mother got married to the owner of the rub and tug. He wasn’t a nice guy and he sure as hell wasn’t nice to Katya. Kostya would hear them in the next room, the things he’d do to her, and it made him sick to his stomach knowing there was nothing he could do for her. When he was fourteen, he walked in on his mother with a needle in her arm. He was furious because while he was trying to get through school and work his part time job to help support the family, and while Katya was taking the brunt of his stepfather’s abuse, his mother was wasting away her money and her life on drugs.

The day would come that Kostya couldn’t take it anymore. It was an afternoon when he heard his sister crying for their stepfather to get off of her, as she had so many times before, but in that moment, Kostya decided he was done dealing with it. So, at 16 years old, he snuck out of his room and found the loaded gun his stepfather kept in the unlocked cabinet in the living room, burst into his sister’s room, and shot the asshole in the head. His vindication quickly turned to panic and terror and he’d tried to run, for a while, but he was eventually caught and sent to a juvenile detention facility.

There was where Kostya spent the rest of his youth. When he turned eighteen, he was transferred into a regular state correctional facility to finish off the remainder of his eight to ten year sentence. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen. When the whole world went to shit, the guards lost control of the correctional facility, someone likely unauthorized got into the security office and when the doors opened, everyone got the hell out of dodge.

Kostya and a few of the friends he’d made in prison started a small looter clan of their own. They scavenged and scrounged their way through this new, crumbling world, doing what they had to to survive. He tried to look for his sister, convinced she was alive somewhere, but had no luck in finding her, and no way to reach her. When he’d made his way back to their old house, it was half destroyed and she was long gone.

When the headaches started, he chalked it up to malnutrition, exhaustion, stress. Nothing out of the ordinary, considering the state of things. But there were a few times when he was pissed off that he was pretty sure other people could hear what he was thinking, even if for a split second. He thought maybe he was just unwittingly saying things out loud that he hadn’t intended to, that maybe he was just going crazy—but the more it happened, the less he believed the excuse.

Eventually, he started to try to teach himself how to hone this craft without telling anyone he had the ability at all, but that only lasted for so long, as people with these so called ‘abilities’ and ‘infections’ began popping up everywhere he went.

When the purge of the wastelands happened with the rise of the NWRF, Kostya and his crew were able to avoid capture for almost six months. But eventually, the cold and their waning resources got the better of them, and they were forced to move on from the storage garage they’d been hiding out in and look for something warmer, hopefully track down more food. Unfortunately, that was when their luck ran out. The Reformists were everywhere now—there were more Crusaders, more people getting dragged away kicking and screaming everyday—and when they finally caught up with Kostya and his friends, they registered them all, and scattered them around a couple different Colonies. Kostya, for reasons beyond his understanding, was shipped off to a small island off the coast of England where he would become a resident of Colony 22.

Kostya Today

Kostya arrived at Belvedere Island, cuffed on the lower decks of a merchant ship sometime mid February. Due to his history as a “violent criminal”, his mouthy nature, and his status, Kostya was allocated as a class 3. The adjustment into Colony life was tough to say the least. His life before this had gone from unstable, to rigid and strict, back to unstable, and, somewhat ironically, by the time the End had come, and he was allowed to live according to his own means and choices, it’d been something of a relief. Now, being in the Colony and having to adhere to a rigid schedule, to do things for the “greater good”, to cooperate in a large group settings, and to actually listen to any kind of authority just feels like being back in prison. Kostya is defensive and somewhat skittish, considering how long he’s spent sleeping with one eye open. He doesn’t like to be touched by strangers or when he’s not expecting it, and meal times feel like a war zone to him.

That said, he doesn’t seek out trouble—it just tends to find him. His is, however, something of a natural during training. He’s already honed his hand to hand combat skill and enjoys those segments more than others. He’s less skilled with ranged weapons though, and the first time he held a gun again he had a panic attack and had to be excused. He’s slowly adjusting, now, but in the games he’ll still go for a bow or a melee weapon over a handgun, every single time. His smaller stature means he is often underestimated, and though he’s relatively lithe and compact, he’s tough as stone. Despite all this, he still finds himself doing the minimum amount of work to get by, because he doesn’t care for the violent competition and is relatively unmoved by the idea of the games.

Alt FCs:  Jeremy Allen White

OPEN

[the-colony-roleplay]

Kyra Zabala | Twenty Seven;  Survivor

House: Torren Security Class: 3 Status: Infected - Empatheia

[*TW: violence, murder, gore*]

History

Kyra was going to be a big star some day. This knowledge followed her for years: growing up in Hollywood, she was exposed to the rich and the glamorous despite her own more humble beginnings. Her mother was an SFX makeup artist, so naturally little Kyra had the best Halloween costumes each year—though that was where the maternal bond both began and ended. With her mother often away for weeks on end doing shoots, Kyra was left more or less at the mercy of her father.

‘At his mercy’ wasn’t as bad as it could be, really. He was uncomfortable with children and never coddled her. If she brought a fingerpainting back from kindergarten, he would happily offer up criticisms and refuse to hang it up on the fridge until she worked on her colouring. The only interest he really showed her was when it came to drama class; thanks to their location, Kyra was given a comprehensive grounding in the dramatic arts, and it was something she had a real flair for. She knew how to play an audience and get the reaction she wanted, and the limelight suited her.

Her teachers encouraged her to apply for drama academies, come the end of her high school career. Despite how competitive enrolment at such schools could be, they believed it was her only real shot. Kyra had flashes of brilliance, but she was lazy and unmotivated and certainly wasn’t going anywhere based on her academic merits. The day she was accepted into the country’s top performing arts academy was the happiest day of her father’s life. Or so she assumed, for he wasted no time in messaging their social circle about her success. The next four years were good ones, filled with praise over her acting talent and landing roles in their theatrical productions. Some of her classmates began taking small movie parts, but Kyra was adamant that she would concentrate on her studies before committing herself to such a thing.

Graduation came and went, and Kyra began auditioning. The first few rejections stung, and then irritated her, and then were just another part of her life. It was nothing personal, they said, the market was just too competitive. She landed a few roles; never the lead. She got the sidekick, or the sassy receptionist, or the background character with great legs. The first starring role she landed was for an indie horror flick: Baba Yaga. And Kyra was to star as old Baba, who lived in her chicken legged house in the woods and offered poultices and potions to local women, in exchange for their youth and beauty. There was also a great deal of throat slashing and sex, naturally. And Kyra was determined that it should succeed, and launch her out of obscurity.

She recalled the Blair Witch Project, and Paranormal Activity, and how their successes were borne on the shoulders of their viral marketing campaigns. Independent of the studio, Kyra made up her mind to begin her own viral campaign for Baba Yaga, just before its release. It started with the foley artist being found hanged in the set’s decorative vines. And then the plucky young blonde with almost as many lines as Kyra found herself with slit wrists in a warm bathtub. And finally, the director was discovered with enough pills in his system to kill an elephant, drowned in a pool of his own vomit. It worked: the cursed nature of the movie brought hordes of people in for the premier. And Kyra played her part perfectly, dashing tears from her eyes and giving a speech of thanks to her deceased crew members, sniffling about how the movie wouldn’t have been made without them.

It was actually hard to resent the police for crashing in when the credits had finished rolling. She had to laud their excellent dramatic timing, and her face lit up the screen of every news outlet for weeks after. At just twenty years old, Kyra Zabala was a bigger national star than Angelina Jolie ever had been.

The charm wore off quickly, as she was grilled by psychiatrists and detectives, manhandled through the court process. Slapped carelessly with a diagnosis of psychopathy and bundled away in an orange jumpsuit for what looked to be a life sentence, Kyra grew more and more resentful that her story could fizzle out like that.

Kyra Today

She had been stewing in her cell for three years when D-Day came. In and out of solitary confinement for assaulting other inmates and staff members alike, she hadn’t become the well loved starlet that had inhabited her dreams. Thank god for the asteroids, she thought, cutting off power and allowing her to push the cell door aside and leg it into the night.

When a gang of looters approached her, Kyra wasn’t nervous. She felt them as kindred spirits. And now it no longer mattered that she was sloppy and unprofessional, because there were no police left to find stray hairs on her victim’s bodies. She came to find a certain pleasure in killing—the rest of her group killed because they wanted supplies, or something that the corpse had to offer. Kyra killed because she was fascinated by the way flesh peeled back like so much raw meat, and how white bones really were. These days are naturally undocumented: as far as the Echo database knows, her body count still lies at three.

As many did, she and her group travelled. They stole vans where they could, or walked for days. Once, they stowed away on a ship and took control from its crew. They spent weeks on that voyage, loving the freedom that the sea offered. It was only by pure bad luck and ignorance that they sailed straight into a storm, and the boat went down. Kyra surfaced, gasping for breath. No one else was in sight, so she hauled herself ashore by herself. Within hours she was found, shivering and soaked through, by a group of crusaders from Colony 22. Now, though Kyra was arrogant and self centred, even she didn’t believe she could survive alone in this wilderness, so she went along with them.

And in the few weeks since she arrived to the Colony—immediately branded a high threat and often watched by the guards—an infection has made itself known. Her Empatheia infuriates her, because the negativity of others now drains her and leaves her exhausted, where before there had been nothing. Worse still is the fact that she requires joy and laughter from other people to regain her strength. Though Kyra is theoretically capable of being friendly, she struggles to be anything less than an abject asshole to most. She misses her freedom, hates her infection, finds most of the other survivors weak-willed and flimsy, and thinks this New Wave Reformist bullshit is some of the most ridiculous shit she’s ever heard of, because she didn’t ask to get saddled with her stupid Infection and why should she be punished for something she had no control over?

Her only relief comes in training. Nobody ever taught Kyra a thing about physical combat, and though technically she is one of the weaker in her sessions, she has a passion for it that few can rival. Indeed, her trainers are about the only ones capable of getting more than a ‘go fuck yourself’ response from her. It is hoped that, as she recovers both from her imprisonment and her years out in the wastes, Kyra will try to be a little more personable. As of yet there is little evidence of that, but as her therapists say, it’s early days yet.

OPEN

[the-colony-roleplay]

Perdita Meikle | Forty Seven;  Elite

House: Brink Status: Infected — Increased Sight & Smell Elite Specification: Therapist Alignment: New Age Rebels

[*TW: Addiction, Substance Abuse*]

History

Perdita is Latin for “lost” but Perdita’s parents said they hadn’t known that when they named her: they just liked the character from The Winter’s Tale. It never felt like a particularly pertinent name until Perdita was thirteen and the Meikle family got into a car crash. Perdita survived. Her mother, her father, and her older brother Dakota all died, leaving Perdita alone in the world.

She was given a large sum of money, as the accident was caused by a driver of a particularly large shipping company which had wanted to avoid a court case made of one of their drivers abusing pills. While most of this money was stored away to gather interest by her sensible grandparents, who had taken her in after the accident, a chunk of it was used to send Perdita to an exclusive all-girls school that the Meikles had previously been unable to afford. She’d always been a keen student, held back by the local high school that didn’t offer much to its students, and she hoped she would find her people there. She had to, really, as she had little else to hold on to.

So Perdita, now as lost as her name, wandered into the vast school’s grounds in her neatly pressed uniform and buried herself in her studies. She was alone and frightened and her grandparents were dealing with the grief of losing their family too, so they weren’t able to offer much support. One history teacher in particular took notice of Perdita’s work, and invited her to join an elusive, extra-curricular class. Apparently, the group had been active since the school’s inception several centuries earlier, and never had more than nine or ten girls in it. Finding something to belong to did wonders for Perdita’s self esteem—a family found after the loss of her own. The girls in that class were all very close, bonded by a sense of exclusivity even in one of England’s most exclusive schools, and they kept the group very secret. Most students weren’t even aware of its existence.

It wasn’t that the girls involved did anything that necessitated secrecy. Ms. Gaumond got them together in the old, disused Latin tower (apparently none of the faculty were aware, and believed the tower was just storage) to discuss history. That was the surface of it, at least, and they all knew that if you impressed her and got a good reference, you were as good as guaranteed a place in any university of your choice. If there was an emphasis on occult history, well, that was just where their interests happened to take them.

Perdita grew particularly close to one other girl in the group, Greer, who was far more chaotic than Perdita’s own calm demeanour. Yin and yang, they liked to think, and they egged each other on, reading too much into the extra lessons, performing rituals from musty old textbooks just to see if something magical might happen. Nothing ever did, of course, but it didn’t stop them from cutting their palms open and bonding with blood: the scar of that particular misstep still sits white and raised on Perdita’s palm.

They were each other’s downfall. They skipped classes together, stole wine from the enormous cellar in Greer’s house, went to college parties and lied about their age. At the start of the academic year, Perdita’s teachers had been singing her praises. By the end of it, they were sending letters to her grandparents expressing their concern. Perdita and Greer skimmed by together with an us-versus-the-world mentality, not caring that the other students avoided their gazes, and gave them an extra wide berth in the halls, as they were rumoured to be dark and dangerous. The two girls were permitted to stay in Ms. Gaumond’s classes by virtue of favouritism rather than any particular contributions that they made, though they had more or less given up on the idea of university and didn’t care about her recommendation.

That was until Greer was admitted to rehab in their final year. Visiting her best friend in that grim hospital was a sobering experience for Perdita, both literally and figuratively. Greer had almost died, and it showed on her face. In later years, Greer would continue to struggle with addiction, but the shock to Perdita’s system was enough for her to pull her socks up. She was terrified, and after several years of bad habits, getting back on track was a struggle, but with Ms. Gaumond’s support and a truly staggering amount of nicotine patches, she managed to get into university. Now, at least, she knew what she wanted to do with her life: become a therapist. Someone to help lost kids like herself and Greer look after themselves.

Despite the intensity of their high school friendship, the two young women drifted. Perdita was focused on her degree and this time she wouldn’t be distracted. When she graduated it was with honours, which helped her to find work with a public hospital, and eventually open her own practice. When she did, she accepted all patients, but had a leaning towards young people struggling with grief and addiction.

Perdita Today

Perdita’s teenage years had been wild; if she’s being honest, she can’t remember a lot of that time. But she grew into a calm, measured adult who preferred a quiet life. She never married, somehow not quite finding the courage to start a new family. Her grandparents passed away shortly after she graduated university, and some quiet, martyred part of her thought the Meikle line should end with her. Maybe she just never learned to socialize without getting drunk. She had a small group of friends, in which she always felt like an outsider: they all had spouses and children. Perdita had a grey tabby cat called Lily, and she had her patients.

But it was fulfilment enough for her, and after a troubled youth she was quite happy with the idea of a slow, long adulthood. D-Day put a rather rapid stop to those ambitions. Sheer dumb luck allowed her to survive, as she dove into her bath and pulled the mattress over herself. In retrospect, she’s fairly sure that’s what you do in case of nuclear attack, but she’s not sure they ever released a PSA on surviving an asteroid shower. As it was, the block of apartments she lived in would go on to become Colony 12; it had been relatively unscathed, and with a lot of survivors passing through, they realized they were well located to be something of a way-point. Perdita’s calm, unshakeable attitude (as well as her doctorate), made her a natural leader for the group, someone that everyone looked to for guidance. She wasn’t sure how qualified she really was for that, but she did her best and she helped heal a lot of lost souls in the years following D-Day.

She had this lurking feeling, however, that she should be doing more. Colony 12 was so small, and there were so many people out there that needed help. Perdita largely sat tight for her cat: Lily was old, and probably wouldn’t do well if they went roaming. But when Lily died, Perdita found she had nothing left keeping her there. She requested a transfer to Colony 22 which was larger than 12—in footprint, if not in population—but it had less through-traffic and more long-term residents, which would allow her to help more people. She considered going to Colony 4, but was worried it would be too large for her tastes, and too impersonal.

Perdita is a new addition to the therapy department, having only arrived a couple weeks ago. She has found a lot of comfort in her work, and has been burying herself in that in order to avoid the NWRF. The Reforms hadn’t caused such waves at Colony 12, but here she feels very persecuted for something entirely outside of her control. It wasn’t like she asked for increased senses—the sight is a bit of a boon, as she was worried before that she might need glasses. But the increased smell is just an inconvenience that leaves her feeling faintly nauseated most of the time. 

Though she’s never been politically minded, she has heard whispers of a group called the New Age Rebels, and she’d like to hear what they have to say. They seem like a sensible lot, and Perdita very much wants things to start making sense again. For all the care she offers her patients, she doesn’t extend the same courtesy to herself, and she is beginning to buckle under the self-inflicted pressure.

OPEN

[the-colony-roleplay]

Siobhan “Von” Whitmer | Nineteen;  Survivor

House: Delma Security Class: 2 Status: Infected - Praeteria

History

Siobhan—more commonly known as ‘Von’ because she got tired of people mispronouncing her name—grew up in her brother’s shadow. And try as she might, she was never quite able to escape its shade. She already had a chip on her shoulder because she was adopted, while Caelan was their parent’s biological child, but the first time Caelan skipped a grade, she had it in her to be happy for him. The second time, she was a little bitter, but figured she’d get over it. But when he got into a school for advanced learners, she was pissed. And when he went and got himself expelled? She was absolutely furious. It was bad enough that he was always finding a way to outshine her—that her straight-A report cards, her rosettes for equestrianism, her part in the school play, never seemed to be enough and were always dwarfed by her brother’s accomplishments—but to have him take none of it seriously? To just take it all for granted? God, it was way too fucking much.

Of course her parents were supportive of her, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew it was difficult for them to get too excited about her getting second place in a show jumping contest when Caelan had just gotten into university at the age of fifteen. It was why she took to the internet: online, she could be whoever she wanted to be. She didn’t have a brother, she was twenty years old, she was cool, she had a boyfriend.

The truth was that she was thirteen years old with a talent for makeup. She knew how to make herself look a bit more mature—she could pass for seventeen, even eighteen—and she found out that young girls on the internet could get pretty popular. For the first time in her life, people were telling her that she was beautiful, perfect, someone to be admired. Social media was like a magic wand, granting her wishes she never saw to fruition in real life. She had fans and followers. Young girls wanted to be her, boys wanted to date her—and some men, too. Looking back now, she still shivers at the thought of how creepy some of it was, but at the time it just felt good to be the centre of someone’s attention, even the older men. She never actually did anything; she was smarter than that, and the thought alone made her squirm. But she couldn’t help but indulge in the attention, anyway. It was enough to sit there looking pretty and giggling stupidly at whatever they had to say. They may not have gotten what they wanted, but Von did.

In fact, by the time she started middle school, she was an expert at getting what she wanted. You might even say she was happy. Caelan had gone to England for his internship, so she more or less had her adoptive parents’ full attention, and her teachers liked her because she worked hard. Her classmates liked her too—because she was pretty and in middle school, pretty translated to popular. She lapped up the attention boys gave her, and if they bought her an ice cream, she might even give them a flirtatious smile or wink. Not that she needed their chump change; Von had learned early on that men on the internet would pay good money for something as innocent as a photo of her batting her lashes and holding up a sign with their name on it. They’d ask for more, but she never gave it to them. She had some self respect, after all.

For once in her life, Von felt like she might actually do something with her life, might actually be someone. Unfortunately, she would never find out, because a few months into 7th grade, having only just turned fourteen, the world ended.

Von Today

When the asteroids came, she was at the stables. It was just her and a few other girls, and they watched in horror as buildings burned around them. The horses all bolted, and so did Von. She ran the four miles back home to find the whole block on fire. She couldn’t get close, and had to watch in a tearful panic as her home burned down. She didn’t know for sure if her parents were inside, but she had a sinking feeling that they were.

Like most people, she wandered. The headaches started early, and she broke into abandoned houses in desperate search of painkillers. It was a difficult few months in which she lost too much weight and felt horribly ill—which she assumed was thanks to trauma and malnutrition—and she had to rely far too much on the few survivors she had joined up with. None of them thought her symptoms were anything beyond the expected difficulty of life after the Falling, but they soon realized that what Von was suffering from, was the onset of her Praeteria.

They wouldn’t have that name to put to it for some time, but it wasn’t long before she became essential to the survival of their little clan. With her newfound ability to go entirely unnoticed, she could scout out locations to make sure they were safe, and steal food right from under another clan’s nose. No one else in her clan could do anything like that, and this, combined with her fierce and bossy personality saw her becoming a bit of a leader in spite of her youth. She’d lied and said she was older when she first met them, anyway—bit of a force of habit, really. But now they saw her as critical to their new, turbulent worlds, and often the only reason they had enough food to go around, and she thrived under the respect that got her.

Over the years, they met many passing groups of people. They heard that Colonies were coming together, if they needed a safe haven. Von decided on everyone’s behalf that they didn’t. She said it was because this was their new start and they didn’t need anyone controlling them, but the truth was she enjoyed the power of being in charge. She knew that if they joined a Colony, she’d just be some insignificant, nobody kid.

Time began to lose its meaning thanks to their nomadic lifestyle, but they found some semblance of contentment. And then some months ago, Von was out scouting and saw a group that she now recognized as crusaders. She and her clan had told them no before, and they’d tell them again. She trailed after them, unseen thanks to her Praeteria, and watched as they flagged down her clan. But this time it was different. There was tension in the air, and an argument broke out. There were new rules, a new government, and nobody was allowed to live out in the Wastes anymore. Like it or not, the choice was no longer theirs, apparently. Von had never pretended to be a hero; she watched as her friends were taken in against their will, and she followed. After all, how important could she really feel if she were all alone again?

If, and only if, she deemed the Colony safe, she would allow herself to be seen. She watched from outside the front doors, sneaking in and seeing what life was like under this ‘new government’, and she realized that people like her, people with special abilities, were hated by most of the people in power. But without her clan, Von wasn’t sure how long she could survive out in the wastes. It was also difficult to turn her nose up at the Colony now that she saw it: there was hot water, good stocks of food, real beds. After a few weeks of hesitating, she turned herself in. The Colony officials gave her a full health check and ran her name through the database. Von had assumed all of her family were dead—there had been so much death—but she was informed that day that her brother Caelan was still alive, living in a Colony over in England.

Von had never had a good relationship with him; she knew he’d tried over the years to be good to her, but she was bitter and petulant and never quite got over feeling like an outsider in her own family. Now, however, he was all she had, and she found that she wanted her big brother. She immediately put in a transfer request, asking that they not message ahead to let Caelan know she was coming. Von didn’t fully trust that the journey was safe, so she’d rather her appearance be a pleasant surprise. It took a few months to arrange her transfer, but eventually they put her on a ship headed for the Atlantic, and after nearly two months of travelling, she’s finally arrived and ready to begin her new life in England with the only family she has left.

OPEN

RELATED BIOS: CAELAN ‘KIP’ WHITMER

[the-colony-roleplay]

Maisie Pace | Twenty Five;  Survivor

House: Calyset Security Class: 2 Status: Infected - Telekinesis

History

People tend not to notice the girl behind the camera, but they noticed Maisie. She peered over the lens at them with such childlike glee and contentedness that it was almost infectious. While her fellow classmates grew from confused, excitable children into ambitious young adults, she never quite achieved the transition herself. Maybe it was her penchant for the video camera, recording every movement of the day, that kept her trapped in the past. All people knew was that she never lost the delight of childhood, and remained naïve and sweet even into her twenties.

Her obvious passion for film helped her gain a scholarship to study film at university, and her studies delighted her just as much as she had hoped. It became readily apparent that her love lay in documentary, because Maisie wanted to be able to show everyone the world as she saw it: beautiful and full of magic. Her final piece was edited bits of day to day life, the students around her absorbed in the work they were so passionate about. The voiceover was her own, and she told the audience about happiness and purity and beauty.

To her dismay, she didn't receive the highest marks, but still performed well-- well enough that she managed after graduation to find work with a television company. Maisie's parents couldn't be more proud of her, boasting to their neighbours of how their daughter was trying her hand at directing, scriptwriting, editing, all of it. The work wasn't really what she wanted to be doing-- it was fun, but it didn't mean much. A paranormal mockumentary, the show she worked on got good ratings and had many fans, but it didn't fulfill her.

It was there that her joy began to falter. Creatively stifled by important executives, Maisie felt as though she had betrayed herself somehow. Like a wilting flower, she concerned friends and family with an unusual melancholy. Some thought it was just life, forcing a little girl to grow up. Those with more sympathy thought that the young woman deserved more out of life.

Maisie Today

Once the initial shock of the end of the world wore off, Maisie slowly began to teach herself how to see the joy in things. She quickly became one of the Colony's sweetest members, always present with a kind word or a hug for those whose losses were greater than her own. The source of this newfound happiness is the fount of inspiration that she has been able to draw from the last few years.

Although recording equipment hasn't been available to her, she is planning hard. Constantly scribbling in notebooks and making mental notes out loud, some find it a little eerie how intently Maisie watches, often from afar. Her aim is similar to what she wanted to create in university, but this time it would hold so much more meaning because she could document the small bits of happiness that people fought for, the tearful kisses between people who thought they had given up, the sheer thrill that consumes victors in the Games, the simple exchanges of knowledge as people learn and help one another. None see quite so much beauty in the world around them as Maisie does, but she means to help them learn to.

This kindness makes her an easily likeable presence around the Colony, although people aren't often thrilled to be teamed with her during the Games. She still hasn't mastered her telekinesis, and isn't really sure what to do with it anyway. It left her a little skittish as she can't predict even her own movements sometimes, and in moments of surprise the kindly exterior can shatter into a jumpy, nervous young woman.

OPEN