Wren Phillips | Thirty; Elite
House: Delma
Status: Uninfected
Elite Specification: Trauma Therapist
[*TW: addiction, drug use*]
Wren was a good kid. A good kid and an exceptional student, raised in a family where grades, dedication and ambition were the stepping stones of success and the key to getting everything you wanted out of life. The middle child of three bothers, Wren was eager to be everything his parents wanted him to be, and though they did put some pressure on all three of their boys, it wasn’t without plenty of support nor was it enough to be negative.
His older brother a varsity jock, his younger, an aspiring musician, Wren’s parents were pleased when he decided to go into the medical field. But Wren wanted so much to meet his parents’ expectations, not to mention his own, that he began to buckle under the stress of the university workload. In an effort to increase his productivity, Wren bought into the black market of amphetamines, using one of the more widely-known campus dealers. He never meant to make a problem of it, never dreamed it would get out of control, but what started as something to help him through his cram sessions, became a daily thing to make him more alert in class, and then a nightly thing, to help him finish his work faster, and then a constant thing to make up for the fact that his new habit was making time for everything but sleep.
It was the weekend before his finals in his third year of university that it happened. He’d been up for three days straight, cramming and high on medication in his desperation to cover everything. On his way to campus on Monday morning, he was speeding through a school zone and was unable to stop on time when a fourth grader ran out into the street.
It was by some miracle that the little girl—Emma-Sophia, was her name, a name that would both haunt and comfort Wren for the rest of his life—survived. Wren spent countless hours in the emergency waiting room that day. Waiting, waiting, waiting—waiting for what he was sure to be bad news, but he prayed to be proven wrong, to anyone or anything in the universe willing to listen. Not for his sake, because he was the last person to deserve it—but for hers. Dear God, if only for little Emma’s sake.
And a miracle came. She’d gone into surgery and come out safely, her fierce little heart still beating, with only some stitches, bruises and a broken arm to show for how narrowly she’d escaped death. Her parents hadn’t wanted to so much as see Wren’s face and he didn’t blame them, but he’d waited until the doctors had come with the news and he’d managed one final look at her through the window of her room, the little machine beeping away as she slept, looking so peaceful, and he cried.
But miracle or not, the incident crushed him. And what could have or should have served as an irrevocable motivation to straighten his life out, only made matters worse. ‘Thanks’ to his family’s wealth and excellent defence lawyers, he got off easy in court—too easy—which had brought relief for his parents, but a relentless, angry guilt for Wren. He can still hear Emma’s mother’s angry, heartbroken wail when he’d been sentenced only to a year’s probation and a five-year suspension of his licence, on the condition that he attend court-ordered professional help.
Of course, Wren’s troubles sleeping only escalated, and though therapy served as some outlet to cope with the trauma, he found losing himself in his work to be more effective, and he had several missed exams to make up for. However, for all the ways in which Wren struggled, he was altogether too efficient at hiding them from his friends and family. Customarily of a warm and gregarious nature, he’d slide the evidence of his trauma behind a bright smile and warm, puppy-dog eyes. He soldiered on through the rest of his schooling, battling insomnia, addiction and fluctuating depression, graduating at the end of eight long years in the top ten percent of his class.
Wren was working at a small facility in Wales when the End came, and he spent about a year travelling with a group of wandering survivors, searching for sanctuary. With his addiction still an unresolved issue, the first six or seven months were hell for him in more ways than one. In the clan that formed around him, he found support and even friendship, but they were dark days for him and unfortunately, the darkness persisted as his fellow survivors slowly started to fall around him, dying of starvation, infected injuries, or victims of manslaughter.
About fourteen months after D-Day, however, Wren was discovered thin and weak, on the shores of the South of Wales. He was picked up by one of the merchant ships and taken aboard, where he stayed for a few weeks while they completed their run. They nursed him back to health as best they could, then dropped him off into the hands of Colony 22.
Four years later, Wren has reunited with portions of the man he used to be and he believes he has his position as a therapist on the CISM team to thank for a great deal of that. Again working with his passion, he finds it has helped to keep him in touch with himself, and within the Colony he is an amicable and approachable individual. He’s grateful every day for being saved the way he had been, is happy at Colony 22 and loves what he does—however, becoming a registered citizen and an Elite did come with its downsides: the exposure and access to medication.
With his addiction not so much overcome as it was simply cut off at the source, the temptation suddenly at his fingertips proved to be too much. Though Wren’s abuse of the meds available is limited in comparison to his struggles before the End (vastly due to the actual supply being rather limited, as well as the extreme guilt involved in taking from the minimal resources they have for those truly in need) it’s something he battles on a regular basis, fighting temptation and succumbing to weakness, a constant roller coaster.
Wren is one of the few therapist who still goes to therapy himself. He has difficulty sleeping, the uppers being only part of the problem, as the incident that had first caused his crash nearly ten years ago still haunts him in his lows, as do the memories of his post D-Day trauma, the deaths that he’d been forced to witness while at his weakest.
Nonetheless, Wren is otherwise still much stronger than he used to be, and is more often than not, high energy, cheery and positive—and as far as some of the crankier citizens are concerned, excessively so. He’s a team player, which is useful in the Games, and he’s always looking to help a friend out, whatever way he can. Though no one is aware of his problem, in theory it is difficult to tell where his natural friendly demeanour ends, and where his addiction begins.
