April
The Burdened
Posts : 37
Join date : 2012-09-24
 |  Subject: April White  Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:13 am | |
| Name: April White
Sex: Female.
Age: 21.
Race: Human.
Origin: Various parts of the U.S, notably Maryland and New York.
Alignment: Good, lawfulness depends entirely on the situation.
Elemental Affinity: [Arcane] – Fire – Water - Nature
Personality: Somewhat ‘bubbly’, despite everything that has happened to her throughout her life. Her hardships have not left her unscarred though, and she finds it exceedingly difficult to truly trust people, instead basing conversation and interactions on trivial matters, rather than of anything substantial and beyond what is happening right now.
Appearance: Characterized by her somewhat tanned skin and stark blonde hair, April is considered quite beautiful by many. She has a slim, toned figure with slight muscle, entirely athletic in appearance. Her outfit varies from day to day and based on the situation, but recent events have involved the necessity for more military-esque attire, consisting mainly of green pants and plain, white t-shirts.
Affinities: Somewhat surprisingly, April’s ability as a tactician and combatant far exceed that of a regular citizen. Her ability with magic far surpasses that of the bulk of humankind, rivaling that of some of the more magically proficient demons themselves. Additionally, her athleticism and dexterity are rather high, allowing her to escape bulkier and slow enemies with relative ease.
Personality wise, her usually upbeat attitude allows her to find companionship and allies in most situations, specifically from men who wouldn’t want to see a sweet, pretty girl killed by some demon monster.
Weaknesses: Strength is April’s major downfall. She is pretty much a weakling when it comes to physical blows, in terms of both striking and blocking. Because of this, she is heavily reliant on magic and whatever forms of bladed weaponry she can find to protect herself, as a physical confrontation without these things would almost inevitably see her losing.
She finds it exceedingly difficult to trust people, especially those that she has just met, and as such while it is easy for her to make short terms accomplices, she hardly ever cultivates meaningful relationships with people.
History: April’s story begins with her mother, a woman, named Angeline, who lived with only her father, and was a mere teen when she fell pregnant with her first, and only child. The seventeen year old hadn’t, of course, intended to fall pregnant, but it would be a lie to say that she had romanticized the idea in her head, once the seed had been planted. The father was a twenty-something year old man whom she had met while she was working in a local café, he was in a committed relationship and told her his name was Steve, which she never truly believed anyway. The truth of the thing was that Angeline always only wanted someone to love her, to hold her, and this ‘Steve’, for those few brief days they had known one another, did just that.
Her father had been mad at first, didn’t even speak to her for a day or too, but eventually he came around. He had to. She was his only daughter, and his wife had passed away years before. The father and daughter were all each of them had, she relied on him, and sooner or later he would rely on her, when his body no longer functioned and someone would have to take care of him. But this baby… it changed things. How could she provide for him in the future, if she had a child of her own to care for? She couldn’t… he had to act. So he did the one thing he thought was right, the most immoral (in his eyes) thing he could ask of her – he asked her to abort her baby.
The request hit Angeline like a sledgehammer. How could he ask her to do that? She wasn’t opposed to the idea in principle, but not to her baby. Even though it wasn’t born yet, even though it probably hadn’t even had a conscious thought yet, she loved it. Loved it more than anything else in the world. This she told to her father, and eventually he learnt to understand.
Months later, the baby was born. Angeline decided to name it – her – April, after her favorite character from American literature, April Wheeler from Revolutionary Road. The birth was relatively simple, without complications, but the pain it caused Angeline was enough to taint the prior notion of unconditional love. She was a child, after all, and her perception of the world was so stilted by her lack of proper education that in her brain her baby had hurt her, so how could she love it? It was childish, wrong on every level imaginable, but this small crack, this festering wound in their relationship, would never allow a mother’s love to return to her child.
For a few years, April was raised in a relatively steady environment. She was cared for during the day by neighbours and friends while both her mother and grandfather worked, but one day, when she was four years old, her grandfather grew ill. The girl was young, barely out of her life as a toddler, but the words she heard that night would stick with her forever. She heard her mother, crying at her father’s bedside, telling him that he was right. That she should never have had the child in the first place. That is was all one, big mistake. Of course, the child wouldn’t fully comprehend what she had heard until much later in life, but the sting of the words and the pain of realization were deep. Their relationship was over, finished. Never to be the same.
Her grandfather died a few months later. Somehow, there was enough money left over to sustain the mother and daughter’s lifestyle for another couple of years, but eventually, when April was around six years old, the cash began to dry up. It was then that Angeline did what she thought she had to, not that she truly cared. She drove to a nearby primary school, walking inside with some made-up story about their car having broken down outside, and if they could look after the young April while Angeline met with the mechanics and then they could be on their way. An hour, two, three. When Angeline didn’t come back, the receptionist whose office April had been left in began to worry. Surely the woman should have returned by now? Peering out the window once again, the receptionist could once again, see nothing. She sighed, glancing back down at the child. The poor thing, what would happen to her now, if her mother never returned?
Her mother never did return, and April was cast into an orphanage. She was never adopted or fostered out, despite the nice girl she was quickly becoming. Every perspective parent had the same issue with her, that there was something… something they couldn’t quite place, that unnerved them. She was nice, cute, eccentric, everything they could’ve hoped for in a child, but something, some supernatural force seemed to prevent anyone from ever adopting her. So, by the time she was 16, April had almost aged out and instead of allowing herself to be kicked out when she was 18, she made her escape.
It had been easy enough to get out; it wasn’t as if the place were a high security prison. And she had always had a knack for those kinds of things, achieving the unachievable, influencing things with just her mind. She could never quite place her finger on what exactly it was or how she was doing it, but it had always helped her, never hindered, so she refrained herself from questioning it too heavily.
And then, at the tender age of 16, and for the first time in her life, April White was free. There was only one place she wanted to be, one place she yearned for more than any other: New York City.
She arrived in the city, and for a while, a few days, it was everything she could’ve imagined. She had to sleep in the park, sure, but the radiance and atmosphere of the place was dizzying, almost intoxicating. But those days were brief, and the aftermath changed April forever. Alone one night in the park, a man approached her. He was much older than her, perhaps in his forties, but he wasn’t bad looking. He had a sort of handsomeness that transcended his age, a nice smile that drew her in. They talked for about an hour before anything happened, before he touched her. That was when everything changed.
That was the night her spirit was broken. For the next few years, her life slowly began to change. She never saw that man again, but in some ways she would like to have thanked him. For if it weren’t for him, she would never have realized just how she could exploit her natural gifts to make money… to survive. They paid her well, she was beautiful after all, and after the first few times she actually managed to block out what was happening to her. The smell of them, the sound of their heavy breathing. It was replaced, in her head, with the rush of a moving stream, or the gentle hum of a forest.
This was the way she lived for many years. Eventually she was able to afford a place to live, food to eat, she even made a few friends along the way. Real friends, people she could actually trust. The city became her home, despite what it had done to her, and she was content with herself, or at least, she thought what she felt was contentment.
She had just turned 21 when things changed, again. A man had met her on her corner, not a regular but he didn’t look completely revolting. Most of the time you could tell by the way they looked, if they were going to be alright. And this one looked alright.
She got into the backseat of his car, giving the driver instructions to take them someplace she hadn’t heard of before. He must’ve been rich, the private, chauffeur driven car… it was a nice change. When they arrived at their destination, she peered out the tinted windows of the car and saw a building, it looked like a regular office building, not the kind of place you brought a prostitute. She turned back to him, asked him where he had brought her but instead of telling her he simply told her to come. She nearly hesitated, almost turned to run, but a thought crossed her mind, one that scared her more than this man or who he might be. She literally had nothing to lose. There was no one, nothing she truly, legitimately cared about. This was it.
They walked in to the elevator, and she stood there silently, nervousness paralyzing her. The man said something aloud, not to her but to some unseen operator, and then, without him having to press any buttons, the elevator… descended. That was one thing that stuck in her mind more than anything, that the elevator went down. That was when she knew for certain, by intuition or something else, that this was something else. Something bigger than her.
She was taken into a room, in it’s centre a large, circular table with at least a dozen chairs spaced around. There was one man sitting there already in a suit, and the man who she had come with told her to sit down, that everything would be taken care of from here. She obliged, taking the seat directly opposite the other man, looking at him as he looked at her.
He introduced himself as Mr. Zero, and that she could simply call him Zero if she preferred. That she was brought there because she had what they called the ‘Gift’, an extraordinary ability that would help in a forthcoming… war? She remembered flinching when he told her that, what war? What gift? He couldn’t tell her exactly what this gift was, but likened it to something akin to magic, spells, and sorcery. It was all she could do not to leave then and there, but she stayed. He began relaying to her the story of demons arriving in South America, slowly consuming and killing the landscape and people, it sounded more like some horror story than a reality. But this man seemed too serious, too adamant and official, and for some reason she believed him. She didn’t know it then, and would never truly understand, but this man whom she had been speaking to had a ‘Gift’ of his own, the power of persuasion. The choice to join his military operation had never truly been hers, but had it been, the answer would’ve likely been the same.
So training begun, it was short, but intense. She turned out to be a natural, gifted especially with her agility and speed. There was one scientist there, a man who was to be called 13, who taught her about the ‘Gift’. She was able to manipulate things, with her mind, and make them do as she pleased. Fire, water, plants… with concentration she learned that she could control them. Even regular objects. At first it was terrifying, overwhelmingly so, but slowly she was able to grow accustomed to her power. It was satisfying in a way, that after all these years of being a victim, she finally felt some power.
Just as she was getting used to her newfound strength, she was called into the field, so to speak. They wouldn’t have taken her so soon, but it was time sensitive. If they acted quickly, in was the science department’s belief that they could seal the portals. Stop the horde’s advancement.
So just like that, April was aboard a military aircraft headed to South America…
Pictures:
- Spoiler:
| |
|
Home 
