Slender physique, blue eyes, short brown hair. Not ugly, not beautiful. Would not stand out in a crowd.
Name: Kaila Maria Canton
Theme: Bleeding
Age: 22
Sex: Female
Biography:
Science has progressed. At a conservative estimate, two in three people carry a camera virtually every moment of their lives. Some believe this has disproved the supernatural, invalidated mysterious sightings worldwide. Others can’t afford to mistake invisibility for nonexistence.
Kaila belongs to those others.
She grew up with her parents and little sister, in a small town briefly famous for a creature sighting in the nearby woods, now more than six decades ago. Life was not perfect, but it was happy. She was an intelligent, sociable child, with bright future prospects, looking forward to a life of academics at university. In her seventeenth summer, she and her friends decided on a campout in the woods, part dare, part fun, all youthful folly. She does not remember much of the night, except the thing she met after losing track of her friends.
Taller than any human could be, looking down on her with hollow eyes gushing blood. In a pure reflex, Kaila raised the camera phone she used for illumination. The apparition instantly disappeared.
Her friends soon found her, screaming, clasping her phone to her chest and crying hysterically. Just an owl, her friends assured her. The red eyes – an airplane, or maybe a shooting star. Kaila was taken to the hospital. Later that night, when the last visitor had just left, she heard a distant scream, a constant wailing, endless, breathless, growing louder. The creature. Kaila could see it, slithering down the hospital corridor. She screamed. Red-eyed death approached with murderous intent. Then the nightshift nurse entered her room. Once again, the creature disappeared.
Kaila’s issues were beyond science. The doctors could not explain why the wailing only she could hear woke her from every sedative they tried. In the end, Kaila was admitted to a psychiatric institution, and spent the greater part of three years under constant surveillance, thinking, evaluating, learning the one rule.
If she is not observed, it comes.
Humans can get used to extreme conditions, and Kaila slowly relearned how to appear sane. She learned to carry three different camera phones on her at all times, wearing the chargers as a necklace, using duct-tape to record herself while asleep. She could never return to the life she had, but she functioned, because she had to.
Her ordeal and its financial drain left her family broken – her mother left for another man, her father ruined his health with alcohol, and savings could no longer pay for her little sister’s education. Kaila was left with no marketable skills, no completed education, an extensive psychiatric history, and a desperate need for money.
Cursed with the ability to hear when no one is looking, Kaila turned to crime.
Family/Friends:
- Lina Louise Canton: Kaila’s sister, trying her hardest to finish university early. Works part-time when she can, but is still financially dependent on her sister’s shady income.
- Samantha Everett: Current roommate and childhood friend, one of those who attended the fateful camping trip. Enrolled in the same university as Kaila’s sister. Strangely accustomed to being asked to occasionally peek in on Kaila while she showers. Open-minded about the supernatural, but privately convinced her roommate's issues are psychological.
- James Canton: Kaila’s father. Lost a daughter to insanity, then a wife to infidelity. His drinking escalated and finally cost him his job. He is not a violent drunk, and Kaila still loves him, but she cannot live with him anymore. She sometimes visits, but her father will ask for money to buy alcohol, a request she usually grants. She knows it’s wrong, but it alleviates some of her guilt.
- Alana Lehman (formerly Canton): her mother, never a very responsible woman, left her family to start another in a city far away.
Flaws: Kaila is paranoid, nervous, not shy but introverted, and terrified of being completely alone. Years of introspection, struggles with the system, and a troubled point of view, have left her with little respect for traditional values, including the law.
Strengths: Adaptable. Inventive. Protective. Responsible. She does not take pride in any of these things.
Goals: Kaila cannot imagine a future for herself. She has privately resolved to commit suicide once her little sister is no longer financially dependent on her. Sometimes, on sunny days, she feels she could continue her education, but then decides those are just remnant dreams from before the incident. She has long given up hope for rescue. What could possibly be done against a horror that phases out of existence the moment it might be proven real? And just as frightening, what if it truly is all inside her head?
Regrets: Ever having set foot in those cursed woods. She also feels responsible for her family falling apart.
Abnormal Quality: In a youthful adventure, she and her friends ventured into a forest known to be haunted, and now the thing that haunted the woods haunts her. As soon as Kaila is unobserved by human or electronic eyes, no matter where, no matter when, she hears a distant, high-pitched shriek, slowly approaching. She never lets it get too close. With every mishap, every close call she survives, the creature grows faster.
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