#arc.death

[arcanakrp-blog]

KWON NORA – DEATH. AGENT 13.

                                                [   FILE TYPE: CLASSIFIED   ]

//: LOADING PROFILE: KWON NORA …

international age: 24 birthplace: seoul, south korea arcana: death team number: nine

//: LOADING MUTATION: GHOST PHYSIOLOGY  …

application one: fear aura — a distinct FEAR AURA surrounds nora, something that cannot be contained or controlled to the best of her knowledge. it exists in a latent and quiet manner in her daily life, permeating the air around her, seeping out into a ten to twenty foot radius around her. this aura affects the subconscious of those within the radius, inciting a vague sense of unease that is largely inescapable. when in her fully “ghost” form pursuant to application two, this heightens twofold and the unease she radiates becomes actual fear, in the sense that it will raise goosebumps, the hair on the back of your neck, make the affected parties feel strangely suspicious and jumpy, and so forth.

application two: ghost form — the most characteristically ghostly of her powers is her GHOST FORM, a malleability of presence and form that allowed her to initially identify her ability. just being vaguely creepy to people had been hard to pinpoint, and until this aspect manifested she had no access to the third, which left her somewhat uncertain when her abilities first began to manifest.  in full force, nora becomes a spectral entity in appearance, distorted and silvery. in this form she can enact the most damage in terms of heightening fear around her and accessing the third application of her powers. there are various shades, however, to this ability. she is also able to become intangible but purely visible, invisible but purely intangible, and additionally can be also intangible and invisible at once. this is ideal for her role in infiltration missions, allowing her to pass purely undetected through dangerous areas or subvert physical attacks.

application three: spectral energy manipulation — far and away the most useful of her abilities is SPECTRAL ENERGY MANIPULATION. colloquially known as ectoplasm (but not the gross weird green kind from children’s “scary” shows), this is what makes up her being when she is in her fully spectral form (application two). she is still able to do a decent amount with this, in terms of the manipulation of her own form to various evasive and defensive effects. s at that point she is able to propel herself in a manner akin to flight (though more restricted, and perhaps better likened to floating in terms of how close to the ground she remains), adjust her appearance and how others perceive her (most commonly into many of the stereotypical horror movie ghost features), and so forth.  truthfully her last ditch effort in situations of trouble is her ability to briefly possess a target, which is to say when in pure spectral form she may invade via the mouth, funneling into a person’s consciousness and taking it over briefly. she is then able to use their physical form, though she is unable to access their memories or consciousness, as her own replace theirs for the time being. the target remains consciously aware of her presence but unable to act, except in cases of extreme mental fortitude in which she may be forcibly ousted.

overall strengths and weaknesses: — to deal first with the obvious weakness of her fear aura, it is difficult to find people willing to sustain the constant uncertainty, discomfort, and anxiety that are associated with being in her presence, much less considering the fact it is amplified to great degree when she is actively using her powers. this means her partner had to be rather carefully vetted, as one of weak mind or heart would be unlikely to fare well alongside her for long.

additionally, nora is distinctly lacking in offensive powers, which leaves her vulnerable, particularly when she is exhausted or in some other way unable to accurately harness her abilities. in many cases she is able to work around this by simply becoming invisible, intangible, or some combination of the two, rendering it exceptionally difficult to land a hit. however, she is still quite vulnerable to surprise attacks.

given her ability to literally disappear and walk through walls, nora is ideal for her roles related to gathering information, infiltrating enemy compounds, or assessing locations undetected. when it comes to subtlety there are few more suited to the task than she.

given her partner’s capability of assuming human forms, nora works well in tandem with them, particularly when given the cover of their distraction techniques, or when able to move ahead and open doors, assess the layout of the area, and so forth, in order to determine potential threats to the other’s forward movements. in this way the scope of their actions is able to broaden a bit from purely infiltration related. further, she is able to briefly possess individuals, as stated above. while she is unable to access their knowledge, powers (if an arcana), etc in this state, she is able to control their body, which allows her to pass undetected, or to transfer her own training in combat to a sturdier form than her own, giving her a higher likelihood of success in a brief hand to hand situation. this further works well to distract or disorient opponents in a group, should one of their own suddenly begin fighting them, and so on.

//: LOADING HISTORY ..

PRE-MUTATION

tw: self harm, sexual abuse 'tis in my memory lock'd, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

kwon nora is not a baby, she is a tool. 

born to a mother intent on salvaging her affair with a married, wealthy businessman, kwon inha overestimates how much her beau is willing to sacrifice for his new daughter, his new girlfriend. his wife, his current family? its not on the list. 

and so kwon inha finds herself pregnant for no reason, and the resentment begins. 

it does not diminish when nora is born, with wide dark eyes and a powerful set of lungs. she screams already as though the world as wronged her and indeed, it will, time and again. perhaps she has seen some portent of this in whatever realm is beyond consciousness.  it is the beginning of an inauspicious life, to say the least. 

she is left to her own devices as a child. her mother begins dating again and a series of men pay for the series of nannies and babysitters that raise her. nora learns through observation that femininity is the key to success, that her power will come in soft words and soft touches, in all things pliant and promising. 

kwon inha marries quickly, and at five years old nora is a flowergirl dressed in lilac, flowers braided into long dark hair. she is paraded out for pictures where her mother dotes on her pointedly, where her newfound step father smiles benign and bright, adn then she is shunted to her room and instructed to be still and silent, lest the party be disrupted. 

nora is a trophy, even then. she is a commodity, bred to be beautiful and silent, to speak when spoken too and to smile endlessly, softly, less she be the burden her mother promises her she is. 

with her mother as a role model, nora learns too quickly what powers she can wield, what the soft promise of her truly is. she grows into a beautiful young woman, everyone is keen to tell her this, as she is steered through functions and fundraisers, dressed in pastels and lace. she is always this pure thing, this precocious trophy of a girl. 

nora learns things no young woman should ever know. 

she learns them as she ages, as eyes begin to follow her. learns them late at night when the door creaks open, when hands pull and tug and tear. 

but with this knowledge comes a deadening, and a breaking, and also a surplus. she is given anything she could dream of or want. she is dressed in silks and satins, her life becomes streamlined, state of the art. her external world has all the comforts she lacks emotionally, void of love or trust, an aching chasm that spreads in her, splits her in two. 

years pass in fragments, bits and pieces. 

she's lost much of this to her own mind, shuttered off in large swathes, months and days blanketed in a fog of forgetfulness. she remembers instead, small things. the smell of wildflowers on her walk home from school, a teacher's kindness, the sunlight filtering through the windowed hallways of her school building. champaign flutes and crystal glasses and violin quartets and interminably long parties.

she remembers the sick twist in her gut and the leer in the eyes of her step father's friends, some perceived knowing. as if they can tell what he has done. as if he has bragged of it, his conquest. his toy, his victim. he flaunts her like a prize he has won and not something he has stolen and destroyed. 

shortly after she graduates high school, something in nora snaps. 

there is a deadened coldness in her, one she thinks must have permeated her skin, rendered her as frigid and steely as the knife she slips beneath her pillow. 

she waits. 

he comes as he always does, as he must - slave to some baser instinct to ravage and ruin.  and when he's there, over her, she moves, slips the blade into his side in a movement that is the utmost in satisfaction. the white linens, her white nightgown, the pale expanse of his torso, the moonlit line of her arm; these things are all drenched in crimson and she glows with satisfaction and with fire. 

he is unharmed, ultimately, aside from the stitches. 

she, however, is cast out. she is tossed onto the streets, told that this is her penance. vile creature, her mother calls her, a sick and twisted serpent, eve tempting adam to his doom. eden - the most lush trap, built for the condemnation of souls, the introduction to sin. 

she wonders when her mother found religion and how on earth she had so woefully misinterpreted it. 

there is a teacher at the school, an old family friend, a young man a scant few years her senior. he takes her in, but this too sours. 

demanding and controlling, nora is slowly hedged into isolation, rapunzel in a tower that is built block by block. he's concerned, you see, about the influence of her friends. he worries, of course, that she could be hurt. she's so fragile, is all, so delicate. he wants only to protect her, he says, and slowly, so slowly, nora finds herself in a world that revolves around him, as if he is some burning sun. 

it becomes clear to her in time, however, that there are many planets in his orbit. 

this is the final straw - she has dignity enough to hate this, possessive as she is; possession that she is. 

with an inheritance from her estranged maternal grandmother, she leaves. soundlessly in the night, without a word, she takes the bus to seoul and never once looks back, leaves the salt spray of busan in distant memory. 

two months later the call comes. 

found, hanged, from the ceiling fan in the bedroom. in their bedroom. 

perhaps her mother was not so wrong, she thinks, in fitful starts between mouthfuls of liquor, in lucid moments between pills. perhaps she is worse still than eve or eden. perhaps she is the snake, some slithering and sinful thing, bred to bring temptation and destruction. 

POST-MUTATION

there's rosemary, that's for remembrance. pray you, love, remember. 

the meteor shower is dimmed by the ambulance lights, a violent cacophony of yellows and reds and whites. too many pills and too much liquor, and a kind partygoer who finds her on the bathroom floor. she chalks the dreams up to the effects of this, an iv in her arm and bruises around her eyes. she is sunken and sallow, a shadow of her past.

she dreams herself a ghost. she longs, desperately, to sink into the sheets and sleep - the sleep of the dead. dreamless and peaceful and everlasting.

what she gets instead is some cruel play on this wish.

the ability develops slowly, and with it come crushing migranes and sleepless nights, cold skin and a shiver of uncertainty from those she meets. of course the fear comes first. of course.

she spends days upon days as a ghost, drifting listless through the world around her, as if the depression that claws at her senses now manifests physically in her form (or lack thereof, when she finds she can become this misty substance, or nothing at all).

when the ar compound finds her she wonders how on earth they've managed it, when she has spent so long now being hidden and silent and absent. ghost stories travel, however, and she is a live haunting.

they bring her to a compound and they tell her she has a purpose now. she scoffs at this, at all of it, but the lure of wealth and safety is at least something. the therapist who patiently smiles at her is something too - something grating and unappreciated. she takes prescribed pills and she learns to fight. she favors the knife, with its cool, long blade. there is a comfort in this still.

she's assigned missions and teammates and it is with great disinterest that she proves herself formidable. she cares little for boundaries, for their targets, for what she is doing. she moves in conditioned, blind obedience.

and on some days, she doesn't.

on some days she is all fire and fury and empathy, she is hateful and horrid, she is hurt and hurting, broken and breaking. nora's instability is obvious and she is monitored closely, for her aggressive recklessness and her cold dissociation, for the pendulum swing of her responses.

but nora, as always, gets what she wants. she has the tools for this - in the curve of her hips and the flash of her eyes, in the knives she keeps tucked away, in the flicker of mist and promise as she twists from girl to ghost.

#arc.app #arc.death #fc.jung soojung #( BACKGROUND CHANGE )

[arcanakrp-blog]

BOO SERA – DEATH. AGENT 13.

                                                   [   FILE TYPE: CLASSIFIED   ]

//: LOADING PROFILE: BOO SERA ...

international age: 24 birthplace: seoul, south korea arcana: death team number: nine

//: LOADING MUTATION: GHOST PHYSIOLOGY ...

application one: fear aura — exactly as it sounds, there is a lingering sense of dread that surrounds sera now, an unsettling quality that prompts those in the vicinity to discomfort, suspicion, nervousness, anxiety, and fear. she is not able to control this - it simply infects the minds of those around her, whether they are aware of it or not, whether they would normally fear a girl like her (unlikely) or not, whether she is in human or ghost form. in short, she is latently frightening, to a low level, though the level of fear she instills may heighten in reaction to moments of intense danger as an instinctive response. this means she’s generally given a wide berth, often found sitting suspiciously alone even in crowded areas, abandoned by peers

application two: ghost form — the most natural and controlled of her abilities, sera now finds herself able to manipulate her physical form. she can control the tangibility and visibility and corporeality of her body, in part or in whole, at will. she may phase between fully human and tangible, tangible but invisible, intangible but visible, a strange misty iteration of herself, and so forth. this can obviously be used for a variety of purposes, but comes with some drawbacks, like the ever creeping chill in the room that follows her

application three: spectral energy manipulation — only accessible in her ghost form, her ability to manipulate spiritual energy comes more specifically from her ability to manipulate her form. she can “phase” into her ghost form and then adapt and mold that form, channelling the energy that she consists of. this allows for some limited applications - directed movement to a specifically visualized location that acts something like “floating” but is sustainable only when both intangible and invisible, manipulation of small aspects of her form (such as channelling that energy from her fingers into a lock to undo it), rattling around or knocking over objects (exceptionally ghostly, right?), or disseminating a creeping cold (though this is often exceptionally unintentional). in the future she will be able to project her fully ghost self into a close range target, effectively into their spiritual self, and possessing them temporarily. for the moment she is incapable of this and has only done it once, while asleep, entirely by accident

overall strengths and weaknesses: — The first and arguably most significant drawback to her powerset in general is the fear aura. On an interpersonal level this is damaging, and exceptionally so. It is a constant thing, she cannot turn this on or off, and as a result people are afraid of her, all the time. Anyone within a close range of about 20 feet (in general and calm circumstances) feels a low grade uncertainty, suspicion, paranoia, and fear; the level of this will depend on their mental fortitude and tendencies towards fear, but it will never be entirely absent. This is the most social and psychological of her weaknesses, but undoubtedly makes her life the most difficult.

She is limited to manipulation of her own form, which means she is only able to exercise the amount of energy and power that she herself can put forth - illness, physical weakness, exhaustion or depletion of stamina will render her entirely useless. On a more obvious level, her powers lack offensive qualities to say the least, thus leaving her in a role of scout, infiltration, so forth. Even in her human form she is somewhat nondescript, rather forgettable aside from the fear that creeps into those around her. This innate fear aura can help to weaken her opponents mentally, and can be used by other Arcana (notably the Hanged Man) as a catalyst to heighten their own capabilities.

She can creep unseen into impenetrable locations,  ghost through walls and doors, move quickly when time requires it. Sera is additionally capable of preying on the more superstitious, manufacturing omens or portents of various kinds ( writing in “blood” on a mirror, slamming doors, etc) in order to undermine or weaken mentalities, or guide opponents who are more suggestible/ prone to believing in the supernatural towards certain paths of action.  While she is a formidable spy in various manners, weaknesses are numerous, particularly if she is in her physical form wherein she is on the weaker side of things, due in part to size and stature.

Sera’s abilities are subtle and often used around the compound simply for manipulative, voyeuristic, or mischievous purposes. This is in bizarre dichotomy with the natural aura of fear she gives off, resulting in a strange conundrum of a girl that others find either wholly intriguing or entirely off putting, with little in between.

//: LOADING HISTORY ..

PRE-MUTATION

the boo family house is traditionally korean in structure, ancient but well maintained, set on a sprawling section of land. or at least, it might have been sprawling, if the acreage wasn’t rumpled and crumpled in the way of hills and crags and mountains and ravines. it’s dangerous terrain for a young girl, high up the side of a mountain in jeju, but the boo family isn’t concerned with that.

there are three generations in residence. a grandmother, stooped and dressed still in either hanbok or field clothes, traditionally minded and sharp tongued. she is aged but not senile, her eyes as bright as ever though she moves slower these days.  a mother, tall and proud, a fine cut jaw and a pair of hard eyes. they don’t sparkle like her mother’s, they are flat, shining obsidian. they command respect, attention.

the family home is set around what one might colloquially call an altar, a place of traditional worship, shamanism, in fact. it is a generations long tradition in the boo family, this spiritual connection to the realms of the dead. this ancient practice, carried forth as an avenue for the strength of women even in the midst of confucian ideations that began to permeate the peninsula. her mother modernizes the practice. there is less sacrifice and less trance state, unless her client is particularly traditional, and there are more tarot cards, more numerological fortune telling, more astrology and so forth.

sera watches this from birth with wide dark eyes. she’s a quiet baby, a quiet child after, and this is both comforting and not. she sleeps soundly through the night, she rarely wakes her family members. but in the manner of all young children, quiet means mischief is afoot, and sera overflows with this.

she has a tendency to disappear, to wander off on a whim, to work her mother to the point of terror before she meanders back home, just after dusk, with flowers braided in her hair and dirt on her cheeks and scrapes on her arms, her legs.

as she gets older, she loses herself in books, in literature, in fantasy. she finds herself drawn to the morbid, both more mischievous and more mature than her other peers in school. she is both enigmatic and bizarre, a morbid creature that feeds on darkness and is drawn towards light, flushed cheeks and bright eyes, pale skin and hair that falls down her back to tangle and tousle at her waist.

there are a lot of rumors around school, about her. about her family. where are all the men, the fathers? sera’s father exists in occasional checks sent in the mail, signed with a name she doesn’t recognize, in the slant of her nose - according to her mother. its the most the woman has said about him, besides noting “men don’t matter for much anyway, sera.” the rumors on this front of curses and murders afford sera both annoyance and amusement, once she learns to embrace them to snark and terrorize. but still she is isolated, drifts between classes, down halls, distracted and indifferent, unimpressed by her peers.

when she goes to school, to college, and finally leaves her little island, she finds herself enamoured with the modern world. it isn’t like she doesn’t know it exists, doesn’t ever see it. she’s been to the bigger cities on jeju, she’s visited busan, she’s spent her life with phones and computers.

but its still the first time she’s living in the city on her own, the first time she can’t walk outside and onto a hiking trail, the first time she is surrounded by people constantly, more than she knows what to do with. she’s studying but she hasn’t chosen a degree program yet, toys with ideas of astronomy, philosophy, religious studies, history. she chain smokes on the tiny stoop of her building, cuts her long hair short, goes to poetry slams and raves and lives, really lives.

but there’s always something in her that feels off, shifted, wrong. part of her is discouraged, depressed, distressed. sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed - for days. her grades slip, anxiety peaks in her, she finds herself listless.

she thinks about dying, sometimes, but she’s always thought a lot about that. she’s always wondered in the abstract how it would feel - what comes after. if her family really does have some connection, some way to ferry messages between.

when the meteor streaks over the skies, when she find sherself waking in a strange form, somewhere in between alive and dead, it feels as lot like a sick joke, a cosmic laugh at her expense.

POST-MUTATION

sera’s never been a normal person. she’s always been offbeat, morbid, moody. now, she’s worse and markedly so. with great power, for sera, comes a lack of impulse control. she prowls the halls in various ranges of visibility, slips into showers, sneaks into bedrooms, slides into the kitchens. she spends her time making light of the situation, of herself, of everything.

but she’s scared.

she doesn’t want to work for these people, she doesn’t want to put herself - put others- in harms way.  the missions she’s on are fine - sneak in, eaves drop a little, steal something, sneak out.

but lately there’s an escalation. people are dying. there are injuries. there are assassinations, and she hears, sometimes, deep in the night, the screams. she doesn’t want to think about it, consider it, but she’s not so sure about this anymore. she’s not so happy about this, these days.

she’s out for herself, ultimately. she wants to slough this off, to escape, to do as she pleases. she’s never really been one for  taking orders or doing as she’s told, and she feels as though this whole thing is a manifestation of all those curses the school children whispered behind their hands about when she passed.

#arc.app #arc.death #fc.lee jieun

[arcanakrp-blog]

KWON NORA – DEATH. AGENT 13.

                                                 [   FILE TYPE: CLASSIFIED   ]

//: LOADING PROFILE: KWON NORA ...

international age: 24 birthplace: seoul, south korea arcana: death team number: nine

//: LOADING MUTATION: GHOST PHYSIOLOGY  ...

application one: fear aura — a distinct FEAR AURA surrounds nora, something that cannot be contained or controlled to the best of her knowledge. it exists in a latent and quiet manner in her daily life, permeating the air around her, seeping out into a ten to twenty foot radius around her. this aura affects the subconscious of those within the radius, inciting a vague sense of unease that is largely inescapable. when in her fully “ghost” form pursuant to application two, this heightens twofold and the unease she radiates becomes actual fear, in the sense that it will raise goosebumps, the hair on the back of your neck, make the affected parties feel strangely suspicious and jumpy, and so forth.

application two: ghost form — the most characteristically ghostly of her powers is her GHOST FORM, a malleability of presence and form that allowed her to initially identify her ability. just being vaguely creepy to people had been hard to pinpoint, and until this aspect manifested she had no access to the third, which left her somewhat uncertain when her abilities first began to manifest.  in full force, nora becomes a spectral entity in appearance, distorted and silvery. in this form she can enact the most damage in terms of heightening fear around her and accessing the third application of her powers. there are various shades, however, to this ability. she is also able to become intangible but purely visible, invisible but purely intangible, and additionally can be also intangible and invisible at once. this is ideal for her role in infiltration missions, allowing her to pass purely undetected through dangerous areas or subvert physical attacks.

application three: spectral energy manipulation — far and away the most useful of her abilities is SPECTRAL ENERGY MANIPULATION. colloquially known as ectoplasm (but not the gross weird green kind from children’s “scary” shows), this is what makes up her being when she is in her fully spectral form (application two). she is still able to do a decent amount with this, in terms of the manipulation of her own form to various evasive and defensive effects. s at that point she is able to propel herself in a manner akin to flight (though more restricted, and perhaps better likened to floating in terms of how close to the ground she remains), adjust her appearance and how others perceive her (most commonly into many of the stereotypical horror movie ghost features), and so forth.  truthfully her last ditch effort in situations of trouble is her ability to briefly possess a target, which is to say when in pure spectral form she may invade via the mouth, funneling into a person’s consciousness and taking it over briefly. she is then able to use their physical form, though she is unable to access their memories or consciousness, as her own replace theirs for the time being. the target remains consciously aware of her presence but unable to act, except in cases of extreme mental fortitude in which she may be forcibly ousted.

overall strengths and weaknesses: — to deal first with the obvious weakness of her fear aura, it is difficult to find people willing to sustain the constant uncertainty, discomfort, and anxiety that are associated with being in her presence, much less considering the fact it is amplified to great degree when she is actively using her powers. this means her partner had to be rather carefully vetted, as one of weak mind or heart would be unlikely to fare well alongside her for long.

additionally, nora is distinctly lacking in offensive powers, which leaves her vulnerable, particularly when she is exhausted or in some other way unable to accurately harness her abilities. in many cases she is able to work around this by simply becoming invisible, intangible, or some combination of the two, rendering it exceptionally difficult to land a hit. however, she is still quite vulnerable to surprise attacks.

given her ability to literally disappear and walk through walls, nora is ideal for her roles related to gathering information, infiltrating enemy compounds, or assessing locations undetected. when it comes to subtlety there are few more suited to the task than she.

given her partner’s capability of assuming human forms, nora works well in tandem with them, particularly when given the cover of their distraction techniques, or when able to move ahead and open doors, assess the layout of the area, and so forth, in order to determine potential threats to the other’s forward movements. in this way the scope of their actions is able to broaden a bit from purely infiltration related. further, she is able to briefly possess individuals, as stated above. while she is unable to access their knowledge, powers (if an arcana), etc in this state, she is able to control their body, which allows her to pass undetected, or to transfer her own training in combat to a sturdier form than her own, giving her a higher likelihood of success in a brief hand to hand situation. this further works well to distract or disorient opponents in a group, should one of their own suddenly begin fighting them, and so on.

//: LOADING HISTORY ..

PRE-MUTATION

tw: self harm

nora’s life begins in seoul, in the predictable stark white of a hospital room, a mother sobbing as she brings forth new life. it is perhaps inauspicious that her father does not attend the birth, or visit more than momentarily in the days afterwards.  the nurses feel bad for her mother and give her extra care. she’s sent home with two baby baskets instead of one, to a house that feels as empty as the hospital room did.

its that certain kind of house that feels more museum than it does living space, carefully manicured and maintained, everything in its place, as if it had just been ripped from the front page of a home and garden  magazine.

it doesn’t feel like people live there, not really. but then again, they don’t. for the kwons, seoul is a rest stop between journeys. they spirit nora around the world, her father a diplomat. he is cold and careful in his words in all ways, and his smiles do not come easily, nor often. her mother is disinterested in parenthood, but knows that her job is to provide a child, to be pointedly and perfectly poised as the honorable ambassadors wife. nora lives more of her life  in a collection of private schools than she does at home.

they’re the sort of schools that breed contempt for the inferior, for the poorer, for the less impressive. the sort of schools that craft their students into elegant, competitive, manipulative. cut-throat and successful, bred for greatness. nora buys into the narrative because why would she not? she’s always been intelligent and as she grows older she becomes beautiful enough, in a way that is both cold and sultry, a dichotomy she plays to her advantage with abandon.

in the absence of proper role models,, in the absence of warmth or affection or love, nora learns to bend the world to her will. never given a template for empathy, nora lacks it rather impressively, at least for awhile. there are few more selfish creatures than teenagers, after all, and she spins through her youth with the reckless disregard for others only a beautiful young woman can manage. the world sways in her path, fortune favoring the girl. and why would it not, with wealth, genetics, and intelligence on her side?

but she is bored. bored and cold and distant. friendship is a farce and family a fairy tale. her life is made of  appearances and precision, elegance and calculation. with every action and movement comes forethought and consideration - there is nothing warm, or genuine, or real. there is no passion, or fire, or friendship.

it breeds ferocious discontent in her. there is a longing, an ache for some greater purpose, for a fire to light in her veins. and yet she feels nothing but leaden, a wooden dullness that aches distractedly and constantly, like a rot that blooms in her gut and eats her inside out.

the lines she draws in thin crimson over her thighs brings forth fire, and pain, and feeling. this alleviates her deepest moments, in its awful way, etched out on pale skin in spidery lacerations. alcohol follows this, and pills, and drugs, and sex. she becomes a thrill seeker, grasping after the adrenaline that makes her feel alive, that makes her feel, well, anything.

POST-MUTATION

when she wakes in the aftermath of a meteor shower,  she can recall a dream so clearly and so vividly she nearly checks her shoes for dirt in the morning, can almost feel the ache in her bones.

there is a strange sense of surety in her, that something has changed, though she cannot pinpoint it. the manifestation of her powers seems almost to be an affirmation of all the delusions of grandeur that have been poured into her since birth - of course she is more. of course she is better, of course, of course.

but she can feel now, she can control. there is something in her to focus on, something that is new and strange. it comes first in the fear that radiates off her, and she thrives on the power of it, on the waver and warble of voices, on the goosebumps over skin, on nervous glances.  

when this grows grating she explores further, watches her hand fade in and out of existence, passes it through her door knob and takes the day off university to attempt to recreate the strange shift in her chest as she passes in and out of this plane of existence.

she throws herself into research, ravenous to determine the reason, the reality she faces now, hungry for answers that can’t be provided to her yet. answers that, perhaps, no one has. she becomes morbid, in her way, obsessed with her status, with the way she lives between worlds now, one foot in each realm, vacillating between life and death as though it were impossibly simple.

it’s a sick joke, she realizes. to her parents she was invisible for so long, to the world she has been invisible, and now it is reality. she can fade from existence so easily now, she can disappear whenever she pleases.

nora feels strangely above it all, ghosting in and out of time and place, as if the world has no bearing on her now. it all seems to matter a little less, when she can simply drift away from her problems. the powers that alleviated her depression at their onset slowly strengthen it as they, too, become a routine part of her.

it isn’t until she’s standing on the porch of her apartment, tempted to settle on the edge, to throw herself over the side - out of this absent and frozen curiosity, something that sinks into her veins and prompts her to wonder if she can die now.

she can feel pain, she knows this. she can suffer. she can cry.

but where is the line drawn?

the collective offers her answers, and more than that, when they appear in her life, they offer her a purpose. she has been an accessory, invisible, unimportant for so long that the promise of a role in the world, of a job - it is tempting beyond belief.

playing well with others isn’t something she does easily, but she thrives on the attention regardless, be it positive or negative, the ultimate stereotype of a child acting out. maybe that’s all she is, for all her elegance and care and tact - a child behind a thin veneer.

the people around her still feel like pawns more than partners, the missions more like games - even when lives are at stake, even when the life in question is hers. it feels so hard to care about these things.

#arc.app #arc.death #fc.jung soojung