Name: Cain Harper
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Role: Skill Monkey, Silver Tongue (Persuasion and Social)
Appearance
Meticulously groomed, with brown hair coming down to the nape of his neck with nary a hair out of place. Brown eyes gaze with an inner gleam. Cain is slight of build, with not an ounce of fat on him. The only blemish on his otherwise perfect features is a scar running just over and under his lips on the right hand side of his mouth. On his left shoulder, Cain has a striking tattoo of a celtic sun covered by a flaming orange and yellow sun
Personality
Quiet, softly spoken and mysterious, Cain is every inch the enigmatic high-flying, high-society millionaire's son thrust into an end of the world scenario that he can barely understand or come to terms with. Cain doesn't speak much, but then he doesn't have to. A look from his smouldering brown eyes can make most members of the fairer sex desire to give away their souls for him if he would so desire it -- and this is something that Cain uses to truly devastating effect.
Manipulative and devious, Cain puts himself first and foremost in all situations. He is spoiled, his parents having given him his every whim and desire. To a certain extent, Cain sees other people as puppets and playthings -- objects to be manipulated for his own amusement and entertainment. As long as he gets what he wants out of a situation then Cain is perfectly content.
On the surface that is.
There are those precious few who have taken the time to truly get to know Cain who can attest to the fact that hidden underneath, this strangely tormented individual is more complex than they could possibly even begin to imagine, and this is a trait that manifests itself in the strangest and most random of ways. An act of genuine kindness to a lost child, helping them to find their way home. The sparing of coin to a starving beggar to allow them to eat -- only Cain truly knows what drives Cain, and to most others he is a puzzle wrapped up in the finest cloth.
Motivations
Cain is an empty shell born into an empty, hollow world. He is trapped in the worst sort of cycle possible. Cain hopes to distance himself from his parents and forge his own identity, yet he does not have the faintest idea how to do so. His life is a pristine, manufactured thing - perfect in every way yet lacking warmth and love, just like himself as a person. Inside he is desperately cold and numb, so he seeks to make himself feel something through any exterior means possible. Cain is a hedonist and he does not know how to break it.
Yet his insatiable appetites do not give him what he so desperately needs. As a result of his continued perceived failures and his inability to feel genuine warmth and emotion, so his self-hatred and loathing grows. And as it does, he is spurred onto acts of greater debauchery, his lusts and passions never truly being fulfilled.
A cycle he does not know how to begin to break free from.
Backstory
Cain lifted a finger up to touch his lips as he turned his look to the woman asking him about his past. Fixing her dark eyes with his own, the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight, almost ghost-like smile. As precious seconds slipped like grains of sand in a hourglass in this dying world, the young man started to wonder if things would ever....go back to the way they used to be.
Finally, with a small sigh he bowed his head slightly, looking to the ground as he opened his lips, and the slightest of whispers broke the silence, "My, but aren't you the curious one. You know what they say? That curiosity killed the cat...."
His voice trailed off in a small chuckle as he continued, "I have always lived here in Seattle. I was born here into a life of riches and luxury." Looking around him, Cain gestures to his meagre surroundings. It hadn't always been like this, scraping around for survival with ambitions nothing more than to survive another day. "Ironically, I remember as a young boy thinking that there was more to this life than this.....incessant nothingness. Being a millionaire playboy isn't as easy as one might think. Each and every day being given everything that you ever wanted, never having to fight or earn anything. The strangest thing was....."
Standing, Cain walked over to the run-down shack that he was now forced to dwell within. Touching rotted wood, his eyes took on a faraway look. "......I remember from a early age I'd wished for something more. Adventure. Excitement. All things that I lacked aside from manipulating and turning the poor bastard sycophants who came seeking my favour against each other."
Sighing softly, Cain turned back to regard her, "Strange as it is to admit that, in some ways, as much as I wasn't ready.....I wanted this life we now lead. I grew up in my parents manor. I had the best teachings and tutors that money could buy. I learned how to twist and manipulate to get my hearts desire. There were few who could resist me." Laughing again softly, he continued, "There were many who wanted me to be their friend. There were many whom I took as lover. But even so, there were none who wanted to be with me for me. All they were interested in was the colour of my money. Strange to say, but even as much as I was never alone, I was at the same time the loneliest person in the world. Sad to admit isn't it?"
Fixing her with that irresistible gaze of his, Cain went silent, waiting in turn for her story....
Recent History
Cain sat on the wooden floor. He crossed his legs, leaning down and propping his head up in his hands. His eyes went misty, almost as if he was remembering a time far removed. "I'd actually only just came back home when the world went to hell....." His eyes glistened with moisture, held there for a second removed from eternity before he brought his hand up, wiping away the tears.
Colouring slightly, almost as if embarrassed by his moment of weakness, Cain continued his story. "I went to study abroad. Mother and father's money paid for my education and my trip. Aside from that though, I had something to prove to myself. I was me. Cain Harper. Not my mother, nor my father. I was not an extension of their being.....I was my own person and damned if I wouldn't learn to cope on my own, and not on their coattails."
Cain clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering the cruel taunts of his fathers friends as they mocked him for being "daddy's spoiled little boy". "I was......am......a hedonist. I learned to live life as fully as I could. The best clubs. The most exclusive parties. I would have a plastic faced dolly girl on each arm, baseless, without dignity. I had plastic, cardboard cutouts masquerading as people wanting to be my friend. They used me, even as I used them to feed my own desires, so that I would grasp, even if only for a second, the blessed illusion that I was alive, that I did breathe. That my heart did indeed beat beneath my chest and pumped blood through my veins. Even abroad, even in England money talked and my family name and reputation spread far, far beyond what I ever thought it would."
His voice was tinged with unexpected sadness and bitterness, and perhaps it was at that moment that the girl listening to him realised the truth about Cain. That yes, he was a manipulative, selfish man, and he was, as he had admitted, a hedonist. Living a life of debauchery, Cain was a prisoner to his own lifestyle and his family name. That as much as he lived life on the edge, it was, in the end, a hollow, empty thing. Cain wished to escape his own heritage, and in that regard he was a prisoner locked away in a cold, stone cell without the key to a door that would set him free.
Regardless, the usually softly spoken Cain was surprised in a lot of ways at his own verbosity. Perhaps this one, this strange girl had found a strange kinship with the isolated social creature manufactured by a fake society.
Noticing the girl staring at the scar on his lip, Cain brought his finger up, tracing an imaginary line across the pale mark that marred his otherwise perfect features. Another of those ghostlike smiles made it's way across his face as he looked down to the floor.
"This.....this scar? That, my dear, is a story for another day." Cain looked down to the floor for a second before continuing, "I returned home, and found my home......and the world, had gone to ****."
Greeting the Apocalypse
Cain lights up a cigarette. It was strange that in this messed up world that had deteriorated as much as this one that the smallest things that were once taken for granted became a blessed relief. As he took a puff, blowing a small ring of smoke into the air, only the slightest tremble in his arms betrayed the depths of Cain's horror as he was forced to relive that terrible day.
"I woke." There was a tremor in Cain's voice as he closed his eyes, taking another drag on the cigarette. "I woke to screams and blood."
Closing his eyes, Cain pictured the scene almost as if it were one unfolding in front of him right now. "I hadn't even been back any more than a couple of days before the world changed....." Standing, Cain walked over to the girl. He drew her in, holding her close, almost as if she was his only link.....his anchor to reality, to stop the horror of the world around them destroying him.
"The screams stopped. When I went out, I found them all......I've -- I've never seen anything like it. They were all.....twisted.....contorted." Holding onto her, he tightened his grasp around her, clenching the fabric of her jacket tightly in his fist. "There was blood everywhere. They.....they had been tearing at themselves......"
As the images flashed in front of his eyes, Cain's voice broke, and he could not bring himself to say what he had seen with his own eyes. They had torn great furrows into their own flesh......tore their own eyes out in unspeakable agony.....
".....Mother, Father.....Miranda. I was the only one alive." Choking back a sob, Cain continued, "I.....I ran. I didn't know what else to do. I ran from the house. And as the world died around me, I just kept running...... And I wondered.........why?"
Why had I survived when everyone else had died?
Strengths
1) Cain is a jack of all trades -- master of none. Perhaps the product of a misspent youth, however there are few situations that he does not have some passing knowledge of. Picking locks? Check. Hotwiring? Done it. He is a useful auxiliary person to have around, just dont ask him to fight.
2) Master of the silver tongue. Cain certainly knows how to use his charm to devastating effect. With that silver tongue of his, there are few situations that he cannot twist to his advantage or talk his way out of. It is what has kept him alive so far.
3) Deceptively tough. Despite being slight of frame, Cain is deceptively tough. He can, and has, taken a beating in his life both mentally and physically. For one such as him to survive in this tough world, he has to be. No matter how many times you keep beating him down, he comes back -- again and again and again. That mental fortitude is invaluable in the apocalyptic wasteland he lives in.
Weaknesses
1) Haunted. Cain is haunted by the ghost of someone he cares deeply for, in a spiritual and emotional sense. A girl, Katy, whom he loved very deeply. The circumstances of her death is something he will never speak of, yet it is something that haunts his every waking moment, and something that he blames himself for. Until he puts that particular ghost to rest, he will never be free of his demons.
2) Addictions. Cain suffers from withdrawals. Needing to take things to block out the horrible nightmarish visions of his parents and families death, and over time he became more and more dependent on them to get by.
3) Self-Loathing. Cain's self-loathing is complex, and it runs very, very deep inside of him. It was what caused him initially to descend into the life of debauchery and excess that he lived prior to the rise of the dead. Seeking an exit from the hopeless, cold world that he lived in, what he found was the reality of the situation he became trapped in was far, far worse than the one he left behind. Yet, he does not know how to escape from it.....
Powers and Abilities
1) Charm and Persuasion. Can can be *very* persuasive when he wants to be. It can be difficult to resist his charm, but those who can see past his facade see him for the manipulative liar that he really is.
2) Pick Locks. Cain can open locked doors using thin slivers of metal. Learning the ability during his disaffected use, it is something that can get himself and his companions out of tight spots.
3) Heightened Endurance. Cain is tough. Surprisingly tough. It takes a lot to beat him down, and even more to keep him down. He can keep going when most would give up.
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