Her Parents
Robert Wilson is from a good, conservative family. He liked the exoticness of Dinara's eastern european background when he married her. However, as his career in business took off, he made her "anglicise" her name to Diana. He also convinced her to give up her job as a school teacher and look after the kids, and be a "homemaker". While Dinara genuinely enjoyed having and looking after a family, this set a precedent for having the "all-american", normal, wholesome family.
Childhood
While somewhat disappointed that both his children were girls, the second one Rebecca, or Becky, soon become Robert's favourite. Where Lindsay was dark (obviously taking after Dinara's side of the family) and quiet, Becky was cheerful and sunny, taking after her father's fair good looks. Dinara loved them both, but tried to give Lindsay the attention she lacked from her father. Apart from this, Lindsay had a basically happy childhood. She was encouraged to do well at school and did. She was also reasonably good athletically. The only place she couldn't hold her own was when Becky began to get noticed and encouraged to enter in beauty pagents. But dispite the competition, the two sisters got on well for the most part, and her father was proud of Lindsay's achievements.
However, this began to change as Lindsay hit puberty, when inexplicably, she started getting into trouble. Teachers started to acuse her of making trouble in class, of getting into fights with other students. Yet when questioned over the incidents, Lindsay would say that others had started it, had made rude or threatening comments. She began to get a reputation amoungst other students for being weird, moody and passing on other people's secrets.
At home, Robert simply punished her, without really trying to understand what was going on beyond the fact that she was breaking the family image he had worked so hard to achieve. Becky, while defending her in the beginning when the other students ganged up on her, became steadily more angry with her. She could not understand why she seemed to keep getting into trouble so much, why she just couldn't fit in. Also, her dad's disapproval of her could not help but start to rub of on Becky.
Dinara was the only one of the family who seemed truly sympathetic towards her. Yet even here, Lindsay would try to explain, and even to her what she was saying would sound silly, like a made up story to avoid geting into trouble. She began to alternate between withdrawing for long periods and getting angry and frustrated and lashing out at the people around her.
It came to head one night after a particularly bad day at school when she got into trouble and would not back down about the reason for the fight even though no of the other students around at the time would back her story. She was suspended from school for a month. Robert immediately yelled at her, accusing her of disgracing the family and wasting all the opportunities the family had worked so hard to give her. Becky would not look at her speak to her. The last straw was the look of disappointment in her mother's eyes. Banished to her room, she went into the bathroom, ran a bath and slit her wrists.
She ended up in hospital after her mother came up to talk to her and found her. Afterwards, she would not speak to anyone - there just seemed nothing to say. No matter how often she tried to explain, people would not believe her. Listening to her parents talking to the counseller, she started to wonder if they were right when the shrink started to tell her horrified parents about psychotic breaks and hallucinations. It would explain the voices and the strange feelings that bombarded her.
Except.... except, if what she heard was untrue, why would people blush and get angry, as if they had been caught out? If they were right and she was wrong, why did they always look so guilty? Why did she hear them saying things like "how could she know that??!?". But how could she be hearing them speak when their lips didn't move? And why could she feel her father horrified shame at having a mad daughter, her mother's pain at guilt at having failed as a mother, as if they were inside her?
Her silence had one advantage - they didn't hide the fact they were planning on admitting her to a "special hospital" to help her with her problems. The drugs they gave her in hospital seemed to make things better - she couldn't hear the voices so loudly when she took them. So she waited for her chance, stole as many of the nice pills as she could find, and headed for the city.
City Life
She was 15 1/2 when she hit the city. She tried to get work using another name, and managed to get a retail job for awhile. During this time she just tried to lose herself in the city, fearing her family would find her again. For about 6 months she was able to hold her life together, using the drugs she had stolen when things became too much.
After awhile, it seemed like the drugs were not working as well. Her supply was fast drying up, and while taking larger doses made things more bearable, it became steadily harder to hold down the job. Eventually she was fired. She managed some other more intermitant work and started look for street drugs to replace the ones she had been using. Around this time, someone gave her a hit of heroin. It was an amazing experience, all the noise got pushed away. She could still hear it, it just didn't seem related to her anymore. But it required money.
Of course their was a way. She didn't particularly want to do it... but the heroin was SO good. After the first time it wasn't so bad, and if she was on the heroin, it seemed like it was happening to someone else anyway. She was 16. The next 6 months were a blur, as she tuned out to the world. All the bad feelings seemed to be held at bay, and the heroin gave her some of the most peaceful feelings she had experienced in years.
One night, someone decided they wanted to see what she would be like on uppers. So they made her a special cocktail. She never found out what it was exactly. But instead of the lovely feeling of being wrapped in cotton wool she was expecting, she got a roaring cacophony. After the months of relative silence, it was all the more horrifying. And it went on, and on, and on.... so she ran, and she kept on running. She was vaguely aware of people occasionly reaching for her, to help or to hurt. None of it mattered, only escaping the noise.
The Wild:
Flight. Noise, gradually receding. Peace. Sleep.
Thirst. Itching. Need something. Pain. Sickness. Terrible, terrible NEED.... need a hit. Make it stop, make it stop, please GOD make it stop, makeitstopMakeItStopMAKEITSTOP!
Oh god... please let me die...
Afterwards she could only remember vague impressions. Being face down in the water desperately drinking. Eating... something. Shivering in the cold. And then one day, it was bearable. A couple of days later, living started to feel like an acceptable option. Finally, standing in the sunshine, no noise, terribly weak but not sick anymore. Alive.
After that, it was a struggle to survive. Learning to hunt, to eat. Staying away from people. Then learning to keep track of them, since they carried things she could not hunt or make. Clothes, shoes, sleeping bags, a knife. Books. But she had to be careful, and the noises when she was close to people made it hard to think. Sometimes she would go deep into the wild for months at a time.
The loneliness was difficult at times. But the peace and quiet made it worthwhile... didn't it?
She lost track of time, only really noticing the changes in weather and in the land and animals around her. She prepared for winter, trying to stay out of the coldest areas. Physically and mentally it was probably the hardest months she had ever had to deal with. But she made it though the winter, and watched the spring come with a sense of real hope and joy in life for the first time in a very long while.
It was early summer when she stumbled over the camp. At first she thought it was deserted. Then she heard someone call out a man's name - and only heard it with her ears. She ran out of the camp, and hid in the greenery nearby, watching with stunned amazement as people came into the camp, and she heard them only as a normal person would. It didn't last the first time.... as her stupor thawed into joy and excitement, the noises started to creep back in. She ran then, disappointment overcoming joy. But later, back in the quiet, she started to think....
Over the summer she tested herself, drifting around camps, never showing herself. By trail and error, she worked out that if she kept herself balanced inside, still and on an emotional equilibrium, she could keep out all but fairly intense emotions and thoughts. By autumn she was becoming confident. So she stole some money and crept into a small town. The chocolate she bought was best thing she had tasted in an eternity, all the sweeter for being able to walk in and ask for it. Conversation felt strange, her voice rusty. But at last she had hope....
Making Contact
She spent another winter in the wild, perfecting her control, making plans. With spring she drew up her courage and started to do work on local farms, helping with harvests. Her ability to work long hours steadily and her quietness proved an asset rather than a liability, although she quickly learned to stay away from pubs and dances.
But people, after so long alone, were interesting. The company seemed to fill a need she had only been dimly aware of in the struggle to survive. But they confused her at times.... she had missed so much of her growing up. So she studied them, as she had studied and learnt the habits of the animals she hunted for food in the wild. She quickly discovered that humans were way more complicated than jackrabbits.
She shifted around for the first month or so, taking short term jobs, then heading back to the wild to refocus her control. However, after several jobs, she lucked out, finding a farm run by the Harvey's. They had a quiet, uncomplicated way of dealing with people that made Lindsay feel more comfortable then she ever expected to be. Slowly she settled into more permanent work at the farm, saving money, starting to get on her feet. Some days she almost felt normal.
While the Harvey's were quite curious about this quiet, hardworking girl, they correctly guessed that any overt interest in her was likely to send her running. After Lindsay had been there nearly a year, they had become fond of her, and had guessed she was trying to put something well behind her. After some careful thought and discussion, they let it be generally known that Mr Harvey's sister Ruth might have a vacancy in her Pet Shop in the state capital - not a great wage but offering room and board....
Lindsay thought long and hard. She had a good place at the farm, a safe place. But more and more she wondered about what she was. She had scoured any library within reasonable travelling distance, not only for any clues about her oddness, but just for the sheer love of the books and knowledge. This job would get her close to the big libraries in the city... surely there she would find something to help her...?
After several days in which she was even more withdrawn that usual, she finally decided and approached the Harveys. Wisely they kept their delight under wraps until she was well out of the room. Then they called Ruth and gave her the good news. A week later, Lindsay found herself and her meager belongings packed on a train headed for the city, and the unknown.
The Future? (Notes for the GM)
Things that would attract her back: