Goodnight, moon.
Name: Gianna Eve deSilva
Nicknames: Gigi, Gee, Anna
Age: 24
Date of Birth: February 25, 1982
Birthplace: Lafayette, Louisiana
Hometown: Friendswood, Texas
Family: Jacob deSilva (father), Violet deSilva (mother, deceased), Lora deSilva (older sister), Nicholas deSilva (older brother, deceased)
Occupation: Hunter (if you can really call that a job), Former novicate
History: (Told in first person by Gianna)
Life has a funny way of working itself out. Even the best laid and well-intended plans get derailed in the path of fate. We'll find ourselves so far from where we started from, to the point that we don't even recognize ourselves anymore. Take my life for instance. I grew up perfectly normal. My mom died in a housefire when I was just a tiny, little thing, but I wasn't any worse-off for it. My dad and my older sister Lora raised me and my brother Nicky as best they could. We never went hungry, never froze, always had a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet. Money got tight every now and again, but we got by. No matter what, we always made the ends meet.
I was about eleven the first time I felt it. Now, though we were all baptized and such and Lora talked about Mom and Daddy were always devout, we didn't seem to be much of the church goin' type. But one night, the feeling just sank into my bones. It was my compulsion, my obsession. That Sunday, I walked the five miles to the Mary Holy Queen church. I sat through the two early masses and even stuck around through the Spanish service. The feeling was... indescribable. The prayers, the readings, the singing, the spirit movin' through and touchin' each person in the room. I never wanted to leave. Well, the wooden pew was beginning to make my ass hurt, but the wanting to stay was there all the same. I filed out with the rest of the folks, hanging around on the steps while the priest greeted the others. As everyone slowly disappeared, gettin' in their cars to go wherever they needed to go for that day, he finally noticed me as he turned to go back inside. He came over. I introduced myself.
Then he asked me where my parents were.
Father Stanley himself drove me home. Daddy had been in a panic over me bein' missing, and was damn near ready to tan my hide. Not that he would have; Daddy was never one of those 'spare the rod, spoil the child' types. Once we reached a certain age, the very rare spankings stopped and it was all grounding and taking away privileges and doing extra chores. Anyways. Father Stanley explained what had happened. Then he and Daddy talked for a long time. Long enough that the Father stayed for dinner. Every Sunday afterwards, I went to church, but in a car. Sometimes Daddy took me, when he was off and felt like going to service. Sometimes it was Lora. Even Father Stanley would pick me up and drop me off. And on the big holidays, everyone went down to church. Just going to church turned to being active in the community there when I got older. I was a big part of the youth ministry. I joined the choir. I was even set on being a lecturer before they changed the age requirement.
Somewhere in all of this, I made the decision to devote my life to God and to the church. For different people that meant different things. For me, it was the decision to become a nun. Well, the order I sought weren't nuns in the official sense. True nuns were cloistered. They stayed within the convent and never had much contact with the outside world. What I sought to become was a religious sister. They worked with the public and were usually attached to a particular parish. And they didn't go in for the habit and stuff. Anyway, after high school, I was fully commited to this. During the first few years of instruction, of being a novicate, you aren't totally cloistered, but you are secluded. Despite this, my brother Nicky still managed to write too much and call too often. We had always been close growing up, though no one else in the family felt that way. Daddy always found something to argue about and Lora was busy with me. Nicky was always troubled. He dropped out of high school and moved out, going God knows where in search of God knows what. He had always claimed Mom's death wasn't an accident, that someone or something had killed her. He told me stories of ghosts and things deadlier after he left. I never believed him.
That all changed in one night. It was late, well after Vespers when he called. Mother Superior tried to get him to call back tomorrow, but he was insistant. We barely spoke before another voice came over the line. The sound of it was chilling, made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The line cut out. I knew in my heart that Nicky was in danger. He could even be dead. But I had to find him. I packed as if I had no intention of coming back. I did, though, I have every intention of continuing once this was done. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Two nights later, I found myself neck deep in a nest of vampires. I didn't believe it myself. I'd be dead if it wasn't for Ezra and Zeke. Looking back, I should have been dead. Three days later I was burying Nicky, digging his grave myself, and I had a hand in getting rid of half the nest. A fumbling, faulty, nearly needing to be saved every other second hand, but was there none the less. But that was the turning point in my life. I stayed with the guys and didn't pause to look back. Within two months, we took out the rest of the nest.
As time went by, I got better at things. How to hold a gun. How to swing a machete. There's no books on being a hunter. It's a tradition passed down person to person, to those few who have seen too much and can handle what they've seen. It took a long time for me to be okay with this, even longer to explain to Lora what I was doing with my life. I thought I was so sure of my path, that it was mapped out completely. Now, it's like I had the map folded up halfway and only saw the straight shot I wanted to see. Hell, I'm beginning to think the job is even beginning to affect me. I dream dreams that aren't my own. Sometimes I know exactly who it is, sometimes, not a clue. I dream of things that will happen, or that are happening. The guys know about that part, because we've actually saved a few lives with it. But from here on out, I'm just feeling my way through.