monsters! ❚ all the future ghosts.
character informationFull Name: Sasha ( surname unknown ).
Series: Original ( Monsters! )
Age: 23.
Species: Human.
Appearance/PB: Sasha
Sasha is a scrawny little thing, big olive green eyes and dyed hair kept in a short cut in constant disarray. Bony, almost unhealthily so, she seems to be tired all of the time, and usually beaten up - especially her knees, they tend to be constantly bruised. One could suppose she is intentionally scrawny - it helps her disappear in the corners, hide in a crowd and simply cower away. Though you can't see it, the inside of her mouth and part of her tongue have some cuts and healed scars, from which her very mild lisp comes from. She carries a worn out leather backpack with a lot of things shoved in it, some clothes, some money and a old MP3 player - the nomad essential moving bag. Most of her clothes are to be found in the same worn out state as the backpack, with a tattered black leather jacket, t-shirts that are older than dirt and possibly have belonged to some large man, ripped jeans and old boots that have seen more dust and dirt than water. Although she does not wear any jewellery besides the cheap kid's watch with the wonky pointers and an earring in her right ear, she has plenty tattoos: two big black straps around her wrists, an intricate sleeve on her left arm, a large pattern of peacock feathers all around her back and many birds flying on her back. ( PB: Ruta Gedmintas ).
Setting: One day, the sky tore open and from the holes in the skies, monsters from above descended upon Earth, hungry little creatures wanting to devour the people below. At first, nobody knew what was going on, but soon people began to realize the nightmares from childhood were real: the monsters under our beds, the monsters in the closets, the monsters in the basement and under the stairs and behind your shower curtains. Never go alone in the dark, people would say. All dreaded that feeling in their gut when they sat alone in a bedroom with a computer as their only light because if they looked over their shoulder, a drool-dripping monster would be waiting for them to eat them. They were as strong as the belief of people. And how can you stop yourself from believing something that is real?
You can't. They were as real as the children wisely told the adults before going to bed. Leave the lights on or the boogieman will get us. Nobody listened until themselves got eaten.
So war broke out. Soldiers marching against something that nobody quite understood, then civilians picked up their lanterns and their rifles, their baseball bats and their crowbars and they tried to kill them. The war was the chaos the monsters fed off of, and soon, Earth was nothing but a wasteland. The humans were eaten, monsters killed and the Devil in its sulfur throne rejoiced.
Many years later, one silly human turned to the Devil and begged it to give him the strength to turn against monsters and the Devil said yes, yes, of course, yes, but in return, the fool's soul would be its forever, condemned to Hell, a sulfur slave for eternity. From that moment on, the humans began to make contracts with the Devil for extraordinary powers in exchange for their souls to fight off the monsters and the darkness from above so they could protect their loved ones.
Big momma Calathea from above, the Mother Monster that vomited her kind upon Earth, began to get fed up with the Devil and decided to come down as well. She wanted to see what was going on. And then she saw what she didn't want to see: monsters killed and sulfur slaves winning and some goddamned hybrids. The few of those that survived her disgust won a special place and as long as they kept on bringing the head of sulfur slaves to her, they would not be disposed of. The few lady-monsters that Calathea allowed to live were regarded carefully. She didn't like them much and made sure they were sterile so that no monster would come out of their womb. One or two, they escaped this birth defect that most she-monsters suffered from, but they were clever enough to keep their mouth shut.
As the monsters began to lose against the sulfur slaves, they took their children and their humans and hid below the surface: limbo, some call them, the step before Hell, others say. There, they tried to trick the Devil, intercepting the souls of the sulfur slaves, not letting them go to Hell, to the Contractor. It didn't take the Devil long to understand what was going on and its rage and anger exploded into venomous bees, spitting acid and dripping bile. The Devil went above, to Earth, and began to hop from body to body, destroying monsters in its cold anger, gathering back the souls that belonged to Hell. The monsters soon saw that body hopping was a convenient way to travel unseen and so began to adapt this as well; unfortunately, the monsters wounded far too much the human body and their recipients usually grew unstable. Very few managed more than a few years with a monster inside. Some others rejected the monster, but on the other hand, these pure things would be delicious snacks for monsters, their blood and flesh tastier than anything else.
They started to indulge in lust and began to have little monsters with humans. Unwanted babies that would be left to die or to survive. Those few that managed to get away would either go to the Devil or go to the monsters. Others would pretend to be human. Unbeknownst to all, the Devil too had its share of spawns. Few, very few, were born, for to carry the pregnancy of the Devil's child is hardly an easy task.
Humans were left in the middle. The few that managed alive out of body-hopping and Devil-making, they kept on fighting. The rebellion. People who still believed that one day, Mother Monster and Devil Thing would be destroyed. They simply needed a plan...
➡ we stopped searching for the monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us...
➡ those are monsters: casts
History: Sasha past is a big blur or gore and confusion. The little she remembers is being lying awake in bed, staring at the slowly opening, creaking door of her closet, and then all that comes are screams, blood, guts, violence. She vaguely remembers another kid in the room, a sibling perhaps, and a ghostly image of a woman and then a man covered in blood and guts, eating another man - and she isn't even sure if this is a memory or simply one of those reoccurring nightmares.
How she survived was very simple: there had been more than one monster that night, two rivals having met in the darkness. poisongames had escaped the human's wrath because she had, instead of devouring the children, taken Sasha to herself. The girl couldn't have been more than thirteen years old at the time, but she was submitted to idle torture a lot to satisfy Kulshedra's sadistic side. In fact, it seemed that the girl was one of those inhabitable souls so slowly breaking her and destroying her was what kept her alive. The more twisted a soul is, the tastier it gets - for the monster named Kulshedra, at least. For each birthday, Kulshedra would tattoo the girl's skin. She wanted her to be her living art. She mixed with the ink her own blood so she would slowly poison Sasha and though the girl writhed in pain for days, ached in fever for weeks, she never really got close to dying - which was exactly what the monster wanted, just dismantling the girl until she was nothing but a broken toy for her to play with. It didn't exactly help that because of the blood, Sasha began to have to take blood like a monster would - though in smaller amounts. Was she to ignore this need, her tattoos would sting as if hot iron was traced upon them, her stomach would curl, her skin would burn with high fever and she would slowly drive herself crazy.
On Sasha's seventeenth birthday, after getting her peacock tattoo (Kulshedras symbol were peacock feathers and such tattoo signified ownership), she began to notice something rather odd: she was able to see a ghost-like replica of people doing exactly what they did few moments before they executed said action. It was a sort of precognition, a secret she kept for herself. It was a painful one, too, because she could guess what Kulshedra would do to her moments before and she basically suffered in anticipation. But it was thanks to that new found power - perhaps obtained through Kulshedra's blood mixed with the ink of her tattoos - that she managed to plan out her escape, even if after years of torture she was almost ready to stay there forever, with hope nearly crushed and being treated like nothing but entertainment for the monster.
She planned it out carefully. It had to be when the handcuffs that chained her to the great wall of Kulshedra's chambers were off and that was usually during the short time she had to take a bath - always watched by the monster's slaves, of course. She kept her head low when they took her to the bathing house, but as soon as they opened the room, she called forth her power and her escape began, seeing a few moments ahead the dangers that peeked from each corner and each sudden turn. Luck was also what aided the girl's escape; she was almost caught and killed by Kulshedra when she got lost in her labyrinth-like gardens, but eventually managed to stumble out of it.
She walked miles with only a towel covering her body, bare feet bleeding against concrete, but she did not stop until she found a place to hide, an empty brothel with nothing but rusting needles and drapes of spider webs all around. She collapsed on a dirty couch and she slept for at least one day. When Sasha woke up, she grabbed whatever clothes she could find and some shoes and began to walk again, even if all of her body was begging her to stop. She couldn't, not if the monster that had kept her captive wanted her back. The girl only stopped when she reached the city and once there, she was burning up and writhing in pain for she had gone without blood for too long. She ended up passing out from hunger and exhaustion.
As she woke up, she found herself in a majestic home. She had rolled off a big bed and hit the ground, only to find herself in clothes that weren't so... whorish. In fact, she was wearing pretty simplistic clothes, just a big sweater and underwear. Frightened little thing as she was, Sasha began to roam the house with careful stepping, until she was discovered by arentyoujustso, the woman who had brought her in. She was nice and understanding of her blood craving and that made Sasha feel even more nervous - it was only natural that a girl who had been shown nothing but betrayal and torture and pain to be wary of what appeared to be just genuine care. It wasn't, of course, as Xanthia was a devil hybrid and she was trying to lure in Sasha to become one of the sulfur slaves. The girl had none of that and she, as always, ran off once she could. She was not followed, though paranoia stuck with her for months.
To survive in the world where monsters reigned, however, Sasha had to do some pretty insane stuff as become an informant for all sides - the human rebellion, the sulfur slaves and the monsters. It was dangerous, but it kept her alive and surviving was all that she cared about.
Things began to look up briefly when she started to see some hope in the rebellion, but the girl couldn't help but to keep on betraying everyone - even herself - by passing information that she would pick up everywhere. She would try and make herself invisible in the streets when she followed monsters to hear upon their plans, disguising her thumping heart and human scent with the poisonous blood running through her veins, become mere human in front of sulfur slaves and pretending to be a good-for-nothing informant for the rebellion. It came to high costs, her information, the first and foremost being complete secrecy about her identity, the second food or blood, and lastly money. Most of all, she made sure to never ally herself to any side, so she could run whenever she wanted. It didn't always work. Monsters sometimes would get frustrated and kick her until she was bleeding, humans would punch her when they saw nothing but despair in the news she brought and sulfur slaves would make sure she was stripped of any lick of dignity whenever they could. One of her clients, a monster, made her eat glass to never again say a word about certain subject. Of course, she eventually did, but she stopped talking for a couple of weeks, completely terrified of the experience.
But the scrawny thing always manages to survive. She has managed to have a bigger control over her thirst for blood, as it seems that it only increases when she uses her precognition ability. While she watches the war from the sidelines, Sasha secretly wishes she was a little braver to join the rebellion. She doesn't like neither monsters nor devils, but how can she ever belong to humans when she feels like an animal herself?
Personality: Full of vices and broken beyond repair, Sasha is a skittish thing full of despair and a pit of deep, dark hopelessness and a couple of weird quirks, such as stammering when nervous and having a bit of a lisp. She scratches her tattooed wrists when she becomes nervous and she rarely - if ever - looks a person in the eye. If she was different before being abducted by the monster, it's unsure to say. Maybe she was a spunky kid, but she has lost any spark that maybe she add. She has become someone she doesn't like, she is ashamed of, but nevertheless, she has become a survivor. A lone survivor, but a survivor, even if, to achieve such feat given her background, she has turned into a thing she hates.
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
Mahatma Ghandi
➡ COWARD;
There is no way around it, no redemption about it. Sasha is a coward, pure and simple. She is the kind of person who will hide under the covers at the faintest sound and think with her legs at the vague prospect of a challenge. She can't overcome her fear and her anxiety starts to pulsate strongly from within and she stops being able to think in anything but to run away. Because that's what she does, she runs away from everything - from herself, from others, from reason and from consequences of her actions. She doesn't want to see what she does and prefers to pretend that it wasn't her fault. She fools herself by saying that she is helping someone, when in fact, she isn't really. She tries to say it's okay to do a bad thing because she will then compensate it with a good thing. She doesn't. She's a coward and she's afraid of her own shadow at times.
The worst thing is that she has the kind of contagious cowardice - if she thinks it's dangerous, she will tell someone to not to do it, to stop doing it and to run. Of course, she won't try to convince them, that's far too much trouble to her. If they keep trying, she will flee and leave whoever was stupid enough to try and make a stand behind without blinking. She can't even stand up for herself, rather curling into a pathetic stammering ball of pity than saying 'fuck off' to anyone.
And because she is a coward, she cannot bring herself to trust anyone.
➡ PARANOIA;
Directly related to her fear of nearly everything and her constant anxiety, Sasha is a paranoid girl that always thinks someone is out to get her. This was mostly because of her escape. She's constantly looking over her shoulder and she never trusts a person in fear that they might be an ally of Kulshedra or maybe that they've found her. Life as an informant is not easy and for someone as anxious as Sasha, it becomes a bundle of stress.
➡ A BUCKET OF ISSUES;
Her most recent memory is of herself being chained in Kulshedra's chambers and being beaten into submission, being told that she was nothing, she was weak, and useless and she was never going to be someone. Years of this have taken quite the effect on Sasha's self esteem. She doesn't trust herself and she trusts others even less. She eyes genuine care with suspicion and she will not take anything that is given to her. She doesn't trust kind people even if she, deep down, just wants to surround herself with those that show her a helping hand or a comforting shoulder. In fact, she will shove those away quicker than she will push away those that hurt her.
She has an incredibly twisted and self-destructive side, as if Kulshedra's words have been scared in the back of her head. She deems herself nothing, and thinks she only deserves being mistreated. While she does try to not to hate herself for anything, she can't help but to fall back to this behaviour of self-destruction. She consciously sabotages anything good that comes her way. If you want to talk about her massive Stockholm syndrome, prepare to hear about an essay. She doesn't want Kulshedra out of her life. She doesn't know what do do with herself if she goes away.
Her constant fear of betrayal makes her unable to reach out. She would rather suffer and writhe in silence than to ask for help. She's the kind of person that you would not see begging, rather just a lump in the darkness trying to hide from light itself.
➡ WEAK NOT STUPID;
Don't let her fool you. She isn't stupid, just weakwilled. She is actually a very bright and eager kid and if life hadn't kicked her in the shins, she probably would have been the type of girl that fared well in school. Instead, she takes all of her intelligence and puts it to test by being a quick-thinker and a ridiculously good improviser. It's probably what has been keeping her alive, in spite of all of the terrible choices she makes (sometimes, maybe, she does it on purpose to try to hurt herself in a sort of karmic retribution, so she can keep on lying to herself and aiding all sides without feeling overly guilty).
So she is weakwilled when it comes to self-worth: she has no sense of it, she doesn't trust herself nor has she any belief in her own person. But most of the time, it's quite hard to convince her through words - trying to trick her is nearly virtually impossible. She's the trickster, a clever kid, not the other way around. It does clash on how easily manipulated she is via emotions. She is easy to twist around if you are a person who can pull the strings of the heart, but usually only when it comes to the bad stuff. Flattery won't get you anywhere with Sasha.
It's true that she has very little dignity and her concept of morality is far beyond salvageable, but that brings her leverage when she has to trick someone, especially if said someone is her own self.
➡ KEEP TO YOURSELF;
She's very... quiet. For someone that is an informant, she actually doesn't talk much. In fact, she avoids talking as much as possible, preferring to hide in that dark corner and disappear than to say anything, even if saying something would benefit her. She lets herself be pushed over without a word and will take punishment - even if she doesn't understand why, she will always associate it with her being trash, being worthless - always with her lips sealed. The fact that she is ashamed of her slight lisp doesn't help. She hates it and she just shrinks and nearly cries if you even point it out, especially if one makes fun of it.
➡ CALM BEFORE THE STORM;
Not only is she quiet, but the girl is also a very calm thing. Fearful, yes, but she never bursts out in rage. It's like she has dampened all of her rioting side, subdued it into submission just like Kulshedra has done it to herself. However, just like everyone, she does have a breaking point and if she does get to it, she might be boiling inside enough to not to run. It's not usual, but she tends to become violent if she reaches the breaking point, as if it's the only way for her to express her frustrations. She will bottle up everything but once the cap is off, hell breaks loose.
➡ STOCKHOLM SYNDROME;
The syndrome, in psychology, is the paradoxical phenomenon wherein hostages seem to have some sort of feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, essentially mistaking a lack of abuse from their captors as an act of kindness.
This means that Sasha will attach herself mostly to people who cause her harm. It's uncanny how she always has the tendency to float towards those that have intentions of causing her harm. Is it conscious? Possibly not. She just can't help it.
She is a hostage of her own self-destruction, of her emotions, that much is clear, so she will not blame those that harm her; on the contrary, she will tend to have some sort of servant-like attitude towards them. On the other hand, if she is facing someone genuinely nice, she will try to get away from them as fast as possible. But, hypothetically speaking, she would feel some sort of attachment as well if she was to deal with a person who tried to protect her as much as possible from everything that she is terrified of. She is a clingy thing, you see, only she has an easier time dealing with mean people because she knows them. Nice people possibly scare her even more than the contrary. Maybe it's because she's constantly afraid of being left alone and helpless if she gets too comfortable or too needy on someone who has no second intentions, maybe it's because she has no idea what to give them in return, maybe simply for the fact that she has the feeling of nothing good should ever come to her because of all the terrible things she has done and have been done to her.
Kulshedra has done quite a number on Sasha. It's a scar that will never truly heal.
➡ LONE SURVIVOR;
And even though she is self-destructive, that she constantly sabotages all the good things that come her way, Sasha is like that rat in the sewers that has managed to turn every odd chance into another opportunity to survive. She knows when to seize the moment to gain leverage over others, knows when to scurry away before it's too late and knows better than to face death - she may be a terrible person for herself, but she is not suicidal. She doesn't want to die. In fact, she clings to life with teeth and nails, at least until she can feel at ease. After all, if she wasn't like this, it would be nearly impossible for her to be alive by now.
Being a survivor means she has the occasional burst of confidence and determination to keep going - of course, in her case, this means that moment is being fuelled by fear but it hardly matters what keeps her going as long as it keeps her alive. Sasha will struggle as hard as her scrawny self can to get out alive of any situation she faces. If it's by being submissive, that is what she will do. If it's by scurry away through trickery and words, that's what she will do.
She can't, however, cooperate with others. It's a bad idea in the first place. She's an individualist and doesn't play well with others. She might look like she will help you out, but you can be sure that there is something in it for her - she has learned how to be selfish to survive, because in a world like hers, that is the only thing that will keep your head attached to your neck.
➡ DAYDREAMS AND ISOLATION;
Above all, the girl seems to be bent in being alone for as long as she can. She doesn't like to associate herself with anyone, doesn't have friends and would rather keep like that. The occasional trip to bed with a stranger, it has happened, but mostly out of a sense of obligation rather than actually wanting that moment to happen, possibly because she was entertained with daydreaming, something she does a lot. Pick a cigarette, light it up, and stare into the distance, letting her brain overwork in the hours of undrugged silence.
➡ SUCCUMB ALL THE TIME;
It's hopeless to try and make Sasha see her vices are bad for her. In fact, it may just be why she indulges in all of them. Not as much drugs, mostly because they're expensive and she is, of course, afraid of needles, but alcohol is exactly what she tends to indulge in mostly. Sometimes toppled with a couple of pills. When she can turn off her always working brain, it's a relief. She doesn't have to think about all of her terrible choices. She just lets her mind shut off and it's the only way she can actually enjoy life nowadays
➡ DEEP, DEEP DOWN;
But deep inside, Sasha is not a bad person, just a terrible misguided, unloved girl who has never really known anything else but the life she has. The little love she has been shown had second intentions and still she wants to believe that, maybe, one day, she can find someone who will offer protection - because that's exactly what she needs, something she can call a shelter. Of course, it will be a hard struggle with that wall that her self-destruction has built all around her, the constant reserved attitude and the mistrusts she faces everyone with.
Deep inside, she wants to believe she still has something human within and is more than eager to help the rebellion - the biggest problem is that she keeps on thinking about herself only because she trusts nobody else to do so, always afraid that the next step she takes will lead her to sudden death. She fears it more than anything. She doesn't want to die, but in the back of her head, if she has to, she really does pray it is because she will go by doing something selflessly good.
Given enough time (which will involve a lot of patience), Sasha will show her more tender side. Has she ever done it? Yes, on very rare moments of her life. Of the very few things she can be proud of, there's one she likes to remember every once in a while where she managed to grab a girl's hand and pull her out of danger before she got eaten by a monster. It's just that, most of the time, she buries the humanity inside her so she can walk away from a scene of gore and terror without making a sound, without listening to her conscience until much later.
Abilities: Sasha has the ability of seeing a few moments into the future - but specifically the future action of a person. She is completely human, but the poisonous monster blood mixed with the ink of her tattoos seems to have activated some sort of link in her brain. Although it's not completely effective, she has never once been wrong (if we were to talk percentages, the chances of the person in question doing what she foresees are about 99% spot-on; alas, there is always that 1%). When she does use this power, however, the craving for blood increases and if she doesn't get a transfusion or directly drink it (which is gross and she tries to avoid it as best as she can) she will burn up in fever and she will ache all over, as if thousands of needles pierce through flesh and bone. She must consume human blood, not animal - it does nothing but make her queasy.
Because of the poisonous blood, most poisons don't work on her. She doesn't have allergies because of it too. The downside is that many drugs also have no effect on her, and we're talking about all types of drugs, medical pills included. This is not to say that she can't get sick - she can - but if she was to catch a cold, probably the syrup or prescribed medicine would have little to no effect.
Although only helpful in her world, she has the outstanding capacity of dissimulating her scent around monsters, making herself virtually invisible to their senses, because of the poisonous ink of her tattoos. In fact, because of that ink, she can't be eaten without causing massive damage to the monsters, possibly killing them - which is why all that have tasted her blood have thrown her to the side with disgust. Unless she comes across a masochist monster, she is rather safe from being food.
Possessions: She will keep holding on to her backpack, which has a lot of stuff, namely notepads, some books (she likes to read once in a while), a couple of pencils and pens, scattered batteries, a tiny flashlight, a cellphone, many packs of cigarettes, a water bottle, keys she found and eventually kept them, toothbrush, an old battery-powered MP3 and sometimes when her big headphones aren't around her neck, they're in the backpack. She also has sunglasses tucked in the inner pocket of her jacket. For some odd reason, Sasha keeps all of her used up lighters: she has about eleven lighters and empty matchboxes in her backpack.
Anything else: She compulsively scratches herself a lot when nervous, especially around the tattooed wrists - she doesn't even notice she's doing it unless someone points it out.
She will not eat food that hasn't been prepared by her - this is directly related to her paranoid side since she thinks everyone is out to get her and someone will eventually poison her, so she wants to lower the chances by always picking the food herself.
Because of her scarred mouth and tongue, she struggles a little to dissimulate her lips. It becomes increasingly noticeable when she's nervous which tends to make her shut up since she's ever so embarrassed of it.