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mortul · 2 months

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for this post, christoph will be taking a much needed backseat (boo...! tomato, tomato, tomato, tomato--) and, instead, this'll be a brief introduction to the five, sad shmucks that caused his siblings' and, of course, his life to spiral out of control. so, without further adieu, BEHOLD-- the bastards!

DARRELL HICKS: D.O.B. 1933 / D.O.D. 1961

born into a middleclass family with the luxury of "no worries", darrell was an average guy. he was very much your "run of the mill, average joe" and, as such, was everyone's friend back in their school days. yet, simultaneously, there weren't many that could confident refer to him as a close friend-- this is where pearce's group comes in, of which darrell was more or less "invited" in because of the friend group's perceived friendliness. darrell himself was as easygoing as they came, approaching life with a "live and let live" motto.

come emilie and christoph's "deaths", he in particular could not handle the responsibility nor the associated guilt. after the ritual went awry, he quickly moved out of dallas (but stayed in state, making things all the easier for christoph.) and pursued college and, soon, a career. typical cubical job, typical normal guy with a typical normal wife with two, typical mouths to feed alongside her. he volunteered semi-regularly, using it as a means to "atone" and, thus, free himself of the guilt and to push aside those nagging thoughts insisting he oughta turn himself in, instead.

christoph, upon finding darrell in houston, didn't think his plan through. he honestly thought it'd be simple, clean, and easy; logic denoted that catching him unawares while leaving work seemed the most effective. who would've though, however, that darrell could still run like a track star-- especially when the guy you thought was dead was now coming at you with a knife? christoph managed to chase darrell all the way onto a nearby highway before-- holy shit, did he just get run the fuck over? after registering just what the fuck happened... christoph doesn't bother in searching for him, fleeing the scene instead.

a day later, police report finding darrell's body flung off into the nearby buffalo bayou, floating facedown. upon further inspection and observation done via autopsy, it's determined that he was hit -- at full force -- by a speeding semitruck. oddly enough, the driver claims that he briefly "lost control" of the vehicle with its gas pedal "suddenly lodged in place" only to release itself after ramming into the victim. this was all revealed on a handful news channels a few days thereafter.

CLIFF CARTWRIGHT: D.O.B. 1934 / D.O.D. 1976

cliff was seen as the "jock" of the group, living at home with his single mother and three other siblings. for the most part, he was generally seen as easygoing and nice-- a few of the kids didn't like him, but that's to be expected, y'know? no one can be liked by everyone, after all. he was actually friends with pearce first (some might've called them best friends.) and, to no one's surprise whatsoever, then the group came after. some might've said he was "peer pressured" into the group, being that he saw them as the select few that got him.

to put it bluntly, bystander syndrome was cliff's downfall-- he was, perhaps, the only one in the group that didn't want to go through with the whole thing in the first place. but that darn peer pressure, y'know? after the ritual didn't go according to plan, cliff remained in dallas for a little longer before, inexplicably, moving. setting out for pleasant hill, missouri. settling down took little -- if any at all -- time for cliff, allowing for him to nab a cozy job as a warehouse manager. in regards to whatever happened back at dallas, cliff simply decided it was best to move on and, just as pearce "recommended", say nothing.

keeping the little "fluke" with darrell in mind, christoph was a bit more careful with cliff. not much but, y'know what, he managed. cliff was his first, official foray with his newfound ghoulification-- finding cliff's new work was actually half of the battle and anything beyond that was a fun little thing christoph liked to call "improvising". he'll fully admit it, too: cliff was an opportunity... to flex the ooold brain some and see what he's actually capable of.

most of the altercation took place as such: messing around with the warehouse's lights, that which gradually crescendos into all of the electronics within going haywire. all after hours, of course, ensuring cliff was (or should've been.) the only one remaining considering his position. it's worth keeping in mind that christoph was still pretty green to his abilities, not bothering to branch out too far out of fear concern of flying too close to the sun. what started with a flickering of lights evolved, growing into an innocent-turned-harassing phone call to scare the guy enough into packing it in early. from there, a chase took place throughout the warehouse that eventually in a "scuffle"-- if said scuffle can be defined as being locked inside a battery room and suffocating from hydrogen (science sure is cool, huh?) that is.

what ensued after was quick but certainly not painless. cliff begged -- literally pleaded with christoph -- for his life and maaaybe this tugged at his heart strings a bit. hesitation, reluctance, regret... whatever the feeling was, christoph relented. maybe he could make do with an apology. opening the door, however, might've been one of the dumbest decisions of his life, because cliff's immediately lunging at him with an exacto knife. and lemme tell ya: being stabbed by one of those puny, little things? really hurts. like a bitch, actually. it ends in another fight, leaving christoph with no choice but to kill cliff. he doesn't leave unscathed, unlike with darrell.

released in a restricted burst to the public, cliff's body was reported to have been missing his left arm, sloppily cut off a few inches above the elbow... save for the connecting bone sticking out, quite literally, like a sore thumb. the body was discovered by a forklift operator, having been found shoved and crushed behind a wall of rechargeable batteries. additional details reveal the corpse littered with bruises.

CAMERON "CAM" BLAKELY: D.O.B. 1933 / D.O.D. 1978

a known womanizer, cameron -- or "cam" as he prefers -- grew up in the foster care system before, eventually, being adopted in by a pair of... how to put this nicely... neglectful parents. as such, his moral code is skewed and only further spirals due to his own parents' views; a suburban family surrounded by heavy and, often times, aggressive conservative rhetoric with little access to outside resources simply does not a good, healthy upbringing make. for the most part, however, cam managed to hide this, often in plain sight, and preferred to come off as your every day guy. he had the charisma to back it up, easily weaseling his way out of situations whenever possible.

cam's presence was a major player in christoph's own struggle regarding his identity-- the occasional remark ("you guys hear about those two in the boys' room? apparently they were feelin' each other up or something... fucking weirdos.") was more than enough in "encouraging" christoph in keeping to himself, effectively staying in the closet for the entirety of his schooling and even a few more years after wards. benjamin, in particular, did not enjoy having cam over, either. christoph learned why shortly after, having walked in on cam hassling benjamin and a few of the servants within the dowell household-- taking note that everyone else evaded his harassment, those of which were... well, for lack of better word: white.

moving out of dallas and settling in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, cam made a living as a tattoo artist that... somewhat "grew out of" his hateful rhetoric. not entirely. he just knew when to keep his mouth shut now for, y'know, sake of business. after receiving news of darrell and cliff's demises, he was contacted by a mysterious number with a cryptic message: you're in trouble. gut instinct told cam to get the hell out of dodge, hence his new residency in the keystone state.

there's no remorse from cam's end. all he's focused on is survival, understanding that christoph and emilie's deaths were a mistake and, yet, at the same time... cannot be undone. it's part of why christoph finds his death necessary and its subsequent process all the more satisfying. as such, he deemed it absolutely imperative to go all out.

"tinkering" with cam's gps system was no problem, a rerouting here... a redirecting there... and because of some roadwork blocking the usual way home? easy pickings, truth be told. one moment cam's driving along the path, suspicions growing and then the next? he's trying to speed the other way at the expense of a literal dead man walking landing on the hood of his car, who also happens to be in possession of a rusty, old crowbar. one thing (a busted windshield leading to crashing into a ditch--) led to another (--with its driver flopping out, running up the hill towards a vacant church.) with yet another chase. now, it's starting to get a little ridiculous.

what took place that night was, perhaps, one of the longest hide and seek games of christoph's life. but he got there in the end, juuust like he said he would.

the next morning, it was reported that a body was found impaled atop of the church's high altar. oddly, its tip hadn't punctured the heart but, rather, through the stomach. death came over time, observed by further inspection to have been via bleeding out. the church attempted to keep this secret, refusing news outlets access and rights to invoke out of fear of this spiking further "satanic panic" within the country.

TYLER "TYE" SPALDING: D.O.B. 1934 / D.O.D. 1992

tye, similarly to cam, prefers to go by this nickname, even well into his fifties. he comes from a somewhat wealthy family-- less than christoph's family but more than darrell's family. as a rule of thumb, tye was... incredibly used to getting whatever he wanted. even more-so than pearce, he simply could not take "no" for an answer. as such, if there was something (or someone.) he wanted, he knew he'd eventually get it one way or another. it was just a matter of perseverance at that point and, boy, tye's well-known for it.

in regards to the ritual and emilie, tye had a bit of a "personal" vendetta involved. there were moments where he'd try and force himself on emilie, almost always foiled by either benjamin or christoph by either sheer coincidence or accident. over time, the two brothers understood what was happening and, after some time, managed to sway tye from returning to the residence. after that, though, the two boys' relationship wasn't the same. there was a palpable hostility from tye's end, and christoph simply felt it best (and easiest.) to deal with-- as long as emilie was okay, he was fine with being tyler's lightning rod of hate.

finding tye took christoph all the way to sacramento, california. ironically, he wasn't the reason for the visit-- it was actually for a completely unrelated hit of christoph's, having now properly cemented a spot for himself within the assassin circuit. finding tye -- a hobby motorcyclist working as a mechanic -- was some of the best, and simultaneously the absolute worst, luck imaginable.

what occurred between them was christoph chasing tye down the highway, on his very own beater bike-- rented, of course, but y'know. semantics. a few, insane stunts later, and christoph's got the guy on the ground in the middle of the road and going to town on him with his bare hands. of course, tye's a big guy -- unmistakably bigger than christoph -- and puts up a fight. he won't lie; good old tyler hits like a damn truck, so that sucks. this also doesn't yet include the fact of tye's own biker gang, trying to come to his aid and making things all the worse for christoph.

at the very least, it can now be said that he has achieved something that's both insane yet hilarious: he's the first dowell (probably.) to wield a severed arm, that is also wielding a baseball bat, as a genuine weapon and somehow win against, give or take, five other men with it. it wasn't all that he used, but he thinks it definitely evened the odds. benji and emilie are never going to believe him.

christoph also took some extra time in hiding the bodies, dragging and sinking them in nearby, crocodile-infested waters. this wasn't before lining them all up with special attention (he scribbled a devilish mustache on tye's face... okay, okay, and he also drew a dick on his forehead. there, happy?) paid towards his ex-"friend", snapping a photo of it with his phone, and sending it to his final target--

PEARCE HAWKINS: D.O.B. 1932 / D.O.D. 2000

the infamous leader of the now long-disbanded group, pearce grew up in similar circumstances like christoph: filthy rich parents. his parents, however, might've been a bit more present comparatively, leading to an ultimately childish, spoiled only child of a boy that barely changed except for with age. at school, he was looked upon in an adequately positive light; he never spoke "out of turn" yet retained a certain hold. it's not like he ran for student council... he was student council president. y'know, that whole shebang and then some. pearce was essentially the whole package, something that drew christoph and the rest in immediately.

sometime before the attempted ritual, pearce was contacted by a man known as REDACTED. it was through these intermittent communications (with a lot of sweet talk and, to put it bluntly, manipulation.) that pearce was promised something seemingly unattainable: immortality. given all of the proper and necessary tools in order to conduct the ritual, all that pearce had to do at that point was bide for time, find the perfect sacrifice, and go from there. after all, there's never any ulterior motives with these sort of things, right? ... right? of course there is.

if cam is anything to go by in terms of regret, pearce feels even less of it than he does. there is absolutely nothing that can be said to convince him otherwise, and he almost seems to be proud of it. the only thing that he refuses to confront is the fact that it... could've gone better. there's always room for improvement, but pearce has always been a bit of a perfectionist. failure is, and shouldn't ever be, never an option; to tell him "no" is that of committing a cardinal sin. you just don't do it.

unlike everyone else within the group, pearce surprisingly remained situated in dallas. how did he evade christoph's for so long, you might ask? that's an easy answer: networking. over time, he had more or less built himself up a makeshift "empire"-- that's right, he's the leader of a cult! and that shit goes deep. the only reason christoph's managed to grab a hold of his number (that which he held onto for safekeeping, not yet finding a point in investigating further until tyler's demise.) in the first place was by pure chance-- a "friend" of the cult tried killing him, failed miserably, and got all of the necessary information beaten out of him after putting all the metaphorical puzzle pieces together. it's the least the guy could've done for him, considering he sliced christoph's head off.

dealing with pearce wasn't the hard part, no. rather, it was what came before: confronting him. christoph wouldn't say he was still afraid of him, but there was something... off about him. he was older (it's to be expected.) than the rest of them, obviously more experienced, and even had the arrogance to back it up. on the flipside, however, he was more volatile... paranoia fueled his each and every step.

there's that and, well, the cluster of followers ready to put their lives down on the line for their dear leader. now, that was a pain in the ass. and that's putting it lightly.

that day was a day spent doing nothing but learning, because wouldn't you know! their base of operations was underneath an abandoned carnival, somehow? chasing a guy -- who boasted wildly about his newfound immortality all the while -- through the abandoned food stalls, hopping over moss covered attractions, weaving and bobbing through barely standing rides... christoph just had to wonder: for someone who can't die, he sure is acting like he still can die. again, just another pain to add to the "in my ass" meter he had going for himself.

one thing led to another and, soon enough, christoph's found himself in the middle of a dark ride, getting his gucci pants soaking wet in the process. dragging his hand along each machine he can touch, the ride's bought back to life in gradual procession. and he does this, too, knowing that'll it help him find pearce a little quicker-- all of the extra "eyes" were bound to help him eventually. and they do.

it wasn't until five days later that a group of urban explorers would stumble upon pearce's mangled body. as if set up for a horror movie stuck in development hell, an animatronic velociraptor stood over the barely recognizable heap, its "claws" covered in blood and its face decorated with all sorts of viscera, including what they think was an intestine wrapped around its neck like a scarf. at its feet lay his lower torso, spine partially exposed with his upper body separated-- but not entirely. it looked as if someone (or something.) had tried to pull pearce apart only to give up when that pesky spinal cord got in the way. what was also strange, was that this animatronic clearly didn't belong where it was found. upon further investigation, it was discovered to have somehow "traveled" from its original location that was, at least, 30 or so feet away.

this was reported to the police immediately and, even today, remains a part of dallas's history. nowadays, it's told as an urban legend with obvious fabrications done to it, in order to make it seem scarier and to take it further away from reality. it's easier that way, after all-- the general public find it easier to digest a story when it's so obviously fake.

#＊🌐 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥∶ lore #oookay! let's see.#there is a bit of #sa mention tw /#@ tyler's tidbit #gore tw /#@ pearce's tidbit #OH YEAH. also. cam's tidbit is a tw in of itself @ general bigotry but i simply don't know how to tag it appropriately. soooooo--#ask to tag /#for literally anything else. augh.#also something something i did the bare minimum of spellcheck and anything beyond that is no longer in my control.#aka i am letting jesus take the wheel with this one and i'll simply fix any errors i find on accidental discovery.

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