The Pines [ application. ]

[aeturnus]

PLAYER

NAME: DJ
CONTACT: biomagnet / biomagnet#1925 @ discord
OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE PINES: N/A

CHARACTER

NAME: Cain ("Roman Fletcher") {Romulus}
CANON: Original Universe
CANON-POINT: A few weeks after returning from Texas.

DOSSIER

HISTORY:
Born sometime in 8th century BC, Romulus and his twin Remus were originally from a settlement found in Eastern Europe. Since birth, both twins could see how much time someone had until they died; it wasn't until the raid on their homeland that they understood what it meant. Remus told Romulus that he had more time than could possibly be counted, many times over even newborn babes, and Remus assumed that his time was similar. Romulus was too scared to tell him that Remus' clock would only last to their twenty-fourth year. At a very young age, their homeland was ravaged by war and the twins were taken by the victors as part of the spoils. They were sold early on to Greek nobles for their exotic and rare nature as identical twins, where they were treated as property rather than people for the next three years. When they were near to nine years old, they were presented to an Etruscan family as part of a dowry for the family's daughter. As slaves without citizenship, they had no hope of purchasing their freedom. They were treated as proper slaves in their new home, commodities and tools rather than some kind of animals, but resented their position in the world and did not trust the new outlook on their position.

As the two grew, it did not escape the notice of their masters how impossible they were to separate from each other. That was strike one. Strike two was when they entered their late teens and inadvertently became some very blatant objects of lust to their master's daughters. They refused advances as often as possible. Desperation to be free from the degradation led them to plan something crazy: escape. It would take years to build their idea enough that both would be satisfied it would work, eventually leading to the idea of founding their own village where they could stay and be safe as citizens and leaders. No one could touch them there.

Remus' time continued to tick away. Because of their limited experiences with timers and naivete about their own ability to manipulate them, Romulus had no idea if their plan to escape would allow them to avert Remus' death or simply run into it, but he had to try. It was with tentative hope that Romulus planned all these things with his brother.

On the night of their escape, they took as much of their master's money as they could squirrel away and ran. With pure determination, they managed to lead their master along for near the entire night before they were caught by a pack of dogs. Remus volunteered to distract them and forced Romulus to go ahead with their loot to ensure it would not be taken. Distraction turned into sacrifice as the dogs rent Remus apart while Romulus watched from afar. Pure fear and shattered hope kept him from running in and suffering the same fate. He continued to run south, managing to shake the dogs and their captors after running nonstop for two days before he collapsed. He was taken in by a shepherd couple who thankfully did not know he was a slave on the run. With their aid and his stolen treasure, Romulus was able to put into action the plan he and Remus had worked so hard to achieve: Romulus founded Rome.

Despite the shock and trauma of losing his best friend and only family, Romulus buried himself in the work of maintaining an entire city (and later an empire). It became natural for Romulus to emulate his brother's active and protective personality, at first to cheer himself up and eventually becoming the King's natural bearing. Romulus was incredibly progressive for the time, allowing both free men and slaves to become citizens while also forming one of the first steps to organized democracy. After nearly forty years of rule, it was more than apparent that nothing was changing. Romulus had not aged at all and any injury he sustained was gone within seconds. His patricians were increasingly cagey and suspicious of his unaging nature and planned to have him removed in whatever way necessary. Romulus beat them to it, staging his own death for their benefit and absconding with as much of his personal wealth as he could manage.

He started over. North of Italy, he found a small village where the residents were destined for long lives and settled. He fell in love, had children. He still did not age. He left once again.

He started over. Over and over and over. Romulus had no place to call home, no place to settle himself down where he was not eventually met with suspicion, greed and hostile accusations of black dealings with creatures from hell. There was nothing he could do to explain it and no way to rid himself of the curse. For it was most definitely a curse to live forever where he failed to save his brother from his fate. Until about 300BC, anyway. Then he gained some new perspective on the matter.

Romulus witnessed a man cheat death. His timer had hit zero and still he stood among the living. It was obvious the man was on the run, equal parts terrified and elated, yet soon after a specter appeared with weapon in hand to right the wrong. A specter with Romulus' own face: Remus. The deed was done too quickly for a shocked Romulus to react and Remus was gone. Despite having years left in his current life before anyone would notice his lack of age, Romulus left once again. He suddenly had a point to his existence, some reason to push forward: he had to seek out more people who had cheated their deaths and see if the incident would repeat. He had to know why Remus had appeared. It did not take long for Romulus to realize he could induce it himself by helping someone change the course of their fate when their clock was about to run out.

It happened again. Romulus went to try and speak to his brother, but was stopped by an unnatural being in a black robe. It warned him away, saying that Abel had no memory of his living days, that Abel would surely blame his brother for leaving him to his death if he were reminded of their circumstances, that Abel was nothing more than a spirit with consciousness. That Abel was lost to Romulus forever. Guilt and shame crushed Romulus' heart, reminding him of all the doubts and self-recrimination that rightfully belonged to him. He did not deserve to reunite with Remus if his brother was in some other, better existence without his cheating, coward of a little brother trying to drag him back into the mud. The Reaper left Romulus with what it probably thought would be encouraging words, that Romulus should continue to live his life as he had been and let Abel sort himself out. It was a death sentence to the man who could never know death.

Determination led Romulus to keep tabs on Abel from afar. Even if he could never be together with his brother again, he would be damned if he did not at least make sure of his personal safety. It crushed him to see his brother as a blank slate, and it made him ill to consider mixing that with his own issues. In honor of who his brother had become, however, Romulus moved away from the name he had held onto and began going by Cain to finish the religious reference the Reapers had started. He had, after all, been the one to lead his brother to death and his current situation as an Enforcer. Life continued on for Cain where he could eke it out, learning as many languages and skills as necessary to fit in whatever community he happened to settle upon. More and more incidents of people cheating death occurred and Cain spotted more and more Enforcers there to fix it. As the idea of cheating death became more widespread, hushed whispers of a man who had yet to be taken by his Reaper, people became terrified of death. They began to do all sorts of crazy things to try and outlast their time. One time, this resulted in reanimated corpses and Cain put a quick end to those shenanigans once he caught wind.

While his life was far from boring and Cain had long since put his angsty days behind him, instead choosing to live life in the moment and take in everything only he had a chance to experience all at once, his days were more or less pretty normal. Sometimes he lived a lifetime on his own, while others he would find someone to love, get married, have children and eventually move on without them. Most recently, Benjamin Jacobs was married to Lisa Davinch in 1973 and had two children with her. As all of Cain's children were capable of seeing death timers as he was, they grew up resentful and scared of their father's immortality. For the sake of the kids, Benjamin and Lisa were legally divorced; emotionally, they remained together and still managed to fit some dates in when they could.

In 2012, Cain was abducted by an unknown organization who spent the next month poking and prodding at him until his use was apparently run dry. Most of this time was spent in a drugged stupor, although echoes of the pain and torture were no easier to forget for it. Unknown to him, the organization had planted a subliminal obedience command phrase in his head should they need to bring him back in or otherwise make Cain useful toward their ends: Hellhound, heel. After using that command to keep him from mentioning it to anyone in whatever way seemed natural to him, they dropped him off in Nowhere, Alabama and let him work his way back home from there. Cain was obviously not going to stand for that and began investigating. Over the next two years, he dubbed the organization the Death Erasers: they had managed to somehow remove death clocks from small subject groups around the country and were working on refining the process. Cain had no further leads on where to locate them, but that would never stop him looking. They had made it personal.

Two years later, in early 2014, he was still no closer to any actual answers. The year previous, Cain had moved to Arizona to stay closer to Abel, who had settled down in Phoenix with an adopted daughter, Holly, and taken on the last name Fletcher due to internal Enforcer politics. Often Cain would find traces of the Death Erasers' operations and by the time he could investigate more thoroughly, they had moved on. In one such case, Cain followed a lead into a base that had only recently been abandoned and ran into something he couldn't have possibly anticipated: his brother, Abel. Having no recollection of his brother, Abel presumed Cain to be some sort of Death Eraser experiment and shot him on sight. His instinct for most of his remembered existence in this profession was to use violence to solve immediate problems and 95% of the time, he was right to do so. The fact that Cain stood back up put Abel off his game long enough for Cain to explain that they were brothers — whatever magic or reprogramming Abel had been put through, his brotherly instincts echoed some truth to the explanation and so Abel did not shoot him again. Besides, it would be better to keep an eye on Cain close by if he turned out to be lying. Even if his clock really helped corroborate the story. With their awkward reunion out of the way, Cain decided to make the most of things and moved in to join forces with Abel in their investigation of the "Clockless". Another pair of twins, Angela and Robert Yates, were also living with Abel under his protection as they had been tricked into losing their clocks by the Death Erasers. It made them possible suspects to watch and victims to protect at the same time.

Only a few months after the brothers were learning to live with each other again did the Death Erasers make another move. They rigged Cain's car and took him to a nearby facility. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Cain got a message out to Abel and was rescued only a scant few hours later. After that particular fiasco, Cain began to experience blackouts where he would lose hours at a time thanks to the activation of the command phrase in his mind, only really becoming aware once he returned home from who-knew-where. As they became more often, he actually began to notice them and brought the matter to Abel, who started investigating the situation on his own. Holly's birthday came and interrupted their worries, with everyone taking a momentary break to celebrate her 14th birthday. However, the Death Erasers took advantage of their distraction and abducted both Cain and Abel right from the Fletcher family home using unknown technology to separate Abel from his spiritual powers and body. It was a week of bloody experiments before the brothers had an opportunity to escape, which they did, and the two of them used their ingenuity and smarts to roadtrip from Texas back to Arizona to inform the Enforcers what had happened. During which time, Abel learned of Cain's unwilling involvement as the "Test Zero" for the Death Erasers' current scheme of removing clocks and attempting to grant immortality, which kind of set a rift between them because Cain avoided thinking and speaking about the incident from two years ago.

Some weeks after returning home from Texas, the blackouts started back up again.

WORLD INFORMATION:
Everyone has a Reaper assigned to them at birth. This supernatural creature watches and waits until the time comes that someone is to die. They arrive to remove the soul from the body, providing it the chance to pass on to the afterlife. However, this can only happen when the body is dead. If someone fails to die at the time allotted by Destiny, an Enforcer is sent in. Enforcers are spirits of humans with a special ability who have yet to pass on for whatever unfinished business they still have. They are capable of connecting with Reapers to locate errant charges and tasked with killing the humans so that they can be culled and the cycle maintained. After a soul is culled, they are allowed to visit a loved one to say a last goodbye. When a Reaper's duty is done, they are reassigned and the cycle begins anew.

In the modern day, there are a subset of people who can become Enforcers in the afterlife. These people possess what is called the Deathsight, which is a power they cannot control or turn off. They see a countdown to person's destined time of death around their neck. It is said that they've all descended from the same single ancestor, although no scientific study has been done to prove it as most people are filled with common sense. More recent times have seen many Deathsights using their abilities for personal gain, whether to extort those who will die soon or otherwise warn people to run from their Reaper in exchange for monetary rewards. Although ghosts are a known quantity in the world when recently-deceased are able to say goodbye, no other supernatural forces have or will be confirmed. Even Deathsights are just folklore and hearsay to the common populace.

Otherwise, the world is pretty much like our own. Ignore that there is a man more or less untouched by time that no one can seem to explain. His actual purpose won't be relevant for another few centuries to come, although it does seem a certain group has interest in replicating him.

However, there exist facets of the universe that Cain does not (and probably never will) know. This is incredibly meta stuff that is more to explain how the brothers have come to be than what will happen to them. Remus and Romulus are the twin sons of Death and Destiny, the two beings in charge of life and death; their existence is the anchor for the world's existence. Although they are human and live in a linear fashion, their soul exists outside of time much as Destiny does. When both of them die, humanity is ended and the world is started over from the beginning in an attempt to reach maximum potential of all creation. Since they're human, one of them must die to render their soul immortal; the body of the living brother follows suit until time has run out as Destiny predicted for their current attempt, wherein the living brother will be culled by his Reaper and the world started anew.

Enforcers are the spirits of people who had Deathsight in life and were recruited into serving a greater cause in the afterlife. By becoming an Enforcer, they are given access to death magic (the world's only true form of magic) in order to help them perform their job: aiding the Reapers. Where it used to be a very wide and open job description, about two millennia ago the Enforcers started to organize much more efficiently by forming branches of their operation: dealing with wandering, non-Enforcer spirits, killing people who have outlasted their clock, recruiting other potential-Enforcers and gauging suitability while they still live, and punishing the living who would use their Deathsight to tip the balance of life and death for personal gain.

Reapers themselves, while content to let Enforcers mostly govern themselves, are the top brass in the Enforcer organization. They aren't a chatty bunch, but often are seen by Enforcers as grandfatherly figures who have the utmost authority. It is the Reapers who actually cull the souls of the dead and move them into the afterlife; barring one very traumatic and painful method, Reapers are incapable of killing humans. This is why they employ Enforcers to take care of the mortal side of their business for them.

Deathsight itself is rather self-explanatory. It is the ability to see when someone is destined to die. If anyone were to live past this time due to unforeseen acts of nature or the aid of someone with Deathsight, it could throw things into immeasurable chaos similar to the butterfly theory in time travel. Just one person living when they should have died could set forth catastrophic ripple effects capable of killing people too early or setting back their deaths. Cain himself takes horrendous exception to the people who use their power selfishly because of his own personal circumstances: if he could have one more chance to keep Remus alive, he would do anything he could to change that fate. However, he let the chance go by in order to preserve a balance he understood on such an instinctual level, whereas the people of today try to subvert such a natural law on a regular basis. If Cain couldn't do it, no one else has the damn right to even try. He has no sympathy for anyone who twists death's rules or can't accept their end with grace or bravery even if they knew it was coming.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S STRENGTHS?
Cain is an incredibly strong-willed person. He has a strong mind, quick wit and plenty of energy. Having lived for far too long, he is very welcoming of any walks of life that don't go against the natural order (in his case, people running from fate, etc.). He is very adaptable, quick to catch on to new trends and keeps up to date on modern conveniences; fitting in is hardly a problem for him.

He's a very loving and open person. Even to people he doesn't care much for or doesn't know a whole lot about, he doesn't quite see the point of keeping a lot under wraps when life is too short for that, anyway. Not that he spills his secrets all the time but why be coy about things that don't really matter? He is an honest and friendly sort, one who can appreciate how the world keeps changing and growing and getting worse and better all at the same time. Can't have one without the other, you know. Cain's got a knack for seeing what people need and how to help them that comes from his natural leadership abilities — while he's pretty loathe to step up and take the spotlight for the time being (he's on vacation this century, okay?), he can still use those skills in order to help the individuals around him should he find a reason to. (Boredom is chief among those reasons.)

No matter how old he is, he's still got the physiology of someone twenty-four years of age and he does nothing to fight that fact. He's got a cheer and youthfulness to him that isn't an act, and coping skills able to deal with the facts of life rather well (aside from massive guilt complexes, seen below) thanks to how long he's been working on it. He doesn't jump to conclusions and knows when to treat something seriously, traits he prides himself on since they tend to be pretty trustworthy. He's pretty trustworthy.

From all of that springs a well of eternal loyalty. Once he trusts someone, vetted them to his own standards, it's hard to shake that trust. People he considers family could call on him with a moment's notice and he would drop everything to go and help out. If he can't help his family or friends when they're in need, what's the point of having all this time on his hands?

His pragmatism could be seen as both a good point and a bad point. With all this experience comes the knowledge that sometimes the power of love and friendship just won't win out. He can try all he wants and use his unique circumstances to his advantage, but when the going gets tough... well, it's better if everyone gets going. Some might call him a quitter, but Cain much rather values safety and the safety of those he cares about over some grand higher moral ground.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHARACTER'S WEAKNESSES?
For the most part, Cain lacks ambition. He has no overarching point in his life other than to survive (because destiny says so, not because he feels like he's working toward something grand), and this can come off in an extremely lackadaisical attitude. Things that are important to others can become important to him, but ambitious is not a word generally used for Cain at this point in his life.

He can be incredibly callous about people he has no attachment to. They're just a drop in the ocean where he's concerned and getting emotionally invested in everyone would have burned him out centuries ago. That said, he can go all the way to the other extreme and lose all sense of physical safety if people he cares about end up in trouble. It's a knife's edge he balances on, wanting to be able to assess things rationally at all times but allowing himself to be pulled in so far that many times he doesn't pause to think the steps through.

That is, of course, allowing that Cain knows he's physically disposable as he always comes back to life eventually. If he were in any actual danger, he would place himself above those things and preserve himself first and foremost, telling of his nature as a survivor who eased into a protector when he learned it could be done at no personal cost. The only one even higher on his list is his brother, Abel, who means the absolute world to him. Anyone else had better hope their issues don't supersede Cain's self-preservation. This is at odds with his lack of forward momentum in life, but it's hard to stop living for real once you've made a successful twenty-eight hundred year go at it so far.

An extension of Cain's lack of emotional attachment to people until he actually knows them is that he does actually feel an automatic connection to others with Deathsight. No matter how removed they are from him genetically-speaking, he's responsible for that burden they bear. What he really can't stand is when someone uses that ability for their own gain or the gain of others by cheating death — he's learned the hard way that it is an absolute that must be followed. If the very first people who had it couldn't get away with cheating death, and his brother certainly did not get away, then Cain refuses see anyone else trying the same as worth it compared to the damage it would do. Back in the days before Enforcers were thin on the ground, he's seen how one person evading death can turn into a butterfly effect and kill people before their times or let others live well after they should be allowed until it's all contained. That's messy. Of course, if he had managed to do it with Remus, well... he was young, he couldn't have known, his whole life would be different. It feels like cold betrayal to say someone else should get to do what Cain couldn't even before no one knew the price.

Part of his willingness to sacrifice his physical safety and comfort comes from the massive cross he bears in relation to his brother. It was because of him that Remus died, and because of him that Abel now lives as an Enforcer with no memories of his past life, turned into a killing machine just because he was the convenient first human around for the Reapers to take in. Seeing as Abel is the most important person in the world to Cain, it means quite a lot to him to be responsible for that current awful lifestyle (deathstyle?), and he beats himself up about it pretty much every day. Hangups about his own worthiness kept him from approaching Abel for millennia, allowing himself to be distracted by mortal concerns and the immediate problems of his family and day-to-day life no matter what those in Cain's confidence told him. (You know, sensible stuff like "there's no way that's actually your fault, that's sick, just go talk to him".) One could say his insistence at being there for all the family's he's made is because he couldn't make it up to the family he'd always had, and now that he's back in Abel's life it's a constant tumult of needing to be by his side while knowing he isn't making things any better.

These insecurities in particular have also created a rift of misunderstanding. Where Cain holds personal failings close to the vest, the fact of the matter is even he would know better than to hold important secrets from Abel and those who could do something about it, his kidnapping in Alabama included. Because of the implanted order to keep quiet about the incident, he's internally rationalized it as not important and a blip on the radar. When this came to a head in Texas and was revealed to Abel, this rationalization and continuation of the previous order has tied him into emotional knots and left him bending over backwards to beat himself up and make up for it at the same time all while unaware that he's being controlled. It's a shitty place to be, for sure, and leaves him anxious more than he's used to.

WHAT EVENTS OR CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR CHARACTER'S PAST HAVE IMPACTED THEM THE MOST?
Remus's death, by far, has shaped everything Cain has grown into being. Without his brother any longer, Romulus grew into someone very independent and strong. It also left him with a ridiculous amount of guilt over his own actions (or lackthereof) in preventing Remus' death back when they still had carte blanche about the timers they saw, before there were established rules for people who could consciously break them, and now he'll never have the chance to make it right. This is a burden he carries with him, only exasperated by the Reapers pointing the finger at Cain to keep him separated from Abel for Abel's own good.

The countless lives of his partners and children have also impacted him. He's learned to love, lose, love again and lose again, ad nauseam. It's so beaten into him that rather than being able to close himself off from people he cares for, he's permanently on and can't help but let those connections in. If he tries to seal them off, it simply causes pain before the inevitable happens and he opens up again. He's a lover, not a fighter, and has learned to accept that about himself.

The founding of Rome taught him quite a lot. Being driven out by his own advisors taught him even more. Chief among those lessons being to be careful with the power he wields. Even as he grew, learned, and made mistakes it was never enough. To be a perfect ruler is to be beyond human nature, and Cain generally now works to make sure he himself is satisfied and well before reaching out to help others.

With the progress of time and technology, Cain has become more secretive with himself. Paranoia isn't high on his list of priorities, but security is. Cameras, computers, cell phones, YouTube and more make him more than ever dedicated to making sure each life is separate from each other for his own sake and the sake of his loved ones. This evidently wasn't enough, he's learned, from the kidnapping some while ago that left him realizing he would need to be more on top of things and that he can't stay complacent in how he views the world. He enjoys technology, learns from it, has to keep ahead of it at all times. More than that, the biggest impact of this whole ordeal is leaving him with the inescapable inevitability that soon enough, he won't be able to maintain his anonymity in the world.

Speaking of that abduction, there's a thing that's stuck with him. It's an insidious one, as his coping strategy for being ordered not to bring it up is to shove it away and not examine it. For everything he's been through in his life, it isn't the worst, but it's the most recent and by all rights he should be going through many more issues than he feels that he is. Pushing back against this lack of reaction, he's gone on the offensive and perhaps pokes his way into other peoples' business more often than he used to. Getting around to knowing other people first gives him a better chance to see if something is coming his way. Someday if he's able to consider the event properly down the road, maybe then he'll let himself go through the motions of letting it lie peacefully... Right now, however, he'll keep holding it at arms' length like a good mind controlled goon should.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOUR CHARACTER?
Mostly the people around him. He's unambitious in recent times, having seen the top of the world and come away with it scorned. Now it's just the smaller things, the friends and family and a desire to see what tomorrow brings over the horizon. If there's one overarching thing that leads him to put one foot in front of the other, it's the need to be there for whenever Abel will need him even if that seems impossible at this point in time.

Other than that, he knows he has a long way to go left in this life thing and is treating it as a marathon more than a sprint. If he lets himself become hopeless and depressed so soon, he'll definitely be miserable sooner rather than later. His motivation, at its core, might be to simply keep seeing the bright side of things and keep pushing through, discovering and learning and loving all over again. If one were to ask Cain, however, he personally would describe that as just how things should be, not something a driving force that keeps him from backsliding (even if that's definitely what it is).

WHAT IMPRESSION DO OTHERS TEND TO HAVE OF YOUR CHARACTER?
A young adult who has too much time on his hands, carefree and always willing to lend a hand. Not very selfish, very friendly, but doesn't actually talk about himself much. Bright, trustworthy and capable, and totally wasting all his potential. Bit of a fixer-upper who still hasn't gotten over his brother's death yet, no matter how long ago it was.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES THAT IMPRESSION DIFFER FROM WHO YOUR CHARACTER REALLY IS?
Definitely knows more than he lets on, just through observing people and having a lot more life experience than people would expect. Although not malicious, definitely doesn't care for the day-to-day minutiae of strangers as much as he'd put on. Most of the time, he's just entertaining himself until something actually interesting comes up.

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER HANDLE CRISIS OR ADVERSITY?
Rather calmly, all told. He takes in the facts, learns who's involved, assesses the situation he's in, and moves on from there. His panic instinct has been worn down to almost nothing by now and he retains control of himself with an iron grip. This isn't quite as true when it comes to crises involving other people, wherein he will go only through the "is it worth it?" phase, skip all the planning, and jump right into doing something in order to place himself between the problem and the one in trouble, protective idiot that he is.

Keep in mind that this doesn't count things that involve dogs. Dogs ate his brother and almost ate him. Fuck that rationality shit. He'd much rather remove himself as swiftly as possible.

WHICH 5 THINGS WILL YOUR CHARACTER REMEMBER UPON ARRIVAL, AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THEM?
Not his name, tbh. Any of the ones he's used. If they end up suggested to him, they'll ring without any familiarity. He may or may not need to come up with one and just stick with it out of stubbornness more than it feeling right.

1. The existence of his brother and the death of said brother by the hands of their master's dogs in gory detail. Allows him to vaguely understand where he comes from and what he's lost, giving himself some kind of focal point even if it's a really downer one. Does not outright remember his brother's name, but knows it's important and strangely tied to his identity as a whole.

2. That he is a father, numerous times over. He still has family even after knowing his brother is very dead, and this allows him to understand why he can still open his heart and not be an intensely cynical bastard at all times. There's no specific memories tied to this but he remembers that he knows how to take care of children and what it's like to watch them grow up.

3. His immortality: he is very old, and very hard to kill. Context for the emotional maturity and tangled reasoning for more difficult matters as well as making it difficult right off the bat to deal with the "don't talk about your past" thing when there's so much to uncover.

4. His most recent family: Lisa, his wife, and his children Kenneth and Ariel. Still living, Cain visits Lisa often as he can and keeps in contact; he's still desperately in love with her no matter where their lives have taken them. Currently divorced due to tensions between their children and Cain, who resent him for his immortality and the curse of the Sight he's given them.

5. Journal-keeping. Cain has a long-held habit of writing journals to keep down very broad strokes of important things in his life, such as his childrens' and lovers' names and a few select facts about them, as well as documenting where he's been over the years and what he was doing in that time. He reads and rewrites them every now and then to keep them from fading, since his memories of the events aren't nearly so easily protected. He won't remember what's in the journals themselves but it will leave him with something of a paranoia about keeping track of his memories — both sets. This may or may not end up simply validating the Wayward Pines set of memories when they come in more clearly and realistic than some of his home memories.

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU FEEL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER?
Cain's job in the town is something like a professional shift-filler. For NPC locations, he takes any shifts where regular employees have cut off or where scheduling requires another hand. (PC shop permissions to do the same include(s): Go Ask Alice.)

SKILLS, ABILITIES, & PHYSICAL WEAKNESSES:
Having lived for really fucking long, Cain has picked up numerous skills and languages. Although many of them are not the best use, they still sit in the back of his mind and he could probably pick them back up if given the reason. He has about ten languages he actively uses and keeps at a native level (having fluency in over forty) and most of his practiced skills tend to be indicative of a modern mindset instead of things like hunting your own food or rigging a boat. His preferred type of skills tend to be more along the line of intellectual pursuits and staying ahead of technology to delay the discovery of the world's only immortal for as long as possible — he's very adept in coding, virtual security, cracking, and the technical aspects of building and tinkering with computers. Technological expertise is at his forefront. Other focuses for him include things that tend to go hand in hand with taking care of people and being a dad, like cooking or making repairs around the house. Keeping up on scientific discoveries and the like also means he's pretty understanding of internet culture; while he doesn't often participate as "one of the gang," he sure knows how to talk like it. On the other hand, he can't pick up an instrument for the life of him and biological sciences are a bitch for him to comprehend. Why should he need to when his own biology just always keeps ticking?

As a result of genetic quirks Cain is the mirror twin, counter to Abel, meaning that he is left-handed and his internal organs are backwards to match. Especially after his abduction two years prior, he works on keeping his body fit, and maintains skills in running, evading and parkour as if it will help avoiding an organization that's never actually approached him in a way that it would help. It does make him feel better, though.

Despite his body's ridiculous and impossible healing factor, he is still 100% human. He cannot build up tolerances to drugs or alcohol, although he's built up a mental tolerance to pain. His physical fitness cannot exceed the natural bounds of a human body, and he is completely susceptible to magical effects and psychic intrusion. Currently, he has a code phrase buried in his head which puts him into a totally suggestible state ("hellhound, heel").

- Immortal and ageless. Cain does not age. He cannot remain harmed. If any damage is done to him, it simply reverses: blood lost will seep back into the wound and it will pull back together as if nothing happened. The same thing happens for lost limbs or organs. Pain still exists as long as the wounds are there, but subsides once they have been healed. He does not experience death (i.e., soul leaving the body) so much as indeterminate unconsciousness when violently incapacitated.
- Deathsight. Cain can see the time left that someone has to live based on their fate. Whether they cheat it, are revived and continue on or face something at seems hopeless but is averted by some lucky incident, and extend their time by some amount, there is only so long that someone can live. Someone with Deathsight, such as Cain or his descendants, could indefinitely avert this by using their powers for chaos which is against the natural order and tends to get the ghost cops (Enforcers) involved and the transgressor killed. Those with Deathsight cannot see a clock within a reflection or photograph and thus never see their own time.
   This sight manifests as a timer in front of someone's neck — gold indicates a living person, while silver means a spirit of some sort. My assumption is that this timer will only read the time of a character's canon death (whether they live to old age, die in season two or have arrived past their death), and will not appear be moving while in Wayward Pines, possibly due to psychosomatic trauma more than the fact that their clocks have actually stopped. This sight also allows him to see supernatural phenomena such as spirits. If accepted, there will be a permissions post allowing people to specify times, otherwise it will just be an unspoken, meaningless backdrop.

INVENTORY:
- Casual clothes
- Smartphone
- Wallet ($25, AZ license for [name obscured] born 1984, some debit and credit cards)
- Keys
- Leatherman
- Switchblade