Description
"Raven" as he's known by any who meet him, and as he was known by all those before, is rather tall, standing at a total 6 foot 7 inches. Despite the on going horror that is this new disease, he somehow manages to keep himself surprisingly well looked after and clean, more often than not even found with eyeliner to complete his favoured look. His hair spills down to just below the center of his back, a black as the darkest night imaginable. He's been told so many times to cut it short to save from being snatched, though he'll never listen. It hasn't done him any harm yet after all. Yet.
As well as this, his skin is a pale shade, almost pure white, flawless in most areas aside from a few scars here or there, the stories behind them unknown, though perhaps simply because nobody cared to ask. His eyes are perhaps a little odd, though only for their stark contrast to the rest of him, the black hair, fair skin, one would expect blue or brown no doubt, though instead, his eyes are a sharp emerald that seem to add an almost dagger like look no matter how soft his gaze my grow to be.
In life before this new come time, he was ever the snappy dresser, though now he makes do with clothes taken from the dead when his own become worn beyond repair, yet somehow managing to keep it within his taste of blacks, almost victorian-gothic, really.
Personality
Raven is a quiet man at first, perhaps a little too quiet for his own good, but he won't let that stop him. Despite such silence being a common thing for him, once he opens up the inner workings of his mind for others, it becomes clear that he is rather twisted, almost sickeningly so. Most (incorrectly) assume that this mentality of Raven's is caused by the way this world has become, from the horrors he has seen, the stories of which he will gladly tell with an ear to ear grin. Though twisted- perhaps to the point where some would class it as insanity- Raven is willing to help those who need it, if it won't cause him too much of a hindrance. Almost kind, in his own odd little ways, Raven is fearless to the point of stupidity. So far, this fearlessness has kept him alive, though even he, himself, believes that it will one day be the death of him, often caught joking about it, or mumbling to himself of how idiotically reckless he can be.
Equipment
With him, he usually carries the following, though more often than not he will be lacking in one or two supplies, or sometimes even lacking in weapons;
-Clean water.
-Tinned meat.
-Hard candies.
-Other tinned products.
-Kitchen knife.
-A handgun.
-Metal pole. (Favoured weapon. Kept strapped to shoulder with rags.)
History
Raven was born October 19th 1989, leading a normal life for the first few years of it. The same normal life that just about anyone lived. Up until he reached the age of 5. It was on his 5th birthday in fact, that his first so-called "trauma" was gained, when on returning home with his Mother, they both had found his father strung up to a ceiling beam, dead as a door nail. His mother, being the sweet, protective woman she was, dragged her son off to the neighbour's house after a whispered and broken explanation of the scene. Raven, despite how young he was back then, can still remember it all as clear as day. He recalls finding it "exciting". He didn't understand as such a small boy, of course, leaving him to believe his mother's lie for quite some time, "Daddy wanted to be taller." she'd told him. Due to that childhood naivety that all people once had, that particular "trauma" didn't do his mind any damage, not until he understood at least.
The day of reckoning came when he found his mother strung up the following year, just a few days after his 6th birthday. He'd been trying to get his mother's attention for quite some time, tugging at the skirt of her corpse, crying and hugging her ankles, only to finally go to his neighbour's home, remembering that's where his mother took him the year before, "Mommy's trying to get taller! She's won't talk to me till she's taller!" those had been the words that kindly old lady had heard that fateful day just a little over a year ago. Perhaps she should have lied to him, once the whole ordeal of police, and ambulances was over. Instead, she told him that his mother couldn't come back. When he had questioned as to why that was so, the woman only gave him a two word answer as she cradled the sniffling child, "She's dead.". Now, dead, he knew the meaning of that word. That was when you bury something in a box in a garden, like with his cat when he was even younger still, before either parents were dead.
Thanks to the woman's kind nature, and way with children, in fact, with people in general, the child services allowed Raven to stay in her care, with that elderly lady as his adoptive mother. For a while, things were fine again, except a couple of nightmares here and there, and a few days of crying over his mother's inability to come home.
Again though, this time in December, marring his memories of Christmas, his adoptive mother joined his true parents in death. He was 9 when it happened.
When he pushed her.
He'd seen someone do it in a movie, and thought that the red looked pretty. He knew the consequences, but something in him when they were arguing over his homework, had snapped. Once it was over, once she lay on the floor, 18 steps below where he stood, he realized just what he'd done. He'd never made friends at school, not many at least, and certainly no good ones. The one person who really cared for him, he killed. It took a good few hours before he came to after a dizzy, sickening feeling had crawled over him, and everything had dyed black.
When he did come to, he was strapped to a bed in a sterile looking- and smelling- room, a woman dressed as a nurse fiddling with tubes stood off to his left. As soon as the woman had heard the strangled whimper leaving his throat, her warm, soft hands were cupping his cheeks, shushing and calming to the best of her ability. Even he could tell that she was a mother, purely by the concern in her voice, rather than panic. After the straps were off, and Doctors had come and gone, that woman was still stood there, even for the questioning on the police who came by, "it was the tall man!" he'd lied, the panic and fear in his voice fooling the officers to believe that the poor child was traumatized from the act of a cold blooded killer.
In the end, he became once more adopted, by none other than that sweet female nurse, her husband as well glad to accept him as a third child, added to their biological son and daughter.
As you can guess, that didn't work out well. Raven had made the slip up of getting caught in a fight with his 'brother' about where they were going, when they'd made a race from the car to the platform of the train that would be taking them on the surprise holiday. That holiday though, was cancelled. Why? Just before anyone else arrived in time to see what happened, and just a little out of the view of CCTV cameras, Raven had pushed his 'brother' beneath an uncoming train, only to stand staring, backed up away from the platforms edge as the boy's blood spattered his features. Even today he sometimes swears that he can still feel the blood on his face, warm and soothing, he calls it now.
His 'sister' suspected him from the very beginning, though his adoptive parents refused to accept it, even going so far as to force her into similar counselling that they had been so keen to give to Raven when she wouldn't let up about him being the culprit.
Slowly, one by one, each of his adoptive family members were put to rest in the earth by meeting untimely ends, each in the form of a 'freak accident'.
It was all this way, with each new family, up until he hit 16, finishing high school, starting work, and getting his own apartment. By that age, he'd gained a taste for blood, and a keen, if not slightly twisted wit and humor. He found that being alone was not all so bad as he once found it to be.
Of course, he kept such blood lust to himself, often heading out to the rougher areas in the city he lived in, to join in on street and gang fights, gaining the only name he shares in just such a way. "Raven!" the men would often cheer who came to watch him fighting. He was never too certain of exactly why he was given the name, though he had to admit, he loved it. In time he found it was due to the "darkness" he was cloaked in, the almost stereotypical name, according to other's being one that suited him perfectly. He wasn't about to complain, and so he kept it.
When this virus broke free and began to surge the earth, the first thought that came to him after he gained understanding of what was going on, was this, and nothing more;
Let the game begin.
