Nicknames:
Except for people mispronouncing her given name like there's no tomorrow (seriously? It's five letters. Ah-sazh. How hard can it be?) Asajj has no real nicknames. At least, none she herself approves of. Some have taken to calling her things like 'the mutie' or 'the metalhead chick', or 'the silent girl', though Asajj is no fan of any of these.
Age:
Asajj is eighteen years old, having rather recently met her eighteenth birthday in solitude; however, her large, broad-shouldered stature and mature facial features can easily cause her to be mistaken for as many as five years, more or less, than she actually is. She's not sure how to feel about that.
Gender:
I should hope it's a given that Asajj is indeed female. She's nothing near feminine in behaviour and doesn't exactly look like a pretty little girl either, but she is indeed female.
Sexual Orientation:
For quite some time she hadn't been entirely certain as to her sexuality, but at this point Asajj can confidently say (metaphorically say, of course) that she is homosexual.
Clique:
Were she to be placed in any clique, one could simply say Asajj is something of a loner. Her inability to speak makes the process of acquiring friends and integrating oneself into a community rather complicated, and as such Asajj is having difficulty with the process of making friends for herself.
Description:
Asajj does not remotely resemble the kind of person she really is. She stands at full height at a rather impressive 193 centimetres (about six feet and three inches) tall, which is confessedly rather tall for a woman (especially of Turkish descent), a fact she is well aware of, weighing in at about 186 lbs as a result of her muscle mass and towering physique. Height has always been characteristic of her, and in her youth she used to resent the fact that she stood head and shoulders over most people her age--understandably, it made her stick out like a sore thumb in most cases, but she is now confident and secure in her stature. To add to this, Asajj's long-lived and consistent dedication to physical work-out and strength training has granted unto her a body build less akin to that of a high school student and more likened to that of a bruiser or a thug of sorts. Her upper body is rippling with musculature indicative of a considerable measure of physical strength, which evidently turns some people off (seems plenty of people don't like the thought of an eighteen year old woman who can probably overpower most of the men in her vicinity with ease)--but that is of little concern to her. The powerful impression her physical appearance gives off is polished off with wide shoulders and a steady forward lean in all she does. The vast pale expanse of her milky skin, a hue similar to that of freshly cooled porcelain, gives way to a network of scars jutting across the surface of her skin, interspersed with an amalgamation of tattoos she has acquired over the years, which shall be detailed to an extent below. Significantly, there is one scar, the remnants of what looks to have been a rather deep knife wound, that tears grotesquely across the lower left portion of her throat.
Asajj has--or rather, Asajj had a naturally attractive face--but the years have done their work and taken their toll on what could have been a prior beauty now fled in the face of smokes, alcohol, drugs, bottled stress, pain, and the simple but decimating passage of merciless time. She's no longer beautiful by any standard of the word, and she never was 'cute', at least not by the implications of the word; a particularly astute (or sympathetic, either way) observer could note that she does, however, bear a toughened, indelicate sort of prettiness about her. Sharp, defined features adorn a small, dark countenance; high, prominent cheekbones carve out a significant portion of her features, surrounding a small, slightly pointed nose (that's evidently been broken one or two or three times in the past), under which rest thin, dark lips ungraced by lipstick or artificial colouring, often bearing a friendly sort of small smile, or a calm, impartial expression. Her eyes are akin to smooth stones of a light hazel-brown hue gazing out intently from the pale canvas of her face, and somewhat almond-shaped; it is difficult to judge her Turkish ethnicity from her face, for she does not bear the typical aspects that have come to be characteristic of Turkish people. Conversely her faded black hair is cut short a bit unevenly (because she cuts it herself, or used to), with a wiry texture, and tends to spring up spryly, wild and untamed.
As said, Asajj has a vast number of tattoos covering her body--some merely detail her favourite bands, others her personal interests, and some, it seems, she got simply to give people the wrong impression about her, because that's what they do. From the top, however: the most readily apparent, and largest one, would be the MotÃļrhead War Pig across her back, adorned with bullets, chains, spikes, and the name of the band itself in arching letters over it. Many are related to Egyptian mythology, which is a passion of hers; examples include the large, flaming ankh on her left bicep, an Eye of Horus on the back of each hand, and an Uraeus on her lower back. Other tattoos relate to her favourite bands, such as another MotÃļrhead War Pig on her right bicep, or the Obituary tattoo across her right forearm; she also has one of Death's original logo (in red) at her collarbone, Deicide's '666' on the bicep above her Obituary tattoo, amongst smaller ones. And some of her other tattoos are, to be frank, simply rather gruesome in nature. For example, she has one across her lower left ribcage of a grievous wound, exuding crimson blood, revealing metallic rib bones (also, as it were, dripping copiously with blood); itâs rather similar to this, except, as said, with metal bones instead of...bone...bones. She has another spanning the upper right portion of her back just beside the War Pig and running all the way down the back of her right arm, depicting a corpse wrapped in what looks like spiderwebs hanging from a tree of tormented skulls and faces that extends down her arm, eventually devolving into a mass of skulls set against brimstone and blood, an inverted cross on the nape of her neck and an inverted pentagram that looks like it has been carved into the flesh of her shoulder. The first tattoo she ever got was a tattoo of the letters 'UZUN' tattooed across the knuckles of her right hand; she did it herself when she was thirteen years old with a sewing needle and thread and pencil lead. Her reasons for etching so many permanent markers into her body are unknown to any but herself--but there isn't really anyone to stop her in the first place.
In terms of attire, Asajj gravitates towards typical metalhead/crust punk fare. You'll usually find her wearing a band tee with the sleeves torn off, showcasing any one of her favourite groups from MotÃļrhead to Phobia, Death to Nile, Napalm Death to Carcass. Over this, she will invariably wear a favoured leather 'battle jacket' or 'cut-off' (ie a leather jacket with the sleeves removed), adorned with all kinds of punk and metal patches, and covered in studs and spikes squaring at the back around a patch of Napalm Death's bar-code skull. Otherwise, she also has a leather jacket, also armed with many spikes, this time bearing an Ace of Spades patch that reads "Born to lose - Live to win". As far as her lower body, Asajj often dons a pair of good old durable jeans (often with one or two tears in them, because she can't be arsed to go buy new ones when it happens...and because tears are totally heavy metal) and then a pair of leather harness boots. She tops the image off with a copper bullet belt (in essence, a belt made of gunpowder-less casings worn around the waist, popular with punks and metalheads), spiked wrist bands, and chains, perfecting an image of someone who is completely the opposite of what Asajj really is.
Personality:
Most people see Asajj, covered in tattoos, clad in leather and spikes, towering over all around her, and immediately think 'delinquent'--imagining a spiteful, violent criminal, someone who would gladly mug you if you came across them in an alleyway, and by no means someone you want to meet alone. A shame, because this erroneous assumption, one which Asajj doesn't even seem to bother avoiding, prevents those people from ever making the acquaintance of one of the kindest and most hard-working souls you are liable to come across, at least here at Makenzie. Few people will ever realise this, judging her at face value and leaving it at that--and it does not help that those few who choose to take a chance and communicate with her find only silence.
That's all Asajj can do, for she has been deprived of speech for years, and certainly since before she arrived at Makenzie. The most she can manage is a strangled noise, simple syllables such as 'ah', or 'oh' that come out sounding choked and forced. Needless to say, this is even more discouraging for some people--but Asajj has never let her disability overcome her and destroy what she is. And as for what Asajj is...
Asajj comes off as one of those rare spirits who is genuinely kind and always willing to lend a hand, whether it be in regards to an academic difficulty or some kind of more urgent problem that requires diffusion. Indeed, one can literally run right up to her having never so much as looked at her before and request her help with a test or a fight that is going down nearby, and Asajj will give her aid with no questions asked. This can border on selflessness in some cases where Asajj will go to her detriment to help others out, for reasons that shall be elabourated upon below. This set aside, however, she is still a friendly woman despite her inability to communicate verbally; she gets her point across through sign language or via written notes using a notepad and pencil she keeps stuffed in her pocket, but the good-natured intentions, typically conveyed via tone of voice, are instead reflected in her kindly expression and sociable overall attitude. She tends to be the first to greet a newcomer to the school--though, much to her sadness, those newcomers are often put off by being greeted by a mute punk rocker standing several inches taller than them, and they often put a quick end to the 'conversation' to find a 'normal person' to talk to. Furthermore, few of the actual established students will go out of their way to talk to her, the result being that a lot of people don't even know Asajj for who she is, presuming from her appearance exactly what I said above.
Aside from social interaction, little though she comes upon it, Asajj displays an all-round unflappable, serene demeanour. It is not a stretch to say that to most it seems Asajj is panicked by nothing, that she is impossible to stir into anxiety. She manages to cope, if barely, with the variety of metaphorical ailments that plague her, whilst maintaining very respectable grades and without ever dropping her daily work-out schedule. Put succinctly, Asajj has a gift of preventing stress and anxiety from crawling up to the surface and rearing its ugly head for all around to see--a gift that, as it were, receives some help from the drugs she has by now grown dependent on. And with that, we come to explore darker aspects of her persona.
The reality of Asajj's kind tendencies and selfless nature is a reflection of her own life and encounters with others: Asajj, in her youth, growing up, never came across kind personalities, people who were willing to help her or be a friend to her. She could have become wretched and twisted, selfish and angry to reflect that environment, but she instead rose to fill that void herself, seeking to at the very least embody the goodwill that she missed sorely as a child. Something that persisted even beyond the event that now fills her with remorse and pain to add on to the already-significant loneliness. She may come across as too trusting or too quick to seek friendship, but this should not be taken as naivety. It is a manifestation instead of a long-lived hunger for true, caring human company and friendship, things she consciously or unconsciously perceives herself to have been denied throughout much of her life. And as such despite the fragility of her emotions, Asajj is quick to accept a semblance of friendship and caring despite the many times she has reached for these things and been cruelly fooled by them. In the absence of human company, Asajj felt forced to turn instead to the company of drugs--at first, cigarettes and alcohol, and later more powerful substances until she arrived at the veritable 'kingpin' of drugs--heroin. Her only constant companion throughout the years, and the one thing she feels she can definitively turn to for comfort.
Likes:
Asajj is a straight-up metalhead with a passion for metal and punk music. And when she says metal and punk, she sure as hell ain't referring to that poser bullshit like nu metal and metalcore (I'm lookin' at you, Avenged Sevenfold and Slipknot), or 'faux-punk' (I'd be lookin' at you, Green Day and Blink-182, but I'll spare myself the eyesore). When she says metal, she means fucking metal. Anything from the deathgrind of Cenotaph and Carcass, grindcore in the vein of Napalm Death and AssÃŧck, the technical death metal of Death and Suffocation, straight up death metal like Deicide and Nile, the thrash metal stylings of Megadeth and Slayer, classic heavy metal such as Judas Priest and MotÃļrhead, hard rock legends such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, crust punk in the vein of Doom and Gallhammer...hell, even jazz and blues, such as Art Blakey, Weather Report, Miles Davis, and BB King. She listens to it all, most of it (in particular, the metal and the punk) at outrageous volumes that make people wonder how the hell it is she hasn't gone deaf in addition to her muteness yet. Needless to say, the violent nature of much of her music does not endear her to most people, and solidifies that false first impression that causes many to steer clear of her.
And in addition, Asajj enjoys reading. Much to the surprise of most people who take her for little more than a mindless, violent metalhead, in point of fact, Asajj can claim to have run through the works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Orwell, Kerouac, and Wells, reading in depth into every book she comes across. You'll often find her, cigarette in hand, headphones buried into her ears blasting Deicide's 'Trifixion' at outrageous volume, dark eyes scanning intently over the pages of a Murakami novel. On which note, she's remarkably good at passive multi-tasking, which is what enables her to listen to music and read at the same time without being distracted fully one from the other. Hell knows how she does it, but she's quite accomplished at it.
Besides that, she seems to rather enjoy alcohol and cigarettes (well, obviously, she doesn't enjoy them...but, well, she's addicted to them). Not much else, really. To her, life is her music, her books, and her drugs. Take all those away from her, and she realises there isn't much for her in life. She does not smoke around people for the most part, unless they make it clear they don't mind, and her drug habits are a thing very, very few people can know of. In fact, it's something only one person can possibly know of.
Dislikes:
Asajj does not like to think herself a hateful person, nor one prone to judgment of others, but there are a number of things that will indeed elicit a certain reaction out of her that is less than a happy one. Making fun of her muteness is chief amongst them, for people do indeed do it--they'll sometimes walk up to her, emboldened by the fact that she can't say a thing back to them despite her clear physical advantage over them, and then make wild hand signs and exaggerated mouth movements to mock her dependence on hand signs to communicate. Those precious few who have heard her emit the only sounds she can make might even mock those strangled noises that are all Asajj can verbally communicate.
Asajj has no love for pop or rap music, finding little appeal in either the lyrical content or the music itself. This applies also to such things as nu metal and metalcore, alternative rock and 'pop-punk' (she isn't even sure how that can exist). Were you to turn this on in her vicinity, Asajj would...well, it would strain her polite nature. She'd rather just get up and leave if it really bothers her rather than make a big scene of it.
Ignorance is a pest that Asajj often finds herself highly exasperated in the presence of. People who presume she's retarded because she can't speak, for example, or are afraid of her due to her tattoos and attire. It's part of the reason she persists in dressing that way even though she knows it puts people off--Asajj has decided she wouldn't want to be acquainted with someone who judges her by her clothing in the first place. Besides that, she has a bit of ire for people who attempt to extend a lot of authority over her--not a woman who values little her independence and freedom, Asajj is loathe to let it be easily taken away from her.
Fears:
Asajj fears a number of things. First and foremost, she fears the possibility that a life she can enjoy is now beyond her reach--that at this point, being unable to speak, having few friends and fewer outlets of stress and unhappiness despite a surplus of both, life is becoming more trouble than it is worth, and this 'A' person is only making things all the more complicated. Furthermore, Asajj fears a loss of her own dignity, or being overpowered physically--it's certainly one reason she has put so much effort into making herself as strong and as physically indomitable as possible. However, it also applies to being manipulated and forced to give up her own values--Asajj will not suffer to allow it.
Skills:
Asajj, much in line with her general appearance, is very strong, and there's no simpler way of putting it than that. Moreover, she's about the handiest person in Makenzie for a fight--not that she's altogether proud of the fact, but Asajj is quite experienced in regards to fistfights and general scuffles, and in combination with her dominant physicality and towering stature, she is not someone you want to get into a fight with...Though, in all frankness, it is exceptionally hard to goad Asajj into a fight short of repeatedly attacking her and ignoring her warnings to cease.
Asajj, much in direct contrast to her general appearance, is very intelligent. She's a quick-minded and sharp woman who picks up on information quite rapidly, the result being that Asajj has a vast database of knowledge stored away behind the silent gates of her lips. And--I'm sure this is a complete given--Asajj is quite good at keeping secrets. Since, you know, she can't possibly relay them verbally, were she the type of person to share secrets in the first place. It also means that, obviously, her own secrets are quite secure, because they've never been spoken.
Not so Skills:
Asajj's main weakness would be her own emotional fragility, cloaked behind her imposing physical presence and confident, secure demeanour. It's easy for even her to forget that she is very close to losing hope in her life and the possibility of enjoying that life. The drugs, the loneliness, the guilt, the emotional isolation and the inescapable, indefeatable silence she is condemned to, all push her closer and closer to the point where she realises that life simply is not tolerable for her, and never will be tolerable. It may take nothing more than just one more departure, one more betrayal or one more shot of the needle for her to come to that point. She has grown used to coming within reach of happiness only to have it snatched away from her, but she won't be able to withstand that another time.
Of course, one could also include that simple fact that she cannot speak as a weakness, for it severely limits her ability to express herself or to communicate with others. Most people don't appreciate the gift that being able to speak with one another is, but needless to say life gets a bit harder when you can't say a damn thing besides 'oh'.
Secrets:
-Asajj is a murderer. That kinda grabbed your attention, didn't it? Yes, she has killed a man, three and a half years ago--in self-defence, but that's not so much consolation when you discover said man had a wife and two daughters who now have no means of sustenance. He would have raped her, and after she fought back viscerally, he would have killed her, so she did what she could--and killed him first, though not before he slashed her voice out of her body.
-Asajj is addicted to heroin. Has been for some two years or so now. When you get down to it, it's remarkable she's even survived this long whilst maintaining only occasional use of the drug--she does need a regular supply of it, but she has somehow managed to avoid needing to shoot up every fifteen minutes. Of course, that probably won't last...
-Asajj has no family. She lives alone. Her father is gone, somewhere she does not know--her mother overdosed on the very same drug Asajj is now addicted to and died as a result, leaving Asajj, still reeling from the shock of the attack and attempted rape against her, to opt for emancipation over the prospect of foster homes.
-Asajj was not actually born in Turkey. It's a mark of surprising shame to her to say she was not actually born in Turkey as she would lead others to believe but was in fact born in plain old Detroit, Michigan, United States.
Crush:
Nothing to say here. Beyond the occasional thought of 'wow, she seems really nice' or 'damn, she's really pretty', Asajj cannot be said to have actual feelings towards anyone.
Relationship Status:
Single. Been that way the past eighteen years.
History:
Asajj's history is shrouded in her impenetrable silence and further obscured by the fact that she implies her childhood to be entirely the opposite of what it was. She will lead you on to believe that she was born in Ankara, Turkey, and at some point emigrated to the United States--but this is entirely false. Asajj Uzun was born to two young and dirt-poor Turkish immigrants in the state of Michigan, in the down-trodden city of Detroit. She never knew her father, for he left upon the discovery that his brief fling with a fellow Turkish immigrant had produced a pregnancy he wanted no responsibility for, leaving behind a pregnant teenaged woman with no job and very few prospects of a job. Needless to say, this was not a set-up for a happy, love-filled childhood.
Asajj was thus born to a single mother in a dingy apartment in the worst slums of the city. It was a hellhole by any definition, a wretched place where poverty, violent crime, and desperation abounded, and it was no place to try to raise a child, a child who knew even from a young age that she was a mistake whose very existence was unintended. Her mother held onto the child, searching ceaselessly for a way to produce some sort of income for Asajj and herself to live off of. It was not easy, for the decrepit slums of Detroit possessed few opportunities for a single teenaged mother--except one. Her mother was forced to turn to prostitution to provide for both of them, forced to diminish her own dignity in ways Asajj became terrified of being forced to do as well. But she never missed the point that her mother did it specifically for her, which only caused Asajj even more guilt--because she felt that if not for her birth, maybe her mother could have prospered, or at least lived a better life, without her there.
But, difficult and shameful though it was, her mother persevered, and her decision to go into that...'profession' kept the woman and her growing daughter fed and clothed, and she was even able to get Asajj into a nearby school--it was very poorly funded, with meagre teaching institutions, with too many students and not quite enough teachers. Nevertheless it was a lot better than what Asajj's mother could have foreseen in her wildest dreams not long ago, to be able to achieve an education for her daughter--perhaps she would make it through school, maybe even make something of herself, something beyond the slums and their desperate hopelessness. Asajj's mother simply hoped, above all, that her daughter would be able to someday live happily, so that she would never have to do the things her mother had done to make sure she survived.
And yet it became evident that school became only another place of misery for the child. Asajj was already beginning to exhibit a hopeful, friendly persona--but the fact was that compared to the kids already going there, Asajj was even more ragged and poverty-stricken, resulting in alienation and teasing. Eventually, word got out amongst the kids that her mother was a prostitute--and the teachers could do little to stop the cruelty and verbal abuse that spread like wildfire after that. Kids refused to have anything to do with the 'daughter of a whore', acting as though Asajj was tainted and untouchable. They would often torment her and tell her that her mother was filthy and depraved--either that, or that she was a sex-crazed animal, subhuman and pathetic. The child named Asajj Uzun entered that school a naive, hopeful young girl--and when it had chewed her up and spat her back out, she realised people were nothing like what she'd expected. She'd only ever really known her mother, a caring, kind woman who performed the most undignified profession of all to keep her daughter alive--other people were not like that. Other people, the young Asajj concluded, were wicked and malicious.
Many would, perhaps, in such an environment become wicked and malicious themselves--it is a common enough occurrence, and yet it is not what came about in Asajj's case. In the perceived absence in the world of the kindness and caring her mother displayed, Asajj decided to bring that kindness to the world herself. No matter how much her classmates called her the offspring of an animal, no matter how much they overtly went out of their way to get away from her, Asajj smiled at them widely and at every turn treated them with polite, soft-spoken sweetness. If a boy dropped something as she was walking some distance behind him, she would pick it up, quicken her pace, and give it back to him, even if the responce was a confused stare, followed by the boy wordlessly hurrying away as though he'd just been brushed by a venomous snake. The reality was that those kids didn't understand her kindness. Someone who had failed to be broken down and turned into something less by her surroundings--that was a concept they found alien and unfamiliar. Their cruelty did not abate.
Needless to say, Asajj had few friends--if any. Though she hungered immensely to have people she could trust and cherish, nobody would share that with her. She tried reaching out to others delicately, searching for a semblance of friendship and company in her life--but the children would have none of it. They had been twisted up and ruined--they did not share Asajj's immense fortune in escaping that fate, and the price was an endless stream of hatred. Rejection of her tentative attempts at friendship. She'd learnt from her mother, however--never stop trying. Success and happiness had to be within reach somewhere. She suffered rejection after rejection in search of it. And in the process, she turned to cigarettes and alcohol, easily accessible to a youth of the slums, to fill the void of human company. She was able to find people who could engrave her skin with permanent images and thoughts, a process that proved almost as addictive to the girl as cigarette and alcohol. Carving things into her skin that would be there forever was strangely comforting to her--at the very least, it was something that could not be taken from her or rejected.
More positively, it was around this time that Asajj first began to discover music. She can't remember how it was she got that first CD--MotÃļrhead's 'Overkill'. But she does remember that from the second the double bass drums kicked in, and then the bass, and the guitars, Asajj had found something she'd never had before--a feeling she couldn't describe. For a moment, while, as Lemmy Kilmister sang in the song, "when the music's good and loud", everything that was going on in the world around her just didn't matter. From there, it was just a matter of going through more and more CDs, more and more bands, more and more styles. She went from Judas Priest, to Megadeth, to Suffocation, to Nile, to Carcass--from heavy metal, to thrash, to death metal, to grindcore, to crust punk, and beyond, her musical taste evolving and giving her something to feel beyond the desperation of the situation. The abrasive, distorted guitars, heavy assault of bass drum beats, and furious, vicious vocals, they all appealed to Asajj; it was like all the rage, sorrow, anguish, and fear she had been feeling all those years suddenly was put into a form she could hear, understand, relate to. In addition, it was at this point that Asajj began to take more of an interest in books. Literature--it provided her with countless different worlds, some dark, some beautiful, some mysterious, all different from the one she now dwelt within. And as a result her own world began to brighten from there. She was no longer alone--she had this music to keep her company, to be an outlet for her loneliness and sadness. Her grades picked up. Her smile widened. The kids and their verbal abuse didn't matter quite so much anymore, not even when Asajj determined that she was a lesbian and that provided even more ammunition for them to throw at her. The certainty of her choice and realisation provided more security than the children with their constant tormenting could ever dismantle. Life, it turned out, wasn't so bad in the end.
Unfortunately, the years following would be turbulent--traumatic events, followed by brief moments of tranquillity and joy, only to be terminated once more by tragedy.
She was fifteen or so then, walking home with an old CD player one of the only sympathetic teachers of the school had given her playing her beloved metal music through a pair of ratty old headphones. Asajj had learnt to navigate the extensive system of alleyways to make her way home--had figured out which ones were generally safe, which ones to steer clear of at any cost. And though she'd learnt to travel with a switchblade handy just in case, Asajj had let herself grow inattentive and used to the routine. Walking along one of the 'safe' alleys with her ears firmly deafened by the music she took such solace in, she had no opportunity to hear the man following closely behind her.
The stranger grabbed her from behind. The CD player toppled to the ground with a clattering, the headphones tumbled from her ears as Asajj felt herself jerked away. She didn't know what was happening for a brief second except that some powerful force had torn her out of her state of bliss before she realised she'd failed to remain vigilant. There was no time to curse her lack of attention, however, as the man threw her to the ground viciously. She hit the rocky concrete with a painful impact, looking up at her unfamiliar attacker--a man in his late thirties or early forties, looking down at her with a toothless grin that lacked any mirth whatsoever--a vile smirk of unconcealed lust. She realised what it was he wanted.
She attempted to flee, but he caught her and stopped her. They struggled furiously, as Asajj fought with every fibre of her being against her attacker, like a desperate mouse backed into a corner by a sadistic, enraged cat. Realising this one was not going to be easy pickings, not when she fought like a being possessed, the man gave up--but she could not be allowed to depart. She had seen his face clearly--she could not be permitted to leave and potentially tell of what had happened.
Asajj was still fighting against his vice-like grasp when she felt it--an agonising pain, the sensation of something cutting into the skin of her neck, and then into her throat. She staggered back at the overwhelming pain, and saw the man holding in his hand a switchblade sanguine to the middle of the blade with thick crimson, the same substance that now ran down her neck from the wound inflicted by the man's knife. She knew her time was limited if she didn't go now, but the man was advancing on her once more--undoubtedly to finish the thing off for good. But as he approached, Asajj, in desperation, darted a hand into her jacket, and withdrew her own switchblade. The shock of the sudden movement forced hesitation upon the man--and in that critical moment, Asajj acted on impulse. The switchblade might as well have had a mind of its own as it sprang forth, propelled by Asajj's powerful arm, and buried itself to the hilt in the man's chest.
The blood was already bubbling from the wide incision in her throat as she released the switchblade handle, jutting awkwardly from her attacker's chest. He sank to his knees as Asajj felt her vision blurring from the pain and blood loss. Desperately, she tore a section from her shirt and wrapped it tightly around her throat to halt the outflow of blood, but that alone would not suffice. As the man fell to the ground, she took off, sprinting as fast as she could even as the pain began to overtake her. She had to get home to her mother--that was all she could think to do, all she could think to go to.
The sight of her daughter bursting into the decrepit apartment with a bloody rag tied around her neck with her hands speckled with crimson was immediate cause for alarm for her mother. She sprang to her daughter frantically, asking over and over again what had happened--but when Asajj attempted to explain, all she could get out was a choked rasp that caused more blood to gurgle from her throat. Her mother asked no more questions when she got an inkling of what was at hand. She took her daughter and rushed to the streets, begging for anyone who had a phone or could take her daughter to the hospital. It seemed hours passed in which no one would have anything to do with the towering girl covered in blood, leather, and spikes, nor her mother pleading desperately for aid, but at last a man with a car was willing to drive them to the hospital. By this time Asajj felt like she was near to passing out from the pain and blood loss--passing out, or passing away altogether. The blood was seeping through the fabric of the shirt clothe, painting her frighteningly pale skin a dark crimson, while the man with the car sped to get them to the hospital.
It was at this point that Asajj lost consciousness, and when she awoke, she was lying in a hospital bunk. The agony of her throat had lessened significantly, and a white brace was wrapped around her neck. But the terror and fear that had seized her just prior to her unconsciousness was still borne upon the last memories she had--memories of death and pain. Upon her awakening, the nurse beside her beckoned frantically to something that lay beyond Asajj's yet-hazy vision--and as her sight cleared up, she saw the relieved face of her mother looking down upon her. It was a sight more comforting than anything else in the world, and Asajj felt the terror begin to fade away, until she attempted to speak.
She no longer recalls what it was she tried to say--all she remembers is that what she did say was along the lines of "Ah--ah--oh--", and her mother's expression became one of sorrow. A stoic, stiff doctor strode over, and explained gravely her state: she'd been out for two days. They'd found the man, retracing Asajj's normal path from school to find his body, knife buried to the hilt in his chest. Body. It was not immediately that Asajj realised the implications of that. He was still speaking--the police had concluded that she'd acted in self-defence, that she could not have avoided the end result (he avoided the specific word), that the trial would be quickly over in light of this. And that the man's attack had torn apart major nerves and cords in her throat, rendering her unable of ever speaking again.
Asajj was still processing this when the word resurfaced. Body. Corpse. Carcass. Death. Kill--she'd killed him. She'd murdered him. To save herself, she had taken the life of another.
The realisation shocked Asajj into a state of confusion and uncertainty. She became unresponsive to anyone but her mother, and even then, all she would do was choke out strangled syllables, words that would never be real words again. Her mind was still turning it over and over--that she was now a killer, a taker of human life. What did that mean for her? What was she now, what had she been before, what was she going to be? She did not know how much time passed as she lay in that hospital bed pondering.
Soon she was deemed fit to stand trial. But it was an affair already decided. She and her mother were brought, frightened and worried, to the local courthouse. There, they came upon a woman and two children--Asajj did not know who they were, except that throughout the trial, they seemed to vehemently blame her for all that had happened, for the death of the man. They refused to believe the scenario suggested by the police and confirmed by Asajj with a minute nod of her head and a pained "Ah--". They placed the blame squarely on Asajj Uzun--who would discover, shortly after, that they were the man's wife and children. And that, the man having been the sole source of income for their household, they were now destined to be penniless. The mother lived in the slums just like Asajj and her mother--she knew the desperation of providing for a child, much less two, in the slums, except that she now had no way of gaining money, and at the very least, she wished beyond all hope that someone would say that her husband had not been an attempted rapist and murderer. But ultimately she did not succeed in her aims to have the blame shifted to Asajj. The court found her not guilty of manslaughter on grounds of self-defence and dismissed the case. Asajj and her mother were allowed to leave unaccosted and unfettered.
At that point, her mother knew they could no longer stay here. There was too much desperation, too much pain and misery. She worked harder than ever, pooled as much money as she could, until she just barely had enough. And then she took her daughter, and they left it all behind. It seemed as simple as that. In a flash, the Detroit slums were gone. The destitute surroundings replaced by quiet, suburban scenery. Asajj's mother had managed to lay claim to an apartment only marginally better than the one they'd inhabited previously, but they no longer lived in desperation and hardship. All those years of undignified, torturous toiling had at last panned out for the two. Here there were infinitely more opportunities--Asajj could go to a school where she would not be mocked and hated, away from the place where she had become a murderer, and her mother could find work that did not sacrifice her dignity and sense of humanity in the process. The future was not certain, but it was looking much better.
Asajj began attending one 'Makenzie High School'. It was certainly not as hateful a place as the only other school she'd ever known--but when she walked in, spike-clad leather cut-off exposing legions of tattoos and a long, grotesque scar jutting down her throat, no one was jumping up to befriend her. By this time, she was slowly beginning to rebuild herself into the friendly, kind girl she'd been before--it was hard, a gruelling process in the face of all that had happened threatening to change her for good, but Asajj persevered. She tried reaching out again--but this time, she was not balefully rejected. This time, she was merely met with awkward uncertainty, anxiety, even fear. People did not know how to react to a teenager who could not speak except through writing and strange hand signals. At the very least it wasn't quite so bad as it used to be--the teachers actually cared, the students didn't hate her, they didn't call her the spawn of a whore or a freak. They mostly left her alone. Asajj pre-occupied herself with her music and her books, and she learnt to shut away the guilt eating away at her over what had happened in the slums. That was no longer her. That was no longer where she was. This was a new life, she almost convinced herself. A new life.
Life was better than ever in those precious months. Going outside was no longer a dangerous act--no need any more to carry around switchblades in fear of attack. The money her mother made working, now, an actual, remotely dignified job wasn't awe-inspiring, but to the two it was all the wealth in the world. Asajj could eventually buy herself an actual music player to store her burgeoning collection of CDs on; her room was brimming with books and literature. She maintained an excellent academic standard at school, and was even beginning to get on with a few of the other students at school--an unprecedented thing. Happiness was within reach. Asajj could all but see it.
In May of her second year of high school, her mother died.
Asajj had never known what her mother had been forced to do to cope with her life back in the slums. Asajj had only ever depended on smokes, and alcohol, and loud music, and books. None of that was enough for her mother. Asajj had been at school when her mother overdosed on the heroin she'd ended up extremely addicted to even after they left the slums. Alone and in agony, she expired, and was found by one of the neighbours who heard the sound of her thrashing about in her room. And that put an end to that. It had happened again--a brief window of happiness slammed down even as Asajj tentatively reached her hand out towards it. And her only friend in life gone with it.
The shock was greater than anything before, greater than....what had happened, so far away in the slums. No torment from ignorant, hateful children, no wound inflicted on the blade of a knife, no overbearing loneliness could have prepared her for the realisation that she was now alone, truly alone, truer than ever. And so the days passed in a haze, for the passing of time was inconsequential to Asajj as she tried to figure out what was left for her now. Could she live being truly and indelibly alone? Could anyone do that, much less a sixteen year old girl who had grown up in the slums and learnt to depend on the one person who was now gone? Asajj didn't know, but when the police gave her the option of emancipation versus the foster system, somehow the answer was more evident than ever. Did she want to face life alone...or go to live with complete strangers, people who would never understand her the way her mother had, people who had not worked so hard and so gruellingly for her as her mother had? The very choice seemed to Asajj an insult to the memory of her mother. The prospect that someone could possibly replace her. Asajj chose life alone.
Two years have passed. Asajj, just as before, rebuilt herself and forged onwards, locking her sorrow away, dealing with it the only way she could, the only way she knew how--in silence. The apartment her mother once worked so hard to achieve for them both is now occupied by Asajj alone. She has not forgotten the pain--merely subsumed it, pushed it down and submerged it by refusing to think too much of it. If she avoids the memories, she can avoid the residual pain and sorrow, and she can maintain her amiable demeanour. When it became too much pressure to keep the hurt away, she fell to the thing that had overwhelmed and killed her mother--heroin. And she began to use it as comfort. The drug worked at the cost of her independence from the drug, as she began to rely on it more and more to dispel pain and sorrow. And yet she returns to this new school year putting on the same friendly, good-natured smile, the same kindly aire, even as she enters her final year of high school with no idea of what she might do with her life afterwards.
But things are different this time. Something's not right in Makenzie. It's only been a week--and yet rumours of someone named 'A' are being tossed around. Talk that A contacts people through text message threatening to unveil every secret they have--Asajj has no idea of this, being that she doesn't own a cell phone (it's rather redundant when you can't talk and don't even have anyone to talk to in the first place). And talk that 'A' was at the heart of the arson that had occurred--the cause of someone being nearly drowned, the one responsible for the chilling graffiti that had taken place not a few days ago. Asajj doesn't know who A is, but she does know when things are getting out of control and going too far. A has to be found and stopped...before someone ends up indelibly hurt by their rampage.
Other:
She is fluent in Turkish--well obviously, she can no longer speak Turkish, but she can still understand, read, and write it. Also, she doesn't have a cell phone. It's hard enough paying the bills for her own home and daily essentials without paying for what is essentially a talking device for someone who can't talk :v
Average Post Length:
I average about a thousand words if I've been given good posts to work with. If not, that number can drop. :v