User Profile

Name: Evan Michael Wallace. He tends to avoid revealing his middle name.
Age: 17
Profession: Technically, none. Runaway in search of his mother doesn’t exactly have job applications. Before that? He worked at a comic store.
Appearance: Evan is a slim boy. He does have muscles, hard and wiry, like a gymnast or a swimmer. He has two piercings in his left earlobe. His blonde hair is short and often left messy, rarely knowing the touch of a comb. There’s usually some stubble on his chin, enough for a sort of rough and rugged look, but not enough that it could truly be called a beard. His skin is pale, and his eyes are hazel. He keeps himself in fairly good shape. His clothing of choice tends to be loose, baggy things. A slightly worn gray No Fear hoodie with a skull on the front goes with him everywhere, as do his steel-toed boots. He usually wears a small choker with a pentagram charm on it, for no real reason beyond he thinks it looks cool. Other than that, he tends to go for cargo pants and shorts (he has a thing for having lots of pockets to put stuff in) and loose t-shirts and sleeveless shirts. He has a small collection of hats, a few of which he took with him when he left home. One black knit beanie, slightly worn, and one dark fedora, also slightly worn. His only other clothing to speak of would be his backpack, where he keeps one or two spare shirts and whatever hat he’s not using.
Personality: Evan is a very strange young man. He’s very quiet and thoughtful, assessing the pros and cons of a given course of action before deciding on anything. He believes in planning ahead and tries to do it whenever possible, although he’s not so obsessed that he’ll lose his head if he has to fly by the seat of his pants. He tends to be rather protective and caring, but tries to keep people at a distance when it comes to letting them get to know him. He’s not really rude or standoffish, he just seems somehow distant and detached, yet can also seem to be one of the most caring and understanding people you’ll meet. He likes to help people and is practically obsessed with superhero comics. He even wants to create one some day.

He beats himself up over things, often terribly. While he doesn’t do physical harm to himself (with the exception of occasionally bareknuckling a punching bag until his knuckles are raw) he always takes what he perceives as a failure to help someone very hard. His priorities have always seemed to be slightly askew. He slacked in school, but is actually fairly smart. He just didn’t give a damn whether some teacher thought he was or not. As long as he’s happy with himself, he thinks he doesn’t need anyone else’s approval. The thing is, he’s really not happy with himself. He’s not sure why, he’s just always had low self-esteem. He wasn’t teased or bullied in school (in fact, he had quite a few friends) and whenever he’s really put his mind to something, he’s been successful. He’s been to multiple therapists and been on multiple medications, even once going so far as to try faith healing, even though he has no real faith himself. He describes himself as a polytheist with atheist tendencies, and doesn’t like being tied down to a single belief structure.

He enjoys philosophy, even if he hasn’t read many books on the subject. He’s just one of those people that can be perfectly content sitting around with his iPod playing, thinking deep thoughts about the nature of reality and the universe. He believes in the supernatural, although he’s only ever had first hand experience with it once, something he never, ever talks about. Partially because he just can’t, and partially because he doesn’t understand it enough to even really begin explaining.

He has a fear of the dark. Not the kind of dark you experience when you’re taking a walk at night with your friends. There are moonlight and streetlights and neon signs and all sorts of other light sources there to keep it from being really dark. His fear of the dark is more specific. In his own words, "I'm talking about real dark. The kind of dark where you're five years old and you wake up and it's pitch black and there's something shaking you and you know, you just know, that it's a monster, and you're ready to do anything you have to do to get the fuck away. The kind of dark where your father tells you it's a power outage and now you know it's him but for just a second, just a fraction of a second when an errant thought flits by like Wally West at top speed, you wonder if there's anything different from what you thought it was. The kind of dark that eats your soul." That’s what he’s afraid of. He becomes nearly nonfunctional in that kind of dark. He brings a flashlight with him everywhere he goes, just in case. He also has a zippo lighter he could use in a pinch, although this is more for his cigarettes than for use as a light source.

Don’t mention his father. Seriously. They’ve never had a good relationship. Dad was always a hard case, the kind of dad that forced his son to play football so he could relive his own glory days, even though Evan really didn’t like the sport. Dad was never neglectful, but Evan often wishes that he was, so that they never would’ve had to interact. The old man just can’t understand Evan, and that’s fine, lots of people don’t understand Evan. Hell, Evan doesn’t really understand Evan sometimes. The thing about his father is that he doesn’t even attempt to be understanding. He’s selfish, arrogant, overly strict (Evan was out past curfew by ten minutes, and was grounded for the next ten weeks, for instance) and absolutely hates to be questioned. Evan’s father is the type of man that always thinks he’s right, and God help you if you try to disagree with him. He even tried to pick Evan’s girlfriends out for him, and always got very angry when Evan rejected them. They have no contact now, and Evan is all the happier for it.
Likes: Cigarettes, skateboarding, planning ahead, comics (specifically superhero comics, though to a lesser extent comics in general) a little basketball (purely no-rules streetball) and helping others.
Dislikes: He’s not sure whether the dark or his father would rank as number one on his list of dislikes, but whichever one wasn’t number one would be number two. He finds it hard to understand people who can’t sympathize with others, and this can often cause difficulties in interacting with people like that. He hates failing someone and will go to any lengths (even sometimes reckless ones) to make sure he doesn’t.
Skills: Creative thinking is definitely a big one. He’s usually able to think “outside the box” when he has to. He’s able to use his skateboard about as well as a casual skater; that is, he can’t pull any big tricks without falling on his ass, but small stuff and staying on the board he can do. He’s never fired a gun before (unless those recoil-guns on Time Crisis 2 machines count) but he has had some self-defense courses. He’s no Bruce Lee, but he can handle himself in a fistfight. Swords are beyond him, as are knives, but he can wield a mean blunt instrument.
History: Evan Michael Wallace was born in New Jersey, but his father uprooted him and moved to Brahms when he was five. No real explanation was offered, and it was a very sudden move. Evan’s always considered it somewhat suspicious, but has nothing to back up his suspicions. His fear of the dark also chose this time to pop up to say hello, as did his nearly obsessive attraction to superhero comics. He began coming up with stories using his action figures (memorable is the epic quest of Luke Skywalker, Egon Spengler, Donatello from the Ninja Turtles, and the Terminator to defeat a roaring Godzilla) and often drew stories as well. He wasn’t necessarily a natural artist, but through constant practice has become pretty good at sketching. When he had grasped writing, he began to write stories without pictures, although he never gave up his love of sketching.

He was a fairly shy little boy. He always seemed afraid to get too close to people, and tended to shy away from physical contact with others. As he grew this shyness faded, becoming instead a one-way detachment that he uses to keep people from getting too close to him. His relationship with his father began to deteriorate almost immediately after the move, and as he grew into a teenager it became so strained that when they did interact, it was usually to have an argument that often ended up becoming epic in scale. The neighbors have more than a few stories to tell about such arguments, as they were often loud enough to hear several houses over.

Evan never had a mother. His father never really mentions her, and Evan has no memory of her. The only thing is that he does have this one nursery rhyme stuck in his head, and he’s not sure where he heard it. Gods know his father never sang it to him. When he concentrates hard enough on it, he can hear a sweet, vaguely feminine voice singing it to him, very faintly. This rhyme never fails to soothe him even in the worst times, and on those occasions where he gets caught in the dark, he often hums it to himself or even mumbles it softly to try and keep from completely breaking down. This nursery rhyme isn’t unusual in any way. In fact, it’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. A song mothers often sing to their children at bedtime…

He started smoking at a young age. He’s not quite a chain smoker, but he’s close. He’s rarely ever without a pack of cigarettes. His smoking is the worst when he’s stressed out or frightened, and he claims that the cigarettes help calm his nerves. Whether this is the truth or just an excuse for him to continue his nicotine addiction, no one (even Evan himself) knows.

Recently, he received a strange postcard in the mail. It was from Silent Hill, and on the back it read simply, “Mommy needs you, dear,” followed by the first few verses of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. When he questioned his father about it, they had a huge argument, and that was the absolute final straw for Evan. That night he packed up a few essentials and hit the road, skating and occasionally hitching towards Silent Hill. His father didn’t outright deny that this could be from his mother, so he figures that maybe, just maybe, the woman that gave birth to him is actually in that town somewhere. He knows it’s a slim chance, but right now it’s the only lead he has.

The truth is that this life is, partially, a lie.

Evan had a mother. She gave birth to him and, for the first five years of life, took care of him and loved him the way a truly good mother should. He loved her and depended on her for so much, since his father rarely showed him any affection. Evan was an unplanned child, conceived completely by accident soon after Michael and Ashley Wallace were married. Michael wanted Evan aborted, or at least put up for adoption, but Ashley would hear none of it. Michael did love her, so he stuck around, but this decision constantly ate away at him, and over time, their relationship went very sour. They often argued, sometimes over important things and sometimes over small little trivial things. The couple was headed for an early divorce.

Then, when Evan was five, they had the big power outage. It was pitch black when he woke up. He was terrified, as most five year olds would be in that kind of pure darkness. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his parents arguing downstairs, and it gave him enough of a focus to slowly make his way out of his room and down the stairs. He was so quiet, knowing that neither parent liked to be interrupted in the middle of an argument, that they didn’t even hear him. Maybe if they had, things would’ve been different.

Evan’s father was a selfish man. So in this argument, when Ashley began throwing around words like “divorce” he became fearful that he would lose his property and belongings to her. Without thinking, he struck her hard in the face, sending her to the ground and splitting her lip. Evan arrived just in time to see this act and was frozen in absolute utter horror. The two parents stared at each other for a moment, and then Ashley growled that she was calling the police. His father, even more fearful now, struck her again. And again. And again. Until, finally, she stopped moving.

Evan was speechless. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. His throat was too tight for him to make a single sound. He just stood there in abject horror, even as his father turned and saw him standing there. His father quietly ushered him back to bed and left without saying a word, locking the door (from the outside) behind him. Evan was too shocked to get back to sleep, but he had “checked out” so to speak, so while he heard the sound of a garbage bag ruffling downstairs, of the door opening and slamming, of the family car speeding away, he didn’t truly register them. He didn’t register when he heard the car come back up the driveway hours later, near dawn, and he didn’t register the sound of his father unlocking the door before going to his own bedroom. Finally, the shock wore off enough for Evan to curl up into a tiny little ball and cry himself to sleep.

When he woke up, all memory of his mother was gone. As far as he could remember, his father had been raising him alone. The incident was just too traumatic for Evan to accept, and his mind responded by blocking it out. Since having any memories of his mother could lead to questions that would unearth the event, his mind just completely erased it all. But it couldn’t quite get everything. A fragment of a memory remained in the form of a soothing nursery rhyme…

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