cage of light & rage.

@crime-scened

For as long as she could remember, Vanessa had always struggled at keeping up with the chaos going on around her. She’d gotten an early start on blending into the background and people-watching, and had made something of a habit of it. It wasn’t to say that Vanessa preferred isolation -- it was quite the contrary, in fact -- but it was just the easiest way for her to observe and learn. If she could watch long enough, she could figure out the proper way to inhabit herself and act -- she could make it through the day-to-day, and she could do well. It was how she made it through the duration of her life, and she’d managed to do that more often than not with flying colors. But there were still moments where she was ill-prepared, and that lack of schooling was evidenced by the way the world seemed to suddenly stand still. 

When things had changed from chicken pox to something else, the world had seemed to shift. The news seemed to become a great deal graver. The videos being posted online started to become a lot more believable. When rumors hit the papers that there were places down south where the military was moving in -- establishing a kind of martial law -- it hadn’t seemed impossible. Vanessa’s parents, ever the worriers, had begged that she come home. It was only after several weeks of their insistence that she at last relented. She packed her bags reluctantly, booked her flight, and spent half an hour crowded outside her neighbor’s apartment asking him to consider coming out west. She’d never been very good at saying goodbye. 

As it turned out, she didn’t have to. 

She’d spent the better part of the day attempting to argue with the staff at LaGuardia, and then JFK, and then Newark (by phone). Amongst a sea of panicked and irate would-be passengers, her attempts to have her questions answered went on deaf ears. Everything was down. Nothing was flying out or in. All air travel was as good as CANCELLED. 

Struck with fear over the idea of being suddenly alone, Vanessa had raced back to her apartment building, tugging the same luggage she’d left with early that morning. It was nightfall when she returned, and she did not make for her own apartment, but instead made a beeline for Sean’s. She was shouting at him over her own knocks -- the wobbly note of her tone was suggestive of panic. 

“Nothing’s running -- the flights are all cancelled, the -- the...the trains are down and the subways are too, and the...the whole MTA seems to be calling it in...” She realized as she was saying it that there was more truth to her words than she had even initially noticed. Vanessa had not seen a single bus pulling down the city streets in her hurry back to the apartment -- she’d scarcely even seen the yellow or lime-green taxi cabs moving aggressively through traffic. “Are you there?”

There was NO ROOM for disappointment in the Alexandrov home. A family motto was if you’re not first, you’re last. Exceptionality was expected, and failure to comply resulted in punishment. Long and intense silent treatments were doled out frequently by the matriarch, while the Alexandrov patriarch believed in a sharp slap to the face to make his point. It was unsurprising to anyone who would bother to look that Ria grew up DISTANT AND ANGRY. A singular comfort in the home was the family’s maid and the mother of her half-brother, GLORIA CASTILLO.

Alcohol became a comfort in her young adolescence, and was chased quickly with colorful pills that promised a world away from the icy one she knew. REBELLION in her later teen years was marked by escapes to endless parties overflowing with alcohol and drugs. HEROIN became her habit of choice, and with it she fell away from the carefully-crafted role she’d inhabited within the family. She was sent away to attend a rehabilitation program: THE FAMILY CLAIMED SHE WAS STUDYING ABROAD.

This pattern of relapse and rehabilitation would go on through present day. In order to be MONITORED, she was given a do-nothing career within her father’s company, and an apartment under his name. EVERYTHING SHE HAD RESTED ON HER ABILITY TO PROJECT THE IMAGE DEMANDED OF HER.

PERSONALITY TRAITS: 

+ ➝ Adaptable, intelligent, tactful. 

+/- ➝ Aggressive, unpredictable, independent. 

 - ➝ Manipulative, faithless, weak-willed. 

Despite an essentially neurotypical development, Vanessa struggled socially. Her parents, though supportive, hoped to have their daughter adjust to their highly sociable life. Much of her childhood and adolescence was spent amongst psychologists in cognitive-behavioral therapy, social skills training therapy, and group counseling. Vanessa’s keen intellect and interest in science and technology further set her aside from her peers, though this did not bother her. With the encouragement of various therapists, her parents were supportive of her intense interests in the field of math and science. They worked tirelessly to afford tuition for an engineering-based high school, which later led to Vanessa gaining a scholarship to pursue mechanical engineering at the collegiate level. When she graduated, she worked for some time near home, but found that her employment did not challenge her as much as she wanted. She sent out a high volume of applications, and eventually heard back from a research team in Manhattan who wanted her to join their work. In the face of the protests of her family, who thought she would be more comfortable surrounded by familiarity, she left.

Though she remains uncomfortable in large social situations and occasionally struggles with social cues, she’s become good at FIGURING OUT WHAT PEOPLE WANT FROM HER. In reality, she just PREFERS THE QUIET. She occupies a small apartment across the hall from SEAN COBALT, who is one of few acquaintances she has made in Manhattan. While research is her main interest, she is additionally employed within a Manhattan-based construction company to do practical engineering work. 

PERSONALITY TRAITS:

+ ➝ Intellectual, kind, forthright.

+/- ➝ Introverted, determined, self-conscious. 

 - ➝ Unsociable, compulsive, reactive. 

@crime-scened

Despite a lifetime of being suffocated under her father’s thumb, the memories Ria seemed to be able to conjure up of Misha Alexandrov were few and far between. Admittedly, it was probably for the best. She’d thought little of the man since the world had gone to shit, outside of the occasional wonder if he -- along with the rest of her small family -- were alive, dead, or something else. 

Of the few memories she held onto, the particular image of her father looking irate came to mind -- likely due to the fact that it was an expression he often took with her. Accompanying the somber, disapproving glare was a muttered expletive in his mother language: ёб твою мать. Fuck your mother. It had never been intended as an insult onto Daria, but had rather seemed to be his favored statement to explode with whenever something in his life didn’t fall perfectly into line. Ria had made a lifetime out of not falling perfectly into place for her father. 

She’d never felt like she could empathize with the statement before. 

A month back, she and Erik had hit it big at one of the seedy little pharmacies hiding in Chinatown. When things had been normal, she’d known it to be a reliable spot to score when she needed to get out of the Upper West Side. Even with the dead up and walking, that proved to stay the same -- and they’d come away with real medicine, and a backpack stuffed full of suboxone that Ria had promised would hold her over while she weaned herself off the drugs. If I get dope-sick, I’ll slow us down, she’d explained, and if I get fucked up, I’ll slow us down. This’ll keep me even. 

There were a lot of moments in her life where she wished she could go back and smack herself, but grabbing that bag of subs was definitely a top-five moment. 

Ria had heard about suboxone at the score of rehabs, inpatients, outpatients, and retreats she’d been sent to over the years. She’d been told over and over that it was no better than dope itself -- and that the withdrawal from it was worse than anything heroin did to you. She’d chosen not to believe it. She’d also chosen to go beyond the prescribed dosage routinely over the past month. She didn’t think Erik would notice -- being high had become so much a lifestyle that she couldn’t see much of a difference between who she was high and who she was sober -- and she didn’t think it would matter. The city was overrun, and their days were numbered. But when she was out and the withdrawal started to hit, she was reminded of the fact that she was still very much alive -- and suffering. Her father’s favored saying had come to her then, as her head was bowed over a toilet bowl that no longer had functional plumbing, and she vomited bile for the third time that morning. 

“ёб твою мать.”

Their tenure in the small apartment in the lower east side had been intended as an overnight thing -- but the last twelve hours had brought on the worst of the first wave of withdrawal, and Ria had been in a state of shakes and cramps, plagued with unending nausea on an empty stomach, and reduced with a pounding headache. She'd tried to hide the beginning of it from Erik, and had hoped to push it off by suggesting that they seek out a new pharmacy to hit, on the excuse of needing to stock up before everything was cleaned out. She’d stopped trying to hide it sometime in the last eight hours. From where she was now -- slumped against the bathroom wall and shivering despite the sheen of sweat on her brow -- faking it seemed pretty fucking stupid. Hindsight was 20/20.

Reaching with her foot, Ria kicked at the bathroom door. It creaked open, and she cast a glance into the adjoining room, seeking out Erik. Her eyes never quite met his, but tended to fall just south -- a cheek, nose, or chin was easier to make contact with. There was less shame. 

“I need water,” she uttered hoarsely. “I can move soon. Half an hour, maybe.”