#helltownfmsintro

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BASICS ;

FULL NAME. sadie josephine knight

AGE + DOB. 25 & january 3rd

GENDER. trans woman

PRONOUNS. she / her

ORIENTATION. bisexual

NATIONALITY. american

OCCUPATION. waitress

BIRTHPLACE. edmond, oklahoma

CURRENT HOME. the settlement

INQUIRIES ;

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

she’d lost all sense of direction at some point during wandering around trying to find help. the only thing keeping her legs going was her sister holding most of her weight up. when they got into town, the twins were momentarily separated which caused sadie to go into hysterics but were quickly reunited once people were sure they weren’t seriously injured. 

most of the day was a blur, minus the heavy emphasis on how curfew was a non negotiable. that stuck with her as the twins were left alone.

not a word was said as sadie climbed into her sister’s bed. the pair clung to each other through the night and just… waited for morning to come. 

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

at first, the twins lived in the communal house as they healed from their injuries. sadie started experiencing symptoms of withdrawal during the first few days, and started lashing out at everyone and anyone – but especially her sister. 

every night it seemed like sadie was picking fights with violet. once she found a new source to take the edge of (maybe not) existing off, violet had had enough and decided that she was moving into town, whether sadie liked it or not.

the same day violet left for her new apartment, sadie headed for the settlement.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

it all happened so fast. 

sadie had stolen their parents car keys (with no clear idea of where she was going) and violet knew her sister was in no condition to drive and couldn’t just let her go on her own — the twins were near screeching at each other before they’d even reached the stop sign.

sadie barely remembers what was sad, but she remembers just how sad her sister looked from the driver’s seat. she remembers it making her sad. she knew she didn’t act like it.

she was pounding her fist against the dashboard when they hit an ice patch.

the world went dark, but she could hear violet. it felt like nothing at all happened, but everything hurt. they were hurt, but alive. the car was a wreck, so the girls leaned on each other as they tried to find their way back home. they never did.

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape?

arcadia, for what it’s worth, is fine. at least, sadie thinks so. she didn’t have much going on before — a crippling drug addiction, parents who she was convinced hated her, a couple constantly on-again-off-again boyfriends that didn’t bring her any kind of joy. it isn’t much to want to come back to.

arcadia also feels like just punishment for what she’s taken from her sister. she was a person destined to become somebody. she was so much more than sadie could ever dream of being.

file info.

BIRTH NAME: Seraphine Fallacia NICKNAMES: Sera GENDER: Cis woman, she/her BIRTHDATE: April 9th, 1994 AGE: 30 BIRTHPLACE: Savoy, Massachusetts, USA RESIDENCY: Settlement, Arcadia/Hell Town OCCUPATION: Scavenger SEXUALITY: Bisexual RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

a broken life.

Born in a religious town, where outsiders were strangely looked upon and most definitely not welcome, Seraphine was considered the miracle of miracles. She was raised by multiple women. Her biological mother didn't survive the home birth, or that was what she'd always been told. Little did she know about the ritualistic shit they were actually up to behind closed doors. Sometimes the little girl got a glimpse of dark robes, burning torches and the faint chanting she could see or hear when she definitely wasn't supposed to. The consequences that hung to her disobedient behavior were ruthless. The belt's silver carved scars in her young skin, a punishment that went further with each year that passed. When she reached her teenage years, the town priest took a liking to her that scarred her mind deeper. Seraphine knew no defense, she'd learned to always just take and take. There was no social media existing in town, she was kept away from TVs and radios. As far as Seraphine knew, there was no world out there, only this town existed.

Until one day Seraphine found herself at the edge of the woods and bumped into a girl she'd never seen before. Covered in blood, she'd strongly gripped Seraphine by the shoulders and yelled at her to run away. To get as far away from here. With widened eyes and fear running through her body, Seraphine hadn't been able to reply, she'd been too stunned to do anything. Within seconds, the girl's body had been ripped away from her by the town people, pinned to the ground and Seraphine had been led away from the horror. For hours, she'd still hear the blood gurgling screams coming from the girl when she'd been captured. They echoed inside her skull. Told her to run away, told her to get as far away from this town as possible. Completely naive, she'd packed the scarce resources she owned and tried to make a run for it in the dark of night. Only to be knocked unconscious with a beating to her temple by the town priest himself.

When the town many moons later got infiltrated by unwelcome detectives, investigating an ongoing case of a missing girl from a town not too much further away from Savoy, Seraphine took that as her opportunity to flee town for good. In broad daylight she'd planned her escape. During mass, with the whole town and even the detectives attending, Seraphine held a kitchen knife hidden in her sleeve as she made her way up to the pulpit and dug her knife deep into his neck. Her way of escaping town was in the back of a cop car. Never to be seen again in town.

In the big city Seraphine's attack had been ruled as self-defense and was diagnosed as too unstable to participate in society after the many therapist sessions she'd been through. For the public's, and mostly her own, safety she was sent to a mental hospital to work on her psyche. Years passed by where Seraphine still didn't seem to improve from the torture she'd been through as a child. She suffered from blackouts, from episodes so severe she had to be sedated for. She lashed out, saw things or people that weren't there, her moodswings couldn't be fathomed.

A new therapist came into the ward that slowly grasped Seraphine's attention. Someone that managed to work their way into her brain and, just like the town priest, she found someone else to listen to. Someone that managed to drown the priest out inside her skull, someone that became her newest obsession, someone she would do anything for. And they took advantage of that. Another unhealthy relationship formed where, this time, Seraphine somewhat actually knew what she got herself into. She couldn't live without following someone, without surrendering herself completely to a leader.

Yet, that wasn't the only pattern that consistently followed in Seraphine's life. Another itch of escaping this place needed to be scratched. After years of observing the guards' shifts, the keys they used to access exits, the way she had mapped the building in her mind throughout glimpses she's had before, the way she was good with her hands, Seraphine laid out a plan to execute when the security would be weakest at night. Easier said than done, adrenaline had coursed through her veins the entire time, from her bedroom to when she exited to fill her lungs with fresh air out in the back alley. Little did she know, she hadn't been the only one there. A crack to the back of her head followed.

Waking up on the backseat of a car, she noticed by how trees passed the car was in motion. Behind the wheel, her therapist she once adored. Triggered by her past, she went into another episode where she got a hold of the driver's seatbelt and wrapped it around their neck to choke them as hard as she could. They both fought for their lives in that moment, somehow they escaped her grip and turned to the backseat to launch at her. They had been foolish enough not to search Seraphine and take away the pocket knife she'd snatched from a dozed off guard back at the ward. In a moment of adrenaline, Seraphine had reached for the knife in her back pocket and aimed for their neck. Not realizing the consequences, it was at the last second she saw the car leaving the road through the windshield and gravity stopped existing, even for a moment. She had no idea how much time had passed when voices brought her back to consciousness and helped her out the flipped car, into a town unfamiliar to the blonde.

inquiries.

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where? Covered in blood and laughing hysterically, there was no way to reason with Seraphine. For the town's safety, she'd been put behind bars in the sheriff's station. Though the jail remained unlocked, Seraphine had been too caught up in her own thoughts and ramblings to herself to even notice. The craziness happening outside the building during the night completely went past the blonde.

Why did your muse choose to live where they do? As of right now Seraphine doesn't have a residency yet - eventually this will be the settlement when the town doesn't scratch her itch enough. Seraphine has always been the submissive kind - one that needs a leader to tell her what to do and the settlement will do just that.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree? Fighting for her life to get away from the one who took control of her life - ending up in a bad car accident because of it.

➷ BASIC;

FULL NAME: leandro contreras AGE: fourty6 BIRTHDATE: apr 9 ZODIAC: aries PLACE OF BIRTH: chicago, il ETHNICITY: chilean GENDER: cis male PRONOUNS: him/he SEXUAL ORIENTATION: straight (as a circle) OCCUPATION: pastor LANGUAGES SPOKEN: english, spanish

➷ PHYSICAL;

HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: 170 lbs EYES: dark brown HAIR: dark brown BUILD: tone TATTOOS: n/a. PIERCINGS: n/a.

➷ HEADCANONS;

↪ His wife gave birth in Arcadia to his second child Juan Diego around two months after arriving ↪ Sol, Leandro's wife, was beckoned out by one of Them one night and was killed. Her remains were found the next morning outside of the church doors by him ↪ After his wife's death, Leandro began to struggle with his own religion and while he still to this day offers support and prayers, silently his belief is deteriorating ↪ Aside from helping and maintaining the church, Leandro aids with the farm animals ↪ He's always had a fascination with insects ↪ Is an avid fisherman and smokes all fish caught in order to preserve them for longevity

➷ BEFORE;

Leandro was born to an immigrant mother who sailed across the Pacific in order to better herself and her family. Leondra came from a low income family and at the age of sixteen had gained access to an illegal ship on route to the United States. The trip was a dangerous one and there was no guarantee that she, or anyone else for that matter, would make it before being spotted by customs or police but against all odds she successfully made the trip. 

Upon arriving to this foreign land, Leondra’s crew were taken to a house where they could remain as long as they could afford their stay. This of course came with its own challenges, and soon the teenager made her way out onto the street in search of well paying jobs willing to pay under the table. Whether it was cleaning homes, breaking down boxes at bodega’s, and during hard times even selling back bottles and cans gathered from trash and dumpsters. There wasn’t a job Leondra wasn’t willing to do in order to better herself and potentially send money back home to her parents. 

Being illegal in the country meant that she needed to evade police attention whenever possible, but as long as she kept to herself she knew she would be alright. Three years into her new life Leondra started seeing some guy and ended up pregnant. The news was shocking to say the least, but having to raise her kid on her own and with no money proved to be her real struggle. Leandra had barely managed to afford renting a room in someone’s home and keeping food coming in at least once a day, but come his third birthday Leandro’s mother made the decision to leave him at a church’s doorsteps. Confident that they would take care of him. 

Most of Leandro’s early life consisted of going to school, coming home to play in the backyard, and doing it all over again until he aged out of the school system. His foster family didn’t bother taking the children out very much except for church during some holidays and it made sense why as they fostered a good ten to twelve at any given moment. There was never any sense of privacy, so Lea learned to hold in a lot of his emotions and temperament. 

During high school Leandro became more involved with friends and soon began to live life more freely. He had no money to use but he followed around his friends and offered to help out in whatever way he could just so he wouldn’t be stuck at home.

In order to keep up with the kids around his age, Leandro applied to any job hiring a 14-15 year old kid and soon he was picking up trash around a church for a quick weekend buck. It wasn’t fun by any means, but gave him enough money to get by. Throughout his time there he became super close with the pastor’s daughter and the two began secretly dating. Leandro and Sol Maria’s relationship was as tame as it could ever be. They would sit besides one another during service, then run off to pick flowers and study the bible beneath a tree in the yard. He hadn’t been religious until that moment.

It took a good two years before he asked for her father’s blessing and hand in marriage - Leandro was barely seventeen at the time but in that little time they knew each other he had decided he belonged to her. That she was his future. Of course the parents didn’t approve but instead of discouraging and shutting down his approach, her father offered him a plan of action.

The next couple of years, Leandro spent them learning and bettering himself for the church. Welcoming all knowledge new and old so that he could follow in God’s grace and be a faithful follower. During this time a lot changed in Leandro’s life; He graduated high school and attended college, he and Sol became public and moved in together - much to her father’s dismay - and he became a youth pastor at the church. It wasn’t long before he and Sol married with her family’s blessing although it wasn’t as if they left them with much of an option after moving in together. 

They were able to put off having kids for years while focusing on their relationship, their faith, and becoming financially stable. The year they paid off their home their first born Guadalupe, or Lupita as they call her, was born. It came without question that their daughter then became the center of their world.

Four years later they became pregnant once more. A child who they had already planned on naming Juan Diego, but before the child was born - while on a camping trip - Leandro and his family came across a fallen tree on the road.

➷ QUESTIONAIRE;

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

After hours of driving with no place to go, Leandro and his wife gathered their then five year old daughter Lupita and took shelter in the diner. They didn’t have the first of what was going on, and while others attempted to explain, there was no way that Leandro could simply accept the oddities spewed. His family being in danger was the farthest thing from okay, and while he knew they always had God on their side, Leandro was scared. The night only seemed to bring more devastation to his innocent family. His wife - close to 8 months pregnant - was almost impossible to console. For whatever reason his daughter was holding things together better than the two of them combined. 

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

After accepting the very bazaar reality around them, Leandro and his wife chose to live in the church so they could provide the town with some form of comfort in light of everything happening. They had spent their entire lives following the bible, and in trying times like these, He was the only one who could provide a shred of peace. Even if the world around them crumbled slowly, day by day. They had each other, and they had their faith, and together they would get through these dark times. 

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

Every summer, Leandro takes his family on a round trip around the states. They bought an RV and remodeled it to accommodate extended living to avoid having to spend extra money on hotels. They had been traveling between states, getting ready to visit Niagara Falls, when they stumbled across a tree on the road. Leandro wasn’t sure how it’d cracked in such a way, as the weather hadn’t been too intense, but moving it out of the way had proved to be impossible. So he went around it, and found himself unable to get back on the road. That’s when he came across the diner. 

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape?

One of the many things that Leandro prayed for was his family. His wife, his daughter, and their unborn son. He had aged out of the foster care system, so while he was devastated to be stuck in a town like this, Leandro had the people who meant everything to him right by his side. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, he wasn’t quite sure yet. They left behind an entire congregation of dedicated worshippers back home. A church he had called home since the age of fourteen, and his wife’s family. 

file info.

BIRTH NAME: Dr Ariadne Fernsby

NICKNAMES: Ari, Fernsby 2

GENDER: Cis woman, she/her

BIRTHDATE: July 27th, 1982

AGE: 42

BIRTHPLACE: North Yorkshire, England

HOMETOWN: Fort Carson, Colorado, USA

RESIDENCY: The Clinic, Arcadia/Hell Town

OCCUPATION: Medic

SEXUALITY: Lesbian

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Married. Widowed

early ages.

it was quite clear from the beginning what charles lewis expected of his daughter. the patriotism of war had been ingrained in the blood of the lewis’for generations and he’d be damned if his only child ruined that. maybe if his wife, valentina had lived beyond her daughter’s birth that he wouldn’t have been so cold. maybe he would have been able to look at her properly and see his child instead of another future soldier.

unfortunately, this was not the case as valentina had indeed passed away after giving birth to ariadne. as an adult, she would meet those who knew her father before hand and almost every single one them told her that valentina’s death broke him, that he’d never been the same since. even so, having a father would have been nice. that was not her fate and as she spent her childhood bouncing around from military base to military base (hence the move from england back to her father's home in US when she was a child), she learnt to cope. she lost herself in books, taking her to worlds she had never dreamed of and music, which filled the often silent home. 

growing up, there was never in doubt as to what she would do with her life. the moment she hit eighteen and graduated school, she’d be signing up for the military, just like her dad did and his dad before him and his dad before that. if she had siblings, maybe he wouldn’t have expected so much of her but there was no one else. as a teenager, she dared to dream that he might let her do something else. maybe study literature or become a translator, something that wasn’t war. that was not to be the case.

18 and up.

as soon as she was eighteen and graduated, ariadne enlisted into the army, much to her dismay. in an uncharacteristic moment of kindness however, charles allowed his child to enlist as a combat medic and not a soldier. if ariadne had her way, she wouldn’t have enlisted at all but at least she wouldn’t be the one charged with committing the violence herself.

upon starting training, the oddest thing occurred. ariadne woke up one day and realised that she no longer belonged to charles. instead, she belonged to the army now and for some reason, that didn’t feel as bad. 

as expected with a brain like hers (plus having been raised by a major general), she blitzed through training and somewhere along the line, the army became her home. not to say that it was all sunshine and rainbows. ari’s eclectic nature had a habit of giving people the first impression that she either didn’t know what she was doing or didn’t take it seriously. neither of these things were true of course but people will always be people and people will always judge.

ari made the best of her life. she might have been in a career she didn’t choose but at least she got to help people and at least she was good (read: excellent) at it. she could still be considered a bit of an oddball among her peers but at least they had her back. she was content. Vaguely.

up until the age of twenty-six, ari’s life continued in much the same fashion, making the best out of a vaguely shitty situation. that was until she met emery. oh, emery. when she was first transferred to emery’s team, she was less than pleased. emery was the exact type of person that ari never got along with. however, one round of forced companionship on mission later and a what felt like an age’s worth of lesbian yearning later, and emery and ariadne were inseparable.

ari had never really known what it was like to be loved wholly. she sometimes found it quite difficult to both receive and express. but she got there. mostly. god knows emery was worth working through the childhood trauma (turns out that’s what that was) for.

by the time she was thirty-three, she raised through the ranks and found herself a sergeant and ready to go. charles had died in the few months previous and god knows it was time to let go of the expectations he had of her. it was time for her to do what she wanted, not what he wanted and she had made herself enjoy. two years later and it was finally time. she had just been honourably discharged and emery was next, there was just one more mission and that was it. emery and ariadne could disappear. 

that had been the plan at least. but then the worst happened. emery died. the one time ariadne wasn’t there and emery and her whole team died in an explosion. ariadne’s life ended that day. she might have thrown herself into the dream that had been a life in academia, getting her undergraduate degree, her masters and finally her phd in literature but none of it mattered really. not like it should have. not without emery.

hell town.

it was supposed to be a celebration roadtrip. a ‘finished your phd and officially have free time for the first time in years and also let’s ignore that you haven’t figured out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life’ type of roadtrip. see the sights. do all the cheesy things. however, like everything else in her life it seemed, that didn’t go to plan. she ended up in arcadia and it wasn’t until her first night that she realised oh this is not fucking normal. in the few days since she arrived, she has taken on a role she thought she had permanently left behind. that of a medic. after all, no one needed a doctor of literature in a place like this. what they needed was a medic so she shook off the dust on her skills and that is what she became.

INQUIRIES ;

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

the diner was supposed to be a mere stop off on her way to somewhere else but instead it was where she bore witness to the horrors of arcadia for the first time. it was where she hid when she realised there was something else, something she had never come across before. it was where she realised that for the second time in her life, the life she had created had just been ripped away.

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

being a medic, it made the most sense. it was the one familiar thing in this chaos of unfamiliar and as the voice of charles reminded her, it was where she was the most useful.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

she was on a road trip with no real goal in mind. she had put the closest touristy place in the gps and had given it no further thought. until her gps started messing around and she had to rely on her own (dodgy, despite the efforts of both the her father and the army) sense of direction. the tree had only caught her attention due to it’s similarity to a tree in a book she read. 

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape?

⸻lily-rose depp, twenty-five, cis-female, she / her ; ] … the photo on the missing poster is of MORRIGAN "MORGUE" SILVER. they are TWENTY-SIX, and have been missing for ONE MONTH IN ARCADIA. when the sun rises, they work as UNDECIDED / FORMER ROCK STAR. rumors in town say they can be ADDICTIVE and MAGNETIC. they chose to live in THE SETTLEMENT, and have an uncanny resemblance to Mia Wallace ( Pulp Fiction ), Nancy Downs ( The Craft ), Jesse Custer ( Preacher ), Emily "Junkie" Kaye ( The Heroin Diaries ), Selena Kyle ( Batman ), Peter Graham ( Hereditary ). can they survive another night ?…⸻ a specter of sound and sin, stitched together from cigarette smoke, stage lights, and the echoes of a scream that never quite left her throat; Smudged kohl eyes that hold the weight of forgotten prayers, lips split between a sneer and a plea, the rasp of her voice dragging like a blade against soft skin; Chaos draping itself over her like a second skin — fishnets torn at the knee, a crucifix swinging loose over bruised ribs, the scent of whiskey and regret lingering in the fabric of her existence.

INQUIRIES ;

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

You were supposed to be dead long before that night.

Maybe the first time should have been in that house of corpses, staring into the glazed-over eyes of the people who called themselves your family, their mouths frozen mid-prayer, their hands clasped in reverence as death claimed them. Or maybe in that motel bathroom, needle still lodged in your arm, staring at your own reflection like a specter waiting to fade. You’d lost count of the times you should have slipped through the cracks, how many nights you’d tempted the abyss just to see if it would bite back. And yet, there you were again. Somewhere between the world of the living and the dead.

The last thing you remembered was the rush of fluorescent lights overhead, the ambulance doors rattling in their hinges, voices too far away to belong to you. Hands pressing against your ribs, forcing breath back into your lungs, dragging you — kicking, screaming — out of the void. You hadn’t wanted to come back. Not really. But something always pulled you back from the edge, something cruel, something stubborn, something that refused to let you rest. The confusion came next. A blur of movement, voices pitched in panic, the sound of metal groaning, tires skidding against gravel. And then — nothing.

Blackness.

You thought you were dreaming. Thought maybe the overdose had finally done its job, that this was just another fevered hallucination, another unraveling of a mind too far gone. When the howls came — deep, guttural, hungry — you thought they were echoes from your past, the ghosts you never quite managed to outrun. You told yourself this isn’t real, told yourself it was just the drugs still playing tricks on your system. But when you woke, the nightmare hadn’t ended. Morning bled through the blinds of the clinic, carving sharp angles across the room, white walls too clean, too sterile, too still. A voice drifted in and out, saying things you weren’t ready to hear — you can’t leave, you’re stuck, this is your new reality. You sat there, silent, limbs draped over the too-thin mattress, the weight of it pressing against your chest like a curse. You didn’t belong here. Not in a town that wasn’t on any map, not in some purgatory where the rules bent and monsters howled in the dark. But the way they looked at you, the way they explained the rules with tired eyes and voices dulled by too many repetitions, made it clear — this wasn’t a joke, this wasn’t a nightmare you could sweat out.

And yet, shock didn’t break you. Because nothing ever did.

Or maybe it was the pills dissolving in your bloodstream, the ones you swiped from the cabinet when no one was looking, their bitter taste a familiar comfort against the ache creeping in. You weren’t ready to feel — not yet. So you let the drugs wrap their arms around you, let them dull the edges, keep you floating just above the surface of it all. You didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Didn’t beg for answers like the others probably did when they first arrived. You just sat there, tapping your fingers against the mattress like you were keeping time to a song only you could hear. Outside, the wind howled, and for the first time since waking up, you let yourself wonder if it was calling for you.

Because if there was one thing you knew for sure — the dark always came back for what belonged to it.

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

You chose the Settlement, though you wouldn’t call it home. There was something about it — the way the people moved, the way they spoke in murmurs thick with reverence, the way their hands curled in prayer beneath the shadow of that tree. It should have unsettled you. Maybe, at first, it did. The whispers, the blind devotion, the eerie hush that settled over the town when night fell.

But it wasn’t unfamiliar. Not to someone like you.

You had been raised under the weight of rituals, your childhood steeped in bloodstained doctrine and candlelit invocations, the air thick with incense and whispered oaths to something unseen. Your parents had worshiped, bowed, offered themselves up as sacrifices — and when their time came, when their bodies collapsed to the floor like puppets with cut strings, they had expected you to follow. You didn’t. Maybe that’s why you were still here. And maybe that’s why the Settlement felt like the only place that made sense. You understood these people. They believed in something bigger than themselves, something that held power over life and death, something that could give and take with the tilt of its unseen hand. They feared it, loved it, bled for it in equal measure.

You understood what it meant to exist under the thumb of something greater, something unknowable. And so, you stayed. Not because you believed. Not because you wanted to be one of them. But because — for the first time in a long time, something was calling you back. And this time, you were listening.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

You were dying in the back of the ambulance you came in on. The world had collapsed into a tunnel of flashing red lights, the siren a distant wail swallowed by the fog. Someone had been pressing against your chest, calling your name like it belonged to you, like it was something you should fight for. You remembered the sting of the needle, the rush of cold spreading through your veins as they tried to keep you tethered. But you had already been slipping. Slipping into something deeper. Something darker. The world outside the window was wrong — twisting, unraveling, the road curving where it shouldn’t. You thought it was the drugs. Thought maybe you had finally done it, finally tipped over the edge you’d been dancing on your whole damn life.

And then — impact.

The metal screamed. The world spun. A final breath punched from your lungs, and then — stillness. You didn’t know how long you had been unconscious. Minutes? Hours? Maybe you had never woken up at all. The back doors of the ambulance had been torn open, the stretcher tipped, IV lines still hanging like veins cut loose from a body that had been left behind. The paramedics were gone. The road? Gone. Nothing but trees. Nothing but mist curling through the branches, swallowing the last fragments of the world you used to know. And in the center of it all — the Tree.

It stood before you, ancient and gnarled, roots splitting the earth like veins, its branches stretching impossibly wide, dark, endless. The air around it pulsed, thick with something you couldn’t name, something that sank into your skin and pressed cold fingers against the inside of your skull. You should have run. Should have turned back, screamed, clawed your way away from whatever the hell this was. But you didn’t. You stumbled forward, bare feet dragging across the dirt, a weight in your chest that wasn’t entirely your own. It was calling to you. Not with words, not with sound, but with something deeper — something stitched into the marrow of your bones, something that had been waiting for you long before you ever set foot on this cursed ground. The Tree had seen you. And it knew you. You reached out, fingers brushing the rough bark —

And in that moment, you saw everything. Not in flashes, not in glimpses, but all at once. Blood in the dirt, soaking deep, feeding the roots. Faces carved from shadow, watching, waiting. The screams of those who came before you, the ones who tried to leave, the ones who never did. The cycle, the suffering, the way the town bent and twisted itself around this one, single point.

And at the very center of it all, yourself. Not as you were. Not as you had been. But as something else entirely. The past, the present, the nightmares clawing at the edges of your consciousness — it was all there. And for a single, terrible moment, you understood. Then the Tree let you go.

Your body collapsed to the dirt, the world spinning back into place, and when you gasped awake, the town was waiting. Your life before this? It had been borrowed time. And now, you were exactly where you were meant to be.

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape?

You left behind ashes and echoes, but nothing that would mourn you. No lovers tangled in the sheets of your absence. No family waiting by a phone that would never ring. No home beyond the motels and green rooms where you spent your nights, the places where you drowned in music, in vices, in the kind of oblivion that tasted like freedom but felt like chains. What was there to return to? A band that had already started to forget you, their lives moving forward while yours remained caught in the wreckage. A name scrawled in neon, flickering and dim, in venues where your voice once shook the walls. Unfinished songs, half-written lyrics smeared across hotel napkins and drugstore receipts — verses that bled with confessions you weren’t sober enough to say out loud.

You were always running. Running from the cold grip of the past, from the ghosts that sat heavy on your chest when the high wore off, from the memory of your mother’s vacant eyes staring back at you across a circle of corpses. Running from the fact that you were supposed to be one of them. You never asked to be saved.

➷ BASIC;

FULL NAME: joel liam thompson AGE: twenty9 BIRTHDATE: aug 21 ZODIAC: leo PLACE OF BIRTH: milwaukee, wi GENDER: cis male PRONOUNS: him/he SEXUAL ORIENTATION: undecided OCCUPATION: art teacher (before arcadia) LANGUAGES SPOKEN: english

➷ PHYSICAL;

HEIGHT: 6'2" EYES: hazel HAIR: dark brown BUILD: lean TATTOOS: his twin brother's initials on his collar PIERCINGS: n/a.

➷ HEADCANONS;

↪ has a passion for art unlike anything else ↪ would be found around drawing everyone they come in contact with or simply see around ↪ was found almost frozen to death in a hut on the outskirts of town. how he survived the storm? nobody knows. ↪ dayn's twin brother ↪ when he's not out finding things to paint on or with, Joel can be found at the diner helping out ↪ kindhearted. loves making people laugh, specially during trying times

➷ QUESTIONAIRE;

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

The entire night felt fake. Like one of those dreams where you’d wake up reaching for some imaginary wall to hold onto as the rest of your body fell into the void. Joel didn’t understand what was happening around him, and truly, how could he? Monsters that look like humans calling out into the night. Dressed as though they all came from different periods and different times. Joel did his best to stay quiet. Holding in his cries for help after noticing the wicked smiles returned when he did. It wasn’t possible was it? To be living and yet not. It wasn’t possible.  But he couldn’t explain it any other way. Was he dreaming? At first he ran. Unsure of where his feet would lead him, Joel ran through the thickening trees at max speed so that even the air around him felt warm in his wake. Doing his best to get as far away from them as he could. Something in their movement made his insides clench. After exhausting himself, he found an opening through some rocks and there he laid ‘til morn. 

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

It only took Joel a few days to come to terms with everything around him. After being found close to death near one of the outer huts, he was brought into the clinic to hydrate and get warm. There he was informed of the mayhem that surrounded them. He was well versed in the ways of the supernatural. He had watched a lot of television in his time. Felt as though he could get through it all or at the very least survive it. When nothing made sense, you had to find the things that did right?  To him that was logic.  If the monsters come out at night, then Joel should walk during the day. If the monsters could only hear where he rested, then his mission was to remain as silent as possible to get through throughout the night. Things seemed simple enough, until he found his brother. All his earlier bravado immediately plummeted into deep waters.  His mission, in turn, changed. He no longer merely had to survive, now he had to make sure Dayn and he both made it through this hell. When he learned the gas station was where his brother lived, he too packed the little belongings he had been able to carry and moved there with him. 

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

His intentions had never been to hurt his womb companion, but Joel had been curious and more than a little impulsive when he noticed the letter. Normally, he would have ignored it and tossed the crumbled piece of paper into the bin, but for some reason he uncurled it. At some point after noticing what the page was, he should have turned it away and not read it. Allowed his brother the privacy and respect that he deserved, but it’s been years of wonder. Years where Joel laid awake and tried to piece together the horrors that Dayn encountered.  While he slept Dayn must have come in - finding him with the letter - because when he awoke he was no longer there. Calls went unanswered, and then one call came through but Joel couldn’t hear his brother well. Hadn’t stopped to give him the time to speak either, as he’d been filled with nothing but guilt and regret. It took him a moment to realize Dayn seemed to be asking for help before their call came to a complete end.  Without bothering to reach out for help, Joel took his vehicle and drove to where Dayn said he’d gone to get his brother. Hours went by and Joel regretfully returned alone once more. Days went by and he found himself filing a missing person’s report with the police, though they offered no help. By the week’s end, Joel had given up hope of receiving their help and went back out on his own. He tried his best to remember the words Dayn spoke, the directions and landmarks he gave and before he knew it he came across a tree in the middle of the road.

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape?

His purpose had been only to get his brother and return home. That’s where their life was. Where their family and their friends were. His job… There wasn’t much that Joel left behind, but the little that he did he loved. His career was only temporary - an art teacher, he was - but his goals and dreams went beyond that. Slowly, Joel had been working on perfecting his craft in order to put his name out there. Become a local artist and be known for his creations and not some public sector employee. Already, he had an art gallery displaying his visions, and had found a small studio to call his own. It wasn’t much, and would have taken him a good three to four more years at his current salary, to afford, but the plans had slowly been coming to fruition. 

&GENERAL.

FULL NAME. reyna james hendrix DATE OF BIRTH. 12/11/1983 AGE. 41 ZODIAC. sagittarius GENDER. cis female PRONOUNS. she / her SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual OCCUPATION BEFORE. coroner / medical examiner CURRENT OCCUPATION. guard &BACKGROUND.

PLACE OF BIRTH. tacoma, washinton NATIONALITY. american PARENTS. lucinda, and alton hendrix SIBLINGS. none &PERSONALITY.

POSITIVE TRAITS. resourceful, self-sufficient, innovative, rational NEGATIVE TRAITS. isolated, stubborn, sarcastic, insomniac LIKES. matchsticks, warmth of bourbon, button up shirts, cup of coffee first thing in the morning, puzzles, comfort in silence, amber, pattering fresh rain. DISLIKES. arrogance, peanut butter, heated arguments, selfishness, piles of laundry, dry textures, crowded rooms, emotional confrontation

tw; death, pills, alcohol, car accident

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where?

Overwhelmed by emotion, Reyna set out on a drive with no destination in mind. It wasn’t supposed to take long—just enough to let her scream into the open air, windows down, as the rushing wind carried some of the weight from her chest. She found release in those moments, but the freedom she sought eluded her.

She kept driving, her hands tight on the wheel, until the daylight faded into twilight. Visibility slipped away, and when a tree was left covering the road, her reflexes betrayed her. She swerved too late, the car careening into the tree with a sickening crunch that left it beyond repair. Time blurred. Her phone was useless, offering no salvation, and she didn’t even know where she had ended up. Was she concussed? Lost?

There were no streetlights to guide her, but the crash hadn’t broken her resolve. Reyna crawled from the wreckage and started walking, her body aching, her thoughts a haze. She walked until her legs buckled, collapsing under her, and darkness consumed her.

When she awoke, she was lying on a tattered makeshift hospital bed…handcuffed. Her last clear memory was of glowing orbs in the distance…it couldn’t had been her father …? .. and the unmistakable sensation of being pulled—gripped by something, or someone—dragging her in another direction entirely….to safety?

Why did your muse choose to live where they do?

Reyna chose to make her home in the town's old cinema, a decision born of her fiercely independent nature. Naturally quiet and introspective, she had always been drawn to solitude. Even before her life in Arcadia, Reyna kept to herself, finding comfort in isolation. Her work in the hospital morgue had suited her perfectly—its chilled stillness mirroring her own detached existence.

The communal housing in Arcadia, while necessary for survival, gnawed at her sanity. The constant presence of others, the shared spaces, the unspoken need for connection—it was suffocating. After spending her first year in Arcadia shrouded in a deep blue fog of listlessness, curiosity and frustration drove her to explore, pushing the boundaries of what safety allowed.

The cinema offered the quiet she craved. Its black screen stood still and silent, a reflection of the stillness Reyna often wished she could find within herself. It also held a faint echo of warmth—a distant memory of the rare moments she felt connected to her mother during adolescence. Those memories, fragile but comforting, felt like a faint ember of belonging.

One night, Reyna discovered a forgotten living space above the worn-down theater. It was imperfect, a misfit shelter for a misfit soul, but it felt like hers. She settled in and never returned to the communal quarters, finding solace in the shadows of the cinema and the stillness it offered.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree?

A few days before Reyna’s emotional, aimless drive, her father had tragically passed away. Time had slowed to a crawl, each day colder and heavier than the last. Reyna had never been adept at articulating her emotions, and now, in the face of profound grief, the words seemed even more elusive.

Sleep evaded her, and though her mother had always been distant—her warmth dulled by an unsober haze—Reyna couldn’t help but yearn for her care. She held onto a fragile hope that, in a time as devastating as this, her mother might finally show some tenderness. But the coldness remained, sharp and unyielding. Her mother’s cruelty and neglect had shaped Reyna’s fear of showing emotion, leaving her unable to fully express the depths of her pain.

When her mother began to hurl irrational blame at her for her father’s death, something inside Reyna finally snapped. It was the breaking point. Without thinking, she fled to her car, her emotions an uncontrollable storm, and drove off into the night.

What followed was a blur—her family crumbling, her thoughts fractured by grief and anger, the crash, and then... the glow. She could barely recall the details: the jarring impact, the surreal orbs of light, and the strange, unyielding grip of an unseen hand. That night marked the end of everything she had known—and the beginning of something far more terrifying in the shadows of Arcadia.

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape? There was nothing to return to. With her father gone and her mother cold as ice, Reyna had little semblance of family left. The only connections she had were the faint bonds with a handful of coworkers, and even those were tenuous at best. Working in the hospital morgue, buried in the basement’s quiet stillness, didn’t leave much room for building lively relationships.

Intimate relationships had always been fleeting. The problem was always the same—when someone reached for tenderness and security, Reyna failed to meet them halfway. She struggled to communicate, to open up, leaving a shadow over her connections. Yet deep in her chest, she felt a warmth she could never bring herself to show—a warmth buried under fears of rejection, neglect, and loss. It was safer to keep her distance, but safety came at a price: isolation. And while she found solace in solitude, the loneliness crept in overtime.

Adapting to Arcadia was no easier. Her first year was consumed by grief, confusion, and an oppressive gloom. The second year came with fits of rage and frustration, emotions that eventually blossomed into a daring curiosity. By the third year, Reyna had stepped into the role of a guard, finding a new kind of strength within herself. Her resilience grew, though it didn’t erase the fear. She was courageous and sharp-witted, but still deeply unsettled by the mysteries of Arcadia and the lurking dangers it concealed.

Despite it all, Reyna had come to accept the strange, mind-bending life she had fallen into. It was far from the life she’d imagined, but she had learned to endure it. As sad as it might seem, acceptance had become her armor against the chaos.

&BIO.

&YOUTH.

Reyna grew up in Tacoma, Washington, wooded and lush. She was the only child of a complicated household. Her mother was an alcoholic, often distant or volatile, crushing up pills in private moments that Reyna quickly learned to pretend not to notice. As a child, Reyna was quiet and reserved, often mistaken for timidness, but inside, she harbored a deep yearning for adventure and freedom. The only tender moments shared with her mother was at a local theater. The space only rolled older films, but Reyna relished in them, and every so often she’d glance at her mother's face to see that always scowled unhappiness crack into something…almost warm for once. 

Reyna's father was her anchor—a gentle and steady presence. Together, they spent hours in the garage, their hands slick with oil as they tinkered with engines and old machines. Those moments were sacred, filled with shared laughter and heartfelt conversations that stretched late into the night by the light of a crackling campfire. Reyna's bond with her father was unshakable, but it often seemed to drive a wedge between her and her mother, who Reyna believed resented their closeness.

Reyna found solace in horseback riding, spending countless afternoons at the local stables. The rhythmic gallop of her horse and the wind against her face were her escapes, moments of pure freedom in an otherwise tumultuous childhood.

&CAREER. 

Reyna excelled academically, her precision and focus setting her apart as a top student. Though, friendships were few. She poured herself into her studies, immersing herself in science and anatomy, eventually finding her calling as a coroner / medical examiner. The work suited her meticulous nature, offering a sense of control.

Her career became her refuge, a space where she could thrive without needing to untangle the complexities of human relationships. Reyna’s closest connections were with her co-workers, forged over late nights and shared cases. Yet, even these relationships were tinged with a distance—Reyna struggled with expressing her emotions, her quiet thoughtfulness often mistaken for aloofness.

&INTIMACY.

Reyna’s bisexuality was something she accepted quietly, never feeling the need to make declarations. Her love life, however, was fraught with challenges. Each relationship followed a familiar pattern: a deep initial connection that faltered as her partners grew frustrated with her inability to communicate her feelings. Reyna wanted to be vulnerable, but the words often escaped her, leaving her partners to interpret her silences as indifference.

In truth, Reyna was warm and empathetic, but awkward when it came to navigating emotional waters. Her reserved nature masked a deep well of care and understanding, but she struggled to bridge the gap between her intentions and how others perceived her.

&NOW.

file info.

BIRTH NAME: Emery Charlene Fernsby NICKNAMES: Em, Fernsby, Sergeant GENDER: Cis woman, she/her BIRTHDATE: August 16th, 1980 AGE: 44 BIRTHPLACE: Selma, Alabama, USA HOMETOWN: Fort Carson, Colorado, USA RESIDENCY: Communal House, Arcadia/Hell Town OCCUPATION: Leader of Communal House SEXUALITY: Lesbian RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Married

early ages.

Born to Michael and Jane Fernsby, the couple hadn't counted on having a child. In fact, the pregnancy had been fairly unwanted. Yet, both raised religiously, they were very pro-life and took it upon themselves to raise a child. But taking care of a baby took a toll on them both, Jane suffered from postnatal depression and Michael took after his father's alcoholism problem. He disappeared most nights to the bar as Jane rather let Emery cry for hours than take care of her. That's the childhood she remembers, the alcoholic father with anger issues and the emotionally distant mother. During her childhood she was always behind in school, she was behind in socializing and didn't have any friends. Because of her father's behavior, she acted up too, picked fights with other children who made fun of her, she swore a lot for her age. When her personality issues became a problem at the town's public school, she got sent to a religious one instead.

18 and up.

The day Emery turned 18, she packed her bags overnight and ran away from home. She ran away as far as she could and signed herself up for the army in Alabama. Her parents never batted an eye at her disappearance, they couldn't care less. And Emery couldn't care less about her parents either. She found solace in the army, after a rough couple of months of getting taught discipline, of learning to let go of her old self. No more picking fights, no more kids play. For the first time in her life, she was equal to others in her rank. For the first time in her life she knew what it was like to have a home. The army became Emery's actual home. She toughened up in a different way, the army shaped her into a better person. She learned what it meant to have respect for one another. To trust one another. To rely on one another. It took years for Emery to deal with her traumatic past, one day at a time. One thing she knew for sure; she was free now.

At 28 her life changed for the better. It was the introduction of a new face to the team she'd gotten tight with, a woman whose guts Emery hated so. The medical addition to the team after their previous one had been relocated was nothing to Emery's likings. The woman was like a slap to her face and Emery made sure to let her know they'd be better off without her every step of the way. The army had none of her behavior and sent the two off together on a field mission. Emery had to learn how to stop picking fights all over again, like a little kid. Little did she know that the reason why she acted the way she did, was because of underlying feelings she never had before. The two learned to trust each other after long days of having to only deal with each other. A friendship grew, which only made Emery excel at her job. Until the friendship became much more than that and feelings came into play heavier than before.

After taking forever tiptoeing around one another, their friendship changed to a romantic relationship. Which eventually led to marriage. The talk of living together. The talk of even leaving the army, if it meant they could live a safer life. Never did they leave one another's side, they were a team after all.

At 35, Emery made it to the rank of Sergeant. She was in charge now of the younger soldiers. She went on less field missions and remained stationed at base to teach the ones who were still so naive. She made it to the other side of where she once stood, young and so stupidly dumb. Her time of being Sergeant was rather lived short, Emery and her wife were planning on leaving the army soon. The sooner rather became later, it still took two years before they - mostly Emery - found solace in leaving the army. Emery only had one last field mission to fulfill, this time without her wife by her side.

hell town.

Her arrival and first night in town was quite literally Hell. It would've been her last mission before she'd drop out of the army, for her wife, for the two of them to start a new life. Away from all the danger and off to a house in the suburbs with a picket fence. With three soldiers she got sent off to another base, this time without her wife by her side. It would just be a quick mission, she'd be gone for a day or two, nothing crazy. They drove the roads they'd driven plenty of times before, only for the scenery to change to unfamiliar grounds and a strange town to appear after they came across the tree in the road. As the sun had set, their car got stopped by Them and gunshots had taken over when panic had set into her companions' minds. Emery had barely made it out alive, having experienced a trauma she never could've imagined. Something far worse than all those years she'd served in the army.

Over time it became clear that there was no escape from town. Somewhere along the line she'd taken leadership of the common house, a place where she found solace among other people. With her experience as a sergeant in the army, leadership comes to her quite easy. She's there for new people who also fall victim to the curse of town, no matter what residency they choose. Everyone in town has the same goal eventually: try to find a way out - to return back home.

inquiries.

How did your muse spend their first night in Arcadia, and where? When the lives of all three of the soldiers she was with were brutally taken by Them, Emery made a run for the closest building she laid eyes on. After the commotion of gunshots caused by the panicked minds of her companions, they had been Their first targets. Emery somehow made it out of the car and found shelter in the radio station not too far ahead.

Why did your muse choose to live where they do? The common house, Emery has a hard time being by herself. That's when the demons come and plague her mind, she can't handle isolation, most especially not during the night. It's how the army has always been her home, always surrounded by people, just like the common house grants her the feeling of protection.

What was your muse doing when they came across the tree? On their way to what should've been Emery's last field mission in the army, it quite literally became her last trip for the army. The sun had gone down rather sooner than later, they should've arrived at their destined post already. But the GPS in the car had been acting up, their surroundings were unfamiliar to the roads they'd driven so many more times before, they'd encountered the tree in the road and the strange town a couple of times before the trusted soldiers she was with even started to doubt themselves. It was close to the gas station, they were stopped by people in the streets. Except... these weren't people. When They started to surround the car, it was clear this was more than a fever dream.

Has your muse left anything behind that they are desperately trying to return to or escape? Her wife/partner. The love of her life. Her home. Aside from the place she once called her second home, the army, it is losing her soulmate that plagues her the most.

wanted connections.

THE LOVE OF HER LIFE: The woman she met in the army, the woman whose guts she hated to her core, the woman who she got partnered up with and had to trust with her life and vice versa, the woman she eventually caught feelings for, the woman she married, the woman she devoted her entire life to.

THE ONE SHE CALLS HER BEST BUDDY: Emery lost her army mates the first night she arrived and has been by herself ever since. She's very closed off about the private life she had before entering Hell Town, but this person she trusts telling more than anybody else.