No longer a slave

- He’s a blind vampire. He was blind in his human life and was turned into a vampire for reasons I will get into explaining in just a minute. But basically what this means is, all of his other senses are even more heightened than a normal vampires are. He can hear things from twice as far away and smell things more sharply. For anyone who’s ever seen the show Daredevil, you’ll have a pretty good understanding of what he’s capable of doing with his senses.

- He’s 110 years old, but he’s spent all of his time as a vampire, 82 years, being held captive and used as a slave gladiator. A group of wealthy gentlemen had established a secret supernatural  fighting ring, where they forced supernaturals they captured and held prisoner to fight to the death with each other, for their own entertainment, and as a way to gamble their money. If the supernaturals the gentlemen owned won their fights, the owner of that supernatural would receive a payout based on the bets of those invited to spectate. Elijah was kidnapped by one of these wealthy gentlemen and turned into a vampire so that he could be a part of the novelty matches, which were matches that were purely meant to be funny in a completely sick and twisted way.  They pitted supernaturals with handicaps and disabilities against each other in these matches. A blind vampire being forced to fight for his life qualified, and as such Elijah fought in several of them.

-He was kept weak by using vervain, and limiting his blood intake to the bare minimum amount for survival. After he struggled through the first few matches while he was still trying to get used to his extremely heightened senses, by the fifth match, he had learned how to focus them, and it proved him to not be a novelty at all. He decimated his competition in the next few novelty matches he had, and his owner saw that there was a deadly fire inside of him, so he decided to try using him in more important matches, in the hopes that he would win him more money.

-As it would turn out, Elijah would prove to be very effective in these fights, and for 82 years, even after his first owner died, and his son took over, he was continuously thrown into these matches, and he continued to survive. At first, he longed for an escape, to be free. But as the years wore on, he stopped hoping and simply became a full fledged gladiator. His only focus was surviving, although for what purpose, he couldn’t say.

-Then after 82 years of captivity, Elijah woke up one night to the overwhelming scent of blood filling the air, and the sounds of pleading screams not far in the distance. Then what he was sure was another vampire, without so much as a word, opened the door to his cell, at last freeing him from his imprisonment. He had stopped hoping for freedom long ago by this point, but when it was finally offered to him, he didn’t hesitate in taking it.

-Elijah has been freed from his captivity for a few months now, and has spent that time readjusting to the outside world, which has changed so much in the time he was being held prisoner. Now that he has finally adjusted to the new world, he’s come to Devil’s Lake hoping to find a lead on the vampire who freed him.

-Only now that he has his freedom has the reality of how traumatic his experience being a prisoner was set in. He quite frequently has momentary panic attacks, and because he spent so much of his life fighting, his immediate instinct in a lot of situations is to fight his way out of it. Focusing on his search is the most effective way for him to keep his trauma at bay.