✘ history

[citygrit]

Alexander Wolfgang came from a dysfunctional family, although the reality of it didn't at all hit him until much later. Before that, everything had been peaceful in his own little world of naïveté and wealth in Larkspur, Soleil. He never really was very close to his family, save for his mother, Breña, and his brother, Dominick. Due to the twelve-year age gap, he never really felt all that close with his eldest brother, Marcus; his relationship with his father wasn't much better. He found out later down the line that his parents were actually second cousins in an arranged marriage, which probably didn't contribute much to the stability of their filial ties.

Even in the midst of family drama, little Alexander had a pleasant childhood, spending a lot of time with his loving mother and his caring brother. In some ways he was a mama's boy while growing up, as they oftentimes spent their mornings in the vineyards. His world, however, was torn apart when he and Dominick watched their mother go insane from a drug overdose, then proceeded to kill herself in front of them. Alexander was nine. Not long afterward, he slipped and fell down the stairs at home during an argument with his father, and was hospitalized for several months.

With a large piece of his skull missing from the fall, he had to get a protective plate. It's over his forehead. Some fake hair, a lighter tone than his natural, reddish color, covers that plate over his head where he would've otherwise been bald. He doesn't regard it much, or even bring up the fact that it's fake hair. If he pulled up the bangs, the edges of the metal plate could be seen.

His father had abandoned him, his brothers were the only people he could turn to. By then Alexander had lost much trust even in them, despite Dominick's frequent visits in the hospital. Fearing that the unfortunate events had been wrought by the boy's own undoing, he pushed everyone away, blaming himself for everything going wrong, like he was cursed or something. No one knew why, except that paranoia told the child that their mother had gone away because of him. Alexander had latent abandonment issues.

One day, he was led out of the hospital by a pair of twins, Marie and Leon Mageau, who were both about the same age as Alexander at the time. He ran away without knowing of his father's suicide until months afterwards, when Alexander had turned ten. Somehow, Dominick managed to call him up by phone, in a warehouse they had been squatting in. Alexander refused to attend the funeral.

By that time Alexander had caught himself in a system of bad habits as well as a bad crowd of people, although not exactly including the twins, who he had grown to be close friends with. He was influenced by a man named Johnny Jerusalem, who he had met a few weeks before his accident by chance. Jerusalem was an Ophelian — people who are feared by most but a reliable pillar for the black market. Like the twins, Alexander stayed safe under Jerusalem's wing, and decided for the next decade to raise Alexander as well.

From that day onward, the one condition Jerusalem ever had was that Alexander had to undergo a risky operation, which would Link their brains. He also had to continue school. So he did both. He also got himself caught in a mess of addictions. He attended riots and raves after classes, used drugs and drank alcohol in abundance, and developed a wanton nature. Alexander isn't the most attractive man now, although back then he didn't look so bad, drugs aside — or so he'd like to believe. He lost his virginity at the age of fifteen (with a woman about six years his senior. Up unto college, he had gone through many girlfriends, and not many he could list by name).

For those short, meager years, Alexander was on top of the world, and he never knew that he was friends with some of the most powerful people in Ophelia. He continued on in ignorance, hanging out with friends, living in daily unawareness... Alexander was pompous and arrogant, and the world was his oyster. He used people for drugs and sex, and at sixteen he started going to “dog fights” and watched men rip each other apart, violent and grotesquely. He got into several fights himself, even killed a few people. They became terrorists, as Alexander had since developed a fascination with explosives. Life as an Ophelian was lethal if you didn't know how to survive in it; the life expectancy for everyone wasn't much older than their thirties or forties.

When Alexander was eighteen, he got caught in the middle of a brutal riot. He had been driving to class that morning, when suddenly he found himself being blocked off by a barricade of people, who proceeded to throw him out of his car and beat him repeatedly. They had been doing this to many of those passing by throughout that morning. This beating went on for nearly ten minutes, until Jerusalem and Leon showed up. If it weren't for the Links, Jerusalem wouldn't have known, and Alexander would have been killed.

With other Ophelians, they fought off the rioters, giving Jerusalem enough time to carry Alexander off to the hospital. The rest had just been a blur, except the vague memory of Jerusalem fighting with one of the passing doctors and nurses. When Alexander woke, he was covered in bandages and casts. Almost every bone in his body was broken, sprained, and fractured. Fortunately, with the miracles of modern technology (or what was left of it) and a good doctor, he recovered at a much faster rate. However, some functions (particularly the one to serve his wanton nature) would no longer work.

After that, Alexander became insecure with himself due to his now-mutilated body. He wore baggy clothes to cover himself, and no longer expressed much interest in sex. Even if he did have any interest, he was no longer capable of it. Not to mention the many who were put off when he did so much as take off his shirt. If he could, Alexander's social status in Ophelia wasn't enough to get anyone to sleep with him.

By this point, school was pretty much the only thing he had left anymore, so he focused less on sex and violence and more on his studies as soon as he was released from the hospital. Finally, he managed to finish high school. While Jerusalem took care of him at home, Alexander raised himself with a proper education, using the money he would make on his black market jobs with Jerusalem. He became an avid reader as well, having nothing better to do on the several months he spent, recuperating at the hospital. His favorite writers were Henry D. Thoreau, William Faulkner, and Archibald MacLeish. He grew to enjoy listening to much older music, like Bob Dylan, The Animals, and The Beatles.

One day he met a young woman named Reene Kairae at a university in Foxglove, Soleil.

He was twenty-years-old then, a sophomore in college. Almost instantly he formed a lust for his classmate, signing up for the same classes as she and following her wherever she went. She had showed him kindness and gentleness that is rarely ever seen in the world he grew to know all so well. He decided to love her.

Surprisingly, she returned his affections. But she hid a secret that would've changed many things had she even known what it was: She was very ill with a sickness that would eventually kill her. Thus, Alexander abandoned most of his previous life so he could be committed to Reene and Reene alone, taking care and loving her. Upon realizing this, her feelings for Alexander turn into something darker, something he couldn't even comprehend that was controlling and swaying him without his ever knowing.

Two years into their relationship, Reene was killed.

There are holes in Alexander's memories from that night, and the few weeks prior to the event. He doesn't remember much of anything these days.

The night before Reene died, something happened to Alexander's Link to Johnny Jerusalem, as he flipped a total one-eighty and turned to despise Alexander. Jerusalem also managed to turn the twins against him, telling them that Alexander had lied and deceived and tried to kill Jerusalem (which, in a sense, is not far from the truth. Alexander just can't remember how this came about).

Links are considered remnants of Old Technology. A Link would be to “synchronize your brain with another's Link. A Link which embedded a benign tumor into your skull.” Needless to say, to Link with another person is a dangerous operation, and a more dangerous if not expensive way of creating a bond with someone. In the times when they had been more popular, it was popular to Link yourself with someone as the equivalent of creating a “blood bond” with another person. Because Links are literally tumors in the brain, there are serious repercussions even after the operation. It was because of those repercussions that this piece of Old Technology had been recalled, and banned from use in more common hospitals. In spite of this, some people have managed to get past the system and find ways to get Linked with others anyway.

There are several consequences to Links as well. For instance, it is said that if one of the Linked were to experience any severe mental or emotional trauma — especially to their fellow Linked — then it could cause the device in their brain to rupture. Although this has never been known to happen, it is speculated that it could cause brain damage, if not worse and kill the person. Somehow, Alexander assumed that the Link between him and Jerusalem had broke, as he suffered severe delusions and mental instability since the fallout with Jerusalem. The fallout had been so severe that the trauma from the Link that night had shattered between the two friends. Or so he thought.

As it turned out, Johnny Jerusalem was far more than just a famous criminal. He was also a rapist. Alexander experienced several holes in his memory due to the psychological trauma when he would share these memories and horrific events with Jerusalem. These incidents were most likely intentional, as Jerusalem was purposefully attempting to drive Alexander off the deep end. For this reason, Alexander is plagued by nightmares of rape. The act in itself, whether mentioned or witnessed, repulses him to the point of vomiting.

That said, there's probably a pretty good reason why Alexander doesn't remember how Reene died, exactly.

Alexander nearly died with Reene that same day, and on many occasions he wished he did die. But something he couldn't explain happened, and he is still alive. For how long, he doesn't know, though he had plenty of run-ins with death to know that he is not as enduring as he used to think.

Whatever happened the night before Reene died, it had become the catastrophic result in Jerusalem's betrayal. Alexander had always supposedly been a man down on his luck, and experienced nothing but a long string of misfortune these past few years. Now they only seem to be getting worse and worse.

After narrowly escaping death several times himself, Alexander laid low in a life of fear. Then again, in an alleyway in a dark city, paranoia is as common as the cold, and these days, it's almost uncommon to see anyone go outside underneath the pale red sky without a weapon. In Ophelia City, you always had a gun in one hand and a knife at your belt. No exceptions.

Alexander couldn't exactly say he didn't ask for this. He, too, used to be a dealer and a swindler — an Ophelian, who led many people into addiction and sated their desires in many ways. He led to the downfall of many, and ruined more lives than he could ever fathom. After seeing what Reene had been through, he tried to pull out of it, but the consequences of his own past quickly caught up with him. No matter where he went, Jerusalem had always followed close behind him, stalking him like a shadow.

Then his life got a little stranger.

He learned that there are many things around us that we cannot see, but that is because they are given bodies. Walking among crowds and living in faraway places, shades and specters. Pleasures, torment, peace, war... We gave them names and call them gods. But these are things called Entities.

Alexander never wanted to have anything to do with them, or death herself at that; no matter where he went, death always seems to follow him. As if life as a former dealer from Ophelia wasn't hard enough with having people trying to kill him. But when the day came when he is ready to accept his fate, death paid him a little visit instead.

Everything seemed normal to him, or as normal as normal could be, until he met Ravine, the Reaper. He was twenty-three then, six months had gone by since Reene's murder. One incident led to another, until in one night his life turned upside-down; he realized that things were already pretty skewed in the first place. What more, the Reaper took him along for the ride.

Ravine helped Alexander escape his certain demise on several instances. He was asked to follow her, not understanding fully who or what she was at the time, or the fact that he, as a human, wasn't even supposed to see her. All he knew was that she was the only one capable of standing up to Jerusalem, so be began to look to her as a bodyguard of some kind. Alexander learned a few things about Jerusalem over time as well. For one thing, like Ravine, Johnny Jerusalem couldn't die. He also realized that, over the fourteen years he had known Jerusalem, the man never aged, never changed. Always the same. More and more, Alexander found himself in the company of others just like that — Ravine included — Entities and immortals, and that he had been pawn to a greater scheme of manipulation. Jerusalem turned out to be a kindler, a person that died and exchanged their soul. He had died at thirty-five, and has never aged a day ever since. Johnny Jerusalem's time, as he claims, is nearly up.

Within the next few weeks Alexander met more and more immortals and Entities. As an Ophelian who lived a pretty nasty everyday life, very few things troubled him. Having nearly died on many occasions before, including being pushed off a cliff by Ravine and dragged through several cities by her, just about topped it all. Not only were they evading Jerusalem and Ophelians now, but they were also on the run from the police, the Entities, and Alexander's older brother, Marcus, as well (since as it turned out, Marcus had been looking for him since stories got around about Reene's supposed disappearance).

For some reason, Jerusalem delivered Alexander his very own obituary, and a chance to start over, but only if he earned such freedom. Shortly after, Alexander killed Johnny Jerusalem again, but couldn't find the body afterwards. Once again, Jerusalem did not truly die. He also learned that he could never go back to the way things were, for he was sought after not only for being somehow responsible for Reene's death, but as a terrorist of Ophelia City.

They squatted in Larkspur, Soleil thereafter. It was too little, too late, though, when a few months later Ravine intentionally drove their car off a bridge and into a lake where, afterwards, Alexander came to in a hospital bed. He was later apprehended by his brother, Marcus, before the cops could get a hold of him first. Marcus forced Alexander into the Delial Park mental rehabilitation, where he spent the next year locked up. Much of his memories of the previous few years were a blur: Ravine, Ophelia, the obituaries... All were smudged sheets of paper in his hazy memory since the car crash. Throughout that year, Alexander was haunted by vicious nightmares and visions, some in which had nearly killed him. He started seeing dolls in the windowpane, shapes moving in mirrors and moving shadows down hallways. Maybe I am crazy, he figured — sometimes even your mind does all kinds of crazy things to you. With that he decided to stay in the Delial Park facility, where he spent the next two years of his life. Marcus had become the Head Director of the staff, and pulled some strings with the paperwork to keep his brother staying there for an even longer period of time, medicating Alexander to the point of delirium without the knowledge of any other immediate family members.

Then the Delial Park murders began.

Having spent two years in drugs and delusions and now the murders, Alexander learned he had to escape. The medication was killing him, and with the body count mysteriously rising within the asylum premises, he didn't have much time. Alexander complied when he was told of his need to escape, and found a clever getaway by manipulating Marcus. He stole his older brother's car, only to crash it along the interstate highway. Thankfully, though, he had help.

They escaped to Massachusetts, where Dominick lived. By then Dominick was a medical professional as well — a coroner who had been discharged from the army after surviving weeks of being a prisoner of war. The benefits had only cost him his legs. Now wheelchair-bound with synthetic limbs, Dominick greeted Alexander at his doorstep, along with his stepdaughter, Nicky. Dominick was not only going through physical therapy as being a prisoner of war, but also a recent divorce. The brothers talked, filling in the time they had lost since they were kids, leaving out some of the less flattering details.

While not having much to do with kids, Alexander quickly grew attached to the little girl, Nichole. He realized that she had no judgment or knowledge of where he came from, and her innocence he admired and envied dearly. In spite of everything, he didn't swear off drugs completely until he learned that his brother's ex-wife had attempted to sell the girl off to human trafficking, in an endeavor to obtain drug money. The reality of what he had done, practically selling poison to those people all the same, made him no better, he realized. He was a killer, a liar, and a cheater, gambling with the lives of others. Yet the one who showed him otherwise was his niece, who he decided he would change for.

With Dominick's help, they managed to locate Ravine halfway across the globe, where it was discovered that her real name was Judith. Unfortunately, not long after the reunion, it was revealed that Judith/Ravine was reaching a rapid decline — like Reene she, too, was already dying. She also revealed that she had been alive for well over three thousand years, and that she welcomed it. Alexander didn't accept this newfound reality gracefully, as to him, Ravine was indomitable and eternal. He had seen her get shot, stabbed, drowned, and in the end she always got back up. She never died because she was death itself. He couldn't handle the idea of her leaving him, too, after all she had put him through. They fought. Eventually, the argument ended when Alexander stabbed her.

Yeah, have I mentioned that he has serious abandonment issues?

In any case, the injury he left did not heal. Staggering, Ravine took out a gun, and rather than firing at Alexander she put it to her head. She offered him peace of mind. Before she could pull the trigger, Ravine dropped dead.

Many times before, he had seen her hurt, killed in various, atrocious ways, but she always come back. Ravine did not get back up this time. So they burned her remains, which smoldered like a normal human corpse. Alexander grew to accept her fate as well, and resigned to quiet solitude.

For the next ten years he spent alone, cut off from most contact altogether. Most of these years he bid his time reading, studying, catching up on old media, and writing anecdotes. His time had sudden slowed down to a boring, uneventful lifestyle, until nearly a decade had gone by. These years were spent in anonymous freelance writing. He had gone to college so that he could be a journalist, and at long last he had decided to pursue that aspiration. He went under a new alias now; Sender Crowell, sending letters and stories to the Halo Magazine from his little hometown in Larkspur, Soleil. There, he spent his life in a small, calm neighborhood, writing and making his own food and wine — agriculture had, by this time, been long forgotten.

At age thirty, Alexander had accomplished what most Ophelians did not have — not only exceeding their usual life expectancy, but also had a future ahead of him, too... even if it were a lonely one. No longer was he the twitchy, overly dependent young man as he had once been, but someone who could function well in the world. The times of wondering how he would go on without Reene or Ravine had past. He would live on, because now, the only one who existed in his little world of loneliness was Alexander Wolfgang. Every so often, though, Dominick and Nicky would stop by to visit him, and even take care of him when he needed taking care of.

Over the span of a few months, Alexander started experiencing some bizarre symptoms. Lightheadedness, excessive sleeping habits... When he started vomiting and coughing up blood he finally went to a doctor about it, but they saw nothing that was wrong with him physically. No internal bleeding, no apparent disease. They decided to wait it out before they came to any kind of conclusion. Some time had past, and X-rays indicated some rotting tissue of his organs. The slow decay of his body was beginning from the inside, and eventually it would work its way out. As time past, doctors informed Alexander that his body would begin early stages of rigor mortis, and yet he would still somehow be alive. He would begin to lose feelings in his nervous system, and depending on how much he strained his energy, he would basically come a walking corpse with time.

In spite of his strange and bizarre experiences, things had gone from seemingly supernatural back to natural, and then just plain agonizing; they were slow and boring now. But as things usually went, they wouldn't stay that way for long. On top of that, after several months of treatment, going through terrible side effects from the drugs themselves, he was on the near verge of sickness and death itself. After a certain point, he asked for the doctor to stop treatment altogether. He was recommended several times to start a will and informing his brothers of his condition, which Alexander had already begin to put together.

He coped by writing more, and on the few instances he did go out, he went to town to frequent a nightclub he found that an old friend had run. Mohammed Zayn had, on several occasions, persuaded Alexander to learn music. Once he'd gotten good enough at the acoustic guitar, they tried out a few gigs at the club with a small town local band that played every Friday night. Zayn had also been the only friend that Alexander had to confide in during his stay at Delial Park; he learned that the man had been admitted due to manic depression and attempted suicides which was tearing his family apart. So in effect, he made efforts to get better. Nowadays, playing music and running the club helped keep him going.

Without treatment, he grew too sick to even visit Zayn at the club anymore. The sicker he got, the harder it was for him to walk, to function. The nightmares and delusions returned. Jerusalem paid him a final visit at the family cemetery. For the first time in many years, Jerusalem had physically changed: He was much older now, worn out with gray hairs. He could barely walk, and had to support himself with crutches. He explained to Alexander what all happened, why he hated him — why he couldn't stand looking at his face any longer. And regardless of the cold truth, Alexander sat down with him, and stayed with Jerusalem while he died by that tomb stone, withered away as the bullet wound had bled out and killed him. At thirty-five, Jerusalem had been gunned down and killed before he had been revived. He died again as a many who lived for hundreds of years, the longest living man from Ophelia City. As he died, Alexander got up and returned home. He knew then that the Link between them both hadn't been severed after all. Not entirely, anyway. That was how Jerusalem always managed to find him. But now whatever remained of the Link had been rendered useless, now just a benign tumor in his brain. In that remaining piece that had blacked out the memory of the night Reene died, Alexander remembered what had happened to her.

The trauma of such a memory incited another attack. The last thing he heard before nothing was his brother's voice as he passed out in the living room of his house. He did not regain consciousness until realizing that he was in a hospital, with Dominick and Nichole watching over him. Dominick had, as always, stuck his neck out for his little brother, keeping his name anonymous by using his alias, Sender Crowell, rather than his real name. As soon as Alexander got out of that hospital, though, something strange had happened. Nothing ever really seemed right in Alexander's world. Everything had become too quiet, too perfect, too ideal, and knowing that he had only a matter of a few months to live, it felt like going back to sleep from being awake for a long, long time. He couldn't describe the feeling to his brother, neither could he bother to bring it up with his niece. One thing was for certain: He no longer belonged there, in his small little world, in his small little town of blood-spattered memories. Tired, weak, dying, something was pulling him away from all of that.

He was out in the vineyards that day. For once, the weather was cloudy, heralding a storm. Something inside of him had changed, as he felt death creeping in again, like the day he had first met Ravine, and the day he watched Judith put the gun to her own head but never got to pull that trigger. It was just like the night that he had asked her to kill him, and she didn't.

And that is the last thing he remembers.

you're living like a disaster...