Faith Eliza Cord
Four Thousand Club
Jaguar could not remember any specific time that The Killing Times started, or when she herself became aware of what was happening all about her in the world. What she could recall, as the years blurred and faded memories until she could no longer look back and see herself as the same person as the eight-year-old child she had been, was the way that her grandparents’ faces, once soft and warm when they looked at her, the smile that had always been in their eyes, had gradually grown strained and weary, taut, despite their wrinkles, with a sadness and a slowly heightening dread that Jaguar herself could not fully understand or put into words within her thoughts. She had never known her parents, as both had died when she was very young; the details of their deaths, Jaguar was not aware of, and with the strange intuition that her gift as an empath gave her, she had not asked, knowing she would not enjoy hearing the truth they might give her, nor the lies they might be tempted to placate her with. Sometimes her gift could be helpful to her in this way, guiding her into making decisions considerably wiser and more beneficial to her than the average ungifted child; at other times, it was no less than a curse.
To have access, should she want it, to the innermost thoughts and feelings of others, to their darkest memories and most fervent hopes and dreams…it was something that Jaguar had always been unconsciously aware of within herself, even before she could control or use it with consciousness to her own benefit. She had always felt herself to be different from other children, to the extent that some children avoided her, and she had known it was not because she was more serious, more darkly inclined in her nature, and if she were to be blunt, which Jaguar often was, more intelligent than the rest of them. For an ordinary child, this would be more than enough to set her apart, but Jaguar was not just an ordinary child; Jaguar was an empath.
They were rare before The Killing Times, rarer still now, but for those who still existed, those who had not been murdered in the frenzy, as in her grandparents, or who had not grown sick, shadowed, and infected by the gift, as had others she had known, those were the ones who Jaguar now harbored an extreme interest towards. She wanted to help them, to teach them, as her grandparents had taught her. She wanted to heal their inner sickness, if they carried it, to help channel it, if they had been lucky. For those who were ungifted, she wanted to use what she had to help them see themselves, to their core, to take their knowledge of it and to better themselves and their lives.
Was she able to use this skill for herself? Sometimes Jaguar thought that she had almost managed it; sometimes she thought she was the most hypocritical person she knew. But everyone had a part of them they did not wish to face, everyone had a history that came close to fully shadowing their heart, even if they were ungifted. And she was no different.
**
The day that her grandparents were murdered had seemed to her any other day. The Killing Times had been occurring for nearly three years now, and were at their peak; she would not be free of the danger until two years later, when she was thirteen years old and so closed to being shadowed that thoughts of murder and suicide had begun to plague her own thoughts. But at that time, on that day, Jaguar was eleven years old, and her grandparents had tried hard to shield her from the terrible events of the world around them.
They did not turn on the TV; there was never news anymore other than the acts of extreme violence that had spread through the nation like a rash, and they saw no reason to see any more than they had to on their rare trips to town for supplies. Schools had shut down long before, and so Jaguar was taught at home, both in use of her gift and in education, as they thought best for her. She had not played with another child or spoken to a friend in months, perhaps almost a year, but she could not miss what had once been. The truth was, she hardly remembered it.
Her grandparents had been making dinner, eliciting Jaguar’s help in order to teach her too, when the man burst through their locked front door. How he had gotten in, how he had managed to subdue her grandparents, what they had done and said to try to protect her, was all a blur in her mind now, but Jaguar would never forget his face, his smile. Even over seventeen years later, she saw it in her dreams.
She could never forget her grandparents’ screams of anguish as he tormented them, deliberately drawing out their torture for as long as he could keep them alive. She would never forget the pain, searing to her soul, she had felt, that of her grandparents’ as well as her own, as she remained tethered before them, instructed by the man not to look away, not even to close her eyes, lest they receive even worse punishment. She would never forget how she had lost control of her bladder, how the pain had gone beyond tears, how for seventeen years now, she had never been able to find tears again.
Even now she still sometimes could feel the man’s hands on her as he turned his interest then towards her, how she had retreated within herself, feeling his physical touch but disconnecting herself from its pain as he used her repeatedly. When he had finally discarded her, throwing her to the ground, she had been alive, but she had felt as though every piece of her that mattered, that made her whole and human, was dead.
And what had made Jaguar hate herself was not what she had witnessed, what she had had done to her, but that for a span of thirty seconds, when the man first came into the door, she had frozen, unable to decide on a course of action that could have saved their lives. She had not run, had not went for a telephone, had not screamed…she had frozen, and even seventeen years later, she could not help but blame herself, to consider herself almost equally responsible for their fate.
Two years on the streets and three years of a children’s home had continued to shape and form her into the person she was now- Jaguar Addams, one of the Eyes of Man’s most talented teachers and empaths, with one of the most successful track records for rehabilitating the violent criminals within its walls- and beyond them. But although the Killing Times were long over, the world supposedly recovering its loss, for many, they had never really ended. And sometimes, Jaguar could count herself among those who had been lost.
**
To any unaware outside observer, The Eyes of Man looked rather like any other business building within the city, and it certainly blended well among them. Exactly 19 stories tall, it was dull in appearance, a silvery grey, with its one unusual aspect being that it had no windows- not one. This was practical on several levels; if no one could see outside it, from the inside, they could not be distracted, nor could they use windows as a method of escape, and if no one could see inside it, they could not be horrified. And there was a lot that could go on within the walls to horrify the average civilian.
Within the walls of The Eyes of Man, anywhere from ten to forty prisoners could be housed at one time, although the goal was to keep the number considerably closer to ten than to forty. Only the most violent, the most publically maligned, or the most incorrigible of violent offenders were referred to The Eyes of Man, a last resort, or at times an alternate to capital punishment, as even the public, who still scorned and feared empaths in turn, were willing to look the other way when it came to criminals of this type, to allow the empaths to do what they could with them.
The Eyes of Man’s prison cells and “training” rooms were each constructed entirely of steel, in order to considerably lessen the chances of escape, as well as to provide a conductor to contain any empathic contact which might occur from the inside. Training rooms changed often depending upon the lesson to be taught to a specific prisoner, but the cells were all the same, consisting of a plain cot, a toilet area, and a small slot which could be operated from the outside to open and close for a food tray. But prisoners were not inside their cells for the majority of their time; instead, time was spent either in virtual reality settings or in training rooms, as was seen fit for each person. All prison cells were in the top eight floors, all training areas on the middle eight, and the remaining three housed the more “public” areas, storage, and supplies as needed. There were even bedrooms there intended for any staff who chose to live or sleep over in the prison, and Jaguar, for one, did so more often than not. After all, she had no one to go home to, and it seemed prudent more days than not to save her time.
On this particular morning she had done exactly this, and as she awakened, as usual, she reached out with her mind to lightly touch the outskirts of the minds of those present within the building, not to intrude upon any thoughts, but simply to get a sense of who was present and that all were safe and accounted for. Sven, Bailey, Rinji, all present…and the prisoners, Jack, the twins, Eric…all accounted for. All newly assigned, as she had recently cleaned out her old caseload and released them, felt confident that all had been satisfactorily rehabilitated, though she did occasionally check in on them mentally, just to be sure, and they would for the next two years return periodically for a “check-up”. All interesting, from the looks of it.
Jacklyn, or Jack, as she apparently wanted to be called, had been so interesting, in fact, that she had been here for quite some time, passed around between several teachers before finally being reassigned to Jaguar. Eric, Jaguar had yet to meet. And as for the twins, Sam and Amy…well, the attempts so far to work with them separately had been so unsuccessful that she had so far been forced to break a formerly strict policy, and they were currently sharing a cell and teaching sessions. Of course, the intention was to separate them eventually, but as of now, she could get nowhere with them without them being at least within sight of each other; their fears were too profound to get around this. With these new prisoners, she could have a new challenge, and with Bailey Morgan, a new staff member, to train and assist, she had this as well to keep her occupied.
And of course, Rinji Fogden, her secretary, or “assistant,” as Rinji preferred to refer to herself as, was always a challenge all on her own.
“Hi Jag!” Rinji called cheerfully as Jaguar made her way towards the data room, in which computer chips housed all information as to current and past prisoners.
Rinji was not, at course, at her desk; Jaguar could count on one hand the number of times she had actually seen her sitting at it or using it whenever she came into the area. Instead, she appeared to be doing some odd stretching exercise on the floor, but she nevertheless waved at Jaguar as if she were in a very conventional and professional pose indeed as she continued to talk to her. But then, Jaguar supposed, from a woman like Rinji, with her spiky hair and heavily tattooed appearance, and who was currently wearing a dress that was printed with a rainbow cheetah pattern with what looked like red rainboots and dinosaur barrettes, she couldn’t exactly expect conventional and professional.
“Hello, Rinji,” Jaguar responded, not commenting, as she would for any other person, on the nickname “Jag.” Rinji, she suspected, was the sole person she would not be able to intimidate into dropping it, and so after the first attempt or two, she no longer bothered to try.
“New prisoner!” Rinji announced, getting to her feet and giving a little bounce of emphasis to her words as she made her way towards the locked storage area of the chips, rummaging for keys which Jaguar noticed had had a lucky rabbit’s foot and strange pink teddy bear keychain added to them. “Mason Cooper, I think he’s showing up in like an hour. Or maybe it was later, I don’t know.”
“Those are pretty important details to know, Rinji,” Jaguar raised an eyebrow, but she was used to this sort of vagueness from the woman by now as well.
Rinji was always the same- ever cheerful, ever friendly, and if she was perfectly honest, as Jaguar so often was, perfectly ditzy as well. Rinji was one of the lucky ones. Only twenty years old, she had been so young when the Killing Times started that any tragedies she had witnessed or experienced she didn’t remember, and it seemed she had escaped entirely unscathed. She had been working for Jaguar for only about six months now, when she had tried to apply for a teacher but dismally failed the first of a series of tests required to qualify to do so. Something about the girl and her aura had struck Jaguar, however, and against her own instincts, and Rinji’s mother’s will, according to Rinji, she had hired her as a secretary instead.
If she was honest with herself, she knew that Rinji did not meet the qualifications she would ideally want in a secretary of hers. The woman didn’t look the part, act the part, talk the part, and sometimes, it was more like she was allowing a child to play the role rather than paying a woman to do the job. But on the other hand, Rinji, as irritating as she could be, could also be amusing, and she was one of the few people Jaguar knew who could genuinely at times make her laugh and smile. Those were rare qualities in these times, and that made Jaguar reluctant to release her, even if she was far from perfect at her job.
“Oh, right, I put it in your area…oh here it is,” Rinji retracted the data chip from Jaguar’s “incoming” lockspace, handing it to her with a smile that seemed more appropriate of a woman congratulating another on the birth of a child rather than for a woman announcing that another woman had another vicious killer to work with. “Have a good day, Jag!”
Only Rinji, Jaguar thought to herself with her lips quirking in faint amusement, could tell someone with her job to have a good day, and not only mean it with sincerity, but fully expect it to happen.
(there may still be some character sign ups, if that's the case I can edit to mention other people as appropriate)
@Izabella Mochizuki @Macal Cord @primal things @amdreams @Mediocritys Muse @MegaPatman
To have access, should she want it, to the innermost thoughts and feelings of others, to their darkest memories and most fervent hopes and dreams…it was something that Jaguar had always been unconsciously aware of within herself, even before she could control or use it with consciousness to her own benefit. She had always felt herself to be different from other children, to the extent that some children avoided her, and she had known it was not because she was more serious, more darkly inclined in her nature, and if she were to be blunt, which Jaguar often was, more intelligent than the rest of them. For an ordinary child, this would be more than enough to set her apart, but Jaguar was not just an ordinary child; Jaguar was an empath.
They were rare before The Killing Times, rarer still now, but for those who still existed, those who had not been murdered in the frenzy, as in her grandparents, or who had not grown sick, shadowed, and infected by the gift, as had others she had known, those were the ones who Jaguar now harbored an extreme interest towards. She wanted to help them, to teach them, as her grandparents had taught her. She wanted to heal their inner sickness, if they carried it, to help channel it, if they had been lucky. For those who were ungifted, she wanted to use what she had to help them see themselves, to their core, to take their knowledge of it and to better themselves and their lives.
Was she able to use this skill for herself? Sometimes Jaguar thought that she had almost managed it; sometimes she thought she was the most hypocritical person she knew. But everyone had a part of them they did not wish to face, everyone had a history that came close to fully shadowing their heart, even if they were ungifted. And she was no different.
**
The day that her grandparents were murdered had seemed to her any other day. The Killing Times had been occurring for nearly three years now, and were at their peak; she would not be free of the danger until two years later, when she was thirteen years old and so closed to being shadowed that thoughts of murder and suicide had begun to plague her own thoughts. But at that time, on that day, Jaguar was eleven years old, and her grandparents had tried hard to shield her from the terrible events of the world around them.
They did not turn on the TV; there was never news anymore other than the acts of extreme violence that had spread through the nation like a rash, and they saw no reason to see any more than they had to on their rare trips to town for supplies. Schools had shut down long before, and so Jaguar was taught at home, both in use of her gift and in education, as they thought best for her. She had not played with another child or spoken to a friend in months, perhaps almost a year, but she could not miss what had once been. The truth was, she hardly remembered it.
Her grandparents had been making dinner, eliciting Jaguar’s help in order to teach her too, when the man burst through their locked front door. How he had gotten in, how he had managed to subdue her grandparents, what they had done and said to try to protect her, was all a blur in her mind now, but Jaguar would never forget his face, his smile. Even over seventeen years later, she saw it in her dreams.
She could never forget her grandparents’ screams of anguish as he tormented them, deliberately drawing out their torture for as long as he could keep them alive. She would never forget the pain, searing to her soul, she had felt, that of her grandparents’ as well as her own, as she remained tethered before them, instructed by the man not to look away, not even to close her eyes, lest they receive even worse punishment. She would never forget how she had lost control of her bladder, how the pain had gone beyond tears, how for seventeen years now, she had never been able to find tears again.
Even now she still sometimes could feel the man’s hands on her as he turned his interest then towards her, how she had retreated within herself, feeling his physical touch but disconnecting herself from its pain as he used her repeatedly. When he had finally discarded her, throwing her to the ground, she had been alive, but she had felt as though every piece of her that mattered, that made her whole and human, was dead.
And what had made Jaguar hate herself was not what she had witnessed, what she had had done to her, but that for a span of thirty seconds, when the man first came into the door, she had frozen, unable to decide on a course of action that could have saved their lives. She had not run, had not went for a telephone, had not screamed…she had frozen, and even seventeen years later, she could not help but blame herself, to consider herself almost equally responsible for their fate.
Two years on the streets and three years of a children’s home had continued to shape and form her into the person she was now- Jaguar Addams, one of the Eyes of Man’s most talented teachers and empaths, with one of the most successful track records for rehabilitating the violent criminals within its walls- and beyond them. But although the Killing Times were long over, the world supposedly recovering its loss, for many, they had never really ended. And sometimes, Jaguar could count herself among those who had been lost.
**
To any unaware outside observer, The Eyes of Man looked rather like any other business building within the city, and it certainly blended well among them. Exactly 19 stories tall, it was dull in appearance, a silvery grey, with its one unusual aspect being that it had no windows- not one. This was practical on several levels; if no one could see outside it, from the inside, they could not be distracted, nor could they use windows as a method of escape, and if no one could see inside it, they could not be horrified. And there was a lot that could go on within the walls to horrify the average civilian.
Within the walls of The Eyes of Man, anywhere from ten to forty prisoners could be housed at one time, although the goal was to keep the number considerably closer to ten than to forty. Only the most violent, the most publically maligned, or the most incorrigible of violent offenders were referred to The Eyes of Man, a last resort, or at times an alternate to capital punishment, as even the public, who still scorned and feared empaths in turn, were willing to look the other way when it came to criminals of this type, to allow the empaths to do what they could with them.
The Eyes of Man’s prison cells and “training” rooms were each constructed entirely of steel, in order to considerably lessen the chances of escape, as well as to provide a conductor to contain any empathic contact which might occur from the inside. Training rooms changed often depending upon the lesson to be taught to a specific prisoner, but the cells were all the same, consisting of a plain cot, a toilet area, and a small slot which could be operated from the outside to open and close for a food tray. But prisoners were not inside their cells for the majority of their time; instead, time was spent either in virtual reality settings or in training rooms, as was seen fit for each person. All prison cells were in the top eight floors, all training areas on the middle eight, and the remaining three housed the more “public” areas, storage, and supplies as needed. There were even bedrooms there intended for any staff who chose to live or sleep over in the prison, and Jaguar, for one, did so more often than not. After all, she had no one to go home to, and it seemed prudent more days than not to save her time.
On this particular morning she had done exactly this, and as she awakened, as usual, she reached out with her mind to lightly touch the outskirts of the minds of those present within the building, not to intrude upon any thoughts, but simply to get a sense of who was present and that all were safe and accounted for. Sven, Bailey, Rinji, all present…and the prisoners, Jack, the twins, Eric…all accounted for. All newly assigned, as she had recently cleaned out her old caseload and released them, felt confident that all had been satisfactorily rehabilitated, though she did occasionally check in on them mentally, just to be sure, and they would for the next two years return periodically for a “check-up”. All interesting, from the looks of it.
Jacklyn, or Jack, as she apparently wanted to be called, had been so interesting, in fact, that she had been here for quite some time, passed around between several teachers before finally being reassigned to Jaguar. Eric, Jaguar had yet to meet. And as for the twins, Sam and Amy…well, the attempts so far to work with them separately had been so unsuccessful that she had so far been forced to break a formerly strict policy, and they were currently sharing a cell and teaching sessions. Of course, the intention was to separate them eventually, but as of now, she could get nowhere with them without them being at least within sight of each other; their fears were too profound to get around this. With these new prisoners, she could have a new challenge, and with Bailey Morgan, a new staff member, to train and assist, she had this as well to keep her occupied.
And of course, Rinji Fogden, her secretary, or “assistant,” as Rinji preferred to refer to herself as, was always a challenge all on her own.
“Hi Jag!” Rinji called cheerfully as Jaguar made her way towards the data room, in which computer chips housed all information as to current and past prisoners.
Rinji was not, at course, at her desk; Jaguar could count on one hand the number of times she had actually seen her sitting at it or using it whenever she came into the area. Instead, she appeared to be doing some odd stretching exercise on the floor, but she nevertheless waved at Jaguar as if she were in a very conventional and professional pose indeed as she continued to talk to her. But then, Jaguar supposed, from a woman like Rinji, with her spiky hair and heavily tattooed appearance, and who was currently wearing a dress that was printed with a rainbow cheetah pattern with what looked like red rainboots and dinosaur barrettes, she couldn’t exactly expect conventional and professional.
“Hello, Rinji,” Jaguar responded, not commenting, as she would for any other person, on the nickname “Jag.” Rinji, she suspected, was the sole person she would not be able to intimidate into dropping it, and so after the first attempt or two, she no longer bothered to try.
“New prisoner!” Rinji announced, getting to her feet and giving a little bounce of emphasis to her words as she made her way towards the locked storage area of the chips, rummaging for keys which Jaguar noticed had had a lucky rabbit’s foot and strange pink teddy bear keychain added to them. “Mason Cooper, I think he’s showing up in like an hour. Or maybe it was later, I don’t know.”
“Those are pretty important details to know, Rinji,” Jaguar raised an eyebrow, but she was used to this sort of vagueness from the woman by now as well.
Rinji was always the same- ever cheerful, ever friendly, and if she was perfectly honest, as Jaguar so often was, perfectly ditzy as well. Rinji was one of the lucky ones. Only twenty years old, she had been so young when the Killing Times started that any tragedies she had witnessed or experienced she didn’t remember, and it seemed she had escaped entirely unscathed. She had been working for Jaguar for only about six months now, when she had tried to apply for a teacher but dismally failed the first of a series of tests required to qualify to do so. Something about the girl and her aura had struck Jaguar, however, and against her own instincts, and Rinji’s mother’s will, according to Rinji, she had hired her as a secretary instead.
If she was honest with herself, she knew that Rinji did not meet the qualifications she would ideally want in a secretary of hers. The woman didn’t look the part, act the part, talk the part, and sometimes, it was more like she was allowing a child to play the role rather than paying a woman to do the job. But on the other hand, Rinji, as irritating as she could be, could also be amusing, and she was one of the few people Jaguar knew who could genuinely at times make her laugh and smile. Those were rare qualities in these times, and that made Jaguar reluctant to release her, even if she was far from perfect at her job.
“Oh, right, I put it in your area…oh here it is,” Rinji retracted the data chip from Jaguar’s “incoming” lockspace, handing it to her with a smile that seemed more appropriate of a woman congratulating another on the birth of a child rather than for a woman announcing that another woman had another vicious killer to work with. “Have a good day, Jag!”
Only Rinji, Jaguar thought to herself with her lips quirking in faint amusement, could tell someone with her job to have a good day, and not only mean it with sincerity, but fully expect it to happen.
(there may still be some character sign ups, if that's the case I can edit to mention other people as appropriate)
@Izabella Mochizuki @Macal Cord @primal things @amdreams @Mediocritys Muse @MegaPatman
I wuv it."
