Angel’s Fall, the city of miracles… For anyone willing to get their hands dirty. In this city of dreams, with giant screens plastered on every skyscraper and the rhythmic bump of music reverberating through the city like a veritable heartbeat, nothing can’t be bought for the right price. Gangs clash for control of territory, corpos laze away in ritzy, android served casinos, blood spills in underground fighting rings, backstreet doctors offer state of the art cybernetic implants freshly ripped from a military lab. It really is a city where heaven fell and made the land into gold.
Of course, such a wonderful place harbors equally lovely stories, one of which is simply called “The Butcher.” It’s a basic story, an urban legend that started spreading only a few years ago, but caught on like wildfire thanks to the string of accompanying disappearances.
It goes something like this: one night a group of highschoolers were wandering through the city’s numerous back alleys and underpasses when they came upon an abandoned warehouse. Unable to suppress their reckless curiosity, the trio headed inside. Old blood splatters covered the floor, heaps of scrap and abandoned shipping crates lined the walls, and in the impenetrable darkness: a primal sense of danger. Already jumping at the crunch of glass under foot, it only took the clatter of a box on the floor to send them running for their lives. The group scattered to the four winds, screaming their heads off all the while. The first one went quiet after just a few seconds. The second cut out soon after. The third managed to make it out the door and shout before he too fell silent. Only one of them made it out into the safety of the neon city streets. The cops never found any bodies. Of course, it’s just some kid’s story. A missing teen or two isn’t anything unheard of, but over time it caught traction, changed, and became something of a local myth.
It was such a lovely environment as this that young Sybil came to be. Sybil Valentine Soir, a girl with silky platinum hair, pale sapphire eyes, porcelain, and a face hidden behind a white surgical mask. Corset piercings marr her body, threaded with bright crimson ribbons tied neatly in bows. A small girl at only 18, 5 feet and 1 inch tall, she comes off as distant and uninterested most of the time. Insults and threats don’t even provoke a reaction, and most of the time it’s like the world doesn’t exist. Despite being an orphan for much of her childhood, she’s somehow managed to survive in Angel’s Fall.
Born the daughter of two bioenhancement researchers, Sybil enjoyed a pampered childhood few others in the city could enjoy. She never feared for her life, she attended a great school, she had friends, life was great. Yet it all vanished only a few weeks after her 10th birthday, when her father returned home from a business trip for the corporation. Top secret, they said.
It began as a light cough, one which her mother and herself developed only a few days later. Sybil ran a high fever, 103, and her parents nursed her as best they could despite their own illness. It was just the flu, they thought, it shouldn’t be anything a few days of rest couldn’t fix… And yet, only a day later her symptoms worsened. Nosebleeds, hallucinations, a weakness so severe Sybil couldn’t even raise a glass of water to drink. Before any of them could make it to the hospital, Sybil awoke from another fever dream to an eerily silent house.
She tried to call out, but no one answered. Hauling herself from the bed, inch by inch, she eventually pulled herself across the floor after hours to find her only family utterly silent. She was too tired to cry, too weak to mourn, she just passed out again. By the time she was found, she was on death’s door, and rushed to the hospital.
The next few days were utter agony, her jaw ached, her stomach twisted, the light from the window felt like it was punching holes in her eyes… And one day she woke up better. Tired, but better. Her skin lost color, her upper canines grew into sharp, piercing fangs, her once sweet personality replaced with a craving for one thing… Blood.
Rather than killing her outright, she was changed. Her young immune system adapted, and in the struggle to survive the virus had mutated her, morphed her into something else. Fleeing the hospital room the very night after she was brought in, it only took her a matter of hours to take down her first victim. An old beggar, who no one would miss, the taste of blood was ecstasy and repulsive in equal parts, and while it did nothing to sate her physical hunger, the young girl soon found out that she couldn’t live much more than a few days without some. The rush was addicting, horribly so.
The true Sybil that now walks the streets is a product of not just the virus, but of the city as well. Working night shifts at a convenience store, most never even see her true self beyond the chilly mask she puts on. Sybil saves her true, heated feelings for those she takes interest in… Or those who mess with her enough to get a peek underneath. She tends to prefer targets closer to her age and a little bit above, blood always tastes best from her type, after all. Even if she doesn’t feed, she’ll gladly pull free a few pricy cybernetic implants as well to sell them off, then leave the body in the dumpster a few miles away. Even for a vampire, living costs money.