David Sawyer. Not exactly a tall, strapping man, David is relatively average sized; with an athletic build that has clearly seen the wrong end of age, a minor pot belly and muscles that have given way to flab in places. His normally dark brown hair is peppered with grey in places, especially round the sides of his head, and is kept short and neat as is appropriate for his job. Along with this, he maintains a neat, if light, beard, the hair also brown and gray with his age. His eyes are brown and his features are slightly wrinkled from age and experience, crows feet at the corners of his eyes and wrinkles over his forehead. His normally rather pale skin is almost permanently tanned from all his time spent under the hot, blazing sun, taking photos of wild animals, marathons and sports events. He has tan lines in the form of his watch on his right wrist and on his shoulders from the short-sleeved shirts he would wear to such events. A scar exists on David's face, a small one that crosses the bridge of his nose.
His normal clothing style is simple and rugged; David likes to wear either a brown leather jacket or a short sleeved, collared shirt, with a white tank top underneath. The man only has a few pairs of jeans, mostly blue, and as such all of them display a rugged wear across the knees and rims of the legs that are all part of the years and years of use. David normally wears a pair of leather loafers to work or out to relax, and a pair of brown hiking shoes if he's going out for a long walk in the park or going out of town. David also has several items that are considered part of his 'signature' look; a gun-metal grey diving watch, purchased as a thirtieth birthday gift, that always sits on his right wrist. A black DSLR that almost always hangs from his neck. A weathered brown leather biker jacket with a small icon of a film camera stitched onto the left breast.
David was born and raised in Araminta, going to school there, attending yearly festivals and growing up alongside a small, close group of friends that stuck with him all through grade school. High school split up their little clique but they almost always met after class was over for the day, drinking milkshakes and playing tag in Araminta's main park. He took an early interest in documenting the escapades of him and his friends, at first through the media of drawing, but when that failed him, his father suggested the next best thing: a camera. His dad, a photographer by hobby, had an old film camera in his closet that he let his son borrow when he was old enough. All through his teens, David took photos of his adventures, developing the pictures and even scribbling little blurbs about what he and his friends had done that day, like cycling up to the city limits and back, or watching a sunset in the park.
When he graduated, David took his scrapbook of photos and, for a time, sold his services as a freelance photographer. In such a small city, business was brisk; weddings, special occasions, anniversaries and festivals were part and parcel of his life for roughly two years. It was then that the Araminta Daily took notice and sent him a letter asking if he would like to be employed at the newspaper as one of their photographers. He readily agreed and began work for the paper, helping their journalists and reporters capture every little event that went on in their sleepy little town. In between reports and work, David took time out of his schedule to submit some of his better pictures to national competitions, calendars and photography magazines. Most of his work wasn't up to par, but he earned himself several honorable mentions and smaller spots in minor magazines.
Three years passed in a flash. By then, David had built himself a rep, both within Araminta and around the country, as a budding young photographer with promising work, an eye for detail and a heart for telling stories. He had gone from being merely a photographer to a full-blown photojournalist, having a small column to himself about his 'Photo of the Week', where he showcased his best photograph he'd taken that week and wrote a few paragraphs about how and where he'd taken it, among other things. David was a familiar face among the townsfolk, so it came as a surprise when he told his boss that he was going to leave for a few months. When prodded as to why, he told him that he had accepted a brief overseas contract; to help further his reputation and to provide him an opportunity, a humanitarian magazine based in New York City had offered to send him with a UN aid convoy in Mogadishu, attaching him there over the course of three months to both help out and to take photos of them. It was an opportunity he couldn't pass up, and later that year, David left his quiet home of Araminta.
It would turn out to be the lowest point of his life. In those three months, he would take photos of some of the worst human suffering he'd ever seen, in the worst conditions. Helpless to do anything except work and watch, David fell to drugs to help himself cope. It didn't help that they were in a rough part of the world, feeding his addiction until his contract was up and he returned to Araminta. Those who knew David reported a change in the once cheery, hardworking man. He was haggard, tired and jumpy, but most attributed it to the stress of his work. The pictures he'd taken there were published soon after and cemented his reputation as a sterling photographer, but the damage was already done. David Sawyer was a changed man, one who prowled back alleys looking for his next fix, addling his mind to maintain his work ethic. However, two months after his return, a colleague stopped him. One of his best friends. He'd noticed the change in David and knew the symptoms of addiction. Worried for his friend, he offered David a chance at redemption: to keep his secret safe, all he had to do was to go to rehab and get himself clean. Then he wouldn't let the rumours of him being an addict spread and he'd keep his job at the newspaper.
Without much choice, David reluctantly submitted himself for rehabilitation, taking each and every day as it came, until he was thoroughly clean and recovering from his addiction. The process was long and he still worked weekends at the Daily, but six months later, David was a new man. Broken apart in Africa, but put back together again. Stronger than before, with a renewed sense of purpose. He resumed his work at the Araminta Daily, supplementing himself with regular runs at the park, exercise to get fit and eating just a little healthier.
However, David would not know of the events that would occur later on in his life, opening his eyes to more...unfamiliar territories.
It first started with a murder. Even though crime in Araminta was low, the city was small enough that a murder shocked the populace. David wrote the initial piece in the papers and followed the story with his colleagues as one murder turned into two. Then three. Then several. It reminded David enough of his time in Africa that he almost fell into a darker place in his mind, but his friends helped him stay on the straight and narrow. Instead, David buried himself in work, helping his colleagues to write pieces for the paper if they were unable to, taking pictures of new crime scenes and dedicating himself to helping out as much as he could as a journalist. Inside, he was frightened: a serial killer? In Araminta? It was almost too absurd to be real, but the bodies that appeared the obituaries every day were proof enough.
Then came the rumours of the Black Shuck. An apparition of a dog made out of black mist that appeared both in the day and at night that led whoever encountered it to another body that bore the MO of the serial killer. By then, he'd already gleaned enough witness testimonies to put together some facts about their killer: they always wore a hooded jacket made of leather and a mask that concealed most of their face, armed with a switchblade and had eyes that glowed orange. But their build and gender varied so much that almost all the sketches ran in the paper were inconsistent with each other. So to think that there was another purportedly supernatural being that was leading witnesses to the bodies of the killer's victims? David didn't think it was possible. Until he became part of a story himself. Late one night, David was woken from a fitful sleep by a scratching at his door. Thinking it to be a stray cat or a raccoon, he answered only to find the ominous figure of the Black Shuck itself standing at his door. Thinking quickly, David scrambled for his camera before following it to the body of another victim, stabbed several times in the chest and left to bleed out. Just before the Shuck disappeared, David managed to snap a picture of it, framed above the dead body, and ran the photo in the paper the very next day. At first, he thought that people would discount his claims and the story, but the rumours only increased in frequency after; many people claimed his experience corroborated their own and that the police should be looking for the dog too. Something within him suspected that there was truth to these claims of the supernatural, pushing back the inbuilt skepticism he had as a journalist about the unnatural world.
After that harrowing incident, David thought he had seen everything. But when a call went out to him from the police chief, talking about a rather massive pile-up in the middle of Araminta and moths being involved, David knew that something strange existed within his home town. The journalist went out to cover the pile-up, taking pictures and noting down eyewitness testimonies about a barrage of moths that flooded the street, obfuscating the view of many drivers and resulting in a myriad of accidents. But the stories only grew more eerie from there; some witnesses claimed to have seen the moths carry away motorists as they staggered from the wrecks of their vehicles, bleary and confused. The moths themselves left no trace, no wings or even bodies; but enough witnesses had the same story that it couldn't have been a mass hallucination incident. After his initial coverage of the incident, he was told by the Araminta police chief to...sugarcoat his following report, leaving out the eyewitness stories about the moths to lessen the panic that was already growing within the city. Without much choice in the matter, David merely did as he was told, and to this day still does not know the why or the how of these incidents. But in his heart he vowed to find out more.
Whatever the cost.
