Name: Abel O'Connell
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Personality: Abel is still figuring himself out. He's a nice enough guy, really. He's honest, patient, thoughtful, perceptive, witty and has a kind heart. Unfortunately he grew up in a place where an open heart would have been a closed coffin and so the years have somewhat numbed him to his own goodness. This ignorance of himself has made him difficult to understand or like and despite all his good qualities he tends to have a somewhat cold and awkward air about him. He has a terrible habit of acting defeatist and is all too ready to consider his attitude correct when things go badly. That said he's a grinder, he doesn't see the point in constantly talking about how shit things are, he'd much rather just march through it and distance himself from the stink. Finally, he's far too logical, often at the expense of all emotion.
Physical Description: Abel is about 5'10 and of average weight for his height. He's not slender or chubby but he's not all that athletic either. His muscles have some bulk to them, but it's only what he has naturally, he didn't exercise regularly before the outbreak. Some would consider him decent looking in the conventional way with his narrow blue eyes and strong square jaw. He has dirty blond hair that's short yet messy and a weeks growth on his face.
Currently he's wearing a black leather jacket with yellow stripes that run from the shoulders down the arms, a black t-shirt, regular fit dark blue jeans (with a black belt) and black hiking boots. He also carries a courier bag for the few supplies he has.
Weapons/Equipment: Abel currently has two weapons. The first one is a Glock 17 handgun with 16 rounds left in the magazine. He typically keeps this tucked into his belt, just left of his midsection. The other is a carbon steel combat knife that hangs from his left hip in it's sheathe. In his courier bag he has a few tins of canned food, two bottles of water, only one of which is full, a couple of lighters, a battery powered flash-light and a novel; 'A Brief History of Seven Killings'.
History: Abel was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Living with his dad, mom and older brother in a trailer. His father worked long hours as a security guard in a local Walmart and his mom, unable to find part time work around the hours she needed to take care of her sons stayed a stay-at-home mom. She was great at her job, installing every good trait she could into her sons. She didn't stress education too much, but taught them that knowledge itself was very important. Abel was an intelligent child thanks to his mom's gifted parenting, growing to love reading and even willingly going to a pan-African Saturday school simply because his best friend's mom made her son go.
Despite doing very well at school Abel dropped out completely at fourteen, right after his mom got breast cancer. This hurt the kid, badly. He couldn't focus in school and he found himself irritable during almost all recreational activities. He drifted away from all but his best friend and found himself resentful of his brother who seemed to react to his mothers cancer by staying out and getting into even more trouble than he previously had. When she died he was heartbroken and withdraw almost completely into himself. His father tried to make him go back to school after a few weeks but he refused, going to the library instead whenever his father forced him to leave the trailer.
After several months he began to heal a little bit, growing closer to his brother and reading for fun as well as the pursuit of knowledge again. His father made it so he could legally be home schooled, but as he couldn't afford not to work everyday this basically meant Abel had to educate himself, which he was more than happy to do. Until he was eighteen nothing much else happened. He read a lot, he got into games, he watched TV shows, occasionally did some labouring work for some of his dads friends and very rarely was forced into a house party by one of his few friends.
Unfortunately his life was once again changed forever when his brother was shot. It wasn't over anything all that dramatic. His brother did dumb things, sure. He stole cars, got into petty fights and committed the occasional robbery. He wasn't shot for any of that however, he was shot for stepping on someone's shoe in a club and telling them to go fuck themselves when they demanded an apology. This isn't what changed his life however, his brother was fine after some recuperation. A few months later Abel was at one of the house parties he was forced into on occasion when he heard a kid bragging about shooting a white boy in the same club Abel's own brother was shot in. Laughing about how he thought he was tough until he saw the .38. Abel had never been a violent person and had only been in a few physical conflicts in his lifetime, despite them being extremely common in his area. Hearing this kid laughing about almost shattering his family though, something came over him. He went into the houses kitchen and retrieved a sharp knife before confronting the braggart and asking him whether the kid he shot looked anything like himself. As the realization dawned on the kid he quickly reached for his waistband, but the guns grip was under his hoody and the blade entered his chest before his hand could touch his weapon. There were screams and until the court trial Abel wasn't sure how many times he stabbed the kid. Three times, apparently.
In a kind of fog he walked to the police station that night and handed himself in. For his cooperation and plead of guilty he only received six years with the possibility of parole in three. For the conviction of grievous bodily harm, which could have easily been attempted murder, this sentence was quite generous, but the judge told him he couldn't go any easier because he had taken the law into his own hands and that would always be a very dangerous precedent.
It may sound obvious, but Abel hated prison. He had always been a loner, but for the first time in his life he felt true, wounding loneliness in prison. He kept his head down, read a ton of books, exercised semi-regularly and took part in a book club. He made a couple of friends due to his love of books and relatively diverse wealth of knowledge and had something akin to fun discussing philosophy with some some-what like minded inmates. Despite his activities his incarceration still passed painfully slow. Thankfully he got parole after his first meeting and was a free man soon after his 21st birthday.
He enjoyed his freedom, but his time inside hadn't just stolen time from him it seemed. He found himself completely unemployable. It was hard enough for regular people to find steady work in Detroit at the time, let alone an ex-convict with a violent crime stained into his name. Despite this he sent out applications almost constantly for several months, growing all the more desperate in the mean time. His brother let him stay with him when he decided to move out of his fathers trailer, feeling guilty for not being able to pay his way. Reluctantly he soon accepted the work his brother offered him and began 'delivering packages' around Detroit. It paid pretty well, and despite it hurting Abel's spirit he didn't have the energy to pursue anything else. Eventually drugs lead to what they always lead to. Violence and desperation. He had began making riskier deliveries, dropping off payments and picking up packages as well as the more simple fiend deliveries. For this riskier job his brother gave him one of his spare handguns, a Glock 17. Of course he ended up having to use it.
During a money delivery the two guys he had to meet up with complained that the package wasn't enough. Abel knew they were just trying to take advantage of someone who they probably rightly guessed wasn't built for this line of work. One of them went for something behind his back, but Abel was quicker, levelling his gun at his head and telling him to drop whatever he had in his hand behind his back. Whilst he was focused on the guy on the right the dude on the left apparently sensed an opportunity and went for something himself.
Stupid, stupid man. Abel turned quick and let off a single instinctive shot into his chest. He had apparently been hit in the heart as unlike the wounding Abel had hoped for the bullet caused him to drop instantly and cease all signs of life. The other guy instantly dropped what turned out to be a large combat knife behind his back and went to the side of his companion. He seemed genuinely hurt, which for some reason confused Abel. He still ponders why he thought the man wouldn't care for his colleague. Picking up the knife for his own safety he took a few steps back, trying to process the situation he created. It was then that the truly shocking thing happened. The man he had killed opened his eyes, lunged forward and bit a chunk out of his friends face.
Abel almost tripped recoiling in surprise. He quickly retreated, getting into his car and speeding off. He went immediately back to his brother and told him what had happened. He knew Abel was telling the truth about killing the man, but he assumed the latter part of the story was a symptom of his obvious shock. Calmly he told his little brother to go to Pittsburgh until things calmed down a little and he could find out whether the police had anything on the kill. He told him to bring the handgun and dump it in a storm drain in Pittsburgh. Of course, by the time he got to the city of steel the apocalypse had began.
Life after the outbreak: By the time he got to Pittsburgh the city had began to descend into chaos, there had been an extreme amount of murders and the police all seemed way more on edge than usual, speeding all over the place. By the time the riots started later that night Abel had found an abandoned old warehouse to hide in. Over the next month this would be his base. As the city fell he used the riots as a cover to steal some supplies he badly needed. Food, water and a flash-light and batteries so he could see in the warehouse when he needed to. Over time he heard hundreds of gunshots, screams and other horrors. On his last journey out of the warehouse he grabbed as much canned food and bottled water as he could in the hope of holding up for a while, but dropped a lot of it when he was chased by someone who for all intents and purposes seemed to be dead. He knew he wasn't crazy, but there had to be a better explanation? Now he's once again running low and knows he'll have to go back out into the horror zone.
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