Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: Junior
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, Documentaries, Model building
Gift: Hush
Power Details: Hush creates an effect around the user in which no sound can be created or pass through, effectively rendering everyone, including the user, within the affected area deaf and unable to produce any noise. The effective area of the Gift is a sphere roughly 25 feet in diameter centred around Andrew’s head.
Limitations and Drawbacks: This power is active by default and must be consciously suppressed by the user, which can be taxing if done for elongated periods of time; prolonged suppression of the ability can result in migraines, nosebleeds, dizziness, blackouts and eventual loss of control over his Gift and an inability to suppress the Gift again for up to 12 hours.
Appearance: Standing at 6’ 2” Andrew is of above average height, though seems shorter than he is due to a pronounced slouch, and at 129 lbs he is considered to be underweight for his size. Tall and with a skinny build, he has the appearance of someone who has been stretched out, with thin arms, bony wrists and a narrow face. He has an unhealthy pallor to his skin, with a pale complexion and constant dark rings under his eyes due to lack of sleep; usually he will cover this up to an extent with makeup, but sometimes he forgets to do this or is too tired to do so.
He has brown hair that he usually keeps cut short but it is currently longer than normal, falling to roughly ear level and starting to become unkempt, as he has not had a haircut for a few weeks. His eyes are a muddy brown with bags under them and he has a thin face with a long nose and pointed chin; slightly sunken cheeks add to his overall gaunt appearance. Wisps of facial hair are starting to grow on his chin but it has yet to grow into a full beard.
Andrew commonly wears baggy clothing, mostly consisting of jeans and t-shirts of no particular brand; often plain, solid colours or stripes. On the day of his abduction Andrew was wearing blue jeans with a baggy, forest green t-shirt with a tan canvas jacket. He was also wearing black converse trainers.
Background:
- Andrew is the oldest child of Charlotte and Elijah Martin, a musician and bank manager respectively. He has a younger sister, Emily, who is five years younger than himself.
- He was something of a late bloomer in that his Gift took longer to manifest than for most children. When it did finally appear Andrew was at first under the impression that he had gone deaf, until he realised that no one else in the house could hear anything either.
- From a young age, Andrew has struggled with controlling his Gift. He learned to suppress it to some extent on his own, but due to the side effects of prolonged suppression it became apparent he would have to be put on a regimen of benzodiazepines fairly early on. Andrew doesn't like his medication as it makes him feel drowsy and does not completely suppress his Gift, instead merely shortening its range and still leaving him functionally deaf; however he continues to take them at the request of his parents.
- Andrew’s hobbies, for obvious reasons, tend to include things that can be done without needing to hear, and he spends a lot of his time reading books; he has no real preference for genre, instead just picking up anything that interests him. He will sometimes watch TV with closed captions on, but tends to find shows or movies with narratives boring without sound; instead he prefers watching documentaries and educational shows.
- Between having to suppress his Gift at school for long hours at a time, leading to almost daily headaches, and having to take medication at home, Andrew began to feel increasingly burdened and isolated by his Gift. He would attempt to avoid taking the medication or lie about having taken it and instead suppress his powers himself. At the same time he would find opportunities at school to be alone so that he could stop suppressing his Gift for brief moments during the day. This eventually led to Andrew temporarily losing control over his Gift and the ability to suppress it due to overtaxing himself.
- After regaining control of his Gift, Andrew talked to his parents about why he didn’t want to take his medication and tried to avoid taking it. His parents cooperated with him, converting the garage into a bedroom and letting him move in there so he would be further away from the rest of the house wouldn't have to suppress his power as often. The larger living space also allowed him to indulge in a new hobby, as he would spend his pocket money and time on assembling models of places, tanks, and ships due to his interest in military history from watching documentaries. As a condition by his parents, he would eventually start seeing a therapist as well.
- After explaining his feeling of isolation to his therapist, it was suggested that he begin attending group counselling sessions intended for young people with hearing disorders; even though Andrew’s loss of sound was power driven and could be turned off, the therapist felt that the situations were similar enough that Andrew could relate to them. Andrew attended these sessions for almost a year and did make a few new friends but ultimately decided to stop attending when it became clear that his situation was too dissimilar from the others. These sessions did convince him to learn sign language as an alternate means of communication however.
- Andrew occasionally goes through bouts of insomnia and anxiety caused by his Gift; the lack of sound, even though he has lived with it for years, sometimes cause him to wake in the middle of the night with a feeling that something is wrong. It is difficult for him to go back to sleep when this happens.
- He is a member of the schools model building club: a small, niche club with few members that Andrew joined two years ago. As well as giving him a chance to share his hobby with like-minded people, the other members of the club have introduced him to various new media that he now makes models of alongside his military ones, in particular sci-fi series and the ‘mecha’ genre.
- Due to his frequent headaches, periods of lack of sleep and having to split his focus between his teachers and suppressing his Gift, Andrew does not do particularly well in school. He studies often and his interests mean he is quite knowledgeable in certain subjects, particularly history and geography, but he often finds it hard to concentrate in class and especially during tests.
- Between the other members of the model club and a few people from his old counselling group, Andrew has a decent number of people that he can call friends, enough that he doesn’t consider himself to be unpopular. Aside from this, his need to stop suppressing his Gift at certain points during the day, usually during breaks between classes or at lunch time, mean that he does not often socialise with his classmates outside of club activities or classes. There are a few students who will sometimes approach him during breaks in order to make use of his Gift to get some peace and quiet, but his relationship with these people is usually cordial at best.
- Andrew does not know what he is going to do after high school, other than the fact that he wants to attend university and study history. He hasn’t yet figured out what he is going to do in regards to his Gift and his living arrangements should he leave home, whether he will go back to taking his medication all the time or try to find accommodations where that isn’t necessary, or try to find a university close enough to home that he doesn’t need to move out. Whatever the solution is Andrew knows that it will likely be difficult to manage and has been putting off thinking about it.
Other Skills: Fluent in American Sign Language
