Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
Hobbies and Interests: Reading, jogging, working out, cooking
Gift: Necromancer
Power Details: When Cecilia activates her gift and touches a human corpse, she is able to effectively possess the body as though she were its living consciousness. She is able to pilot the body as though it were her own, and use it to walk, talk, or perform other actions, provided the body is actually capable of performing those actions. She does not feel the injuries that killed the body beyond a dull ache, and subsequent injuries will register as mildly painful. She is able to break off the connection with a psychological trigger – mentally commanding herself to will do the trick, but a sincere desire to abandon the corpse will also cause her to return to her own body. Cecilia's power does work on successive corpses - that is, if she is possessing a corpse and comes into contact with another corpse, she may voluntarily choose to discard the first corpse and transfer into the second. This process is not automatic, and must be purposefully chosen.
Limitations and Drawbacks: While Cecilia possesses someone’s body, her own physical body collapses and goes into a comatose state - the body will still perform automatic functions such as breathing and digestion, but will have a very faint heartbeat and be completely unresponsive to all forms of stimulus. She has a little over an hour to inhabit a corpse before her real body begins suffering from unnaturally rapid muscle degeneration. Physical hindrance will become apparent within an hour, and within six hours she will become too stiff to function and her body will essentially become incapable of movement. In this state she will suffer multiple organ failures and die. Her body is defenseless while she is possessing a corpse, and Cecilia's consciousness will instantly die if her body is killed. Additionally, she is constrained by the physical limitations of the corpse that she is possessing. A possessed body is animated, but not alive. Thus, a corpse with a broken leg will be unable to walk properly, and possessing a headless corpse would render Cecilia blind, mute, and deaf. Cecilia can only possess a corpse containing more than fifty percent of the corpse's biomass, meaning that she cannot possess a severed limb or a body that has been atomized or burnt until nothing significant remains. She may possess an animal, provided that the animal is a mammal and approximately the same size as an average human being, such as a large breed of dog or a deer. Dead bodies possessing Gifts will still retain them, but unless the Gift is a passive or immutable characteristic of the body, or Cecilia has personal specific knowledge of how to activate the Gift, she will be unable to activate it and/or use it with any degree of proficiency. Once she has abandoned a corpse, she is locked out and cannot possess it again.
Appearance: Cecilia is Hispanic, stands 5'4'' high and weighs 140 lbs. She has shoulder-length black hair, which is naturally a bit wavy. She usually wears it loose, but sometimes pulls it back into a ponytail. She has a slightly rounded face, and deep brown eyes. Cecilia’s nose is blunt and downturned, and she has wide lips. Her build is slightly stocky, but not overweight, with a bit of muscle evident on her arms and legs. Cecilia buys most of her clothes second-hand, and tends to dress in cheaper styles. On the day of the abduction, Cecilia was wearing a grey sweater over a red tank top, dark blue jeans with holes in the knees, grey socks and worn green runners.
Background:
- Cecilia was born on October 3rd, 2003, in the San Andrés area of Mexico City to Lucas and Ana Moreno. She has a younger brother three years her junior, Rafael.
- Lucas owned a small bar, and the family lived in an apartment above it. The bar was frequented by several members of a local chapter of the Tláhuac Cartel, but was unfortunately bordering on territory held by a rival faction, and the area was becoming increasingly violent. Three years ago, a violent gunfight killed several people in the neighborhood.
- Fearing an escalation of the violence, the Moreno family attempted to emigrate to America. The family were apprehended crossing the border, and were separated under the zero-tolerance policy. Cecilia’s mother and father were deported, but Cecilia and Rafael remained in a holding facility for several weeks before they were cleared to go live with an aunt and uncle in Bend, Oregon.
- Cecilia's time in the holding facility inflicted substantial mental trauma on her and her brother. Many of her more independent personality traits were pushed into overdrive by the experience. She has become much more withdrawn and suspicious of other people's motives, and focuses on being self-reliant so that she cannot be hurt by losing anyone else. She has a deep and intense mistrust of the government and police officers, and frequently suffers nightmares about being returned to the facility.
- Cecilia loves her family, and she misses her parents deeply. However, in her quiet moments she finds herself hating them. She blames them for the separation, and for the trauma she suffered in the holding facility. She understands why they wanted to leave San Andrés, but emotionally cannot make herself believe that coming to America wasn't worth losing her parents. She wishes that they had just tried to make a new start somewhere else in Mexico, or tried to pay a coyote to smuggle them across so they wouldn't get caught rather than claiming asylum.
- Cecilia’s aunt and uncle run a bookstore in Bend. The aunt has a gift for libromancy, allowing her to understand the thoughts and intentions behind any written work she is reading. This helps the bookstore stay afloat, but the family doesn’t have much in the way of disposable income.
- School is a struggle for Cecilia. She possesses a decent amount of intelligence, and maintains a fairly steady C+ average. She could potentially do better, but the language barrier tends to hold her back. Cecilia is capable of reading most things in English, but she has much more difficulty writing and speaking it.
- Cecilia works at the bookstore a few afternoons a week, so she rarely if ever socializes outside of school. Her aunt and uncle let her borrow books from the store sometimes, so she usually tends to read in a quiet corner whenever she has free time, using a small notebook to jot down words she doesn’t recognize.
- Cecilia has never had reason to touch a dead body before, meaning that she does not actually know what her gift is. She secretly suspects that she might not have one, and can be jealous or resentful of others who seem to have amazing talents and capabilities. She tries to compensate for her lack of ability by pushing herself to be useful in whichever way she can, whether it’s tidying up around the house, looking after Rafael, or doing her best in school. She will often focus intently on a project until it is complete, and double and triple-check it to make sure she’s done her absolute best. Her biggest success has been learning how to cook. She taught herself a few recipes, and makes dinner for the family a few times a week.
- Fitness and strength are very important for Cecilia. Her work at the bookstore keeps her too busy to join a sports team, but she goes jogging in the early morning four times a week, and in her free afternoons works out after school. She has developed some muscle as a result of these efforts, and she’s secretly quite proud of it.
Other Skills: Physical endurance, heavy lifting
