| Life Before
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In the beginning..
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Nicola's life was pretty typical growing up; her parents were married (father a part-time fireman, part-time plumber; mother worked as a piano teacher during the school year) and raised five kids. Nicola was the youngest and the only girl. She lived a pretty idyllic life in a smallish town in New York.
Binghampton, New York is a small town with under twelve-thousand; one of those little idyllic towns with a pretty main street and parades on founder's day. The kind of town where most people know you or know someone related to you. Because of this, although Nicola was a popular girl in school and never lacked for friends, she was often seen as the daughter, the sister, the cousin and not as a persona on her own and it niggled which is why she moved away to go to college.
Earning a scholarship to Columbia meant she could venture further than any of her family had, but it also meant she couldn’t afford housing near campus. This forced her to live in the less expensive borough of Brooklyn. While studying English Literature (with a focus on poetry), Nicola found that she flourished when given the opportunity to truly be a small fish in a big pond; rising to the challenges life threw her way.
She would have never expected that the greatest challenge would be her death…
It wasn't the end, but another beginning...
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Home from college for a weekend, Nicola Grimshaw was at a backwoods bar with some friends doing what young people in small towns do; drinking and getting high. She can't remember who's idea it was to take pot shots at the empty beer cans out by the lake. She can barely remember being shot herself. The flash from the camera phone, the loud pop of the gun, the screaming cries of her best friend Janice - those are the things she can remember. That and the cold, feeling really cold. The indignity of being accidentally shot in the head while her drunk friends posed for selfies with loaded guns didn't really register; not then.
Months later she woke up in the hospital and somehow everything felt different. Things were sharper in focus but at the edges of what had always before been excellent peripheral vision there were blurry shapes; grey shadowy figures which reached out to her. The doctors said it was only normal for her to have changed as she had been in a coma thanks to the severe head trauma.
The boy who shot her ended up in prison, but Nicola didn't think much about him. In truth she didn't think much about her former life at all. It felt like she needed to go forward rather than back. Before she had been about to start the first year of her master's degree, but after waking up from her coma she didn't know where she stood.
The medical bills had been horrific and her parents needed her to get back on her feet and work after months of rehab on top of the coma over a year had passed. Nicola looked for work but there was nothing local, so she loaded up her car and headed upstate, feeling drawn in that direction.
She roams now, in her old Ford pick up with its fuzzy dice danging from the mirror, moving from odd job to odd job and sending money back home all the while writing stories and sending them in to newspapers and magazines but mainly blogging her travels. In the last six months since leaving town she hasn't stayed any one place for too long but then again there always seems to be something spurring her on - a voice inside her head, telling her she has a job to do.
The circumstances of her death means she falls under the realm of the Forgotten. The finds herself being drawn to things she wasn't before; where before she was one of life's golden children her death changed all of that and she became one of those unlucky ones - or so she thinks at times; she knows in her less self-pity filled moments that her life now has a greater purpose and this gives her a sense of one and makes her confident.
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| January Apitt
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| Date of Birth
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April 24th, 1987
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| Occupation
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Unemployed
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| Demeanor
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Child
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| Risen
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Mortal Life
Abused Innocent
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Death
Murder
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Regret
Not Living
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Shadow
Abuser
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Krewe
N/A
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| Roleplay Hooks
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| Wandering Writer - Nicola writes for blogs, including her own, mainly focusing on travel and her adventures going through life as a single woman.
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| Bartender - She works menial jobs to help top up her earnings from writing, frequently this means she ends up as a bartender. She's got that demeanor about her that all bartenders have - people like to tell her things, in part because she is a good listener.
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| New in Town - An unknown face wandering around a mid-sized town, people might wonder who she is or what she is up to.
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| Classic Car Lover - She loves classic cars, especially old trucks like the one she drives. She keeps her's in good working order as much as she can, and has even learned how to repair it some over the years.
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| General Apperance
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| Brown hair, a shade lighter than dark and a shade darker than mousy, falls around the middle of her back of she wears it down though mostly she wears it braided. Her complexion is smooth and flawless, save for a small faded circular scar on her right temple. Keen green eyes sit flanking a nose with a slight upward tilt at it's end and above high cheekbones. Her mouth is expressive, the full lips frequently are caught in a smile or being pensively nibbled on by straight, even white teeth. She is neither tall nor petite, falling in that in between state of being average in height (roughly about 5'6") and a bit on the curvy side though not overweight. Her ears are pierced and she runs through a variety of jewelry, always silver. Her clothing is casual; a pairing of jeans and quirky t-shirts with slogans as well as a pair of comfortable and well broken in leather boots.
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