The Sons of Salem

Close up shot. Miraculous wind that happens to only blow on the protagonist’s hair. A sideways glance towards the camera. Pause.

Title Drop.

Time to put your game face on.

This discreet patch attaches to your side, just above the kidney, with eight shallow needles. It carefully monitors and manages your levels of cortisol (among other hormones and enzymes), keeping your body and mind relaxed in times of crisis.

While the patch is in use, your movements are visibly sluggish and floaty, and your wounds ooze a clear, syrupy liquid. A blinking light on the patch indicates the amount of stress it's working to mitigate; green for a penalty of 1 or 2, orange for 3 or 4, and red for 5+.

The Gunslinger seems to ignore all wounds and exhaustion, sheer grit allowing them to power through and do what needs to be done.

Due to the state of undeath, injuries do not impede Edward. The injuries still happen but, unless they caused him to become unconscious or killed him, he can still do everything the same as if he wasn’t injured in the first place.

At one time, Amaryllis's arms were normal, unscarred, and white as a dove. She would wrestle with her brothers, surrounded by soft and fluffy couches, plug protected outlets, and edge protected tables. They were safe, mostly, until one gave another a shallow scratch with their fingernail. From even a single scrape, the children would ruin rugs and throw pillows as the Fleischer Family Curse took its toll, forcing them to make a sizable plasma donation to the house. They all knew the risks, of course, they had the band-aids and medical bandages on hand to stop the bleeding. They continued their roughhousing beyond earshot of their parents...

Amaryllis's mother, Dahlia, knew the truth of their family's curse. She understood that time was running short as Sorin had already passed away years before. She and her husband studied the occult, making a fortune by reading futures, holding seances, and investigating hauntings. The greatest ritual they ever developed was one to break their curse. She knew Amaryllis, the first-born, would need to be saved first, as soon as possible, before she followed Death to meet her husband.

Something was not right, Amaryllis had passed out early in the bloodletting phase of the ritual. She struggled against her bindings and exasperated the new cuts on her wrists. The long gashes and otherworldly lettering on her arms wept until they went blue. Dahlia completed the runes and smeared a circle in blood around her daughter before realizing that the ritual was faulty. She then realized that her baby girl was on Death's door. She rushed Amaryllis to the hospital in heavy bandages, but her body would refuse to close her wounds. Dahlia would die a year later, consumed by the knowledge that the ritual failed.

She was wrong.