Carver, Penelope's Questionnaire

I live in Seattle, have for my entire life. I love the rain, it's always been so comforting to me. Plus it let's me put on my layers more often than not, and I'm not going to give that up easily. Especially now that Julia is... dead. I can't really tell if living in the same building and walking by her door every day is good for me, but I can't really can't imagine leaving. And it's not like I can even find another place to live right now. At least my apartment is still cozy! Has a lot more plants now, but that's hardly a problem. It might be a little cramped, but I don't need much space.

I work part time as a waiter at a local restaurant. Doesn't pay too well, but it's enough to buy groceries and pay rent until I get that high paying job in a hospital I keep telling my parents about. Normally I'd try to put some cash into savings but I really can't afford to do that right now. Besides, I don't really see much of a point to saving. Future isn't looking too bright, and I can't picture what's going to happen next week, let alone 5 years down the line. So yeah, I get myself plants and some cute knick knacks, because if I feel like shit, I'll at least have a nice place to stay while feeling it.

We've all lost someone close to us, and none of us deserve to go through something like that. I want to make it possible for us to connect to the other side, so that we can all rest assured as to what waits for us once we die. And so that we won't have to lose the people who die. They'd be fountains of knowledge, letting us learn about long lost civilizations, ancient historical puzzles solved in a snap! Imagine, we could find out what it was actually like on the day Jesus died. What his miracles looked like to the people who lived through them, we could even confirm he existed in the first place! And- and maybe I could talk to her again. Even just once.

Julia's death. It's been about a month since her funeral and since then everything has been... gray. The elevator ride up to my apartment is so much quieter now, I fucking hate it. The only times I seem to even feel anything are when I'm pissed at everything around me. I still, go through the motions though. I still go to my classes, clock into work, come back home, go up that fucking elevator, fall asleep, do it all again. I just can't see the point in anything anymore. I don't know how much longer I can live like this, something needs to change. I need to do something before I just, dissolve.

Dr. Belmont, my mentor. She's been helping me out with my studies for years, and she's really sweet. Lately she's just been checking up on me though. I think it's pretty obvious there's something up with me, and she's taken notice. We used to talk about the work I was doing for my studies, but now we just chat. She makes a really good chamomile tea.

Jeffery, my new neighbor. He moved in like, two weeks after Julia died. He's nice, tried to introduce himself to me but I kinda blew up at him. I don't want to be an asshole, but I just... can't look at him without getting angry.

Julio, Julia's old boss. I had never really talked to him before she died, but we met at her funeral. Apparently, she talked about me a lot. He's been very kind, always keeping his door open in case I wanted to talk about it with someone who knew her. I might actually take him up on that offer.

Childhood was pretty quiet. I fit in well enough, had a few friends, the works. It was honestly kinda boring. I remember always feeling trapped by my circumstances, though. I was supposed to be this perfect straight A student because I want to be a doctor. My parents are real proud of me, but I swear they always show me off like some sort of trophy, and that was even more the case when I was just a little kid trying my best to learn about what being a doctor really was. Every test was an opportunity to prove I was "serious" about signing up for med school. I was 13!! It didn't matter if I was serious about it or not, I was supposed to be some dumb teenager not trying to figure out what to do with my life. And don't even get me started on my "friends". I've always had trouble talking with people, and they treated me like a fucking pet project-

...I guess my childhood was quiet. Just, not in a good way.

Yeah I was in love, once. She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. I had actually never been attracted to anyone before, I assumed some boy would catch my eye soon enough. I've since learned I don't like boys at all, go figure. She worked as a mechanic, and god did she love cars. If I was having a particularly shit day I could always tell her and she would happily sit with me and just chat about whatever I wanted to cheer me up. If it was bad enough I didn't really feel like talking, she would just as happily tell me all about her car, how her day at the shop went, anything at all to get my mind off things. I could listen to her talk for hours, and I did! People always thought she was rough around the edges, took too many risks, but to me she always felt so soft.

Her name was Julia. We never even dated.

I'm terrified of connection. I'm terrified that when I get close to someone, they'll just... die. I'm not sure I can take that happening to me again. I made a new... friend while on the job. Her name is Kanni, she's a robot. She's really tall and strong, and she has the most beautiful purple hair. I want to be closer to her. But every time I think about her, I see the coffin. I see the family, united in their grief and love for a daughter taken from them too soon. I see her, sitting there, with her cute little toothpick. You know, I actually gave her a pack of toothpicks in the end. I don't know why, I just couldn't imagine her going where ever it is the dead go without a toothpick to fiddle with. What would I bring to everyone else's funeral? I can't bear to think of it. It must be easier to just never get another invite to one.

Dr. Belmont is worried about me, I've been avoiding our usual tea times. But I can't help it. Every cup is bitter with the taste of loss. Everywhere I go, all I see is walking funerals.

Most prized possessions? Easy, Julia's houseplants. Before, it was just making me miserable to take care of them. Nothing but an act of emotional self harm I insisted on doing to make myself feel something.

But now, it's different.

When I water them, change their soil, clean their pots, it doesn't make me miserable about her being gone. Now I'm reminded of all the moments we've shared that I loved so much. The things that make me still love her, even now.

The moment where I convinced her to name her plants is still so vivid in my mind. She'd had this sad little succulent sitting on her desk for months. It was in a tiny pot, with soil that was way too dry for it (an achievement, when it comes to succulents). Every time I came over it caught my attention, practically begging me to say something about it, and I finally did on some random day I was hanging out. I asked what she had named it.

Julia, the same Julia who bothered me for literal months to let her name my car, looked at me like I was insane for suggesting that houseplants should be named.

Long story short, after a fierce debate I converted her to my way of thinking (or she was just humoring me, I didn't mind either way) and this lonesome succulent was dubbed: Atlas. After that she started bring more plants into her space, and she named every last one of them.

Atlas lives on my desk now, under it's own private plant light.

Take a guess. I'm on the goddamned No Fly list. For no good reason! Normally, being on the No Fly list wouldn't even pose that much of a problem to me. I've only even left the state a few times, before I started Contracting. But now, I need to be ready to hop on a flight to who knows where at basically the drop of a hat (now that I think about it, I'm lucky I haven't gotten fired). If my life were more normal, if... if Julia had never died, I would just take the opportunity to ride trains more.

God. And the why. It keeps me up at night. All because I wasn't strong enough to keep everyone safe. If I was better at my job, better at holding the group together, if I wasn't such a coward I could've kept everyone safe. Then I wouldn't be on the No Fly list, either.

I wake up at 5:30 am. Spend around 15 minutes hanging around in bed, being lazy. I usually like to bring up Animal Crossing, or maybe something on my DS. Once that's done I drink my morning coffee and get dressed. I try to do that as quickly as possible, personal record is five minutes. Then out the door to work. In the mornings, I'm going over to UW to help out Dr. Belmont with whatever she needs. Usually I'm helping her grade things, or write up lesson plans. Though two times a week we just sit around her office and chat. It's... really nice.

I didn't always need to get up at 5:30, but when I moved into the Khan I lost easy access to the light rail, and as such lost my 15 minute commute to work. Sucks, but I really needed to get out of that building, and it's nice to live with other weirdos.

Looking nice?

I guess it depends on the context. If I'm going on a date, I'd call Wren for advice. She has a really good sense of style and helps push me out of my comfort zone when I need it.

But if it's for work, like maybe I'm trying to make a good impression on a Professor, I try to figure out what they expect from me and I fulfill it to the best of my ability. That's one of the things I learned in pre-med, actually. The way to pass a class isn't to be good at what you do (though that certainly helps) it's to give the Professor what they are expecting. Sometimes that means doing work I personally think isn't up to snuff, but I know will please the person grading it. And sometimes that means showing up to class dressed as your best guess as to what a doctor-to-be is supposed to look like.

That's... huh.

I think I had plans for that, at one point. Actually- it already passed for this year.

It was seven months after Julia died. We had actually been planning something, if my memory serves me. I think she was going to take me on a drive along the coast line of Washington. Spend a couple days staring at the ocean and shooting the shit. We needed to plan so far in advance because of how shit our schedules were.

I guess. Next year, the plan is to spend it with Julia and Ems. Maybe we'll take that coast line drive, maybe we'll be per-occupied with other things. Whatever, as long they're both there, I'm happy.

Oh fuck, easy. Never confessing to Julia. Like, I already regretted never telling her because I'd never know how she felt. You know, just, never having that closure. Then I had the chance to talk to Julia again, only to find out she felt the exact same way for about as long. We literally could have been dating for years before she died. Might have even made it so she didn't sign the Contract, but... that's wishful thinking. Harbingers know how to pick their targets, and there isn't really a way to stop them from reaching who they need.

I really wish that my life could've turned out differently, but it's hard to say if I'd jump to another timeline or some stupid shit like that. There are things about my life that I like, that I wouldn't have if I never signed the Contract. I never would've met Wren, or Ems, or Kanni.

Inherent potential. I know because my powers developed months before my first Contract. It was a few weeks after Julia had died, and I was in a haze of angry auto-pilot. I don't even know how I managed it, but I had been going about my routine, getting into work, my classes, everything. I'd be impressed with myself if it wasn't so concerning.

I was trying to get inside my apartment, but my key wasn't working for some reason. Took me a bit to be able to recognize why, I was trying to use my spare key to Julia's apartment. In that moment, everything I had been avoiding thinking about rose to the surface, and I was completely and utterly consumed by anger. It was so overwhelming it felt like my insides were boiling. I remember how I needed to direct it, like if I didn't do anything with it I'd keel over and die right there. So my attention went back to the key.

I wanted it destroyed. Reduced to some meaningless shards of metal, the same way Julia was reduced to some meaningless hunk of dead flesh.

And that was the first time I was able to exert my psychic potential.

I think it's impossible for Contractors to not be at least a little spiritual. Every month we see the strange and supernatural, and learn that if you disregard spirituality and the stories behind it, you die. I'm not entirely sure about how much I believe, or what traditions I think hold more weight, but I know the world is a strange place, and those stories exist as a way of explaining the unexplainable.

In regards to religion specifically, I was never particularly faithful. My parents were raised Christian (I forget what denomination), but they never practiced much, and didn't try to involve me. I regarded myself as agnostic, because with how magical our world is, it isn't that far fetched to think that higher powers exist.

Now though? I know gods are real, I saw one of their afterlives, I saw how they treated their followers, I saw how they tried to convert people.

Gods are real. And they deserve what's coming to them.

My worldview was already thrown into complete disarray when Julia died. Suddenly everything seemed... pointless. Grey and meaningless. I was willing to do things I had never done before, hurt people in ways I had never even dreamed of. It was horrible. Being so unmoored from everything that I had based my sense of self around. But that was before I saw what The Contracts did to people, how Harbingers acted and picked their targets.

Now, everything I valued before has come into such clear focus. I was right to care about humanity the way I did. To focus on the regular and mundane of life. That's what this is all about. There are powers at play that are beyond our comprehension, and the way they flex their power is by playing us against each other. Promising that we can be more than "lowly humans", and rise above the world.

Well. Fuck that. I love the world, and I want to be a part of it.

Wren is my best friend. When I first met her I was still going through the worst of my grief, and I was scared of her, honestly. She proved to have the ability to just... draw out people's secrets. The kid she used it on just confessed that killing someone was barely anything to him (At least, by omission). I wasn't really scared of what she would reveal, I was just terrified of someone being able to know me that easily. So I kept her at arm's length. Fast forward through some severely traumatizing experiences for the both of us, and we met back up. She talked me out of wanting to kill someone (or worse, frankly), and I realized that she really wasn't as scary as I thought. She's helped me out a bunch, and I hope I've been helpful to her. It's nice to have a friend again, and this time without any romantic baggage!

Kanni is one of my girlfriends. We met on my second Contract, but she's gone... a lot farther than me. There was a bit of chemistry between us on our job, and she kinda swept me off my feet (literally, she picked me up with one arm, don't think I've ever blushed harder). She was so nice, too. That's what really turned it from just some random crush to something more. She saw me when I was a ball of horrified grief, and she didn't leave me behind, she stayed right there with me, tried to help me through it. Then she refused to leave behind one of our coworkers, for absolutely no benefit and great personal risk. I had decided to run away, because there really wasn't anything I could've done, but she inspired me to stick around a little longer, draw fire. That's why she means so much to me. She reminds me of the kindness that used to come so easily to me, and makes me feel brave enough to do what I need for others. She's been through a lot, over the course of all her contracts. I don't think I could even possibly begin to understand the things she's seen, or been forced to do. But I know how it feels to lose yourself, and I'll be here to remind her for as long as she'll let me. Because no matter what, I know that kindness, that care for the people around her is still there. And I love that little kernel of kindness, and everything else that she is-

Oh shit. I'm in love with her.