Character Background: Samuel (Also, 6CD Set Is Available In Case You Don’t Know By Now)

Yes, the 6 CD Set, available here, out now, get it AND everyone who buys it will get the special Act 1 Demo of The Slender Man Opera sent to them for free, LONG before it’s made available to the public.

This won’t be for months. BUT, if you buy or bought the 6 CD Set, you will get the Act 1 Demo for The Slender Man Opera sent to you. For free. WAY before any other human being comes NEAR it.

As with both the steampunk and dieselpunk operas, i will finish the first act demo of Slender Man long before i’m even done composing the rest of the show. And YOU will have it to check out and see what the **** is up.

Characters:

Zoe – Lauren Osborn
Timothy – probably me
Jordan – Jen Folden
Samuel – ?

I have pages written on Jordan, but they involve too many spoilers. I revealed way too much already. When i do Jordan’s background i’ll have to edit the crap out of it because of spoilers. Here is some of the character background on Samuel, edited for spoilers.

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Samuel had been a child exorcist.

His mother spent years of his childhood “possessed”. She was part of a very religious sect and when her sanity began to deteriorate, going to a mental health professional was unthinkable.

Samuel was just a boy, but due to his mother’s condition, the Pastor taught him various prayers and rituals for exorcising demons which Samuel practiced with great gusto. As an 8 year old, he would shout and stamp gesture just like the fiery ministers he was accustomed to watching, praising Jesus and attempting to cast out the Devil.

Interestingly, it did work to a small degree.

His mother would respond by hissing and flailing and then after a big, throaty croak, would be quite calm and focused. She’s stay relatively present for anywhere from a few days to some weeks at a time. Eventually the madness would always return and the cycle would continue.

None the less, Samuel was a bit of a sensation around certain religious circles for several years. The novelty of a child exorcist was obviously quite a spectacle, but additionally his passion was undeniable and there was no mistaking his sincerity. He truly, truly wanted to save his mother. nights were spent as she lay sobbing or morose simply comforting her, a little boy trying to assure his mother and his little sister that everything would be all right.

Near the end of his teenage years, when he was fast tracked for seminary school and a life in the ministry he changed course.

His mother’s new thing was suicide attempts. He lived in constant fear that he would be too late one day. And while everyone around him prayed and praised, he slowly came to find that he could no longer live under the illusion that he was helping. That any of it was helping.  Clearly his attempts and accomplished nothing. The only thing he had managed to do was raise his sister, and that hadn’t taken him prancing around impassioned and shouting, that had taken diligence and commitment.

Thus he decided to go to University and study mental health. He was still not adverse to seminary, but only after he had a degree in some practical treatment for his mother and others like her.

Alas, by the time he got his degree his mother had died, finally successful at one of her suicide attempts. His failure to save her haunted him and fueled his studies and practice. Seminary never happened but his psychiatric career blossomed. He was still a devout churchgoer, just not a minister. Life thus went on for some time and while at first ashamed of his youthful occupation, he eventually came to view it with a wisened sense of humor.

Then his sister started exhibiting early symptoms of his mother’s affliction.

Particulars of mother’s illness had already been a heavy focus of his career, but now, his attempt to help his sister became his life’s obsession. There was no line of inquiry unexplored, no research unstudied, no paper unread, no study undissected. He was already a leading expert, now through his diligence he had no peer.

After 5 years however, he closed his practice and entered seminary.

He had concluded, reluctantly, even perhaps kicking and screaming, that the affliction which plagues the female line of his family was not psychological in origin but demonic. So Samuel again became an exorcist.

He was no fool. He did not accept unfounded superstition nor look for supernatural causes until all else had been ruled out. But he did come to recognize and learn much about a class of entities plaguing this world from somewhere beyond it.

He rose through the ranks of the church until finally was invited to join a very special group, an elite circle whose knowledge of the intersection of the spiritual and the supernatural was quite refined and rare. It was through this group and their work that he learned of the Degenerate Abbey and its importance.

Meanwhile, no matter how many times he drove the accursed entity away from his sister, somewhere between months and years it would somehow slither back into this coil and attach itself to her as it had to the female line for generations. His vigivlance could not be constant, no matter how he tried, and one night while he was away his sister “committed suicide” although authorities were never truly able to explain the incident.

He raged. He wept. He mourned.

His desire to fight these dark entities reached a fever pitch and with nothing left to live for or care about in the world, he did something very rare: he volunteered to cross over to the Degenerate Abbey assume whatever administrative duties he could. As always, it was a one way trip. And that is how Samuel came to reside at the Degenerate Abbey.