Hezalea Solitreault's Questionnaire

Hezalea lives in a townhouse near the Kitsilano area, where quite a few rich people live. It's relatively new yet quite rustic-looking, with painted walls and wooden floors instead of sleeker-looking material. She wouldn't be comfortable in a place that looked too clean, yet if you checked her room, you'd see that it's incredibly minimalistic and not lived-in. Her old coworker (now her roommate) insists on living in a bigger house and in a more secure location, though she thinks this property would just attract unwanted attention anyway. Either way, he's covering some of her rent so she'd be paying a little under a thousand dollars per month, so she's not complaining.

She lives with 3 roommates, two of whom are UBC students who have no idea why she'd willingly travel all the way to SFU each day. It's not that she likes transit, she just happens to have intel that there's something she's looking for up on Burnaby Mountain. The few hours sacrificed to the buses per day are worth it.

Hezalea works part-time at a construction site. She's used to this kind of dusty, haphazard environment, having spent her youth trespassing through buildings in the midst of renovation. It's a pretty good pay, all things considered, though she opts to save most of her money and spend the rest on necessities. Being a lifelong survivalist means she's still accustomed to having an ability to pack everything and go, not to mention her past occupation.

The one thing she's a bit irked about is how slow things progress in construction around these parts. It feels like she and her team are just hanging around a majority of time, and plugging up traffic for no reason other than being able to stick a truck in the middle of the road.

Hezalea would like to see the world devoid of influence from cowardly puppeteers who hide behind status symbols and figureheads. 

For the longest time she had been working under them herself, because she had nowhere else to go. There was no way to sustain herself in a bustling society, and Japan tends to hide its ugliest side behind smoke and mirrors and anime girls. The system is inherently flawed enough for dozens of orphans like herself to get thrown into a life of clandestine operations, and very few make it out alive. Those who do coincidentally tend to be the ones most obedient to the higher-ups, decorated for all their achievements while guns are pointed at their backs. 

Keep your head up.

Don't look back.

Don't question it.

It was a miracle she had gotten out relatively unscathed, but ever since then, she found herself missing the action and the adrenaline of fighting for a purpose. Combined with the shame of killing a dear friend, she has resolved to become the true definition of a hero in her mind: someone inhumanly powerful, and one who stands against the world if it means they can protect their virtues. She's ready to see society crumble if the roots have rotted for far too long to support themselves under this weight. 

Death?

She'll die a million times just to come back and become more of a pain in the ass for the people she once worked under. It's the least she can do to atone.

It doesn't hurt if she chooses not to feel, after all. 

The dark clouds loomed over the barren land as she stood frozen in place, staring down at a motionless figure. A small gust of wind sent dead leaves flying past her from the direction of a somewhat nearby city that had been obscured by a thin layer of fog. Squinting did nothing to prevent the fresh sting behind her eyes. Every breath was painful and dry, so difficult yet she had to breathe even harder. She shivered, but she didn’t dare move an inch, as though even to simply zip up her jacket would have caused time itself to rupture. No, even if she did move, something irreversible has already been done. Something unforgivable. Something that, no matter how much she explained, no one would believe a word of. 

She wouldn't believe herself either.

A metal smell filled the air as crimson blood slowly dripped from a knife in her right hand. It pooled onto the ground beside her feet, gradually being absorbed by the thin, pale sand. Near it was a much bigger puddle that slowly grew as the person laid lifelessly in front of her. Grief and guilt twisted together in her stomach, and now she wasn't quite sure whether or not she was the one who had killed the very person she looked up to. She wouldn’t do this, would she?

If this had dragged on for any longer, would she have been the one bleeding the rest of her life out in the middle of the arid wastelands?

In spite of how sure she had once been of the fact that she was not a murderer, things had begun to blur for what seemed like an eternity, warping into a wicked, gray zone that stretched for miles and miles. The only thing she knew now was that glasses were not the solution to whatever this was. She couldn’t go to an optometrist and ask them to cure her of all the negligence that led to this. She couldn’t go to them and request something that would help her see the path she had to take to escape this grey world, because that something does not exist.

Once-muffled footsteps from far away became quiet thumps that eventually stopped about a meter behind her, followed by a small series of familiar clicks. She instinctively dropped her knife and raised her hands above her head. It wasn’t any better when a familiar voice sliced through the air. 

“Congratulations. You have slain the beast.”

______

Hezalea's most defining moment wasn't when she learned of her irresponsible father from Hong Kong. It wasn't when her mother died, and it wasn't even when she met her friend and first love.

It was when she killed her.

She would never admit that she was framed even if it could save her life. At the end of the day, even if she had not physically done the act, her negligence and tunnel vision were what culminated into this moment. 

And she questioned everything she had ever chosen to do; this path of hatred, this destiny to lurk silently in the shadows, to become the tooth and claw of an evil government, she condemned all of it. They crowned her the "hero of the city" but all she felt was emptiness. What was she striving for? What point was there in living if she'd just be doing it for someone else? Hezalea could not live like this. Nor does she deserve to carry on Caliose's legacy. From then on she decided to live for herself.

And no one could stop her.

Koriol Celestheryne:

Former co-worker turned roommate. They've gone through things together (though it was mostly Hezalea being shot at and hunted down) and this teamwork has transferred well to being able to coexist in the same household. He's got a knack for mysteries and he'll always drag Hezalea along to make one of those evidence pinboards, and they'll spend hours ruminating over the most trivial matters. Examples include whether peanut butter and jelly is really the best combination, and what the ratio should be if it were true. Between the two of them, they have a silent agreement not to ask any questions, though she does get strange looks from him every now and then. She has a feeling he already knows what's up, but it doesn't have to be said out loud. It even seems dangerous for him to try putting it into words; wealthy and smart as he may be, he's just a regular civilian, and there's a reason why his station was behind a desk covered in sticky notes that he's drawn on. She trusts him, at the very least, though sometimes he'll do something stupid and she has to be the one to clean up the stains. Maybe that's their fate for engaging with a deathly lifestyle for so long.

Luciole Garnychelis:

Just a regular uni student who Koriol met in his studio class, but really, no one around Koriol or Hezalea can really be "normal". There's something off about the way she smiles relentlessly through anything and everything; she even beats Koriol at maintaining such a serene pokerface, as if she's just stuck this way. Hezalea is sure that she has her bad days, but something tells her she doesn't want to know what that entails (it wouldn't be farfetched to assume Luciole can and will kill people, and experienced as Hezalea is at doing that as well, she's still going to try avoiding such confrontations on school grounds). At times she speaks of a certain ideology that neither Hezalea nor Koriol can currently identify, so she's one of the many mysteries that Koriol is watching over at the moment. Hezalea herself is hesitant on treating a person like a scientific test subject, so she tries to interact with Luciole normally. At the end of the day she's just an ignorant girl who somehow got caught up on something that no single person can comprehend. It would be nice if Hezalea knew how to talk to this person normally, but her social skills have always been subpar. What happened to the days when she'd just have to stay silent?

Caliose:

An... old friend. She met Caliose around the time she was allowed to venture out on her own in Japan, as long as she didn't disclose her duties and attract unwanted attention. Caliose originally had no name, just a lost soul wandering in the wild. She always had a faraway look, though the longer they knew each other, the more she pulled herself down to earth just to look at Hezalea for a little longer than normal. Hezalea doesn't really talk about her because that's all in the past. It doesn't mean she'd forget - she'd never forget if it killed her - but the nightmares are enough to remind her that she doesn't deserve to even utter the name that she gave Caliose.

Hezalea had a happy childhood.

It was by no means normal; if anything she and her mother were suffering in these slums, but they were never unhappy. She can remember the warmth of her mother's embrace and the soft words of encouragement that always hid a bittersweet tone underneath. She remembers the fleeting times in which she'd come home on her birthday and her mother would be waiting with what small gift she could afford. Her mother tried her best; she was kind, and she taught Hezalea how to be a human being. 

But she also remembers the day she came back to her mother crying. It was the anniversary between her and Hezalea's deadbeat father, who had left the moment he found out her mother was pregnant. Hezalea hadn't heard much of him beforehand, nor did she even know what a "father" was considering how the rest of the kids in the neighbourhood usually had no family at all. By that point her mother's health was deteriorating, and just a short while later, she died of a heart attack.

Hezalea would never forgive the man who left her in this state.

She doesn't even remember where her hometown (if she could call it one) was, because no one would mention the real name, as a form of revolution against the city. Not to mention she and a few others were carted off (no one would miss them or even notice they were gone) before they could really call the place "home". Apparently she had talent. She had prowess. She showed potential. They put her into school and she struggled but she pulled through, thus proving their theories and hypotheses, whatever that could mean.

So why were those scientists so intent on "improving" and "changing" her if she were good enough?

...Of course.

They only saw her as a tool. A machine. A child soldier, a child assassin - she didn't kill children; she was a child and she was an assassin - who didn't even know her own age anymore. She can only guess nowadays, but that's if she could even measure herself under the assumption that she's an average person. She knew she was different (from her past self and from other people) the moment she woke up in a hospital bed in Japan, guns and daggers at her side for her to choose from. And she didn't think much of it. She had fundamentally changed, perhaps even forgotten her mother's words for a year or two or more.  

She had nothing but her mother's maiden name (Solitreault) and the name of the man who betrayed them. Even her age is uncertain by now.

Has she been in love?

She thinks so. She wants to believe she has, because it would be too cruel otherwise. Why would she have had so many girlfriends over the course of her life if she hasn't? (Can she really call it love? Hedonism is a powerful drug.)

The truth is, love doesn't feel right. Maybe some time ago she would've believed in it, but nowadays there's always something missing, something tugging at the back of her mind that drags her away from any meaningful relationship she tries to pursue. 

All efforts to distract herself from her have never ended well. She has many regrets in this regard. She's wasted so many people's time, broken so many hearts (who is she kidding, they probably didn't give her a second thought) trying to grasp onto new feelings when she has hardly moved on or allowed herself to breathe.

She's been running for a while. It's never enough.

It's her. It's always been her; the girl who stared at the stars and out across the sea as if there was anything beyond the Pacific Ocean that was worth seeking. The girl who embraced the little bits of happiness and hope she could scrounge in the slums and turned it into art. The girl who looked across time and space speaking of a better future. The girl who called out injustices without knowing Hezalea's been chained down by it all this time. The girl who knew and wasn't afraid of speaking of it. The girl who would've looked Voldemort in the face and screamed his name for the world to hear. The girl who told Hezalea time and time again that there is so much more to look for out there, that she should run, that they should run, together, but Hezalea's been held back by cowardice for too long. She made up excuse after excuse not to leave Japan, not understanding that her perception of security and survival means she's kept herself from being alive all this time.

She's just a walking corpse, more rotten than Caliose's dead body by now. It's a wonder how she can still look at herself in the mirror nowadays.

Hezalea chose the name "Caliose" for her because she didn't have one, pronounced similarly to "Helios", the Greek god of the sun. Because... Caliose is her sun. Always will be.

Caliose seemed happier than ever to accept a name that would stand out in Japanese society. In fact, she wanted this.

If there’s any word to describe their first meeting, it’s that Hezalea was amazed. Hezalea’s never been a believer, while Caliose was nothing if not a million wishes on a star. And seeing this almost made her think there was a future beyond the fray. Almost. Because in the end she was convinced that she was made for this life---she’d established too much in it to just throw it all away, no matter how much Caliose raved on about freedom. She was holding Caliose back but there were so many other aspects stopping Caliose in her tracks that Hezalea’s measly grip was just a drop of water in the storm. Hezalea’s love was like a fire and she knew it.

She kept a safe distance and never followed up on the feelings. Only that she didn’t know whether Caliose was a mere drop in danger of evaporating, or an ocean waiting to swallow her whole. She’d rather think of the latter because she couldn’t stand thinking of Caliose as anything less---vast as the ocean and the realms beyond---nor could she fathom hurting Caliose when that’s been the one thing she was careful not to do. (Funny how the strongest wills would never be enough against an evil system.) If it were an ideal world she wouldn’t want anyone to feel any emotion for her because her life’s told her time and again that it only leads to pain for both parties. Except she also couldn’t stand it if Caliose ever stopped looking at her.

If only life were fair to those who truly believed in the greater good.

But Caliose, to fate, was never the sun. She ended up being Icarus, sent plunging to her death for hoping too strongly.

Hezalea must atone, for she was the sun all along.

She fears nothing.

...That was a lie. Hezalea is the most cowardly person anyone could ever be cursed to meet. She can barely stand being in the same room as a spider, and even the darkness that helps conceal her ends up sneaking into her nightmares. She can't handle the thought of dying just yet, as much as she tries to brave each looming threat. Holes are incredibly unsettling as well - she can't tell what's in there. She's dreamed about times where her skin would crack and she'd just become the very definition of-

On a deeper note, she's wary of knowledge.

It's not a matter of what she's been conditioned to do or think. If anything this is her own choice; she stays ignorant in favour of the ability to stay resilient against the guilt that gnaws at her extremities. Hezalea has trouble conceiving of the day she lets it consume her - she doesn't think she'd ever let it happen. She isn't that careless. The less she knows, the more she has control over the limited factors that play her like a puppet on a string.

Hezalea has done horrible things, whether within or beyond her Contracts - she knows this much. It's easy to shrug off those acts when she refuses to learn the names of the dead. In the end she never ends up knowing the aftermath of her missions. Should she desire to keep her head up as she dashes through each encounter, she must never learn the consequences.

Not that that's ever worked out for her.

She just - doesn't want to know. Is it so difficult to understand? 

Just don't tell her. Give her the next job and let her be. That's all she's ever known. That's all she ever wants to know.

Knowing Caliose's name is enough. One victim's name will suffice. The next will be her father's, and then... she'll promptly forget. She thinks she can forget, considering she can barely recall her mother's face nowadays. 

Hezalea doesn't usually let herself get attached to earthly objects knowing she'd have to keep moving from place to place. 

The one thing that's constantly stayed with her is her bandana - the day she woke up in the hospital, it was the only thing she immediately recognized in the midst of a drugged haze. Maybe it was a twisted ploy to give her that tiny bit of hope that she could find her past once more, but she'd like to see them try to take it away. She doesn't think anything else is left of the path she's been dragged past anyway. 

It smells of home, but she's never encountered another smell like it since then. It remains sharp in her mind - she tells herself this is the one thing she should not forget. How long would that last, huh?

The only problem is that it's bright red and she'd rather not be a beacon in the wild. 

Put aside the fact that she's in jail right now. That'd be anyone's problem if they were in her shoes. It's nothing new, nothing surprising, nothing inspirational. Sure, it's going to leave a mark, but many things leave impressions over the course of a lifetime and this, in comparison to all the possibilities, isn't as insane, considering what she's seen so far. She reckons it'd be worse.

Her real problem is that she's quite aimless. She lacks a clear path towards her goal, and with every job it progressively seems that she's just a deadly horseless chariot careening down a mountain, destined to crash if she doesn't find a way to steer herself in the right direction soon enough. 

For one, she has an idea of a 'hero' in her head, but her actions show that she probably heard the word once and ran with it without thinking about the actual implications of deciding who gets to live. She ends up killing an unnecessary amount of people while trying to convince herself she's doing it all for the greater good. 

It is for the greater good.

But who knows if Hezalea's greater good aligns with the rest of the world? 

Hezalea wakes up at 6:30am consistently. Surprisingly her current sleep schedule as of the past few months has been the most consistent one she's had so far. In her previous profession she was always called for jobs on all hours of the day. 

She's the earliest to wake up, and by the time she's made coffee, Koriol will be stumbling down the stairs. He looks meticulous, but she's able to tell he's still half asleep from the way his reactions are a second slower than usual. The bread test has earned her a few scoldings, so she sticks to tangerines instead - they don't cause as much of a mess when Koriol absolutely fumbles the catch.

After breakfast she goes back upstairs to change into her outfit for the day - it's often something plain and practical, skintight to mitigate the risk of getting caught on anything. She doesn't hang out around machines that often but it's better to be safe than sorry. She'll also do some exercise if she has time, but chasing the bus is good enough.

Commute takes 2 hours, and her morning classes are at 9:30, so by 7:30 she'll be out the door in hopes that the bus hasn't ditched her once again.