Kore Bennett's Questionnaire

Kore lives just outside Olympia, Washington , in a small, weathered house tucked away at the edge of a dense forest. The constant gray skies and frequent rain have become a comfort to her, the gloom feeling more like a protective shroud than something oppressive. Kore’s obsession with the occult has made her home feel like a personal lair — her room is dimly lit with flickering candles, posters of cryptic symbols plastered on the walls, and shelves stacked with grimoires, vampire lore, and horror DVDs. Her bed is often buried under notebooks filled with chaotic scribbles about rituals, vampire myths, and apocalyptic plans. The darkened forests, with their winding trails and whispering winds, became her sanctuary as a child when socializing proved difficult. While others spent their time with friends, Kore found comfort in the woods, convinced that something ancient and unseen lingered just beyond the trees.

Kore's ambition is driven by a consuming desire to transcend mortality and become the ultimate vampire, a being of eternal power. She believes that by becoming one of the undead, she will gain unimaginable strength and knowledge — a chance to rewrite her own narrative and escape the limitations of her human life. Her obsession with vampires and the occult is not just a hobby, but a desperate pursuit of something far greater. She would go to great lengths to achieve her goal, pushing the boundaries of both morality and danger. While she hasn't yet killed to achieve it, she'd likely be willing to sacrifice almost anything, including her humanity, to gain the power she craves. The line between life and death blurs as she dives deeper into the occult, performing dark rituals, tempting forces beyond her comprehension. She’d risk it all, even if it meant staring into the abyss and coming back forever changed 

When Kore was a child no older than seven or eight she got lost in the woods. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal; she had wandered those trees countless times before. But that day, something felt wrong. The air was heavy, the shadows stretched too far, and every path seemed to twist in on itself, leading her deeper instead of out.

Then, she saw it.

A figure, impossibly tall, its limbs too long and moving like it hadn’t quite learned how to use them. Its eyes if that’s what they were glowed faintly in the dusk, fixed on her, unblinking. Kore stood frozen, every instinct screaming at her to run, but she couldn’t. The thing didn’t move closer. It only watched, shifting, waiting.

And then, just like that, it was gone.

She found her way home not long after, but something inside her had changed. No one believed her when she told them what she had seen. They called it a dream, a trick of the light, a child’s overactive imagination. But Kore knew better.

Kore’s parents are fine, in the most mundane, frustrating way possible. They don’t understand her obsession with the occult and constantly push her toward “realistic” career goals, as if ruling over the dead isn’t realistic. As long as she maintains the illusion of normalcy at family events, they mostly leave her alone, which is the best she can hope for.

Ezra was, for all intents and purposes, Kore’s only real friend. He works at a used bookstore and lets her linger there for hours, thumbing through grimoires and strange conspiracy books. He didn’t exactly believe in her plan to raise an undead army and rule the world, but he also never mocked her for it. More importantly, he was the only person who listened to her endless occult rants without completely zoning out. Lately she's been showing up scraped and bruised and online way less which makes him worried she's gotten involved with a cult or something. 

A professor at her community college and self-proclaimed expert on folklore and death rituals, Professor Vale fascinated Kore. She was convinced he knew far more about the supernatural than he publicly admitted. After her contracts she's been less interested because of her new found powers. 

Kore’s childhood was unremarkable in the way that made it feel stifling. She grew up in the same house, on the same street, in the same quiet town where nothing interesting ever seemed to happen at least, not to anyone else. While other kids played sports or obsessed over celebrities, she spent her time wandering the forests, collecting bones, and reading anything she could find on ghosts, vampires, and forbidden rituals.

Her parents were fine, in the frustratingly normal way. They were supportive in a general sense, making sure she was fed, clothed, and had a roof over her head. But they never understood her. They worried when she spent too much time alone, dismissed her interests as a “phase,” and gently nudged her toward normal hobbies. They weren’t cruel, just... clueless. They wanted her to be someone she had never been and never would be.

School was a disaster. Kore didn’t fit in, not even a little. She wasn’t bullied outright most kids just ignored her but she was definitely that weird girl who sat alone, buried in books about the occult. Group projects were miserable, class discussions were tedious, and the social hierarchy was something she never cared to understand. The only thing that got her through it was the knowledge that one day, none of it would matter.

Kore had never been in love. Not really. She had obsessions, sure—unhealthy fixations on people who fascinated her, who felt just a little otherworldly. A girl in high school with eyes too sharp and a laugh like a knife. A mysterious online tarot reader who spoke in riddles and disappeared without a trace. A poet whose words made her feel like the veil between life and death was just thin enough to slip through.

But love? Love required vulnerability, and Kore had never been good at that. People were fleeting, disappointing, too wrapped up in their own mundane realities. And besides, what was the point of romance when her true devotion was to the dead? To power? To something far greater than any person could ever offer her?

If Kore ever found herself living an ordinary life, it would be a slow, suffocating death for her spirit. The idea of blending in with the crowd, of having a routine, a job, and relationships that didn’t revolve around the supernatural, would be her personal hell. She’d become like everyone else—trapped in the same cycle of mundanity, bound to the same limitations, never touching anything otherworldly or extraordinary.

She might try to hide it at first, pretending to be content, but the longing for something more would gnaw at her. She'd find herself growing restless, seeking out the odd, the strange, the unexplainable, in a desperate attempt to feel alive again. She would have a nagging sense that she was missing out on something that could unlock her true potential, something far beyond what ordinary people could even begin to comprehend.

Eventually, the weight of her own fears would crush her. She’d feel like she was wasting her life, like everything she had sacrificed and worked for was a joke. Her connection to the occult, her dreams of becoming a powerful necromancer—those things would slip further and further away, and she'd become consumed with regret and frustration. 

In time, she might even come to resent the people who had settled into their ordinary lives, seeing them as “lost” or “blind.” She would begin to withdraw even further into her world of books, old relics, and cryptic symbols, but the hole inside her would only grow. It might even drive her to do something reckless, anything to break free from the suffocating weight of being regular.