Wendy Tynes

Tangerine curls frame a rounded face, and a pair of almond-shaped eyes peer out from beneath a dark brow. Wendy Tynes resembles her mother, in her soft and rounded form and her large brown eyes that are as dark as the night sky. Her skin is smooth, her cheeks high, and her lips full. There is a kind of "girl next door," quality about her soft features and doe eyes. However, there's a tough and determined glint in her eyes that betrays her strength of character. Her sense of style, furthermore, undermines any delicate first impressions; "You are so pretty yet you dress so ungirlish" her mother had once told her. What was the definition of ungirlish? Wendy was certain that it wasn't even a word. For her mother it was plaid shirts stained with ketchup or beer, jeans with rips that stretched from the knees to the thigh, and faded t-shirts with frayed sleeves that said things like 'I Love New York and New York Loves Me Back' or 'I'm On The Right Track For $100,000 A Year'.

On the surface, Wendy seems like an average young woman still trying to shake off her adolescent self-absorbtion; moody, rebellious, and even a little bit of a loner. However, a darkness consumes her that she still hasn't been able to let go. The darkness has worsened, has morphed into a black hole that not even her own mind can comprehend. Every time it gains ground, she can feel her life slip away like sand in a sand-pile, and when that feeling finally takes over she loses control of her own mind and body. Its a curse, and one that she has no desire to live with.

Wendy was born to her mother and father in December, when the snow was falling all around and the trees had shed their leaves. A cold, crisp night when it felt like a million stars twinkled in the sky. She was born fat and pink, a healthy eight pounds and five ounces with ringlets of tangerine hair that seemed a stark contrast to the drab winter's night. Her father, whom Wendy's mother had never spoken of in detail nor the kindest tongue, couldn't stand to hear his newborn girl cry. In fact, he believed he wasn't cut out for parenthood. He was a wanderer, a man who didn't stay in one place for very long. He came and went like a breeze, and was never around long enough to leave much of a mark - only a trail of broken hearts and broken promises in his wake. It seemed he had made it life's mission to find himself, but had never considered what would become of the people he hurt along the way. Wendy's mother was bitter, a woman who felt trapped in the cold and alone. She was as bitter as the winter wind that ripped the snow from the ground. But she was also warm, a fire to light the room with. A beautiful flame of a mother who tried her best to make a home for her daughter. Wendy grew up in a strange land; an unsteady climate where sometimes the air was cold and she had to wear a coat and sometimes it was so hot she couldn't wear a coat. They always seemed to be moving, picking up and moving on. Wendy sometimes resented her mother for not finding a place where she could call home, for always being the new kid in school.

As Wendy grew older, blossoming into a beautiful young woman with a wild and free spirit, she often felt herself drawn to the man who was her father; she wanted answers, more answers than just the vague and evasive answers her mother would give her. She always wanted to ask the question - who was her father? Wendy was curious about her heritage, she wanted to know where she came from. Twenty-Three was the year that things changed. It had started on an impulsive road trip with some friends, and ended with a fever that burned, a fever that burned right through her. Then came the anger, the searing, unquenchable anger. When Wendy woke up on that fateful morning, the world was different.

Her guilt had long silenced the gruesome details of that night. She remembered it only in splintered pieces, flashes of memory that were impossible to decipher. What she did remember, however, was the rage that consumed her, a burning fury that took hold of her and wouldn't let go until every last person was dead. The claws, the fangs, the bloodlust...it had been real. The way she shed her skin, the way it fell off her like a snake shedding its old skin. And then the madness, the insanity that followed. She had gone mad with grief, and nothing could stop her. Nothing. Not even her own mother, who had watched helplessly as her daughter slowly transformed into something else entirely.

Before phasing, Wendy was a pretty average person, content with just being herself. She wasn't that big on socializing, but she had a few close friends that she hung out with. Often she would struggle to fit in with the more popular kids, but she never really cared. She was always a bit of an outsider, and moving around a lot didn't help. Instability at home also contributed to her feeling somewhat detached from the world, unwilling to let many people in. Her closest friends would describe her as sarcastic, rather cynical, yet insightful and brutally honest. She was intelligent, but she never really cared about school that much because it didn't interest her and could often be associated with the superficiality of high school life.

Tinkering with machines and taking things apart to see how they work, writing songs that she never sings, catching a movie or two on a weekend.

Romantically, she was always very guarded and cautious. She never really stuck to labels and thought it was stupid to limit herself that way. So, she dated both guys and girls, but never really felt like she belonged with anyone. She supposed that some people were weird about that, in the small-town way that they were, but she never cared. Wendy's most serious relationship was with a girl named Sarah who she'd met in college. Wendy doesn't talk about Sarah much, but it was pretty serious. Or so she thought, until the whole werewolf thing didn't seem to turn Sarah on as much as she had hoped.

Wendy's relationship with her family was always pretty tense. Her mother never seemed to be around, working odd jobs and having her own share of boyfriends, while Wendy's father was nothing but a hazy figure in her mind.