Rachael Castaigne

Rachael Castaigne grew up 150 years after The Event that virtually destroyed planet Earth and killed a large percentage of its population. She was one of the two children of Helena and Jonathan Castaigne and had a twin brother named Harrison (Harry). The small family lived an isolated life away from any other survivors, and scratched out a living from farming what few crops they could amidst the planet's tempestuous climate.

Rachael's father was an unstable alcoholic, wasting what little resources the family was able to earn by trading their crops, on moonshine alcohol instead of feeding his family. Jonathan was also a violent man who would become raging drunk and beat both his wife and children mercilessly. Rachael would try to protect her brother from her father's wrath as much as possible, due to the fact he was a frail boy who always seemed to be ill; her good natured protection just ended up making her more of a target for her father's outbursts. Her dreams at night used to consist of running away with her mother and brother and living happily in an old library somewhere. One of few children post-Event who was taught to read, Rachael loved books and literature and would devour them with glee anytime she came across one - whether it be a lowly information pamphlet or a rare pre-Event storybook. She loved them all as you would love a family member.

When Rachael was nine her mother, Helena, worked up the courage to leave Jonathan Castaigne whilst he was out salvaging parts to see from post-Event buildings. For the next year the small family would live a semi-nomadic life wandering from place to place and trading things in they had scavenged for food and shelter. It was an extremely hard life, fraught with danger, but it was the best year of Rachael's life.

However, it was short lived as one evening when scavenging on the outskirts of what had once been a small town, Rachael and her mother and brother were set upon by a gang of armed thugs. These people were slavers who made a living selling other humans, trafficking in drugs and generally looting and pillaging the small settlements that had sprung up post-Event.

Her mother, Helena, shouted for her two children to run and take shelter in the ruins - which they did despite the fear of leaving their mother to her fate. Rachael and Harry hid but still watched in horror as their mother tried unsuccessfully to flee...and was cut down by bullets. Harry began to sob and Rachael held him close as she clamped her hand over his mouth to avoid the armed group from locating them. She was, however, totally unsuccessful and soon both she and her twin brother were hauled from their hiding place screaming and kicking against the strength of their captors. Suddenly, there came a shot and Harry fell to the ground, one small hand over his left shoulder and his eyes wide in shock before they closed. One of the gang began to scream at another,

"Whattaya doin, man?! Kids are worth a lot! Why d'ya shoot it?"
"Sorry Boss. I thought the safety was on."

((THIS IS ABOUT TO GET VERY HEAVY, VERY LAST WARNING TO BACK OUT NOW!))

Rachael was knocked unconscious and when she awoke she would find herself in a living Hell which she was to be a prisoner in for the next 10 long years. Captive of one of the organised criminal gangs that roamed the land she would be subjected to every kind of abuse imaginable, have every freedom stolen and would be forced to serve the gang in menial ways. Rachael wished that she had died with her mother and brother every day....but somehow she found a will to keep going. Something told her to fight.

However, keeping a young girl captive proved to be difficult and after her second escape attempt - when the threat of more beatings proved ineffective - the gang began to forcibly inject Rachael with drugs to keep her placid and malleable. Sadly, this also had the predictable effect of causing her to become heavily dependent on the drugs - forming a prison in her mind, as well as for her body.

Ten years passed in this living nightmare, and Rachael's mind became a dark and dangerous place; just the litany of scars upon her arms became testimony to the years of drugs forced into her system. However, amidst her undeniably shattered mental state Rachael found...was it peace? No, more than peace...it was....peace through vengeance.

Yes...vengeance was what was required to bring peace. Peace to herself. Peace to the ghosts of her past. Peace to the rest of society who were plagued by the same armed raiders who had stolen ten years of her life. At that point she looked at herself in the mirror, and was disgusted by what she saw.

An emaciated, dark-eyed junkie stood there - wearing very little and looking mostly dead. Rachael felt tears spring to her eyes for the first time in years as she beheld her pitiful state...but then the tears stopped before they could even properly begin their journey down her hollow cheeks. She remembered something from long ago, from a...book perhaps? How long was it since she'd last held a book, she wondered? She spoke the quote aloud in a whisper as she looked at her mostly dead appearance and resolved to escape:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons...even death may die."

Killing the raiders who had been her captors over the long years had not been as difficult as she had at first suspected it might be. She wasn't strong, but they had become cocky and were not expecting her to sneak a large knife away from their poker table as they sat drinking and smoking. Nor was their leader expecting that same knife to be embedded in his throat whilst he lay peacefully sleeping beside his "housetrained pet" as they had 'affectionately' called her. Rachael herself hadn't herself expected for the act...the act that made her a murderer...to feel so good. So liberating. So much like justice.

It did, however. And before escaping that godforsaken camp forever she had killed three more men and one woman. All raiders. All guilty. With each slice of the blade and each movement of her hand as it performed its terrible work Rachael swore that she would not stop until she had taken revenge upon ALL those who took advantage of the innocent. All those who traded in slavery, in drugs and in the suffering of others. She would make herself into the thing that would give even raiders nightmares in the black of the night. She would prove to them - these people whose names were associated with 'death' to all of the other inhabitants of the wasteland - that even death can die.

The next year passed in a blur of blood, hunger and crippling pain from the drug withdrawal wracking Rachael's body, but her new found strength of mind spurred her onwards. Eventually her body emerged from the toxin induced Hell and she became stronger, more agile, more durable than before. Now 21, she fulfilled her childhood fantasy, set up residence in the vaulted attic of an old public library and would pour over the old books and begin to compile quite the collection of her own writings.

Over a decade has passed now and Rachael is now 35. Her name has become synonymous with pain, death and suffering amongst the criminal gangs of the wasteland, and they fear her more than anything else the post-Event world can throw at them. She is a serial killer who never harms the innocent, her so-called justice is brutal and swift to those who deal in drugs, murder or slavery; the scenes of her crimes are often too much for those who discover them to witness without nausea and nightmares following in their wake.

Recently she has taken a renewed interest (obsession) in the occult after discovering some obscure tomes in the library's basement. It is also rumoured that one of the leading Bosses of the crime gangs has ordered his men to hunt her down and 'put the mad dog down for good'. Are the rumours true that a self-styled Detective is on her trail...or is that just idle wasteland talk?

What the future holds for traumatised, yet exceptionally deadly Rachael Castaigne nobody knows. For now...