Annabel "Subject-34" Lee

     Player:   Real Name:    Nickname:         Personal Data  Age:  Height:  Weight:  Eye Color:  Hair Color:  Skin Color:  Marks or tattoos:  Birthplace:  Currently Based:  Marital Status:   Known Abilities    Equipment   

=• Summary •=

"And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea,  A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling  My beautiful Annabel Lee;  So that her highborn kinsman came  And bore her away from me,  To shut her up in a sepulchre  In this kingdom by the sea." -Edgar Allan Poe

Amongst the oddities that dot the Secret World is a girl by the name of Annabel Lee. Strolling the streets of Ealdwic, perched in front of a map in Temple Hall, or quietly sitting in a corner in Castle Hopewell, she gives no exceptional mark at first sight. Plainly dressed, rarely armed, no direct trace of anima to be found - she might even be thought out of place.

Taking time to get to know the girl shows she's exactly where she belongs.

=• The Life of Annabel •=

Annabel was born in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD on September 21st, 1990. A first (and as it would eventually turn out, only) child, she was given a poetic name, lavished with attention and was - to all appearances - an ordinary, healthy infant.

Appearances fade.

• A Troubled Child •
Despite her promising infancy, at an early age Annabel began to exhibit unusual traits. She was prone to wandering off, found after panicked searches sitting alone staring off into nothingness. As she began to speak, she would tell her family about an elaborate world before her eyes - of people no one else could see, and impossible events.

At first these peculiarities were dismissed as the frenzied imagination of a (possibly overindulged) child. However, as their daughter continued to grow her parents became more alarmed at the dark bend of her fantasies. The breaking point was the growth of increasingly aggressive and self-destructive behavior - self mutilation, violence against those around her and announcements perceived as lunatic ravings.

In fact, Annabel was developing an unrecognized precognitive ability. Before her eyes the world was shaping and reshaping itself into visions of the future. Often interpretive, the inability of her young brain to process the routinely frightening and impossible stimuli received caused significant trauma to her mental state.

The fact that Annabel's ravings would often turn out to be eerily accurate was recognized, but never willingly acknowledged.

By the age of eight, Annabel would be committed to her first psychiatric institution.

• Catatonia •
"'The rattle of a few pills in a small paper cup. I take them mechanically, the abrasive scrape against my throat from the dry swallow almost meaningless. I’ve been at this routine for almost a decade now, I’m a pro.'"



The next decade-plus of Annabel's life is a neverending cycle of doctors, facilities, tests and drugs. An exorcism is even briefly considered, and then discarded. Charts and files are filled with conflicting diagnoses and treatment regimens. In turns she is deemed bipolar, depressive, schizophrenic, even sociopathic.

Again, the various attendees responsible for the girl's care are forced to recognize the alarming accuracy of Annabel's "delusions," and try to ignore them.

The drugs succeed in subduing Annabel into a torpor, but do little by way of controlling her abilities beyond making them matter less to her. She spends days on end unable to interact with the people in front of her as impossible sights whirl just beyond. All perceived progress shrivels quickly upon any discharge and leads quickly to her readmission into a new facility or program.

A great toll is placed on Annabel's parents by the financial and emotional requirements of their blighted child. The family, once living in contented middle-class bliss, struggles greatly in this period.

This is the point at which they are presented with a hoped-for salvation.

• Enter The Doctor, or The Birth of Subject-34 •
"'As of today, you are the primary subject of my life’s work.'"

It seemed too good to be believed.

A treatment center on the cutting edge of psychiatric research. Glossy brochures of smiling families with block-letter quotes about how the program saved some previously incurable child's life. Publications in established journals, glowing endorsements from the best therapists in the world, and a wait list three years long.

And Annabel Lee, as an "optimal candidate" based on detailed reviews of her case history, was being offered an all-expense paid spot in an experimental treatment study. Just as long as her parents signed a non-disclosure agreement forbidding them from ever mentioning it again or interfering in the study.

Strained to the breaking point by the toll of their child, it seemed like a godsend.

But when something seems too good to be believed, it usually is.

Annabel quickly discovered this truth firsthand after her arrival at the facility in upstate New York. She was not part of a treatment study aimed at helping the mentally disturbed. Instead, she found she had become a lab rat. She was put through a detoxification of the prescriptions she'd spent most of her life on, stripped of her name and rebranded as Subject-34, the 34th test case of the Mímir Program. Now, under the direction of an indifferent scientist Annabel would come to know only as The Doctor, a series of studies would begin.

• The Mímir Program •
The Program was designed to discover and cultivate individuals suspected of possessing precognitive abilities, such as those found in Annabel. The exact ambitions of the Program were unclear, but for the greater part of a year, Annabel was subjected to a series of trials designed to determine the extent of her talents, her capacity to control it, and possible means to reproduce it in others.

The Doctor's main supposition was that an imminent need would trigger her latent ability, and many of his tests were designed on placing physical consequences on Annabel for failure. In one particularly brutal round of experimentation, Annabel was strapped to a chair and required to correctly predict a series of images to be projected on a screen - making an incorrect prediction would result in an electrical current being passed through diodes attached to her temples, and the restarting of the cycle. Correct predictions were rewarded with no electrical stimulation, but the restarting of the experiment.

The results were mixed. The Doctor was able to conclude that Annabel was indeed precognitive/clairvoyant. However, her capacity to control the ability was virtually non-existent despite all stimuli employed to encourage it. Results were also difficult to quantify - not only due to the interpretive nature of many visions, but in the above experiment there were numerous instances in which Annabel would accurately predict images out of the order they actually projected, creating an appearance of failure when instead she had simply seen too far ahead.

This was all compounded by the decaying state of the Doctor's patient. Already mentally fragile, under the stress of her experimentation and dehumanization, Annabel's ability to focus or process instruction became completely compromised.

Begrudgingly, The Doctor was forced to deem Subject-34 a failure and instituted the final protocols. Annabel was to be sedated, at which point her brain would be removed for more detailed analysis.

• Liberation •
"'I know what I must look like. A scrawny girl with a badly shaved head, trapped under a corpse still oozing blood freely. I look like a lunatic.'"



Liberation comes without a moment to spare. Informed of the experiments taking place, two Templar agents (Nathan Covington & Nikolai Bukulov (NPC)) infiltrate the facility the same evening of Annabel's intended surgery, killing the Doctor in the process of finding the girl.

Meanwhile Annabel, head shaved, follows the instructions she's piece together from the visions she's left unreported throughout her confinement. She manages to kill the nurse attending her as sedatives pump into her system, shortly before Nathan discovers her prostrate on the floor drenched in blood.

That night and into the early hours of dawn a fire rages through the facility, destroying all traces of records of the Program and it's experiments.

=• Present •=

"'I don't care what you do with her, just keep the crazy bitch away from me.'"



Nikolai and Nathan take Annabel from the facility along with some records of her time under the Program back to London. Already part of the Secret World in her nature and having seen glimpses of it throughout her life, its absolute confirmation does little to startle her. While in London it is discovered that before the Doctor's intended conclusion of her stay, a notice had been mailed to her parents that she had committed suicide during a brief escape, and a death certificate produced, with the general assumption that her body was destroyed in the blaze.

At turns understanding the difficulty of their situation yet still troubled that she was given to the Program Annabel sees little reason to dispute her death and instead opts to remain in London. Feeling she owes a debt of gratitude to the Templars for her rescue she volunteers her abilities and takes residence in Ealdwic.

Annabel proves of only limited value to the Templars, due to the same problems that plagued the Program. Her visions remain uncontrolled and often interpretive, leaving little hard data to act on. Additionally she proves difficult to provide focus to, which results in only limited practical field training for Templar operations. Nathan Covington is tasked briefly with mentoring Annabel, a responsibility he is deeply unsuited for as the girl grates deeply on his nerves, causing him to leave her unattended for long stretches of time.

Annabel does provide brief moments of promise, largely fueled by lucidity and a clear vision allowing her to accurately predict useful information. However, she would remain largely an oddity pacing the marble floors in Temple Hall for several years until a chance meeting with Candice "Dazzle" Cole and other members of the Scarlet and Cross Institute. Taking a liking to the organization, Annabel quietly petitions and is approved by Temple Hall to transfer to their roster, upon which she relocates to Castle Hopewell and recommits herself, haltingly, to finding a way to make herself useful to the organization that saved her.

=• Personality •=

Annabel's mental state has never truly recovered from the lifetime of abuse subjected on it by her visions, or the trauma of the facility. Off the medications that kept her in a stupor most of her life, she's alert, but her ability to focus on any particular subject is very limited. Despite an upbeat personality her focus tends to skew to the morbid and taboo - conversation with Annabel can often be unsettling as she has a propensity for finding uncomfortable topics and pushing them ad naseum.

This is rarely done maliciously - Annabel has simply never developed the social cues to realize when something shouldn't be said and as such rarely filters her thoughts.

• The "Subject-34" Problem •
One sore point for Annabel is being referred to as Subject-34. A misunderstanding at Templar Command when processing personnel data caused the designation to be attached to her file as her handle. But due to its connotations and memories of the Program, calling Annabel by it almost always results in an outburst of hostility.

=• Appearance •=



Annabel is a bit of a waif. Pale, and of average height veering towards tall in some circles, malnourishment during her confinement and a lack of discipline to care for herself in her freedom have resulted in her being thin to perhaps underweight.

Her hair varies in length and color depending on any particular whim - currently it's cut short and dyed darker, though previously it was bleached blonde. Typically she dresses casually, veering towards jeans and shirts or older, grimier products with an industrial/military feel.

((OOC Note - The actress I'm currently using as a representation of Annabel is Valorie Curry from the FOX show "The Following."))

=• Annabel's Precognition & an OOC Note •=

Annabel does not receive perfect visions of the future, or have an omniscient understanding of the world around her. She has also failed to consistently control her ability – she is unable to choose when, or what, to see. Her visions are often interpretive in the same vein as Madame Roget in Kingsmouth. This often requires a deeper search for meaning in what she sees, which can lead her to be entirely off the mark. Seeing a house burning before her eyes does not mean there will be a fire, necessarily – it could just mean that the inhabitants of the house will have to leave it soon, but Annabel might still warn of a fire that never comes. If there is going to be a fire, it might not be for another five years. In RP with other players, I’ve found this ability is best exercised with a small amount of player cooperation via OOC whispers. I may sometimes ask for information about a character’s mindset – what would be something they’re concerned about, a bit of their history, a goal, etc. Nothing I’m told would necessarily be taken 100% ICly out of 34’s mouth – as an example, if someone told me OOCly that their character had cheated on their spouse, Annabel wouldn’t necessarily directly confront them with that. She may make a reference to a crying partner, or why the character spends so much time away from home, etc. Ultimately, I know that characters who can “see the future” are a tricky place to go. I don’t want any player to feel they’re obligated to give me the entirety of things they might want to keep to themselves about their character. I’m perfectly comfortable trying to wing visions, or saying that Annabel is drawing a blank about your character. I'm also fine with the idea that many characters might not "believe" in Annabel's visions, or dismiss them as luck, coincidence, etc. My backstory would be that any character who has access to Templar information would be able to confirm that higher-ups in command recognize she has this ability, but it doesn't mean your character has to agree.

But I do believe the experience is helped by providing whatever degree of trust you’re willing to show on a meta level and would encourage you to try and work with me before throwing up a guard in general about an oft-overpowered idea.