Staff-Sergeant Quinn Lacey is a soldier in the United Kingdom’s Nonstandard Operations unit. He is currently serving as a member of the Spitfire Saints, a private task force established to eliminate ‘abhuman’ threats. An expert in aerial tactics and handling supernatural combatants, he also appears to possess clairvoyant abilities.
Quinn is a young man in his thirties with pale skin and hazel eyes. He has brown hair, kept short and styled in ruffled spikes. He maintains a standard amount of stubble and is often seen with dark bags under his eyes. His ears are prominent and stick out at the sides. He has two small nicks in his skin—one under his right eye, and one on the bridge of his nose. The most prominent scar is a long slash mark across his neck, as well as two surgical scars on his left shoulder.
He has several tattoos—on his right arm: a large sleeve featuring a dragon and Spitfire planes; on his left arm: a Parachute Regiment insignia, an excerpt from the poem ‘Invictus’, a sprawling yew branch, and a dead bird skeleton.; on his chest: an illustration of Icarus falling, and a bleeding rose; on his back: a raven, a dead bird with an arrow, another excerpt from ‘Invictus’, a moth, moon cycles, and a stylized feather; on his back left leg: a bleeding heart.
Quinn has a relatively short frame at 5 feet 8 inches. He is well-muscled, with a lean, athletic build. He has a fair amount of body hair and a scattering of freckles across his chest, face, and shoulders.
Quinn’s tattoos
Quinn Roy Lacey was born in Sheffield on the 31st of December 1990, the son of Meredith (née Walsh) and Edward Lacey. His father is a secondary school history teacher, and his mother had worked as a bank teller. He has an older sister, Nora Lacey, who runs a cosmetics and skincare shop. She is married to Nathan Grundy and is the stepmother to his 12-year-old son, Kensington.
Quinn was raised in the Chapeltown suburb of Sheffield. His father is of English descent, while his mother’s parents were born in Ireland. His father was brought up in the Church of England, though he was never particularly devout. His mother was raised Catholic, and encouraged both her children to attend mass when they were younger. Later, she would convert to the Archangelist Tenet, a radical spiritual cult, which she attempted to indoctrinate her son into. Quinn considers himself an atheist.
For education, Quinn first attended a local school but was homeschooled for parts of years 8 and 9 (age 13-14). He completed his secondary school education, but never applied for 6th form, and instead chose to enlist in the military at age 17.
Quinn’s immediate family (as of 2024)
Quinn’s family tree (as of 2025)
[⚠️These sections contain descriptions of topics that may be considered triggering, such as self-harm, suicide, violence, child abuse, and domestic/sexual abuse. Please read at your own discretion.]
Quinn had a relatively normal and happy childhood. From a young age, he expressed an interest in flying. His favorite hobbies included studying pictures of old planes from his father’s history books, and crafting his own versions out of paper. On some occasions, his mother would help him with the designs and take him on day trips out to the Peak District to watch them fly over the cliffs. They had a close relationship early on.
Quinn also had an interest in birds, and would dutifully keep watch over the nest in the oak tree across from their house. Once, when he was seven, he noticed his favorite bird had laid eggs, so he wanted to investigate more closely. He climbed up the branches of the tree, but slipped near the top and fell, the nest falling with him. His mother had witnessed the fall from the window and was terrified; she claimed later that Quinn wasn’t moving and she thought he might have been dead. But he roused after a minute, the only injury a slice on the back of his calf. Quinn was mainly distressed that he had killed the baby birds. To console him, Quinn’s mother started telling him bedtime stories about a boy who could fly—silly little tales about his adventures flying around, learning to talk to the birds, journeying south for winter, etc.—and that became a source of comfort for him.
On the morning of October 6th 2001, Quinn and his mother took a double-decker bus to Sheffield City Centre; Meredith had some errands to run, and Quinn needed new shoes for school. Halfway through their outing, the bus collided with a motorist, causing both vehicles to lose control. The bus hit a streetlight and flipped onto its side into a nearby office building. Quinn had been on the bottom level with his mother, and the collapse caused the top deck of the bus to cave in towards them upon impact. As a result, one of the internal metal supports jutted downward and caught Quinn in his left shoulder, exiting from his shoulder blade, effectively impaling him to his seat. There was chaos in the aftermath, a total of 5 passengers dead, and 21 injured—including Meredith, who appeared to have hit her head and was bleeding. Quinn’s injury was considered one of the most severe and critical—the metal pole pinned him in place, narrowly missing an artery, but he suffered immense pain and a dangerous amount of blood loss before emergency responders could get to him. It took the response team over 45 minutes to remove him from the wreckage, a delicate rescue operation that involved keeping the pole in place and cutting around it. Quinn claims he can’t remember anything about the accident, though he was conscious throughout, albeit in a deep state of shock. All he can vaguely recall is his mother clinging to his hand and telling him he’d be okay.
Quinn was immediately transported to the nearest hospital, with the rod still in his shoulder. However, he went into cardiac arrest just as they were bringing him to the emergency room. The doctors managed to revive him, but his heart stopped for about 3 minutes. The convulsive shakes afterward were attributed to the shock, and the doctors ignored his delirious ramblings as he came back from the CPR, but Quinn would later recognize this as the first of his visions. He was ten at the time.
The vision took place immediately after Quinn’s heart stopped—the sensation he experienced was similar to falling into a dream, but extremely vivid, allowing him to feel every heightened sense that unfolded around him, as if living it firsthand from the perspective of someone at the scene. When later asked to recall what he’d seen, Quinn would describe: chaos, flames, a massive scaled dragon hovering over a city, London landmarks, people screaming, more fire, more destruction.
At first, it was treated as a side-effect of the very traumatic event he’d just gone through. But Quinn was insistent on pressing the topic every time he was lucid enough. He’d gone through two surgeries for his shoulder, so the medical staff assumed this was a reaction to the medication, or simply stress. His father sat with him for most of those first days, trying to calm him down every time he brought up the ‘dragon story’; his sister Nora was concerned that he’d lost his mind entirely. It had only been his mother who showed any real acceptance, curiously asking a few questions here and there, but Quinn presumed this was simply to comfort him. Meredith had been treated for a concussion, and had requested to stay overnight with him after his surgeries, so he continued telling his mother everything he saw in his ‘dream’.
One week after the accident, on October 13th 2001, a dragon attacked the center of London. The event would become known as the Crisis—a turning point in modern history, with mass casualties and the first global verification of supernatural beings.
In the wake of the Crisis, vampires made themselves known to the public, acting as first responders and becoming the designated representatives for what would later be called ‘abhumans’. The dragon responsible for the attack—known as the Dreadnought, currently the largest dragon on record—disappeared without a trace after its onslaught, with no verified accounts of its whereabouts since. In the coming years, more dragons would begin making appearances, though smaller and usually less destructive. Due to the unprecedented levels of draconic radiation, London became a breeding ground for ghouls—irradiated, mutated humans—as many of the initial survivors suffered the effects, becoming mindless husks of their former selves. Further mutations began affecting animals as well—dogs, in particular. In many cases, humans bitten by these mutated dogs were infected with a new strain of lycanthropy. Vampires, while immune to the effects of becoming ghouls, soon realized that their venom had also been affected by the radiation. The probability of death for a human in contact with venom had now risen to 95%.
The Lacey family responded much as every other British family had following the Crisis—shock, horror, fear—but with the added perplexity of knowing Quinn had described the event to a tee. Quinn himself watched the news broadcast in the hospital with a blank sort of detachment. There were a few attempts to broach the subject with him, his father asking if he’d seen anything else in this ‘dream’, his sister bringing him tarot cards so he could read her fortune, but Quinn remained silent on the issue. After returning home from the hospital, he refused to acknowledge that he’d seen anything at all and pretended it had never happened. Eventually, his family just chalked the whole thing up to a bizarre fluke.
As with any life-changing event, however, there were further consequences down the line. Quinn’s mother began obsessing over news updates, fearing for the safety of her children with this new supernatural threat. She also became extremely protective of Quinn, coddling him as his shoulder healed, even keeping him from school whenever news of abhuman incidents came up, regardless of their proximity. To comfort him, she continued with her bedtime stories of a boy who could fly, insisting on how special he was. Sometime later, she started asking him about his dreams. Quinn would claim he couldn’t remember most of them, but there was a recurring one he’d had a few times of falling through the sky, surrounded by dragons and those old vintage planes from his father’s history books. Meredith promised to take him on a trip to the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum once things started returning to normal.
Given the impact of the Crisis, it was no surprise that major social change would follow. Vampires and other abhumans began slowly integrating into society, though it took until 2018 for the Abhuman Rights Act to take effect. There was far more resistance to the idea of integration in the early 2000s. Opposition from major religious groups, as well as lingering fear and distrust from the general public, meant that abhumans were largely ostracized during the first decade of their debut. Fearmongering persisted the idea that all abhumans were inherently dangerous, and out of this mentality, new social and religious movements began emerging. One of the most prevalent of these was the Archangelist Tenet, a spiritual group founded on the belief that abhuman and draconic activity are the direct result of Satan’s influence, and that only a host of archangels can restore the Earth.
Founded in March of 2002 by former Christian youth pastor Geoffrey Marchant, the Tenet started as a community prayer group in Leicester for concerned locals. Marchant capitalized on the collective uneasiness, using his charisma to begin crafting a narrative that pitted abhumans as a threat against humanity. He eventually introduced the idea that archangels would return to save all deserving humans—that only a worthy ‘vessel’ could be capable of serving as an angel. This soon became a supposition that children were the perfect vessels. Once his teachings caught more widespread attention, Marchant started televising his sermons, effectively drawing more members into what was quickly becoming a new cult-like religion.
Around this time, Meredith’s obsession with keeping up with news broadcasts hadn’t dwindled, and she happened across Marchant’s sermons once or twice. This became a daily occurrence, just something to watch while folding laundry, but she soon began forming an intense fixation on the Tenet.
The rest of the family didn’t have much to say about it at the time, mostly just complaints from Quinn and Nora when they wanted to watch something else on the telly. Ed tried to ask her about it, more concerned that she was developing anxiety in the aftermath of her and Quinn’s accident. There were certain behavioral changes—trouble focusing, spacing out a lot, needing to take more personal time off work. This escalated one afternoon when Meredith hysterically claimed to see the shadow of a figure following her around, convinced it was a vampire. She was visibly disturbed, and Ed had to quietly sit her down and explain that nothing was there. He sent her to bed early, hoping she was just worked up and needed to sleep it off. To comfort his mum, Quinn crawled into bed with her, telling her about the bird he’d seen on the way from school. He rambled on a bit, and Meredith cheered up more than she had in weeks. Quinn ended up sleeping in his parents’ bed, and Meredith held him all night, keeping an eye on the shadows to make sure he was safe.
Over the next year, Meredith experienced a few of these episodes—seeing shadows, hearing voices, feeling touched by something that wasn’t there. The only one capable of breaking her out of it was Quinn, and she latched onto him even more than before. Still, there were days/weeks/months where she appeared completely fine. Her obsession with the Archangelist Tenet only grew stronger, however, Meredith now seeing signs of her own turmoil in Marchant’s daily sermons.
No one really addressed her issues in the family—Ed was convinced it was stress, and fifteen-year-old Nora had started distancing herself, spending more time with her friends and hockey team. Quinn didn’t like hearing about the religious stuff, even less when his mother kept bringing up his vision again. She constantly asked about his dreams and what he remembered seeing the day of the accident. Quinn started making things up just to satisfy her curiosity.
One day near the end of August 2002, Meredith told Quinn she had a surprise day trip planned for the two of them. It was just before school started, and Quinn hadn’t forgotten her promise to take him to the Aircraft Museum. But to his dismay, Meredith had brought him along to an outdoor Archangelist Tenet worship event in Leeds. This was one of several of Geoffrey Marchant’s traveling tours across Britain, as the religion’s popularity continued to surge. Quinn stood in the audience playing his gameboy while his mother watched in rapt attention, following along with Marchant’s sermon and trying to get her son to engage with the other young kids. As an eleven-year-old boy, Quinn found the whole thing pretty nonsensical. But he could tell that it made his mother happy, and the two of them got ice cream afterward, so it wasn’t such a bad afternoon.
In the ensuing year, Meredith would continue watching Archangelist propaganda every day, attempting to convince Quinn to participate as well, although he mostly resisted. Quinn started going through some personal things that year, a combination of puberty and stress. During his first term of secondary school, he’d kissed one of his male friends after a football match. Lewis had been his closest friend at the time, but after the kiss, he outright ignored Quinn, refusing to talk to him for the entire school year. As such, Quinn struggled with his sexuality for a while, keeping the whole thing a secret, but he knew he had stronger feelings for boys, and even some older men. It was around this time that Quinn also decided he wanted to be a pilot. It became his goal to eventually fly planes and to protect people from dragons. His recurring dream of watching those vintage planes fly around continued, though he always woke up feeling vaguely terrified. Every time his mother asked about what he’d dreamed, he would make something up.
Around the spring of 2003, Marchant’s sermons introduced the concept of the Children of Śārīm—the ideal vessels for the archangels. Initially, Marchant described these children as pure, ordinary individuals whose bodies would be taken over by an angel and used to defend the Earth against supernatural threats. He often brought several local youths onto his television programs, parading them around as potential saviors. Later, he expanded into the theory of children with unique abilities; these chosen vessels would exhibit remarkable qualities, including hearing the voices of other angels, communing with God, and even seeing visions that might influence the future. This was the final convincing factor for Meredith, all but confirming that her son was one of the vessels. She was determined to have Quinn meet with Marchant, eager for them to go to another public Archangelist Tenet event. These events were quickly becoming spectacles for parents to nominate their children as potential vessels, commonly referred to as ‘Angelkids’. The Angelkids were considered minor celebrities, now featured in all of the public broadcasts and used as poster boys for the Archangelist cause.
In late August, Quinn begrudgingly went along with his mother to one of these events. After the lengthy sermon, he lined up with some of the other kids to meet with Marchant, Meredith proudly holding his hand the whole time. When it got to his turn, Marchant touched his forehead and asked him a few questions. Quinn was reluctant to even speak, but Meredith chimed in about his ‘visions’. Marchant expressed interest, curious about the details, so Meredith provided a summary of his prophetic encounter. Quinn received an official Angelkid badge and was asked to linger backstage with some of the other chosen kids. Even though he found the whole thing pretty lame, Quinn got to bond with some of the other children, most of them roped into it by their parents as well. And as before, he could tell how happy it made his mother, Meredith beaming with pride the whole time.
After, Quinn was asked to be featured on one of the upcoming television specials, showcasing this new collection of Angelkids. At first, he steadfastly refused, too shy and embarrassed to even consider it. But with his mother’s urging, he went along with it, standing in the background of the group of about a dozen kids. Marchant took time to ask them all questions, some of the children clearly offering pre-scripted responses. When it came to Quinn’s turn, Marchant asked him about his ‘visions’. Stumbling, Quinn made something up off the top of his head—a random dream about seeing a giant werewolf storm onto a football pitch. With Marchant’s further probing, he simply provided the time and details of the upcoming Liverpool match on the weekend. Quinn left the program feeling like an idiot, especially with how much his sister made fun of him over it, but his mother was so proud, sitting with him to watch the rebroadcast when they got home.
On Sunday the 24th, however, the Liverpool match against Aston Villa went off without a hitch. Quinn’s father had been idly following the match, but his mother anxiously watched the whole game, despite having no prior interest in football. There had even been an Archangelist public service announcement to avoid attending this match, but it was clear that no werewolves were present on the pitch. That night, Meredith approached Quinn, asking about why he said he’d seen that particular vision. Quinn tried to brush it off, claiming that he had no way of knowing if his visions would actually come true. Meredith let it be, but a seed of doubt had been planted; most of Quinn’s ‘dreams’ never came to fruition either, and she realized that the only true vision had been the one after his accident.
In autumn, Quinn caught a pretty bad case of the flu. His mother kept him home from school for a few days, taking time off work to watch him. During the worst of it, Quinn’s fever spiked fairly high, so Meredith gave him constant fluids and medicine, drawing a bath to help moderate his body temperature. Ordinarily, twelve-year-old Quinn would find it too awkward for his mother to help bathe him, but he was too weak to do much, so Meredith helped him into the bath, keeping watch of his fever. Just as Quinn started relaxing, he noticed a difference in his mother. She started stroking his hair, whispering things about angels and other nonsense, telling him he was so special. Eventually, she placed both of her hands on his shoulders. Quinn was so weak and exhausted from the illness that he couldn’t resist when she started applying pressure, and he sank further into the bathtub. Meredith shushed and placated, telling him to trust her. She pushed hard on his shoulders, until Quinn was fully submerged in the water. He immediately struggled, but his mother was leaning all her weight into it, keeping his head down while he thrashed. It was only a matter of seconds until Quinn started inhaling water. And then, a minute before he lost consciousness.
Just as before, everything shifted in his mind, and he fell into that altered state, blinking as his vision emerged. What he saw was: the back of an airline seat, a stewardess walking down the aisle, gray clouds outside the window, a blinking light flickering on overhead, a voice from the loudspeaker, a dark shape appearing in the clouds, people yelling, seatbelts tightening, that shape moving closer and closer outside the window, a sudden jolt, and then—fire, chaos, the cabin ripping apart, his body being wrenched from a seat, tossed out into the sky, falling, falling—
Quinn gasped on the bathroom floor when he regained consciousness. He was drenched, wrapped in a towel, his mother holding him to her chest as she rocked him back and forth. It took a while for Quinn to breathe properly, hacking water out of his lungs. But his mother kept shushing and rocking him, pressing kisses on his wet head. And when she asked him what he saw, he told her the truth.
Six days later, a British Airways flight from London to Amsterdam collided with a Category-3 dragon over the North Sea. All 192 passengers were killed.
Quinn didn’t tell anyone about his vision, or what his mother had done.
Meredith kept a correspondence with Geoffrey Marchant in the following months. After the second vision, she was more convinced than ever that her son possessed these angelic abilities. Marchant was keen to have Quinn back on his program, but Quinn firmly refused. After turning thirteen, he became more and more withdrawn. As a result of the stress, his grades suffered, and his attitude and general well-being started worsening. He had virtually no friends in school, Lewis and his former mates still refusing to acknowledge him, and now his reputation of being an Angelkid made him the target of petty teasing.
Around this time, Ed’s father, Robert, suffered a stroke, and the process of taking care of him amidst his ailing health was taxing on the whole family. Conditions also worsened across Europe, with more dangerous supernatural encounters occurring more frequently. Much of the Archangelist directive began focusing on abhuman vilification.
With his father’s attention mostly on caring for their grandfather, and Nora constantly ditching him for her friends, Quinn once again found himself drawing closer to his mum. Even with all of the anxiety surrounding the ‘bathtub incident’, he still felt like she was the only person who could truly understand him. And despite not believing in any of the Archangelist nonsense, part of him liked hearing how ‘special’ he was.
Near the end of the school year, Quinn begged his sister to bring him along to some of the parties and hangouts she’d go to with her friends, and she finally agreed. Quinn mostly lingered in the background, but a few times, the older teens let him drink and smoke with them. At one of these gatherings, Quinn was hanging out with an older university student named Matthew. He’d gotten pretty wasted by that point, but the guy was being nice to him, paying attention to him and making jokes. Quinn didn’t see anything wrong with the fact that Matthew was around twenty and Quinn was just thirteen. Eventually, the two of them wandered into a backroom, and Matthew started kissing Quinn’s neck, pulling at his clothes. Quinn was attracted to him, so he let the guy do whatever he wanted. The sex was painful, but Quinn didn’t really mind; he felt more alive than he had in months. Afterward, he felt intensely ashamed, convinced that his sister would find out and tell everyone, especially his mother, and he wouldn’t be ‘special’ anymore. But she never did, and Quinn didn’t mention it to anyone.
As it had become a yearly occurrence, Quinn went with his mother that August to one of the Archangelist events, arranging a private meeting afterward. Marchant had brought them into a small, closed room, at first requesting Meredith remain outside. Quinn was visibly uneasy, so Meredith insisted she stay with him. Marchant began by asking Quinn a few rudimentary questions, but it quickly became clear this was some sort of examination. Marchant’s questions became invasive, asking Quinn personal topics he wasn’t prepared to answer, especially in front of his mother. When Marchant asked if anyone had ‘defiled him’, Quinn shook his head. But he knew he’d meant the encounter with Matthew, and the guilt sank back in. What was even more concerning was the presence of an individual in the corner of the room, quietly observing and taking notes. Quinn would later conclude that this person was a vampire. Meredith grew uncomfortable the longer the interview went on, both regarding the mystery vampire and the treatment of her son, but she allowed it to continue, still naively thinking this was relevant to the Tenet’s principles. Eventually, Marchant asked Quinn to remove his shirt. He was reluctant to do so, especially when Marchant began touching him for ‘inspection’. When Marchant reached his shoulder, he recoiled at the surgical scar. After inspecting the exit wound, Marchant claimed this ‘imperfection’ was an indication that Quinn couldn’t be a true vessel; the placement and severity of the wound would hinder the potential emergence of angel wings. He also outright stated that at thirteen, Quinn was already considered ‘too old’. Meredith was dismayed, but Quinn just sat there quietly, convinced that he was ruined because he’d had sexual relations with a man.
Just as they were leaving, the vampire caught Quinn’s eye. He said nothing, but stared intensely at him, writing something down in his notes. Quinn never brought it up to anyone.
Things worsened as a consequence of this meeting. Meredith became increasingly paranoid again, hearing more voices in her head, and Quinn shut himself off entirely. The school term started, but he often skipped class, smoking outside and wandering around for hours. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, even when his teachers tried intervening. Quinn came home one afternoon drenched because he’d been outside in the rain all day, so naturally, his mother drew him a bath. Meredith lingered as she had last time, and Quinn’s anxiety piqued as he could hear her muttering to herself on the other side of the curtain. After a moment, she knelt down next to the tub, whispering about how special he still was, how he was going to save everyone; he just needed to let the angelic powers guide him. Quinn started crying when his mother put her hands on his shoulders again, shaking his head and begging her to stop. But Meredith was insistent. She pulled the curtain aside to show that she’d brought the toaster into the room, plugged in with an extension cord, and claimed that if Quinn resisted, she’d throw it in the bathwater. He was terrified, but he let his mother push him under the water, trying to hold his breath for as long as he could. It took two minutes for him to pass out.
The vision he experienced showed a dark concert hall full of people, a group of masked vampires flitting through the crowd, latching onto necks, grabbing as many victims as possible into a veritable bloodbath.
Quinn awoke, stuttering through as many details as he could remember—the venue, the band, the appearance of the vampires. He was desperate to convince his mother that they needed to tell as many people as possible, to prevent another tragedy from happening. But Meredith calmly stated that it wouldn’t happen; he was pure and honest, and his angelic powers would never allow something like this to occur. She believed that in seeing this horrific scene, he was given the ability to bring it into reality or not, and of course, he would choose to prevent it, just as he had with the werewolf incident.
Quinn spent the next week in a panic. Eight days after his vision, on October 1st, there was a massacre at an underground punk rock concert in Manchester—carried out by a group of 5 masked abhumans, 45 individuals were killed.
That night, Quinn awoke to find his mother in his bedroom, kneeling on the floor by the foot of his bed. She asked him why he did it, and Quinn didn’t have an answer. Meredith continued muttering into his blanket, things about a dark presence, a figment of Satan trying to take over his body instead of an angel. Quinn was extremely disturbed. He was planning on telling his dad the next morning, but Meredith appeared back to normal that whole day, and the few weeks following, so he didn’t want to jinx it.
On the morning of Sunday, the 24th of October, Nora was preparing for a hockey tournament, Ed offering to drive her to the match. The two of them headed off shortly before noon, leaving Meredith doing laundry, and Quinn in his bedroom playing a video game.
Around ten minutes after their departure, Quinn’s mother called him downstairs. When he walked into the living room, he saw the dining table turned upside down on the carpet. Perplexed, he asked his mother if she needed help moving it. But she told him no, and asked him to come lie down on it. Even more confused, Quinn hesitated for a moment, but did as she said and lay down on the upturned table. Quinn couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity, and Meredith joined in, smiling at him from above as she stroked his hair. Quinn could tell she was starting to get odd again, muttering things under her breath to a voice that wasn’t there. Eventually, she gave her usual ‘trust me’ speech, but Quinn didn’t sense much danger as he wasn’t in the bathtub. Meredith procured rope and began tying his wrists to the posts of the table. Quinn didn’t even struggle because he was more concerned with her mental condition than anything. Meredith asked if she’d need to tie his legs to stop him from kicking her, but Quinn innocently stated he would never hurt her.
This set Meredith off into a delusional tirade, affirming how sweet and pure Quinn once was, but the dark influence over him had corrupted him beyond measure. She went on an on about how he was being manipulated by this evil force, how all the whispers in her head were warning her that her son wasn’t the savior, but rather the source of this chaos; how his visions were not the true angelic will, but rather a twisted reality brought about by this false spirit inside him, and how by witnessing the horrific events, he was the one making them happen in the first place.
Hearing his mother say all this was too much for Quinn to cope with, so he tried to zone out, pretending it wasn’t happening. The only thing he could focus on, lying on the floor to his right, was his sister Nora’s hockey bag, left behind under the cupboard.
Quinn reached a dissociative state at some point, entirely numb to what Meredith was doing. He couldn’t feel anything as his mother gripped the side of his neck, holding a kitchen knife to his throat. This ritual was the only way, she said, to get the darkness out of him. Meredith started shaking, but in the next second, she sliced the blade across her son’s throat in a deep slash.
The wound immediately spurted blood, and Quinn gasped, unable to breathe. Despite this, he claimed later he couldn’t feel any pain. He watched the shock settle on his mother’s face above him, dropping the knife as her hands reached for his neck. Quinn thought she might strangle him, but Meredith started applying pressure, trying to keep the wound from gushing further.
Not a minute later, the door opened, Ed and Nora returning because she had forgotten her bag. They were shocked at the scene they had entered. Ed was paralyzed for a second before dropping to his knees in front of Quinn, yelling at Nora to call an ambulance. It wasn’t immediately clear what had happened, so Ed asked Meredith to keep holding Quinn’s head straight while he pinched the edges of the wound. He only noticed the knife in her lap after. With the ambulance still a few minutes out, Quinn’s airway became compromised, and he started choking on all the blood in his mouth. Ed held his throat, even as his son convulsed, a delicate operation of sealing the wound edges while angling his neck to keep him from asphyxiating. The doctors said afterward that this was what saved his life.
Finally, the emergency medical services arrived; by this point, Quinn had lost consciousness, experiencing hypovolemic shock and dangerously low oxygen levels. Ed accompanied his son in the ambulance, the response team alerting the police now that it was clear who had committed the violence. All throughout, Nora kept screaming, “What did you do?” at her mother; Meredith was subsequently taken into custody. Once in the ambulance, the medics attempted an emergency intubation to secure Quinn’s airway. He went into cardiac arrest twice during the journey, but was resuscitated quickly, and kept breathing through the temporary tube as he was brought into the hospital.
Despite a successful surgery, there were further medical complications down the line, leading to Quinn being in and out of the hospital for nearly three months. The surgical team inserted a tracheostomy tube, and Quinn would require it for over half a year before he could breathe on his own.
The trach tube made it difficult to speak at first, but even after the eventual speech therapy, Quinn was deliberately silent for a while, refusing to speak. He used a dry-erase board to communicate those first few months. Afterward, his vocal quality was affected, sounding husky and weak, a noticeable rasp to his voice that became permanent.
Following the incident, the police arrested Meredith for serious physical harm against a child and attempted murder. However, her verdict was deemed ‘Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity’; after multiple mental health assessments, it became clear that Meredith was suffering from severe undiagnosed psychosis, likely a form of schizophrenia. As such, she was subjected to a hospital order, and later moved to a permanent psychiatric facility.
Quinn was allowed to see her once when he was in the hospital, under police supervision. He wasn’t speaking at the time, so he said nothing to her, and didn’t bother acknowledging her at all. Meredith just sat there next to him, constantly flexing and picking at her fingertips. Eventually, she whispered something about the vision he had shown her. Quinn was confused; of all the incidents where he nearly died before, this was the first where he couldn’t remember seeing a vision. But Meredith insisted that he showed her something, through their connection during the ritual, with his blood on her hands. All she said was that she would prevent it from happening. This was the last time Quinn would see his mother for at least a year—he would later visit her only three times in the psychiatric facility.
Quinn’s father took a year-long sabbatical from work to care for his son after he was out of the hospital, homeschooling him for the remainder of the school year. Their relationship was strained from then on, Ed consumed by so much grief and guilt, and Quinn behaving increasingly vacant and distant. Nora also took a break from university to help keep Quinn company at home. The family never truly recovered, even after coming to terms with what Meredith had done.
Further inquest into Meredith’s involvement with the Archangelist Tenet eventually led to an investigation into Geoffrey Marchant’s activities. In the coming months, he would be arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse and exploitation. Found guilty, Marchant was sentenced to 25 years in prison. This thoroughly tarnished the reputation of the church, the Archangelist cause losing a massive amount of support and credibility. In subsequent years, the Tenet regrouped under new leadership, with a directive more focused on condemning abhumans rather than seeking an angelic savior.
Throughout his teenage years, Quinn would suffer continued psychological trauma, including moments of self-harm and suicidal tendencies.
That first month after being released from the hospital, Quinn had been sitting alone in his bedroom, meant to be practicing his speech after a speaking valve had been placed onto his tracheostomy. Instead, he sat there in detached silence, slowly dissociating again. Snapping out of it, he impulsively decided to pull the tube out of his neck. Quinn struggled to breathe for about five minutes, almost relishing the pain of suffocation, before his dad came to check on him. Ed had a brief moment of panic, but he quickly grabbed one of the replacement tubes, following the protocol on reinserting the clean tube back into place as instructed by the medical team. Once he was sure Quinn was breathing normally again, he asked him what had happened. Quinn just shrugged and claimed it was an accident.
In the years to come, there were several occasions where Quinn found himself on the rooftops of tall buildings, contemplating jumping, but all it amounted to was a crippling fear of heights. His dreams now featured a nightmare loop of falling into an endless black pit, no planes to help him. Still feeling shame over his sexuality, Quinn began seeking out risky sexual encounters as a young teenager, usually with older men. He experimented with drugs a few times, using narcotics to try to escape from his inner demons. This only seemed to exacerbate his growing guilt and paranoia.
At age fifteen, Quinn attempted to end his life by jumping in front of a train. He’d had the whole thing planned—studying the train schedules, reading up on rail suicide successes. He eventually decided on a time, telling his dad he was heading over to the city center to see about a job listing. But what he hadn’t counted on was his sister Nora joining him. She’d been on a break from uni and wanted to meet up with a friend in Sheffield. Conflicted, Quinn still went about his intended plan, leaving a note in Nora’s bag when she went to get something from the kiosk. He deliberated in front of the tracks for a moment, enough to catch the attention of one of the security guards. The guard calmly approached, sensing something was off. But now Quinn was spooked, so he scrambled to jump onto the track prematurely, the train now approaching. The guard managed to pull him up from the platform, grabbing him so he couldn’t jump again as the train sped on past. Quinn was distraught, and when Nora found him, he began crying hysterically, clinging to his sister and insisting on how sorry he was.
Afterward, Quinn was temporarily placed in a CAMHS facility, under the care and supervision of a mental health team. He maintained a therapist until he was seventeen, having regular check-ins. Nora took a year off school to come live with him once he was home again, and the two became closer, bonding over shared music and fashion tastes—though Nora would mock Quinn for his more ‘emo’ aesthetic.
Quinn still struggled internally, never bringing up the visions, or the implication that his mother blamed him for all of those horrible things he witnessed. He held off on further suicide attempts solely because he didn’t want to have to see, or cause, another tragedy to happen.
With little motivation in school, and no prospects elsewhere, Quinn decided to follow through on his goal to become a pilot. However, during the first process of enlistment to the RAF, he was overcome with crippling fear and anxiety, and consequently dropped out of contention. Discontinuing school at seventeen, he decided to enlist in the military.
Now determined to serve as an elite paratrooper, Quinn went through the brutal selection process to join the Paras in the summer of 2008.
As a recruit directly joining the Regiment, Quinn was subjected to 21 weeks of a Combined Infantry Course, followed by the 8 tests of P Company selection. This involved long, difficult runs, assault courses, endurance training, and a test of 'controlled physical aggression' against another recruit. Quinn, while considered small and scrappy, proved his worth as someone who could withstand brutality, unflinching in the combat encounter that left him overpowered and mildly concussed.
Further assessments incorporated newer defenses against supernatural threats; the Basic Parachute Course now involved specific training in the event of encountering a dragon during aerial combat, though this was uncommon until the 2020s.
Despite struggling with his fear of heights, Quinn successfully completed parachute training, earning his maroon beret and becoming a private in the Parachute Regiment. He used a portion of his salary, as well as bonus parachute earnings, to pay for his mother’s relocation to a private, long-term psychiatric facility.
Quinn served for three years with the 2nd Battalion, gaining experience while stationed in the United Kingdom, before transferring to 1 PARA in 2011 to a posting overseas.
British military involvement in the Middle East had persisted since 2001. Although various supernatural threats were popping up around the globe post-Crisis, a large majority of troops were being sent to Afghanistan to “provide security for the redevelopment of the war torn country”.
Around 2008, there was an upsurge of ghoul activity in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, despite draconic activity never being confirmed in the region. At the time, dragon sightings were more common in northern territories of Europe, leading to several ghoul outbreaks in the Baltics. Abhuman activity was rarer in the Middle East, especially vampires, seemingly due to excessive sunlight.
Conflicts escalated in the 2010s, with Taliban militants now appropriating ghoul armies.
Promoted to lance corporal, Quinn and his battalion were sent to Helmand in 2011 to help drive out insurgents and train the Afghan National Security Forces against supernatural opponents. At the time, there were several intelligence operations established to locate the source of this ghoul army. Locals began circulating rumors of the shamaar, or khamar-an, a mythical serpent creature who lived in the mountains, luring humans to feast upon. Scouting missions into the region’s mountain ranges brought back little evidence.
In the summer of 2012, several members of Quinn’s squad were killed in a ghoul raid, Quinn being one of the only survivors. He was transferred temporarily to a joint operation with another platoon. It was then that he met Danny Chambers, a fellow Para recently deployed from the UK. Danny immediately bonded with Quinn, sitting next to him on patrols, teasing him for his vacant stare, chatting about football and music. Quinn had garnered a bit of a reputation amongst the other squaddies—they claimed he looked haunted, was evidently unsociable, and had an unnatural ability to know when gigs would go sideways. Chambers was the complete opposite—charismatic, popular, and, although two years younger than Quinn, already showing signs of mature leadership. Somehow, the two quickly became close friends, Quinn willing to admit that Danny was a good influence on him.
Intelligence continued reporting increased ghoul activity in the region; it was confirmed that Taliban forces were taking local hostages, harboring them into the mountains, and returning with a larger ghoul host. After a successful ambush on one such operation, the militants refused to reveal the whereabouts of this mystery location; though after interrogation, one referred to the hostages as an ‘offering’, seemingly to the serpent-creature providing the transmutative radiation.
Throughout the coming years, conflicts would escalate, with more British troops being deployed to provide counterterrorist support and combat the increased ghoul threat.
In August of 2014, Quinn, now a corporal, was sent on a covert reconnaissance mission in the mountains near Kandahar. Intel had been getting closer to locating the radiation source, and his squad had been sent to stake out one of the potential routes. But there was an ambush waiting, and their vehicle was struck by an RPG. Five of Quinn’s fellow soldiers were killed in the blast, and another two later died of their injuries. Of the eight British soldiers in that particular vehicle, Quinn was the sole survivor. However, he sustained severe injuries, shrapnel tearing through his abdomen, and nicking an artery in his left thigh. A medic from the other transport managed to grab him from the wreckage, applying emergency aid to the wound in his leg, enough to keep him alive while they waited for backup. Quinn started bleeding out, knowing he was close to death again. He felt himself slipping into that weird in-between, and another vision materialized as his heart stopped.
In the vision, he saw a large, spiky dragon appearing from above, raining down torrents of fire, rapidly killing the dozens of soldiers in its path. Quinn narrowed in on details, recognizing one of the British-manned FOBs in Kandahar, even identifying some of the officers being killed. His own point of view appeared to be that of another soldier, picking up an assault rifle to begin uselessly shooting at the dragon. Quinn’s vision ended abruptly when a blast of fire came rushing in his direction. The last thing he felt was intense heat and a shuddering crescendo of light, before gasping awake in a medical tent, somehow revived.
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