Carlie Levenson

Carlie Levenson is a character in MORITURI TE SALUTANT.

Description:
Carlie, 25, stands about 5 foot 9 and is rather thin. She has medium, messy, blondey-browny hair that could probably break a hairbrush in half. She wears a drab, long sleeved t-shirt with purple sleeves, a pair of well worn, thin jeans and some trainers in a rather battered state.

Carlie is a person who never really matured out of her teenage years, she often procrastinates and lazes around any responsibilities she has. While in a more dangerous situation she is panicky, energetic and quick to flee from just about anything. She often uses sarcasm and humour in an attempt to calm herself in bad situations, it doesn’t usually work. Carlie has a bad habit of voicing her inner thought process despite no one being around, which often makes bystanders assume she’s a little crazy.

She also has the bad habit of getting drunk a lot and casual drug use, which more often than not increases her problems further.

Weapons and Abilities:
Carlie has the very unique power of bringing people back from the dead.

When Carlie comes into the presence of a dead being her hands begin to produce a glow, often cycling through multiple colours and ebbing off her hands like fire. Should Carlie get close enough (about a foot or two) to the corpse, the glow will rush into and around the dead body, repairing any lethal damage and restoring all of the corpse functions to a living state. The process takes around 10 to 20 seconds, at which point the glow dissipates and the creature awakes to the world of the living, with a sharp gasp of air.

Of course that is a perfect example of Carlie’s power. In practice it is rarely this smooth.

Carlie in truth doesn’t know how to use her power at all, whether the process of bringing something back to life or not starts seems to depend on luck. Sometimes the glow doesn’t even appear in her hands at all. From what she can tell, there are rules to her power, many of which Carlie is not aware of. She doesn’t even know what happens if she dies.

Carlie barely speaks of her power and assures herself it doesn’t exist.

Biography:
It was a cold winter night, small specks of snow dropped lazily from the sky, bathing the streets in a reflective glow. One could say it was quite peaceful, but they would be ignoring the constant beat of earthshaking bass, radiating from a tiny student hovel.

On the edge of Victorian terraced street, one such accommodation pulsed with an array of gaudy glowing lights and terrible party music. Young people are found strung around like thrown laundry, while the distinct scent of sweat hangs in the air with the snow.

Inside is a hive of active people, dancing and shouting and singing and crying. In the midst of this cloud of people sits one Carlie Levenson, consuming a glass of questionable content and popping a small tablet of even further questionable content. She sits lazily in one of the rare available seats, her face not one or merry and enjoyment but one of boredom and apathy.

“CAAAAAAARLIEEEEEEE!” A shrill voice erupts into our heroes ear, she would of no doubt complained but shouting was the only form of communication in such an environment. The voice belonged to a lass named Jess, a friend of convenience, mostly, “What’s up? You look sort of crapped out.” Carlie let out a melodramatic sigh, the one which you do to when you want to grab as much attention as possible. “I don’t know man.” She punctuated her sentence with a mouthful of neon beverage, “I don’t think I’ve accomplished much in my life.”

“Oh, fuck no.” Jess rolled her eyes so hard she could have created a tornado. “You are NOT doing this, not now.” She pulled Carlie up from her chair, who simply flopped up with little resistance “It’s your 25th birthday! Lighten up!” Carlie gave her friend the mother of all death stares, “Yeah, I know, and look what I have to show for it!” She flopped her arms around like an angry ragdoll. “I dropped out of college, I have no job, I’m living off the charity of others, I’m basically a hobo.” Jess had proceeded to spent most of Carlie’s tirade ignoring her. “Duuuuude. I don’t care, just drink this and be merry, we’ll have time for your death lament tomorrow.” Jess handed her bitter friend another glass bubbling liquid and dashed off, consumed by the ultra compact crowd. Carlie shouted something incomprehensible to the horde, not before taking another healthy glug of beverage.

Fast forward to the early hours of the morning. A mightily inebriated Carlie and Jess wander the black, abandoned streets of some god forsaken neighbourhood. “You know Jess, maybe, maybe you’re right in slum regards” Carlie slurred her words and she struggled to string together a sentence “BUT! I still think that my life is a fart.” Jess stumbled and tripped, making a poor attempt to walk in a straight line. “Ms. Levenson my dear. You don’t need a fancy car or a 7 figure sum of moneys to be happy! You just need your friends and your li-“

And then Jess got hit by a car.

The poor girl flew into the air and landed with a sickening thud. The pair had wondered aimlessly into the road and into the path of a speeding blur of metal. The car swerved and sped off, clumsily turning a corner away from scene. Carlie just watched in complete disbelief, the colour in her skin rapidly depleting. “OH SHIT!” She finally reacted, a good 12 seconds after everything happened.

“Oh no, no, no, no, this is…this is, oh god, oh shitting god.” Carlie began pacing frantically, any feeling of drunken stupidity had been replaced with the cold reality she was facing, facing car accidents and death has a knack of sobering a person up. “Maybe she isn’t dead, I mean, that’s not a fact yet, people get hit by cars all the time, it’s cool.” Carlie slowly crept to her friend’s prone body. “Hey Jess…You…you’re fine, right?” On closer examination, Jess was not fine at all, she wasn’t breathing, a pool of blood was slowing ebbing from her head and her arm was twisted into an impossible shape. “No you are not fine you are very dead aahhheegghh.” Carlie backed away in fear of throwing up all over her recently deceased buddy, her mind slowly returning to a logical state. “Police, call the police, or ambulance or anything with a siren, just, ok Carlie, you got this.” Carlie reached for her phone, she began to shake violently from fear, but before she could call anything with a siren she couldn’t help but notice her hand was…glowing.

“Oh…god damnit it. Really? Really brain? You’re doing this right now?” Carlie seemed rather nonplussed; she assumed this was something she was making up, a combination of alcohol, drugs and witnessing the murder of her friend. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, wandering closer to the body of Jess “Ok, just…focus please. I don’t need this right now.” When she opened her eyes, her hands were glowing brighter and a lot more colourful. “What the fu-“ Light exploded out of Carlie’s hands, knocking her off her feet, with it came a harsh sound, something similar to hundred Gameboys malfunctioning. The light streamed around Jess’s body, enveloping her and causing her to hover off the ground. Carlie at this point could only stare in abject terror as she experienced what she assumed was her freakiest trip yet.

When the twister of light finally dissipated from Jess’ body, she bolted up, taking a massive breath of cold winter air. Her arm was fine, she wasn’t bleeding, and she was breathing again. She was alive. Jess stared at Carlie, mirroring her expression to a tee. “Did…Did I just die?”

Carlie’s expression was frozen, she simply nodded.

“And you…brought me…back?”

Carlie nodded again.