Character Profiles

The Reverend

Born into a painfully strict Christian family, The Reverend was indoctrinated into the teachings of The Bible from an early age. His father, a miner, lost his job when The Reverend was 12 and began to spend more time at home. He was bitter and angry about losing his job and his son often felt like he was passive aggressively taking it out on him (His son). Nevertheless, The Bible told him to Honour his Father, so he accepted that his father knew best.

However, two years later, the 14-year-old - now set on joining the Clergy - came home from school to find his father in bed with the woman who lived next door. The boy and his father argued, then came to blows. The boy who would become The Reverend felt betrayed, and felt that the father his Bible told him to honour had defiled that same Bible.

Too young and weak to win, the boy fled the house and found his mother. He intended for them to leave together, but she left him and returned to their home, expecting him to calm down and join her in a few days. But the boy didn't return. He ran far away and completed his studies before joining The Clergy.

As he went about his duties as a Reverend, he began to recognise his father's hypocrisy in more and more of the members of his Church. At first, he was just disappointed. However, gradually, the rage began to build within him and when a woman confessed to him that her husband had done just as his father had, he snapped. He quoted her a Bible verse, and retired to his office to think. There he decided there was only one way to ensure the sinners in his flock paid their penance.

Force them to. Days later, the man whose wife had spoken to him turned up dead, his eyes replaced by Bible pages - both containing the Ten Commandments. Knowing he would be suspected, The Reverend fled. He decided the only way he could mend the ways of mankind was to brutally punish the worst sinners. He travelled the country carrying out his "Sermons".

It is two years later that he decides The Girl is in need of a lesson in the sanctity of marriage.

The Girl

The Girl was born into an under-privileged family and grew up feeling left out - all her friends had new clothes and makeup and got treated to all sorts of things by their parents. She grew jealous of her friends and the gifts and care lavished upon them by their parents.

Her own father spent most of his time working, and the rest drinking. Her mother was more concerned with her elder sister, who shared her mother's passion for writing. The younger sister began to feel lonely, unwanted and useless. One day though, whilst at a friend's house, she found herself alone with her friend's father. She noticed his eyes were lingering on her a little more than one would expect.

Slowly, she noticed more of her friends' fathers looking at her this way. Finally, she found out about on of her other friends' parents splitting up. The father had been cheating on his wife with a younger woman. The Girl's interest was piqued though when she heard all the things he had bought for his girlfriend. Suddenly, she knew how to get all the things she'd ever wanted, and feel more loved.

She began seducing her friends' fathers. Then, a teacher. Then any guy who she could lay her hands on. So frequent were her trysts, The Reverend noticed what she was up to very soon after he arrived in the area.

The Reverend was particularly enraged by The Girl because he felt she was luring men off the Path of God, subjecting more families to what he had gone through for her own selfish needs.

One night, after leaving the home of one of her most generous partners, she became aware she was being followed.