* JAMIE HORNET

jane marie hornet - or jamie hornet, as she later called herself - was born on november 9, 1955 in a small town in illinois. she was an only child, and her parents - mary and anthony hornet - had her in their early forties, giving jane very little contact with younger people for a good portion of her life. on top of this, her family were very strict catholics, so by the time she did attend school around other children, she was often outcast for her lack of social skills and obsessiveness with religion due to her home life. as most children in such environments do, jane grew up with a very complicated relationship with god. as a young child with very few friends, the idea of god filled the space, more like an imaginary friend than anything else. she was content for a while, though. for extended periods of time in her early childhood she would stop emoting completely, or, in more rare cases, she would stop speaking. both her parents had no feasible way to deal with this, so the solution they came up with was to shut in her room for "misbehavior", letting her out only when she decided to talk again. jane was very talented in school, with the exception of history and science, two topics her parents purposely censored in favor of the catholic creationism.

in middle school, things began to change. after earning her primary school education in a literal one-room schoolhouse, jane was now introduced to a union school, a mix of five other small towns similar to hers. she went from being one of four fifth-graders to being one of ninety-seven sixth-graders. overwhelming as this might be, it brought to light a new issue. her parents (and affiliated church) had never been very quiet on their opinions of sexuality - it being the 60s and a small american farming community - but jane had paid little attention to it. she’d never had to give much mind to that part of it all, that is, until she met imani. the two hit it off right away, friends from the second they met eyes in their intro to american history class. they would spend weekdays searching for every opportunity to chat, and weekends begging their respective parents to drive them to the other’s town. not one of many words, jane opened up for the first time around her new - and first - friend, who provided the perfect listener and confidant.

in hindsight, jane's attachment to imani surpassed that of an average friendship. it took a while to recognize this, though, as jane was unused to any connection with people outside of familial bonds. once it came to light, she became extremely distraught, and jane found herself once again unable to confide in anyone. for the first time in her life she felt a sudden apprehension to her religion and, by extension, her parents too. after finding herself reduced to panic attacks at the thought of prayer, she finally reluctantly turned to doing her own research. a lot of it was mostly filling in the blanks on things catholicism had left out, such as evolution and early human civilization. teachers that had found a hard time breaking through to her in the past were delighted once she showed a willingness to learn.

things did not go smoothly after that, though. as jane’s relationship with god changed, so did her relationship with her family. it turned out that looking closer at herself made it easier to examine her own family. anthony became worse and worse, as his drinking problems grew more and more obvious. mary was decent, to say the least, at handling her daughter and alcoholic husband. although she never did anything terrible, she was not a good mother either. she would rather side with anthony than put up a fight, sitting idly and turning a blind eye towards any mistreatment. at times she was borderline neglectful, or - if caught in such a rare mood - would adamantly express how little she cared for jane. of course due to that rarity of the circumstances that would make mrs. hornet vocalize these thoughts, she instead kept them up in her mind, only reflected in the flatness of her tone or the way she served food at dinner time. in some ways this was worse for jane. mary had been forced into this marriage, forced into having a child she didn't want. it was hard to live with that truism; that she only existed because some fictional god figure had pressured her mother into it. still, mary had her own share of problems, and this didn't excuse any mistreatment. she was very vain, and often criticized jane's appearance with backhanded remarks.

there was very obviously a tension growing within the hornet family, something that only got stronger and more apparent as jane got older. despite everything, imani remained her friend, though never anything more. it went like that for years, all throughout middle and high school, up until jane graduated. she had to make a drastic change, and she knew it. june 19th, 1973, she stood up at the dinner table and told mary and anthony she was leaving for college. it was not the all-girls catholic school they had enrolled her in, but rather somewhere completely unknown to them. immediately thrown into a hysteric panic over this out of nowhere, game-changing move, all three descended into chaos, all masks dropped. eventually, she left them to go to her room and gather her things. neither attempted to stop her. the next morning she hopped a few buses and caught her train and escaped, only stopping at imani’s house to give a tearful goodbye.

over the years, jane had taken a liking to history. she took it up as her major, hoping to become a museum curator, or even a professor herself. the first few months were taken up by studying; she was enamored by all of her classes and threw herself into them. school had always been her passion, and she was prepared to fully commit herself to her education. in terms of social life, jane had very little. her classmates liked her, and she had a few work friends from the job she took at the library, but that was about it. still, she wasn't all that surprised when a girl in her philosophy class idly invited her to a party. schoolwork had been slow, so, jane accepted, however unsure of the decision she was. through a series of actions during the night of the party, jane found herself locked in an upstairs bathroom, waiting it out. she had not expected that she wouldn't be alone, and was rightfully terrified when she discovered someone holed up in the bathtub. sylvie - full name sylvia lenney, as jane would later learn - was much more wasted than her, but somehow still coherent enough to hold a conversation that sort of made sense. mishearing “jane marie” as “jamie” sylvie took to calling her that, however many times she protested and tried to correct her. feeling some obligation to get this girl who could barely stand back home, jamie drove her new party friend back to their dorm, entrusting them to their only slightly more sober roommates.

the next day she woke up to find sylvie at her door. at 8 am on a sunday, jamie was faced with a tearful confession of love from someone she hadn't known longer than a few hours. this was a lot to deal with so early in the morning, and jamie spent the next two days avoiding sylvie like the plague. somehow, overtime, she caved, and not long after they started dating.

it didn't begin all that bad; the first few months ran smoothly. they somewhat balanced each other out. sylvie helped push jamie out of her comfort zone and jamie grounded sylvie when a voice of reason was needed. of course, sylvie’s nightlife was no secret, and their substance abuse only continued (and worsened) as their relationship continued. on top of this, the longer the two were together, the more controlling sylvie became. her problems with jealousy paired with her ability to never be 100% sober made her accustomed to lashing out. a lot of the time she would pick fights just to have them, and jamie, who had never had alcohol or a relationship before, didn’t know what was right. she did her best to comfort her girlfriend when she could, but sylvie would only push her away, constantly and hysterically insisting in slurred words that she didn’t actually love them. most commonly they would insist jamie was the manipulative one, leaving her disoriented and distrusting of her own memory.

being around sylvie provided other negative effects too. it didn’t take long for jamie to feel pressured into drinking, then smoking. she never did anything as crazy as her partner, who had no problem with doing more hard drugs, but their influence had already taken effect on her. regarding parties, sylvie pushed for jamie to come to every single one, then would complain about how she didn’t seem to want to go. she always found a way to frame herself as the victim, or at least anything but the bad guy. they abused the fact that jamie had very little experience in the "real world", manipulating her somewhat sheltered views to favor their own conclusions and opinions. sometimes, they would storm off after an argument, ghosting jamie for days before turning up again and sobbing. there were never any real apologies, and jamie would often wait for hours, worried to the point of nausea.

everything finally came to an end when jamie was 21, in her third year at university. the years of addiction have driven a wedge between any of the acquaintances jamie had met, as well as her academic life and work. she's jobless, without enough money to buy groceries or pay another month's rent. then sylvie shows up, all empty smiles and passive aggressive criticisms. horribly unstable and terrified of losing her dorm, jamie lashes out, finally fed up with the treatment. after bickering back and forth for a few minutes, sylvie finally snaps. standing in the doorway, they turn to look back at her. with a sense of true finality, they her that she’s a bitch. spiraling, jamie freaks out, horrified at what she's done. trying to reassure herself that everything is fine, she eventually cries herself to sleep on the couch. sylvie, meanwhile, drunk at the wheel, swerves into the other lane, causing a speeding car to slam into hers, spinning her out of control and fatally hitting the driver's side head-on. she dies not long after the impact.

jamie is the only person the police can find to contact, and she is forced to identify her girlfriend of three years' body. in a state of shock, she lets go of all her remaing academic responsibilities. a month of being holed up in her dorm room and one eviction later, jamie officially drops out, though in her travels couch surfing ends up around the campus a few more times. estranged from her family and adopting some of sylvie’s more severe coping mechanisms, jamie spends three years living her best/worst life, most of it blurry and unrecognizable in memory due to her almost constantly being intoxicated. increasingly, the drugs get stronger, more dangerous. then, at a cheap house party, she overdoses. waking up alone, she realizes that all the people who promised to call the police just sat around and did nothing. this wakes her up to the state of her life. attempting to clean up her act, jamie tries (and fails) several times to get sober. in 1979, despite her inability to quit and general lack of skills, she lands a job at hatty's circus and amusement park as a janitor.

she does not like her job there, to say the least. eventually she gives up on sobriety, and manages to score a few raises every now and again. initially she only had one year-round coworker - collum smith. she despised him from the start, and made sure to steer clear of interacting with him.

in 1983, two new year-round employees join. the first, erika reed, almost instantaneously starts dating collum. for some unspoken reason, this frustrates jamie to no end and she handles this by drinking more. because of this, most of her memory from this time is very foggy, and she can't actually remember erika and collum's relationship. the second is nibs, and the two hit it off immediately. thankful to finally have a friend again, jamie manages to relax a bit, enjoying work and life just a little more than she did previously. the downside to this is that she has no one else, and grows increasingly more emotionally dependent on nibs' presence. terrified of being abandoned, jamie hates actually admitting to caring about people, however obvious her feelings are.

despite this, she continues to unwind more, able to be more comfortable and vulnerable with nibs. by july of 1986, jamie has grown accustomed to her daily life. hcap is not the ideal place to work, no, but it gets the bills paid and it provides her a space to hang out with her friend. unfortunately, this does not last. nibs - seemingly out of nowhere and much to jamie's dismay - starts to show interest in collum. within the same week, her younger cousin, bryce, reappears, leaving her conflicted over her past. thus begins a downward spiral. she blows the situation out of proportion, and - convinced nibs will leave her behind if she doesn't do something - jamie relies on her skills with research to try and dig up as much dirt on collum as possible. realizing what a good resource she is, jamie talks to erika more and more frequently, and starts to grasp the fact that her old feelings for her have never really gone away. only adding to the complexity of everything else going through her head, jamie buries herself in collum's past. trying to give sobriety another chance (if anything to be a better rolemodel to her cousin) she uses her obsessive research to cope with withdrawal.

in some twist of fate, jamie does unearth something about collum. it's bigger than anything she could've anticipated. the three missing children, along with the one actual documented murder that occurred at hcap? all signs point to none other than him as the perpetrator. overwhelmed with the opportunity, jamie abandons all reason and rushes to confront him, face to face, once and for all. this is far from a good idea, as she quickly realizes when he attacks her. smaller and weaker, jamie eventually can't persist any longer and gives up on fighting back. she dies, ironically being the one to leave nibs all alone in the end.