Epeli Usman

26 y/o, Fijian (Fiji Indian), he/him

History/Archivism graduate who jumps from job to job, taking on miscellaneous contract work to get by. Roomates with Damian. 

He got high marks in high school and graduated early. Emigrated to the US in after being offered a scholarship from a university in San Francisco and remained in the area even after graduation. After roughly a decade living abroad, Epeli began to realize how estranged he'd become from his family & home culture. He made efforts for a while to ground himself back to his roots before meeting Chachi, but never shook off the shame of feeling too disconnected, too americanized.

Chachi offered an apartment to him at an extremely attractive price (especially considering the California / Bay Area housing climate), to which he agreed. He soon began to suspect the supernatural nature of this 'apartment', but he kept returning to it as a form of escapism and comfort, it let him feel nostalgia for his childhood and home culture that's become so estranged from him. He started retreating to it to escape from the modern world and cling on to the sense of home he felt like he was losing. Over time, though, even his escape started to become more nightmarish.

His birth name is Mohammed, but was given the nickname Epeli because of his enthusiasm about the works of Epeli Hau'ofa, especially in his teenage years. He's a little insecure about this name, he feels being called an indigenous Fijian name rather than an Indian name is another way he's lost his own cultural identity.