Rai

Railen was abandoned at the orphanage; ran by the town's local sect; when he was still a baby. He grew up under the care of the Sisters especially by Sister Ruthia who dotted on him more than the others. Unfortunately, despite the care and love that the Sisters attempt to teach to all the orphans growing up there, Railen was especially bullied by his peers due to several factors.

One of them was because he was born without the bottom half of his legs, and the kids thought that was freaky. What caused him to be alienated further was that he would miss out on a lot of play time growing up as he couldn't run around like the others. When he could participate in them, they didn't want the kid that was always stuck in the wheelchair.

Another factor was because Railen had the telltale signs of being the current vessel for the town's curse simply known as "The Nightmare". There still exists stigmas around anyone carrying the curse and the kids didn't want to be near such a scary thing. Things changed somewhat for the better when he turned 12, when he was gifted his first set of prosthetics. With that, he gained more freedom by simply being able to go to the nearby gardens on his own whenever he wanted to. As the gardens were uphill, it was a struggle for him to get to on his wheelchair and he didn't like to constantly bother the Sisters to ask.

Since, the other kids didn't bother with him, he couldn't be bothered about them either and he spends most of his time in the gardens. The Sisters let him be because he's just happier being there. Sometimes, they would go up there with him to have a picnic and such and Railen couldn't be happier.

Eventually though, Railen outgrew the orphanage and he moved out into a small upstairs apartment. A nice couple who were close friends with the sect had offered him the space in exchange for work. There, he worked as one of the staff of their family run library until he was 25. He mysteriously disappeared the night before his supposed 25 birthday, his room found in ruin. No one from the town knew what happened to him and the curse never returned since then. Sister [Placeholder] still misses him dearly and always wondered what happened to the sweet child she raised.

Context for the Nightmare Curse
No one knows how the curse came about but it only affects the people that were born in that particular town and their descendants. There will always be one curse bearer only and it will randomly manifest in any child of that town to be born when the previous vessel dies. The vessels only live until they're 25 years of age, regardless of what physical health they're in. As soon as they turn 25, they'll die in their sleep. Many previous vessels simply try to stay awake as long as they can to try to defy the curse, but eventually, they have to succumb to sleep and in turn dying in it. Aside from the prophesized terms of death, the curse has no ill effects to its bearer otherwise. All curse bearers have icy blue eyes, pointed ears and clawed fingers, a telltale sign that they're the current vessel. In rare cases, some vessels can manifest more powers such as telekinesis and bursts of dark energy. However, they're all very weak and negligible.