Devlin

Summary

Life Growing Up and Marriage

Devlin grew up in a small town in the mountains that was built around a lake. The people of the town were friendly, courteous and kind; however, they were incredibly superstitious. Many urban legends and myths were born from this town, and the people there have numerous habits surrounding them. Devlin was an aspiring poet and playwright. As a teenager and young adult he would avidly watch plays and musicals. During one of his fated visits to a local play, he ran into a beautiful woman named Maeve. She was the daughter of a wealthy family that owned quite a bit of land in their town, however, Devlin was unaware of this at the time. To him, it was love at first sight. Immediately after the play, he sought her out to befriend her. The two of them hit it off almost right away, as Devlin was quite social and Maeve found him to be charming and funny. After their fateful encounter the two of them became almost inseparable.

The way to their relationship had numerous road blocks. The first being Devlin's childhood friend, Donovan. They were quite close growing up as Donovan had always been level headed, logical and intelligent. Dev often valued his opinions and used him as a voice of reason. They celebrated everything together, drank together, and did many other things with each other. Originally, Devlin imagined that introducing Maeve to his friend would be cause for happiness yet it only sparked rivalry. The two of them would often fight for the hand of Maeve. Fortunately, she was only drawn to Devlin due to his bright personality.

Other than the difficulties with his friend, Maeve's parent's did not approve of their relationship. As Devlin came from a poor background and was practically an orphaned child, they didn't want their daughter marrying a man with such weak credentials. In the end, it didn't matter as Maeve chose his hand in marriage either way. It worked out for the best as the two of them had an incredibly healthy and loving marriage for many years to come.

The lovely marriage between Maeve and Devlin didn't last forever, however. As they grew older, Maeve became sickly and bedridden. The last decade of her life was spent mostly indoors or in low activity. She often didn't leave her house and despite this, Devlin stayed at her side until the very end. She passed away in her sleep one night as Devlin laid by her side, leaving him completely devastated. Unfortunately, this lead to the tragic end of his life as well.

After Wife's Death

Due to the events of Maeve's parent's passing away before she did, her entire fortune was passed along to Devlin upon her death. It wasn't cause for victory, as without his wife, Dev didn't want much to do with the money that came from her passing. Owning her prospects only made him feel bitter and sour, causing him to go into a spiral of depression and... well, not so glorious decisions. All inspiration of creativity had left him once losing Maeve, so Devlin turned to gambling to fill the void in his heart that she left. It was a local casino that he used to pass the hours and in a means to almost self destruct.

Before he was able to get far, his old friend from childhood approached him, recognizing him from their earlier years. Donovan, now known as Spade was discovered to be the current owner of the casino from their town. To Devlin, it looked like an old friend reaching a hand out to help him out of the pit of despair he was beginning to spiral into. Little did he know the intentions of his act of charity was far darker than he could imagine. To give Devlin purpose again, he was offered partnership. Spade struck a deal with him and they became co-owners of the casino. Devlin helped with social dealings, earning favor from business partners, patrons and others due to his charisma. Occasionally, he would even get on stage and sing for the people inside. During his time working for the casino, he was greatly loved by everyone. Eventually, it brought him back out of his shell.

Despite his newfound home, Devlin often battled with the constant stress and sadness of losing his wife. Anxiety grew within him over the years as internally he spiraled. Devlin began to form paranoid delusions and a twisted view on life. Since Spade was a close confidant of his, he often consulted him about his troubles and anxieties. Frequently claiming he felt enslaved to the stage overtime and even that there was a demon orchestrating his life and actions, that there was no love in his song anymore and it was all just a lie. Eventually, Devlin became scared to the point of breaking. He was haunted by the idea of his body slowly turning into someone else's, or becoming possessed. The fear of losing who he once was scared him so badly that he eventually went to Spade and admit that he wished to donate his fortune to charity to redeem himself before he became a "husk".

This kind of revelation did not bode well to Spade, as his true intentions for bringing Devlin onto his team came to surface. The fortune he had inherited from his wife would be enough to bolster his influence on the entire town and expand his own business and he had been using Devlin's charity for pure selfish reasons. Despite his kindness over the years to Devlin, Spade finally snapped and sparked a fight with his old friend. The two of them fortunately exchanged only a few course words with each other, however it solidified a distrust Devlin had in him for a long time.

Ever since the day of their disagreement, Spade had gone from a charitable old friend to an enemy to Devlin and being around him only made him feel fear and danger. On top of the stresses of his delusions and superstitions, it made his anxieties and paranoia of being in the casino much worse than before. Deep down, he felt as if Spade was hiding something bigger from him. Behind the charming, yet cold personality of his old friend he knew there was something wrong.

Eventually, Devlin waited until after hours to sneak into the office room of Spade to investigate his paperwork and his business deals. All of the contracts they had made with other businesses together. All of the letters he had sent to the other cities. Promises of money that didn't belong to him, referring to Devlin as a subhuman being that was nothing but a pawn in his scheme. It all confirmed the anxieties that had formed about Spade. Spade had been using Devlin the entire time to fund his casino with the money he received from his wife's will, and had planned to do it years ago as well. The thoughts began to spiral. Did he even care? All of the things they had done together, were they all a lie? Was he the reason behind his wife's death?

Gaining the knowledge of Spade's heartless plan would do Devlin no good as he got discovered rather quickly by Spade. Unfortunately, Spade wouldn't let Devlin leave with the information he gained. It evolved into a fight for life as Devlin tried to claw his way out of the room he idiotically confined himself into. As Spade attempted to wrangle him, Devlin thrashed about and grabbed the nearest object. In his sheer panic, he drove it straight into Spade's eye. A mistake he would never live to remember. As if he were inhuman, Spade made no hesitation to drag Devlin out of the room after losing his eye to him in the fight. While taking him away, he rallied his footmen to get a hold of him as he made preparations to discard him once and for all.

The footmen chained Devlin up to where he couldn't move and carried him out to the docks where there was a boat with a coffin inside of it prepared for Dev. As if Spade had been planning this event to happen for years, he had them throw Devlin into the coffin. It was inscribed just for him with his name engraved on it and runes lining the edges as if he were planning to keep something inside for a very long time. Spade carved the eye out of Devlin's head as he laid in there, bound. As to seal the deal, Spade pulled out a will he wrote for Devlin on his own and pressed his blood covered thumb to the page to sign all his money away to him. Once this was done, Spade tossed an umbrella that had belonged to Maeve into the coffin with the still living, bound man and sent him off into the lake.

After Death

Spade threw his rune sealed coffin into the deepest parts of the lake, drowning Devlin alive. He knew exactly what he was doing as he had a suspicion that Devlin would be able to grow strong enough to become a powerful Malicious Spirit. In a way, he was correct. He made the mistake of burying Devlin with a relic that belonged to his late wife, which was the umbrella. Despite being bound to the box in which he died, Devlin developed the power to project his body through open umbrellas during raining weather. Opening an umbrella indoors or taking an open umbrella indoors allows him to enter and haunt people's homes.

Due to the conditions of him being locked away, Devlin no longer holds onto many memories from his life, including his name or who he was or even how he died. The only thing he knows is that there's something he needs to be angry about. Often, he does his best to try and get into people's homes to haunt and curse them with bouts of misfortune, hoping it will resolve the anger that constantly plagues him. Thus he drifts further and further away from his home town looking for someone he will never remember or find.