Lauren

Lauren never noticed William much until after the disappearance of Tanya Kennedy, to which at that point you kinda had to. She began asking around for info on William himself and why he would be a strong suspect on this disappearance. Noticing the dissonance between what she’s heard about him and how she’s seen him act recently only piqued her interest further. She began to try to befriend William, no so much to solve the mystery of Tanya, but the mystery of who William Clarke is really. He never showed up to school much even before Tanya went missing and something in Lauren wanted to find out why. She would often walk up to him and make conversation best she could but he’d always make some quick excuse to leave minutes after beginning a conversation. Still, some moments when she would interact with him or see him talk to others something was slipping through, the him she had heard about from all those other students.

 Eventually the more Lauren would prod the more William would get irritated and even snap at her, but this didn’t feel genuine, or at the very least something felt off. She discovered he was involved with a group called the Lawrence Fraternity and through some very hard digging learned about their special tulpa experiments. Now she really has a lead on why this kid has been extra strange lately. The next school day she pulled him aside and addressed him by the name Lila. At first he brushed this off pretending not to know why she called him that but she persisted. Then Lila began to really shine through. Lila started taunting Lauren saying “the boy you’re trying so desperately to get to know no longer exists”. From then on Lauren was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of Lila and how to defeat her. Eventually Lauren truly managed to outwit Lila and began to slowly bring William back, the real William.

After all the evil done in his body was done by Lila not William so Lauren didn’t blame him for what happened to Tanya, he did try to bury Lila deep inside him even if it didn’t end up working. Then Lauren was able to get to know the true William, the poor boy that had been tricked and buried. She never saw him as the freak he was frequently called, yes she had pity for his situation but that quickly grew into true affection and the desire to protect him from anything else. Soon William learned to slowly crawl out of his shell and deeply trust Lauren. Now it’s just them against the world. Lauren would eventually move into his apartment with him to help ease the burdens of life he had been previously juggling alone. William started to have a true appreciation for life, with her at the center.