CARMEN STARK [SOMEBODY]

Appearance

Carmen is kind of short. He's around five foot six inches. He's on the thinner side, and dresses primarily like this. There is a chance that he only actually owns one outfit.  His eyes are blue, his hair is completely white.  Carmen also almost always has a gas mask on or with him. It's a comfort blanket, as well as a way to stay incognito. His mask was also given to him by his dad. The last gift he'd ever gotten from him. So he held it extremely close to his heart.

Like most people from halloweentown, Carmen can manipulate his appearance into something more well scary. The illusion makes it seem as though his flesh is peeling away, revealing rusty mechanical parts. The "wounds" also tend to leak oil and other inorganic fluids. 

However, he doesn't shift his appearance often, since he can't just snap his fingers and look normal again. It takes time for his appearance to repair. It also seems to be a somewhat painful process.  

Carmen has some rather big scars from his time in the maze. Starting at the top of his shoulders, there are six rather deep scars that run all the way down his back. Three on each side. There are a bunch of smaller similar ones, but they're no where near as noticeable as those ones. The wounds that caused them were either deeper than the others, or were ripped open repeatedly while they tried to heal.

Personality

Carmen is a bit immature as well as prone to mood swings. He tries to keep a more happy outlook on everything, but sometimes fails. Horribly. In fact, he can go from happy to morbid in a split second.  But the attempt at being optimistic, and happy is his way of trying to pull away from everything that has happened.

 He doesn't like bugs. At all, anything creepy crawly or slimy freaks him out. They bring back rather, unwanted memories.  He's around average when it comes to socializing. He doesn't mind being around people, in fact, he prefers that to being alone. Carmen doesn't like being alone, alone generally equals silence, and silence never ends well. 

 Carmen was really family oriented prior to what happened at the maze. Part of his world revolved around his sibling and his parents. He didn't care much for self-preservation. But now, that's the top thing on Carmen's list. 
Everything and everyone else comes second.  He's no longer the one to lay down on the wire for others.  It's not really a good change, nor a bad change in his personality. 

He is prone to terrible bouts of anxiety and flashbacks. Carmen can handle his panic attacks, and anxious feelings, he's learned some techniques to keep it mostly at bay. However, flashbacks can happen with almost anything. He has a crap ton of triggers. And flashbacks can be from a couple seconds to a few hours depending on how bad of a trigger. 

Carmen doesn't sleep often, and relies heavily on caffeine. He's plagued by extremely real nightmares. Actually, they're more or less memories of the time he spend underground. Sometimes his family gets roped in though, and those are the worst possible. 

History

Carmen and his twin were born and raised in Halloween Town. Their father traveled for his job, and their mother stayed home to take care of the two boys. Carmen wasn't really into the whole scaring thing as much as he should've been. So he didn't really mesh as well with the other kids. His father told him he'd eventually start to get a feel for it. Everyone did eventually. Carmen was really close with his father. Whenever he was back in town, Carmen was like his shadow.

When Carmen was 15, his father was gone longer than he said he would be. A lot longer. 5 months longer. Carmen was more than worried. He also had a feeling something was off. People don't just disappear like that. Not unless foul play was involved. And his father would never just take off on him. He wasn't that type of person....Right?

One night he overheard his mother on the phone talking with the neighbor witch. She mentioned something about a prison. And a maze of sorts? Carmen wasn't the best eavesdropper. But after some more digging around he found a world fitting the description and started making secret plans to sneak off there. Find his dad, and try and bring him home.

However, his plan didn't go smoothly. As he was sneaking out his brother Christoff caught him. After learning Carmen's plan he wanted to come along as well. Carmen wasn't sure if the small piece he'd managed to swipe would get two people there, but it was a risk he'd have to take.

With nothing but his brother, a tiny ship, and his beloved mask, they went in search of this world.
When they got there, first line of business was to explore. They would find food on the way.

Two weeks into their search they came across a hall full of doors.
It was disorienting and put Carmen in a sour mood.

This sour mood led to the argument in the next room which led to them deciding to split up. As long as they met back here they would be fine. Or maybe they'll eventually run into each other again. After all, how big could this place be?

However about 30 minutes after going his own way, Carmen tried to turn back and go to where they had split off. He felt like he had been going in circles. Maybe Chris had come across some better luck. But he couldn't seem to find the doors again.

Carmen figured they'd meet up again soon. They were bound to come across each other again. The doors all faced the direction....Right? But after about 12 hours he realized that maybe, just maybe they shouldn't have split up. He spent the next day trying to find a way to maybe climb up some of the walls to get a better look. He had to find his brother. In his search he came across someone. "Benny." That's what he called himself. He was older, Carmen had him pinned as a sweet-talker. But other than that he seemed like an alright guy.

The man promised to help him find his brother, as well as his father. Carmen couldn't pass this up. He wouldn't.  The boy needed all the help he could get. Plus besides the weird way Benny spoke, he seemed to be an alright sort of guy. Carmen needed company after all, and if this man could fight, even better. Though just to be safe, the teenager kept his gasmask on.

The first week went by without a hitch, and Carmen started to get comfortable around him. That was his first mistake. His guard was completely down, what was there to fear about this guy? Carmen's second mistake was not paying that much attention to their surroundings. His mind was on finding his family, and trying to get the hell out of dodge before the darkness took them out. If he had been paying attention, he would have realized that they had moved to a more secluded area. Empty underground hallways, filled rusty old cells and empty passageways. The ground was moist and almost river bed muddy in some places, due to water leaking down from the bedrock ceiling.

His third and final mistake was going through the doorway first. The room was large but dark, Carmen's flashlight wasn't strong enough to see the far wall, so he stepped farther in. The door slammed shut, and the sound of something large and metal scraped along the wall. Carmen turned back but couldn't see anything else. A bit too far for his light to reach the door. He called out to his companion, no response.

"That's not funny..." Right after he said that he felt a hand go over his mouth. His first instinct was to bite and kick at whoever was behind him. Carmen wasn't very strong, so he was easily overpowered. However, that didn't really stop him from yelling, kicking, and attempting to fight him away. He wasn't sure why he was trying to restrain him but he didn't want to find out.

His memory fades in and out over the next two and a half months. It was literal torture some days.
He didn't hallucinate often, only when the light was off and all he could see was the dark. His imagination filling the void. After a while Benny seemed to get bored with his toy. So maybe Carmen would make a better pet.
So he started taking him places. Carmen clung to him at first, fear was really the only thing the poor kid knew at this point. But the longer he spent out in the open. The longer he could move around freely, the more he started to become his old self. But not completely, no.

He was a lot angrier. It had been three months since he'd seen his brother, three months since he'd been really happy... Though he could be happy again..Carmen would be happy if he could be free. He just had to get rid of Benny first. If he got rid of that monster he could find a way out of here.
He could come back later for his family later. Even with though this world was covered in darkness now, carmen still believed they were fine...

Then a while later, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a decaying lizard. Carmen managed to get it's attention. He climbed up the chain-link fence.The barbed wire had fallen down at this spot, and he easily just sat on the top of the fence and watched. He was trying to stay out of harm's way as Benny tried to deal with the monstrous creature. After a while, fighting seemed to be futile. So as Benny tried to climb the fence away from the lizard.

Part of Carmen was against the plan. Part of him wanted to reach out and help the man get up there faster. To save him. His "master." But another part knew this was the end, he planned this. It was going to be his escape. And Benny's end. When he got close enough up the fence, Carmen kicked Benny square in the face. Hard. Knocking him back off the fence. Straight into the lizard's grip.

Carmen watched for a bit. Before getting rather sick to his stomach... Too much screaming. The boy then jumped off the fence next to them and took off into the shadows. That's when he saw the two keybladers. His eyes lit up. These newcomers might be his ticket out of here!

So he started following them at a distance, leaving a sort of "helpful" hint in the room full of doors. He didn't want them to become separated. That would complicate things. He made sure to hide his identity stayed mostly hidden though. Writing in riddles and only with his non-dominant hand.

After they seemed to have fixed the world, Carmen locked himself in a treasure chest. In hopes they would take it with them when they left. After all. They wanted the boss's treasures too right? They might think the extra weight was just a lot of gold.

OOC Name:Xemmy

ROLE: ORIGINAL