Mute

> "*Do you remember, Phoenix?*"
> ― Mute
>
>

by starosis

## Personality

Affectionate, gregarious, flighty, pompous, resourceful. more to come as I remember how to words.

Really likes to talk to people and at people. Also likes that sometimes people give him $$$ for shit he doesn't need. Sometimes the latter sneaks into the former unintentionally.

## Background

For all intents and purposes, the person known as Mute only began to exist about a year ago. It was a quiet move in, settling on the outskirts of NYC after having moved "from a ways away" as he'd shrug and say -- a secondhand shop being the base level of where he appeared and his abode being through the back and up some stairs. It wasn't long before stray cats started to cluster in the alleys nearby, a fond Mute always giving them his leftovers. The first things he sold (photo frames, clothes and suitcases, accessories and a fancy engagement ring) were the end of an old life and the beginning of a new. He could breathe again, he could live again.

Decision-making was never his strong suit, which was high on the list of why committing to a marriage at a meek age of 20 was not something he was enthusiastic about. Though, all things considered, one would wonder why that was what had caused his questioning about the relationship with a high school lover. The manic idea of focusing on the impossible, the paradoxical was almost as intoxicating as the admiration he held for her. She wanted to push limits, and he wanted to follow her mostly out of curiosity than anything else. Even so, the closer he got to her, the more he feared he would push her away. It was a relief when she was the one who proposed the idea, the one who wanted to stay together forever even if it was to push their limits. Getting engaged put the first spikes in their relationship, when the spikes should have been driven in far sooner.

"What if we started a cult?"

He'd thought it was a joke, back at age 17. But it was possible, wasn't it? His sister had rolled her eyes, annoyed at the two lovers, but he really gave it thought. He didn't have to be in the spotlight, she was already handling that on her own with being a prodigy. A prodigy interested in *him.*How gullible they were, and how gullible he had been as well. Internet copypastas, rebellious teenagers meeting in the woods, it had seemed innocent enough. Forums, emails, Skype calls, blogs, donation funds, all interconnected in a tightknit circle that started to grow and grow. They, in their misspent youth and impressionable minds, all had a goal together to push the limits; their limits. Dropouts and outpatient programs, it didn't fix the source of the problem. Enough propagating and then these misguided kids began to...

Mute doesn't like thinking about it. It was just another one of those weird internet phenomena, it happens all the time, it didn't *matter*that some of them died or, worse, ruined their living lives. It didn't matter that none of it phased him until he thought about tying the knot. She wanted to live forever, and he wanted to as well up until that band rest upon his finger. Come hell or high water or frightening mutilations, he had been so sure until then. It was like founding a miniature religion.

So he up and died.

Not an impulse decision, of course. He planned just days after the decision as it all came tumbling down. Precisely, he figured out the when and the where as well as the how in order to restart his life.

Mute went on a trip, out into the ocean with his fiancee and was witnessed committing suicide. A body was never found (he would know, he was the body). He never kept up with what happened after the fact, it had just been the two of them and she could have been held accountable for that but he did not care. He let it come and he let it go, as most things in his new secondhand shop and secondhand life did. Sometimes he missed the bonfires and the flaying of woodland creatures and blood pacts, but most times petting a cat was far easier.

Ever grateful to his sister for looking the other way when they accidentally crossed some time later. There's no use in talking to the dead.

## Trivia

* Knives are cat shaped! He really likes cats!
* Warriors is a good book series
* His original name was Faust. Hearing it still catches him off guard.