Calvin Matthews

**Calvin Matthews** was the adoptive father/owner of the Neko Phoenix Esther, before she indirectly killed him in a bout of self defense.

## Biography

### Early Life

Calvin Matthews was born into a strict environment with not-so-evident boundaries as he grew up. His parents were known as doting to the community, but behind closed doors they abused their children. and they strictly taught them in ways that conveyed mostly control over them.

It wasn't until that the eldest child accidentally broke a glass by dropping it that the true extent of their abuse were revealed to their children.

To serve as an example to Calvin and his older brother, their parents forced the both of them to watch as their sister was relentlessly beaten and tortured with an iron. In spite of the trauma, years later he questioned one of their parents about their teaching styles and was threatened with bodily harm. Calvin had spent many years enduring beatings all for questioning.

Over the years, he became reclusive and shy. In high school his grades suffered, which exacerbated the abuse. He even tried to have a girlfriend, but for safety reasons, he broke up with her not too long after the relationship began. Calvin never had the chance to graduate from high school since he ran away from home; he packed up his belongings and stole money from his parents' bank accounts before running away in the night.

### Life with a Neko

#### Adopting Phoenix Esther

Months after he ran away, the trauma he was forced to go through led him to lead a reclusive life. Calvin barely kept his head above water in terms of the monthly rent. His PTSD made it virtually impossible for him to maintain a stable relationship with another human being, much less a romantic partner. Calvin had developed an internet addiction to cope with the stress of merely existing with panic attacks and flashbacks.

After he went to bed, tired from trashing his apartment from the talking-to he received from his boss about his behavioral problems, he knew he needed help. Deep down, Calvin knew he loved animals; cats specifically. He had assumed that maybe having an impartial companion would help him recover. He soon got in contact with a friendly breeder of felines.

Upon arriving to the breeders' house, his heart was captured by a human-like infant girl with fiery orange hair with two ears protruding from her locks and a tail coming from her lower back. Although the breeder had warned him that her crossbred genetics meant a higher possibility of health problems and a potentially shorter lifespan, Calvin had insisted on adopting her. It had been revealed to him prior to filling out the paperwork that she had suffered from being unable to breathe at birth, but the knowledge of her quick revival had inspired him to name her Phoenix.

Ever since the day he brought her home, he loved her dearly. They'd take walks in the nearby park together, they'd play together there, too. He taught her hunting techniques when it came to small mammals and fowl, but he also taught her how to use a fishing rod in her toddler years. Mistrusting of the schooling system, he homeschooled her and taught her how to learn more quickly.

His relationship with Phoenix inspired inner strength. It helped him start to recover from his past trauma, in turn bettering his relationship with his boss and coworkers, leading to an increased job security and helped him secure a raise. His better outlook on life meant having a few people to call his friends, one of them he had eyes for. Calvin no longer considered himself an owner, so he considered himself as her father.

#### From Love to Abuse

While returning home from work one evening in 1997, Calvin was involved in a fatal car accident that killed a passenger in the car that hit him. While he came out of the ordeal barely hanging on himself, the driver of the other car was practically unscathed. It turned out that his mother and father were the ones driving the vehicle, at which the former had been killed. Had the authorities and medics not arrived sooner, Calvin's father would have successfully had the chance to beat him to death.

While Calvin's father was arrested for assault, the death of his mother and consequential beating from his father reawakened traumatic memories. His anxiety returned, his depression took hold of him again to the point where even seeing his beloved Phoenix visit him in the hospital did nothing to improve his overall mood. His despondency would carry over to his discharge from the hospital.

Calvin's personality had changed, and with it came a desire to hurt someone, and that someone was unfortunately his adopted daughter. There was a sense of power over hearing her cries replacing where a sense of comfort would be in her happiness. Unlike him, though, Phoenix wasn't privy to being disrespected for too long. Although he managed to inflict a similar amount of trauma on her, she was capable of self defense.

#### Death

While she was pinned by him and punched in the chest, she had intended to punch him in the neck to seize an opportunity to flee. Little had she realized that her sharp claws were protruding, and she had failed to ball her fist; this resulted in her slitting his neck, and within minutes, he had slipped away.

### Aftermath

In the aftermath, she called the authorities over her guilt for killing him accidentally, but she didn't have the courage to tell them that it was her that killed him, simply saying that Calvin Matthews needed medical attention. Moments before they arrived, she gathered her belongings and fled. He was pronounced dead on the scene on January 17th at 11:40pm.

## Relationships

### Enemies

* Phoenix Esther - adoptive daughter/pet, killer

## Trivia

* His favorite food was beef.
* Phoenix learned how to quickly learn almost anything and retain information thanks to the way Calvin home-schooled her.
* He originally inspired Phoenix to become a race car driver before she decided being a heroine was a more fulfilling life.
* His favorite color was orange
* The Phoenix was his favorite kind of bird and mythical creature
* His love for cats extended to the family cat; he believed all of teenage years that the death of their family cat was what finally pushed his parents over the edge, knowing how much they doted on it.