David Silverman

David Silverman (31), is the founder and director of the Silverman Academy for Marked Youth. He works day and night searching for new Marked who are in need of help and guidance and brings them to the academy.

## Background

David was born in Seattle in 1990, since that moment he was different from other due to his albinism. It wasn’t really hard to make friends for him but there were people who bullied him saying he was a freak and so on. His parents tried to comfort him saying he was special and other kids just didn’t understand that, but even their attitude changed towards David when he manifested his marks.

### Childhood and Upbringing

His parents were normal people who led normal and boring lives, even though David was the joy of their life when the marks appeared on him when he was 12 years old they freaked out. Even though they didn’t throw him out of house or outright hate him they distanced themselves from him, started being too busy with work to give him attention or care and the meals turned silent and uncomfortable.

That’s when David started to mix with the wrong people, with the lack of love from his parents he started to mix with those who accepted him, other marked. He started spending less time in his house with every passing day, was out of home early in the morning and didn’t return until late night. But his parents were to afraid to ask anything or intervene.

The group he had started associating with called themselves the Black Line, at first all he did with them was do social work helping other marked people on the streets giving them food, clothes and pointing them to places where they could take shelter but as the years passed and at his 14th birthday David had his revelation unlocking his shadow powers. After this the work they tasked David started to get messier. He was asked to infiltrate strictly secured facilities to plant spying equipment or steal weapons and explosives.

### The Mistral Academy

After his 16th birthday he had done some splendid work of the Black Line and was now in a high position of power within the organization, from his point of view everything was going great. But one day there was a knock on the front door of his parent’s house, there was a man with long black hair, he introduced himself as Xander X. Gale. He had come to invite David into the Mistral Academy situated at Ingestre Hall, Stratford on-avon, Great Britain. His parents agreed to it happily but David didn’t want to go and he did try to resist at first but using the power granted by his marks Xander pacified him and took him to the Academy.

Even though he was reluctant about going, actually being there changed things. At first he wanted to try and convince more marked people to join the Black Line by befriending them and tricking them in the same way he was tricked with the social work at first. He was a bit surprised to discover there was an active Black Line cell in the Academy but he decided to work with them either way since they had a common goal.

When Damien first came to the academy David was still stuck in wanting to prove how powerful he was to the other Black Line members and tried to fight and take him down using his shadow powers, but Amelia Bellins or how he prefers to call her, Amy, got between them resulting in David harming her which caused him a great shock.

He had befriended the girl and other kids from the academy the days before and he was even getting kind of fond of her. Damien shook he to make him return to his senses and helped take her to the infirmary, David stayed there waiting for Amy to get better so that he could ask for forgiveness.

When Amy got better she wasn’t even mad at David which made him hurt even more and that’s when they talked more for the first time, they learned a bit about the past of each other, how similar they were in some ways. Just like him she had suffered from the bullying of others do to her ability to talk with animals.

This connection with Amy alongside his friendship with other marked such as Damien, Jonathan, Albert and Nathaniel made David change and so when the moment of truth came it made it all the more painful. A year after David had come to the academy the leader of the Black Line, Alphonse Silverman, a decrepit old man with white hair who was seated on a wheelchair, showed up at the front door of the academy demanding for David to be handed over to him and threatening with leveling the school and harming whoever was needed if his demands weren’t met, he was of course accompanied by a large group of his marked henchmen. Against the professors and director’s wishes David willingly came out of the academy and went with Alphonse with the promise that nobody at the academy would be harmed.

### The Silverman Name

He spent a year with Alphonse learning how to handle his powers properly and how to manage and handle the Black Line as an organization and its assets. David complied with everything the old Silverman said and demanded in hopes that this would keep the ones he held dear safe and would let him see them sooner. After the year had passed Alphonse had arranged so that David’s last name be changed to Silverman and stated in his will that David would inherit everything he owns. He then though David was now fully loyal to him and let him return to the academy.

When he returned the reception wasn’t cheerful, his friends seemed to be distant they didn’t understand why David had left them behind for a year and now he returns as the young Silverman. What hurt the most was the look in Amy’s eyes, she was very hurt by his absence and when she told him how worried she was with what happened, she didn’t hear anything about him for a whole year, not knowing if he was even alive had been eating at her and she was in a very unstable mental state.

David tried to comfort her as best he could, he explained what he went through and how he had to trick Silverman into believing he was loyal to him and was going to follow with his legacy and the Black Line, but his true intentions were different, he didn’t want to return to that life of conflict and harm. He had decided he wanted to make the world a better place.

### The Silverman Academy

He spent the next year coordinating the Black Line at the academy so that they wouldn’t do much damage to anyone but still seemed to be doing their job to the eyes of Silverman. He took the opportunity to get rid of Dustin due to his problematic obsession with the supremacy of marked and kicked him out of the Black Line.

It was then that he received the good news; Alphonse Silverman had died from a cardiac arrest. David Silverman, now 19 years old was the head of the Black Line and the Silverman household, he hastily moved so that all active cells of the Black Line were carefully de-radicalized and slowly disbanded. With the funds he had he decided to return to America to Establish another Academy similar to the Mistral of Great Britain.

He used the money he got from the now extinct Black Line and Silverman’s inheritance and influence to make the Silverman Academy for Marked Youth a reality. On paper it was and easy deal to build an academy but he had to face great political and social opposition.

He gave speeches to the people and contracted the most capable advocates so that the academy could be a reality. There were also some politicians who offered support in exchange for the students having military training and mandatory military service. He obviously refused this; his intentions were to help the youth not force them into war.

After two years of legal warfare and rallying the people on protests the project of the Academy was finally approved and construction work finally started. It took two more years until it was finished and fully functional, it then opened its doors to all the marked youths of the world.

David and Amy had even been fighting in court with the government for special laws regarding the marked to be passed. It was and arduous work that took years of court to let the academy accept anyone regardless of citizenship, the government was afraid this would be exploited with immigration purposes. They didn’t understand the need to educate the marked how to use their powers safely, they haven’t experienced hurting the one you cherish most on accident because you couldn’t control your power.

But luckily the court did, the law was passed and now regardless of the country anyone could attend the academy and enter U.S. territory for the duration of their educational life at the academy.