Kore Mimulus
"Jane Doe"
Age 19

Kore is American of Greek heritage and was born in the Greektown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Her mother, Delphine, had run away to New York, seeking out a life in the theater, and come home round of belly and tightlipped. Shortly after Kore's birth, Delphine left again with her newborn infant, this time for the Big Easy, and there she fell into a life of dancing which quickly became stripping that naturally evolved to earning money on her back.

Kore was raised in the French Quarter for the most part, hidden in the back room as a series of men floated in and out of her mother's life. In some ways, she had two mothers: there was the Delphine that was vivacious, flamboyant, never sleeping with tidal waves of temper and storms of tears or laughter. This Delphine could disappear for days, returning with bruises or worse, bringing home hard looking men that were like biting on tinfoil to meet their eyes.

The other Delphine was grey and silent , wrapped in blankets and too-big clothing, unwashed and uneating, face blank and uncaring. This one never left home and the men quickly left. Kore liked this one better, if only because they were alone, and learned how to care for the quiet one, avoid the other.

Both Delphines tried to love her daughter. And Kore, for her part, grew into a quiet, watchful girl, alert with a hint of wariness but remarkably self-sufficient. Neighbors learned to accept the sight of the girl leading her mother about, or returning home burdened with a bag of groceries or a basket of laundry. In their neighborhood, it wasn't even that unusual.

So life continued. Until Kore turned 19, and she first heard the birds.

Winging and cawing, piping and croaking, they haunted her and she very quickly realized that no one heard them but her. One in particular seemed to seek her out, whispering, sometimes things sweet, often things frightening. A voice of honey sometimes, other times with serrated edges, hovering behind her always, it seemed, like someone looking over her shoulder that she could only ever barely see.

Kore grew rail thin with too big eyes, and as her thoughts grew more fragmented and disorganized, so did her behavior and appearance. She drifted around the house and neighborhood like a used tissue on the wind, buffeted it seemed, but nobody said anything, figuring the girl had just finally gotten the attention of one of her mother's men.

Inevitably, that's what happened, a bald man with rotten teeth and a piercing in his tongue he couldn't stop playing with. Her mother was in a manic stage, singing in the main room while Kore lay quiescent, almost in relief while she was dispassionately raped and discarded, the Bird Woman's voice in her mind like a blanket of Autumn leaves.

After, Delphine raged, and bore down on the man in a fury, whipping at him with of all things, a spatula from the kitchen, then turning on her daughter. It was pure irony that it was the pain of rape and her mother's hand that showed her a route to relieve the intense pressure, dull the nightmare, clear things a bit in the unsafe place that had become her mind.

She took to cutting or burning herself, the sharper the pain, the better, and three weeks after the event, she disappeared. She's been in shelters here and there when the cops would scoop her up, been robbed and beat a few times, even raped again, a brutal attack by one of the shelter workers who was high on meth. She's wandered into Hathian, her moments of sanity like peering through a veil that seems to grow thicker, more difficult to part.

Schizophrenia's a bitch. And she has wings.