Imagine, for a moment, your body plummets from the 18th story of a building. You fall, and you fall, and you fall, and you fall, and you fall, and then you hit the ground unceremoniously. There's this myth that became a pop culture phenomenon known as a "chalk outline"- literally lining the body of the victim's outline in chalk. It's theorized that this is done for the press to properly take pictures of the crime scene without showing a literal dead body. Once the body is finally removed from the crime scene, along with the other temporary flags and caution tape, all that remains is the outline of the body.
Or so was once done.
In this moment, that's all Druid is. An outline of someone, but never truly making that connection between having a proper personality and not just being a tool for a group that could care less about him. Not even a good tool at that- someone who did what he /thinks/ he should instead of what he should actually do. For reasons he doesn't even care about. Jumping in front of aimed guns because it made him look good in the eyes of those that he "saved" (knowing the people wouldn't fire in the first place), moving on from the past because he believes he should by now and it's "unbefitting of a command member" to grieve over a life he personally extinguished long ago, and just doing day-to-day work while going after an Acolyte (which he has no personal stake or emotional interest in, as an aside) because he thinks that's what a good command member should do. He doesn't, and has almost never, cared about what he's done personally since that day.
Or so they say.
There was once someone who believed in him, really wanted him to overcome the horrible abuse she put him through in order to have him come out on the other side and be a better person for it. Do you know what he did with that chance? He squandered it. He let her die in vain. He had ample amount of time to start looking into the Rot, to start finding a way to cure this incurable disease that plagues all of us. Hell, to even search SCP-294's long list of inputs for anything that could save her. He didn't do any of that, he didn't even /start/ looking. He was so focused on wanting to go back to Beta-4, a task force that debatably cared less about him than Site-66, that he gave up on looking into the Rot when Site Director Poppy told him that he wasn't allowed to leave on HER orders, not because of the Rot. He quit because it stopped benefitting him, because he no longer saw a reason to care about this disease.
Or so he had come to believe.
Alexander Issae was a medic in Beta-4, a soldier in a tight-knit group that cared for animals. He loved what he did each day that he lived but failed one day in an operation where he believed he was doing the right thing. One single choice brought him to Site-66, removed his status as a Mobile Task Force member, and forced him among people he didn't like for a long time. He found few people who he genuinely cared for but found equally that all he did was bring hope of a future that he couldn't fulfill. He tried his hardest, but at the end of the day he was just a medic.
But that's not all he'd ever be.
So fine, he would have to come to terms with the fact that he's not a good person as it stands. So fine, he would have to understand finally that he needs a proper goal that isn't just "do what needs to be done"- he is not a tool to be used by the Foundation until the end of time. Alexander "Druid" Issae will turn around his internal perception of the world, the site, and the Foundation as a whole. The fire within him will find a spark anew to ignite from. For his friends. For his allies. For the Foundation. But, most importantly, for himself.
Or so time will tell.
// Major update.
