Marceline
Scene and Notes

Back-story
As a child, Marceline was exploring a crawlspace she found in the basement of her Nurturing Centre with her friend, Daisy. They discovered a small cave but as they did a small earthquake caused a cave in and crushed Daisy, fatally wounding her. Marcie is trapped in the dark for months; the mentors managing to locate her using her chip and send down food and water. During these long months, she listens to her friend slowly die, driving her to the point of madness. She begins hearing voices, telling her to stop eating. She sees terrifying abominations in hallucinations taunting her, maiming her in her dreams. At one point, the peak of her insanity, the corpse of Daisy begins to speak with her. When she is finally rescued Marceline is a broken person; she is then sent to an institution for a year until she is deemed ready to rejoin the Centre. Although no longer suicidal and capable of uninhibited thought, she still occasionally hallucinates or hears things. This leads to her obsession with the paranormal as she is convinced it holds the answer to reclaiming her sanity.

Personality
Thanks to the repression of her heinous past, Marceline can be a stable individual (at times). She doesn’t avoid or seek out social interactions, rather just moving around as her whims and intents take her, socializing if people are in her path. However, she is still a recluse and rarely leaves her room unless necessary. Marcie has a dark sense of humour which can come off as facetious at times, otherwise in conversation she lacks social graces and doesn’t really see the need for them, either. She usually seems distracted and distant, which is reinforced by the fact she’s daydreaming more often than not. When her paranormal sense is tingling she snaps to and starts buzzing with energy, leading to drilling the source of her suspicions with questions or hurling strange powders at the unfortunate soul.

Appearance
Marceline’s most striking feature is her large, almost alien-like brown eyes which are constantly accompanied by huge bags underneath. The rest of her face looks very fragile with her button-nose, soft features and small mouth which is commonly frowning ever so slightly. Her jet-black hair flows down to her waist, with her bangs often falling in front of her face. Another noticeable feature is her shockingly pale skin, caused by spending the majority of her time in a dark room with the windows blocked. She’s fairly short, 5’3”.
Never one to take pride in appearance, Marcie wears a long sleeved purple shirt that’s at least 2 sizes too big with a black tee-shirt over; faded and torn jeans with a skull belt; black sandals and a few various coloured ribbons to tie her hair into a pony-tail.

With Isaac
The “peculiar” nature of Marceline shocks Isaac a fair bit when he first meets her due to his sheltered upbringing. He never would’ve even considered a person like Marceline would exist let alone her strange beliefs and tragic past. The route is very much a character study of her, with the studying being done by Isaac throughout Acts I and II. Act II will be the main focus on discovering who Marcie really is, and her past. Throughout this she’ll start to become attached to Mr. Sharp and see him is a bridge to the world of sanity. In Act III he starts to suspect this and questions her about it, which leads to an argument. The 2 paths I have as of writing are either:
(a)	She realizes what she was doing and works on improving her empathy.
(b)	She is too distraught by the argument due to her fragile mental stability (if you don’t help her enough) to even think of you and runs off.
The whole route will act as a slow descent into Marceline’s twisted world view and will get progressively darker as you go through, right up until the peak at the argument in late Act III. Afterwards normality starts to return.



Scene
[Isaac has noticed a missing piece for his ship in the bottle and a note that reads: “took wood to fight the darkness”. He decided to consult Sonia.]

I leave my apartment, waving to my hopes of just having a peaceful night as they pass by.

It’s 10pm, hopefully Sonia is still awake. Still, I feel rude knocking at this time of night, and she certainly doesn’t seem like much of a night owl.

The hallway is eerily silent as I walk to her room; this is the first time I’ve ever seen the Enclave this quiet. I see that most of the rooms I pass still have lights shining under the doors, a definite good sign.

Eventually I come to her door, hesitate for a bit, and then knock.

A little while passes. Maybe she’s not home? It might even be better if I just go now, it was silly disturbing her at-

*Creak*

Before I can finish the thought, Sonia opens the door, still in her day clothes and looking worn out. It seems to take her a bit to register I’m standing here.

Isaac: ‘I’m sorry for bothering you at this time. I hope I didn’t wake you.’

Sonia: ‘Eh? Oh, no, it’s quite fine. I have to do some work and it’s keeping me up, anyway, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be adjourning to bed anytime soon. What brings you here this late?’

Isaac: ‘Well, I have a ship in a bottle given to me by my old mentor, made from actual wood. I was planning to work on it a little tonight but I found a piece missing and this note.’

She raises an eyebrow, looking concerned. I hand her the note and she reads over it, a knowing but weary smile emerging on her face as she does.

Sonia: ‘I know exactly who this is, there’s only one person on this specific... quest. I’d normally help you out, but I’m a bit busy at the moment. She shouldn’t cause you too much trouble; we’ve had this issue with her before.’

‘Her name is Marceline, she’s in room 8. Just be patient and you’ll have the piece back in no time.’

Isaac: ‘Why would I have to be patient?’

Sonia: ‘She’s just a bit strange. I’m sure you’ll handle it fine.’



I can’t say her uneasy smile is convincing, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any help regardless. I wish Sonia goodnight and head off to room 8.

Apparently the few minutes of conversation made all the difference as the lights under the doors seem to be mostly out.  I try to creep along the hallway to avoid making too much of a disturbance. I take long, deliberate strides and hold my arms out for balance as I make my way down to Marceline’s room.

?: ‘On a secret mission, are we?’

I jump at the voice and end up sprawled on the floor. So much for not causing a ruckus.

?: ‘Ouch. I thought secret agents were supposed to have composure.... or at least balance.’

Picking myself off the ground, I look in the direction of the feminine sounding voice. There’s a figure there, sitting cross-legged against the wall of the hallway. I can’t make out too much as of the dim light.

Isaac: ‘Urrm... I was trying not to wake everyone up. I guess I looked a tad silly in hindsight.’

?: ‘More than a tad, yes. Where ever are you headed to at this time of the night?’

Isaac: ‘I’m going to room 8.’

?: ‘Why would you be heading there? Don’t you know a mad girl resides in room 8?’

Should I tell her? I don’t want to spread around how easy I am to steal from, nor do I want to look silly if this is some kind of elaborate joke. Maybe they could help, though. Sonia did imply this wouldn’t be easy and they might know Marceline.
[Choice, perhaps. If you chose not to, the figure won’t escort you and you won’t receive your boat piece (although you might get another chance), if you chose to the figure will. I’ll be using the “explain” option.]

Isaac: ‘The girl who lives there took something of mine. I’m going to go get it.’

I need all the help I can get here, I think. At the very least she could reveal a little more about Marceline so I have a better chance of getting my piece back.

?: ‘A man on a mission, I like it. Did you bring a weapon?’

... What.

Isaac: ‘I don’t expect things to get quite that rowdy.’

?: ‘If you say so. It’s better to be prepared than not, you never know what’s around the corner.’
‘I’ll escort you; I’ve had enough people-watching for today anyway.’


The figure sits up and shakes her hair, whacking my face with it. It then falls limply down to her waist. I guess not everyone believes in hair-cuts.

She walks ahead of me as I ponder this latest in a very strange series of events. What type of person “people watches”? They don’t seem like the type I should follow down dark hallways. Especially considering she thought it was odd of me not to come armed.

I notice she’s out of sight and hurry to catch up, throwing common sense out the window. Going with the flow has served me well enough thus far.

I come up beside her just as she reaches the door. I’m about to ask her if we should disturb Marceline due to the lack of light underneath the door when she produces a key and unlocks it. How could she-

Oh.

Marceline: ‘I respect that you’d come banging on my door to get the twig back, also you seem pretty interesting. You can have it, it’s on the counter beside the bed to the left.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about waking my room-mate up, she’s... enjoying an externally aided rest and I                                        don’t see her waking any time within the next day or so.’

I’m a little to shocked at this revelation to remember I’m supposed to be angry at her for stealing from me.

Isaac: ‘You’re... why did you take it in the first place?’

Marceline: ‘It’s complicated. You need a breath of nature for this... project. They’re hard to come across.'

Not asking about this project of hers seems like the route to take if I want to keep my sanity in best interests, methinks.

Isaac: ‘Sounds... productive. I think.’

Marceline: ‘You have no idea.’

Isaac: ‘Thankfully.’

She switches on the light and motions for me to get the piece. I walk over and collect it, raising an eyebrow at the crumpled heap on the opposite bed. I’d say Marceline’s assessment of her room-mate would be correct.

I start to look around a bit but Marceline puts her hand on my shoulder.

Marceline: ‘Let’s not get too nosey, now. I’d rather my items kept personal.’

I blush, and look sheepishly at her.


She giggles and smoothes back her very long hair, revealing her startlingly pale face. Still, with her enormous brown eyes and what could only be described as a button nose, how cute she is takes me back a bit.

Marceline: ‘Curiosity is a good thing to have. Keeps us on guard from things that would rather we weren’t.’

Once again, I find myself opting not to investigate.

Isaac: ‘I suppose so. Sorry, anyway; I’ll leave you to your... items.’

Marceline: ‘Thank you. I never caught your name, actually.’

Isaac: ‘Isaac Sharp, I just arrived.’

She rolls her head around mouthing my name for a while, then stops and smiles.

Marceline: ‘Got it.’

Why is it that almost everything that this strange girl says or does fills me with this awful sense of dread?

Isaac: ‘Right... well. I’ll take my leave.’

I tip a hat I’m not wearing to her and head out of the room.

Marceline: ‘I’ll be seeing you later, Mr. Sharp. Or perhaps sooner.’

Oh that’s why.