Character Page Test

Colette Elizabeth Nichols-Demsky

Natalie Imbruglia

colette_18-1.jpg

Female

Caucasian

October 31, 1991

17

5'5"

102 lbs.

Green

Black

Le Rivage

Part-Time Internship at Bit-By-Bit Software

Judah Demsky (Adoptive Father)
Richard Nichols (Father, Deceased)
Evangeline Nichols (Mother, Deceased)

Nicole Nichols (sister)

Single

None

An Ever Thinning Thread Of Hope

Colette Elizabeth Nichols is one among thousands of displaced children living in New York City following the events of November 8th, 2006. Having discovered in late 2008 that she possesses an Evolved ability, her life has been a constant struggle of difficult family situations, loss, discovery, and enlightenment that shows no signs of ending. She is currently loosely associated with the _ferrymen much to her adoptive father's chagrin.

Colette Nichols was born on a particularly auspicious October 31st in 1991. She, like many others, were born into an age long before the idea of the Evolved was more than a flight of fancy reserved for childish dreams. Born and raised in Boston Massachusetts, Colette was a young woman who lived an ordinary life in ordinary times. Much of her childhood was tended to by a woman named Patricia Meunier, a nanny appointed by Colette's parents whom served more the role of a mother than her own flesh and blood. Colette, however, was not alone in this second-hand childhood. Her older sister Nicole (ten years her senior) struggled under the same disaffected roof as Colette would.

Raised in this manner, the Nichols sisters grew up largely apart. Just as Colette was maturing to the age when she had a say about her life, Nicole had already moved out on her own. Colette had no idea about the troubles her older sister had gone through, but she had all foggy memories of the shouting, the crying, and the door slamming to fill her dreams for much of her youth. By the time Colette was ten and Nicole had moved out into her own, it was time for the younger sister to take up the burdens of the older. While Colette's father was a distant man, consumed by his work at a law firm, he did find it within his time to scar the poor girl for what would be the remainder of her natural life. Emotionally and sexually abused, Colette's mother refused to listen to the girl's pleas for help, she herself too preoccupied with the abuse her husband afforded her, and the stress of maintaining their expensive lifestyle and her own job. It wasn't until later in her life that Colette would come to take a stand for herself…

…and that would require a helping hand.

In the spring of 2005, Colette, now a young and embittered teenager, began to take matters into her own hands. Disappearing for weeks at a time from home, only to be brought back by the police time and time again, the young girl rebelled in the only way she felt she could. Years of her mother's staunch refuals to listen to her about her father had made the girl resistant to the idea of posing her situation to anyone outside of her family, and this introversion would only serve to prolong her suffering at her father Richard's hands.

But in the summer of 2005, Colette finally managed to catch a break. When her mother became hospitalized in August with breast cancer, her sister Nicole returned from New York to stay with the family during this time. When Colette finally opened up to her sister, explaining to her how she had suffered under her father after Nicole left, that was all it took to begin to turn things for the better. Unable to bring herself to confront her father or bring the law to bear on her family, Nicole offered to take custody of Colette to "ease the burden" on the family while their mother was hospitalized. By the fall, Colette and Nicole had left for New York City where her sister lived. Moving in to Nicole's lower east-side apartment, the two sisters managed to put the past of their family behind themselves after coming to terms with never truly having been "sisters" when they lived together. The pair grew close, forming a family-unit they had never experienced in their earlier years. Finally, the two had retained a semblance of family from the broken shell of one left behind. And for a little while, it looked like things were going to be alright after all. Then the bomb hit.

November 8th, 2006. Ask anyone and they can tell you what they were doing when the bomb hit. Stories flood print and digital mediums with survivor stories, or anecdotes about those living on the edge of the disaster area when it hit. Every talk media program has had its share of tear-jerking tales from children blinded by the atomic flash, to televised fund-raisers for fallout victims. Everywhere you look, someone has a perspective on the bomb, everyone has a story to tell no matter where they were.

Everyone except Colette Nichols.

On November 7th, 2006 Colette Nichols was living her ordinary life. Attending school, spending time with friends, and enjoying the life she had with her sister Nicole. The last thing she recalls on the evening of the 7th, was coming home to find that Nicole hadn't returned from work, thinking nothing of it, and spending the night watching television. Even down to the minutae of what was on that night, she can remember everything up until the Tonight Show came on. Then, according to her, she fell asleep on the couch with the phone in her hand. It wasn't odd for Nicole to have a late night or two out on the town with friends. Near midnight without calling? Colette had been worried. And that was the last thing she remembered…

On the morning of Thursday, April 9th 2006, Colette awoke in the trauma ward of New York Hospital Queens. She would come to discover that an emergency response team had spotted her lying in the streets in Brooklyn and was taken in for observation and care. Severely dehydrated and suffering from light radiation poisoning (150 REM), Colette was considered to be one of many "fortunate ones" who was far enough away from the blast when it occurred to have survived. However, Colette would be hospitalized for months following the explosion undergoing treatment for her exposure to the radiation of the bomb. Compounding her radiation sickness was also the loss of sight in her right eye, presumed by doctors to be from corneal scarring from debris during the blast.

By the fall of 2007, Colette had been given a clean bill of health, and still there were no signs of her sister after the chaotic times that had come. She, like many others, were considered to be casualties of the greatest disaster to hit the United States in its entire history. Compounded by the passing of her mother from her cancer, Colette was left feeling hollow and alone in a world that didn't have the time or the pity for her. Survivor's grief, mixed with the emotional plague that had been her childhood and finally driven home by the loss of her sister, the young girl had nothing left. With her hospital bills paid by her father, who refused to see Colette, the girl had nowhere to go, and no one to turn to.

It was rock bottom, like it was for so many others.

Once the truth had come out, and the Evolved were out in public, the wave of resentment and misplaced hatred that much of the world felt towards this breed of humanity came out in Colette as well. While not as motivated by hatred as members of extremist anti-evolved groups were, the young girl none the less shed no tears for the Evolved that were killed in the streets or dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night. She was spending her days, like so many other displaced minors in New York, in the care of the state. Living in an overcrowded state-run foster home, Colette would see the world around her twist and change while she remained the same scared, vulnerable, and resentful girl inside that she had become so many years ago. All the good that her sister was able to do for her had drained away, and the only motivation she had left was to solve the mystery behind the missing time she experienced. She had no memories of the explosion, no closure on the loss of her sister, and nothing else to take up her time.

Colette struggles with shedding a habitual introversion and distrust of others. Her childhood scorned her trust of adults and authority figures, and her later life has given her a hardened cynicism towards life as a whole. Forced, like so many others, to crowd together to make ends meet following the November 8th, she has receded into herself and the shell of the city around her to find comfort. Once outgoing, bright and happy while living with her sister Nicole before the bomb, the young girl has since sunken deep into her former sorrows. However, unlike most people her age, she does not have a self-important sense of entitlement about her suffering. She realizes that so many other people lost so much more on November 8th, and she lets that knowledge keep her humble. Deep down inside, there is compassion, warmth and caring in Colette, but all of that is buried beneath the scars that all those who survived the bomb bear.

Since becoming adopted by Judah Demsky and finding solace in the company of Tamara Brooks, Colette has been working to rid herself of her distrust and disconnect, learning to trust again, but often times taking steps too far and trusting too easily, such as in the case of Tavisha (an alias of Gabriel Gray).

Photokinesis

Photokinetic Talents
Talent Name Taught By Effect First Scene
Illumination Control Conrad Without much concentration, Colette can raise or lower the levels of ambient light in her immediate surroundings. She has not focused on an area of illumination larger than fifteen feet yet, but it was postulated by Conrad Wozniak that her powers have an exceptionally high potential threshold. Colette is able to brighten an area by concentrating the available light, or darken an area by displacing the light to another location nearby, effectively allowing her to make an area of shadow surrounded by an area of brighter illumination by pushing the light to the "edges". In Darkness
Light Concentration Self-Taught Colette can further concentrate light into more focused effects. She cannot generate it, but may collect and focus the light that is around her. The focused output, typically directed from one or both hands, is a two-inch-diameter beam with a maximum range of ten feet in optimal conditions. The quality of the beam, obviously, depends upon her environment. Under 'normal' levels of illumination — indoors, early morning, sunset, full moon — she can create a beam of sufficient intensity to temporarily blind a person, rather like shining a flashlight into their eyes at midnight. This momentary blindness may last for as much as five or ten minutes; the ensuing disorientation, likely a slight bit longer. Weaker lighting — a clear night, twilight, dimly lit indoors — lets Colette gather enough light to see well by, but no more. Stronger illumination, the sun at high noon or equivalent artificial lighting, can be focused to a point that (with a bit of time) ignites paper. This level of output can also be used to blind someone's sight for a period of hours to days upon exposure. Focusing light is not difficult in and of itself; the effect can be maintained for several hours, but requires some degree of /mental/ focus throughout in order for that to happen. Light on Water, Part II
Color Manipulation Conrad By manipulating how light reflects off of a surface, Colette is able to change the color of objects she touches or whole areas around her. A fifteen foot area of effect is her greatest achievement so far without causing herself physical trauma. On the outside of her ability range, she was able to manipulate color over sixty feet around her, but it took a severe physical toll on her body. The color manipulation only lasts while she is within the area, and only while she concentrates directly on the effect. In Darkness
Invisibility Conrad By bending light around herself, Colette can plunge herself into total darkness, effectively shunting out all visible light from her location, rendering her invisible. She is still physically present in the area, and she is unable to see due to no visible light reaching her at all. However, Colette is unable to bend spectrum of light that cannot be seen by the human eye. As such, infra-red goggles and heat sensing equipment can still detect her while invisible. In Darkness
Photokinetic Illusions Conrad By applying the above three abilities together, Colette is able to create silent figment images that at current look like crude and finger painted three-dimensional imagery. She has fine detail control down to the level of her artistic capability, which is limited to very obviously unreal images. With practice and time she could learn to create photo realistic images, provided she finds a teacher capable of instructing her on how to utilize this facet of her power better. Paint Me Strength
Laser Generation Tavisha A further enhancement of her light concentration talent, with remarkable focus and extreme physical duress on her body, Colette is able to concentrate the ambient light around her into laser light that is the approximate strength of a surgical laser. It can burn flesh, paper and wood, but has little effect on materials like stone. Prolonged exposure to the laser could eventually cut through bone, but Colette is not experienced in the talent enough to maintain it for that length of time. The Spiral's Completion, Part II
Color Sight Self-Taught After having lost her eyesight in an attempt to utilize her laser generation, Colette soon discovered that she has the ability to feel visible spectrum of light more than just with tactile sensations. She is now experimenting with the ability to see light without using her eyes, currently allowing her to see the world as roughly defined shapes and colors, like viewing the world through Vaseline-smeared glasses. Is It Dark For You?
Physical Limitations
Colette has a specific physical limitation to her power. Over-exertion of abilities she is not familiar with, and pushing herself beyond limits already established causes undue physical harm in the form of blood vessels rupturing in her eyes.

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Character Logs
Log Archive For Colette Nichols-Demsky

Relationships

tamara_icon.gif
A strange girl with even stranger mannerisms, Colette's fated meeting with this young precog led to a terrible discovery that sent her back into the life of Detective Judah Demsky. While her true motives for staying so close to Colette are unclear, Colette herself knows the reason she stays so close to Tamara; because she loves her.
judah_icon.gif
After a chance encounter on the streets of Brooklyn with the detective, a series of events in Colette's life were sent spiraling far out of her control. It all started with a photograph, a briefcase, and a business card. After his injuries at the hands of Amato, Colette feels partially responsible, and the fact that Judah nearly died seems to have impressed on her the importance of how she treats others. Anyone could be taken from her as fast as Nicole was, and the man who has become her father is one of the most precious people in her life, even if she sometimes has a hard time admitting it.
felix_icon.gif
Felix is one of a handful of people who Colette trusts explicitely. The FBI agent has thus far shown himself not to be an obtuse and intrusive adult, like the ones she's had to deal with all of her life. Being an old friend of Judah's is a huge plus too, and the choices in their life that both Felix and Colette have in common became their strongest bond. Once she thought Agent Ivanov to have died; she attended his funeral, she saw the urn that contained his remains. Felix Ivanov did not die, and on his summary return from wherever wasn't the afterlife, Colette discovered just how close she was becoming to doing something unforgivable in his name.
nicole_icon.gif
Thought to have been dead, Nicole Nichols was instead memory-wiped as part of an assignment by her longtime employer Daniel Linderman and given the false identity of Stephanie Caiati. After meeting with Colette and questioning her own identity, Nicole was able to find the truth out about herself, and reunite with her long-lost sister whom she had presumed dead in the bomb of 2006. With Nicole having left for Las Vegas, Nevada on long-term business, Colette has come to lament finding her sister, only to seemingly lose her again.

Themesongs

Paramore ~ Let the Flames Begin
What a shame we all became
such fragile broken things,
A memory remains
Just a tiny spark,
I give it all my oxygen,
to let the flames begin,
So let the flames begin,

Oh Glory! Oh Glory!

This is, how we'll dance when,
when they try to take us down,
This is what we'll be, oh glory.

Somewhere weakness is our strength,
And I'll die searching for it,
I can't let myself regret,
such selfishness,
My pain I know the trouble caused,
no matter how long,
I believe that there's hope,
buried beneath it all, and,
hiding beneath it all and,
growing beneath it all and…

This is, how we'll dance when,
when they try to take us down,
This is how we'll sing out…
This is, how we'll stand when,
when they burn our houses down,
This is what we'll be
Oh Glory!

Reaching as I sink down into life.
Reaching as I sink down into life.

This is, how we dance when,
when they try to take us down,
This is how we'll sing out.
This is, how we'll stand when,
when they burn our houses down,
This is what we'll be Oh Glory!

Gallery

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