The following Volume of The Saga of Vincent Dawn is a condensed retelling of Raiyne’s Whimsy. A novella released as part of The Body of Raiyne novel on April 1, 2014. Readers who are not interested in this summary are advised to skip to the Aftermath.
Chapter 01: Party
This Scenario begins in the small rural town of Rainy Woods, Washington on October 13th, 2003, where 18-year-old friends Raiyne Underwood and Caroline Steticks are scouring through Raiyne’s attic in search of things to throw away. Raiyne is a tall and lean young woman with a dark complexion, shoulder-length black hair, and pale blue eyes. While Caroline is a short and husky young white woman with a pale freckled complexion, curly brown hair, and light green eyes. The two reflect on their shared history as they drudge up the past, namely an incident wherein Caroline put Raiyne in a dog kennel as part of a gag back when they were 7.
Once they complete their cleaning, the duo prepares for a party that Raiyne promised Caroline that she would attend and depart to get dressed. Raiyne puts on her preferred type of outfit, a 60s suit that was given to her by her uncle and fitted to be flattering on her tall female frame. While Caroline chooses to wear a casual outfit, as all of her good clothes are displaced in her mess of an apartment. Following some playful verbal jabbing, the two get into Caroline’s car, as Raiyne lacks so much as a driver’s license, and begin talking about their current plans. Namely how Raiyne intends on heading out of her hometown in order to attend college with the help of a scholarship, and how Caroline is fumbling her way through life, working as a store clerk with no real plans for higher education, and little in the way of life skills.
As the afternoon fades away and evening settles, the two arrive at their destination, that of an enormous house in an especially isolated part of this town. Walking up to the front door, they are greeted by the host of this party, a large stone-faced young man referred to as Roberto “Rigoberto” Shines. He argues with Caroline and objects to Raiyne’s inclusion, referring to her as “Dampener,” before Caroline comments how Raiyne is a straight edge of a person, more likely to sort a bookshelf than cause any real issues. With no comeback, Rigoberto leaves the open for the two.
The pair quickly separate as they enter the large home, and Raiyne quickly realizes that there is nothing for her at this party. The home is excessively crowded, the music being aggravatingly loud, and the partygoers, consisting entirely of young adults, are very sexually minded, and have taken to turning the upper floors of this home into “Fuck Shacks.” Disappointed, Raiyne gathers some of the least unhealthy foodstuffs she can and makes her way to the kitchen, the quietest room, where she pulls out a portable CD player and small book from her suit jacket.
Half an hour later, she sighs as she returns her things to her jacket, and goes to check in with Caroline, who had clearly gotten drunk and was making a fine ass of herself to all who could see. In response, Raiyne writes a letter describing her frustrations with her friends, and claiming that she will simply walk back home. She leaves the note on the fridge and walks out the door in a somber huff. Outside, she sees that it had recently rained, and nonchalantly carries out her walk, unafraid of any animal-related incidents, due to the low population of wolves, bears, and similar threats amongst the forests of Rainy Woods. About halfway home, however, Raiyne begins to feel a sense of unrest. She takes off her headphones and looks around for the source of her suspicions.
Seconds later, Raiyne realizes that she is being pursued by a massive canine-esque beast with glowing red eyes, and does the most obvious thing she can think of. Run off of the roadside path she was traveling along and into the woods. She sprints into the coniferous forest until she finds a tree which she can shimmy up with ease, but her would-be hiding spot is soon sent tumbling by a tackle from her pursuer, sending her on the run again. Eventually, her stamina fades, and she struggles to climb up a large hill as the sounds of barks and crushed pine needles grow near.
With death seeming inevitable, the sound of gunfire fills the air and the beast lets out a foul howl. Raiyne turns to see the creature laying down dead, with black mist seeping from of its neck, and violet ooze secreting from its body. Looking to the side, she sees a man just as tall as her, donned in a dark coat, brandishing a rifle in one hand. He quickly reveals himself as Raiyne’s uncle, Lou Underwood, a bald 55-year-old man with a well-honed body, greying beard, blue-grey eyes, and an exceptionally mixed ethnic background. With Raiyne dazed by the situation she just dealt with, she embraces her relative and the two join in a hug as tears flow down Raiyne’s face.
Chapter 02: Exposition
Raiyne wakes up in the home of her uncle, Lou Underwood, who comes in to check on Raiyne with breakfast in tow. They share greetings, remarking how it has been a while since they last saw one another, and quickly get to the matter at hand. Lou begins with a story dating back to 1973, when he first arrived at the then-thriving lumber town of Rainy Woods, with plans to invest in the operation, as he was a very fortunate and wealthy person at a young age. While there, he stumbled onto an abandoned truck full of fine suits. After nabbing a few boxes for himself, Lou investigated this scene further and was sent into the nearby woods. There, he encountered a monstrous humanoid creature. The being nearly killed Lou, but he managed to beat it to death with a rock and a stick. In the aftermath, he noticed an anomaly known as a Rift.
A Rift is a dark rhombus-shaped void that serves as an interdimensional portal that Lou later discovered to appear somewhere throughout Rainy Woods one hour after precipitation ceases, assuming it does not start up again during that hour. Shortly after a Rift appears, a creature, known as a Rifter, emerges from it. A Rifter is a naturally hostile lifeform with great power, and a distinct weakness to silver, onion, and holy water. When a Rifter is killed, their body rapidly decomposes into nothingness, the Rift they emerged from closes, and whatever bodily harm was dealt by the Rifter is miraculously healed.
Lou also recounts how a friend of his by the name of Wheatley Quinlan and him experimented on these Rifts back in 1989. During this experimentation, Wheatley entered one of these Rifts, but he never returned, leading Lou to believe that he could not survive in the world beyond the Rift, or was murdered by the Rifters.
Furthermore, any attempts Lou made to expose or draw more attention to these Rifts have failed to result in any significant changes. Photos of Rifts and Rifters cannot be developed, Rifts do not appear if large groups are sent looking for them, and those who know the truth are hunted by the Rifters. From this, Lou has deduced that the Rifters are intelligent beings who intentionally keep their presence unknown, and know to only attack lone individuals or small groups.
As such, Lou has been maintaining this operation on his own for years, using supplies made by various friends and acquaintances he made in his youth and using wealth accumulated by Raiyne’s deceased father, William Underwood, to fund this operation. Upon hearing all of this, Raiyne is conflicted but agrees to help Lou in his endeavor, as she is both curious about these Rifters, and desires to help prevent her hometown from being overrun by otherworldly monstrosities. After she agrees, Lou casually mentions that it stopped raining shortly before she gets up, and the two get ready.
Raiyne quickly showers before making her way through Lou’s large expansive home and into his garage, which had been retrofitted into an armory with a plethora of supplies including silver blades, guns loaded with silver-plated bullets, onion gas grenades, and thick armored jackets. After gawking at the armory her uncle assembled, Lou tosses Raiyne some boots and a jacket before inviting her to get on his motorcycle. After leaving the garage, Lou explains how Rifts emit a frequency that he can track to determine the Rift’s general location and the Rifter that emerged from it. Lou uses a tracker attached to his motorcycle dashboard to locate the Rift, and after parking the vehicle along the side of the road, they wander into a small clearing where they find a Rift.
Raiyne is in awe at the sight of the Rift, as it looks like something which should not exist. An absence of space that absorbs all light that comes in contact with it and lacks any corporeal form. She follows Lou as he checks the perimeter for Rifters while Raiyne sifts through her jacket pockets, finding many supplies along with a handgun, something she has never so much as laid a finger on before today. As Raiyne dawdles, Lou pulls out his own handgun as he spies a slime-like creature that looks to be made of feces, sewage, and assorted muck. Before he can get a good shot in, the Rifter seeps into the ground and emerges around Raiyne’s feet, attacking her as it petrifies her in shock.
The Rifter’s acidic body covers Raiyne’s left leg up to the knee, keeping her in place as it gnaws away at her clothing and eventually her skin. Raiyne flails and tries to free herself of this creature’s embrace, but its grip is tight, and merely touching its body burns her fingers. As Raiyne panics, the body of the slime-like creature shifts, revealing a makeshift mouth that it uses to speak in a grating, inhuman voice. It shouts at Lou, calling him the “Huntsman” and threatens to consume Raiyne whole if he does not surrender this town to them. It claims that if it is shot, its body will send a powerful acid that will eat away at Raiyne’s flesh and down to her bones.
Not knowing if the creature is bluffing, Lou simply threatens it, causing the Rifter to mock him, saying that Lou is growing weak with age and he will soon fail. As the creature rants, Raiyne digs into her jacket pocket and pulls out a small silver knife that she stabs the Rifter with, before Lou quickly lobs an onion gas bomb at them. The creature screeches out in pain and weakens its grip on Raiyne, allowing her to free her charred, pain-riddled leg.
The creature then decays into nothingness, and as it perishes, Raiyne’s leg, pants, and boots all return to normal. As the Rift closes, the two embrace each other in tears. Despite the pain and shock, Raiyne is instilled with a sense of duty after encountering this creature and asks Lou to train her once they return home.
Chapter 03: Shines
The Scenario then jumps forward to October 30th, 2003. Over the past two weeks, Lou has been training Raiyne and the two have become a pair of, as they dubbed themselves, Rift Constables. Due to their successful training and operations in that time, Raiyne reached the decision to move out of her home and live with Lou, seeing as how she had been spending most of her time there anyway. Having quit her job as a part-time librarian and packed her things, she prepares to get ready for the move this afternoon, when she is greeted by Caroline.
As Raiyne’s best friend, Caroline feels as if the two have become very distant as of late, and questions if they are still friends. Raiyne tries to let her down gently, saying that a major opportunity came up, and she needs to embrace it while encouraging Caroline to start behaving more like an adult. Frustrated, Caroline barges off.
A while later, Lou arrives and the two load most of Raiyne’s possessions into a rented van. While driving, they talk about how the loss of Raiyne’s father led her mother, Natasha Underwood, to become a workaholic who spends the majority of her time on business trips. Upon arriving at Lou’s home, the two unpack Raiyne’s things before retiring for the encroaching evening. The following morning, they go about their routine as per usual, and after breakfast Raiyne asks Lou about whether it is always right to kill all Rifters, wondering if there is a more peaceful and permanent solution. Lou is blunt with her, claiming he spent nearly 30 years fighting them, and how he gave them multiple chances, but it never worked out well.
The two of them then exercise and train together for an hour before it begins to rain. Wanting to stay on top of things, they shower, change, and prepare their supplies as best they can. They eventually depart and use the radar to find a Rifter in the midst of the woods. With the Rifter in question being a wolf-like creature that looked to be the same species as the very first Rifter Raiyne encountered, just a younger variant. However, much to the mutual surprise of Raiyne and Lou, the Rifter was already dead, with its body having decayed severely, but not yet evaporated into nothingness.
As he questions this sight, Lou is ambushed by a tall blue-grey werewolf-esque creature that grabs him by the neck before leaping up into the nearby pine trees. Panicked, Raiyne quickly darts her eyes around and grabs a hunting rifle Lou dropped when attacked by the creature, but pauses as the wolf man speaks to her, calling her “Dampener”. Recognizing that nickname, Raiyne demands an explanation from the being, who confirms her suspicions, claiming that, despite his appearance, he is actually Rigoberto.
According to Rigoberto, he was out in the woods having sex with a woman he hooked up with during his party last night. However, while in the thralls of sex, he was attacked by the wolf-like Rifter. It bit Rigoberto, but using his mass and the power of rocks, he murdered the being. But shortly after the Rifter drew its last breath, Rigoberto’s body morphed and mutated into that of an anthropomorphic wolf creature. Jet-jacked by the transformation, he then proceeded to literally fuck the brains out of his sex partner, and now he threatens to do the same to Raiyne. Raiyne is appalled by Rigoberto’s actions, but he laughs it off until he is silenced by the sound of gunfire, as Raiyne fires Lou’s hunting rifle, landing a bullet into Rigoberto’s shoulder.
The impact causes Rigoberto’s grip to falter, and he lets go of Lou, who tumbles onto the forest floor, heavily injured and unable to walk. Raiyne contemplates helping her uncle, and due to her hesitation, she is assaulted by the extremely nimble Rigoberto, who tears into her flesh with his clawed hands, gags her with his foot, and tears off her arm. Affiliated with a breed of horror that only arises in the face of death, Raiyne looks up at her assaulter, who is then distracted by Lou’s constant shouting.
Wanting to shut him up, Rigoberto grabs Raiyne by her leg and flings her to Lou. They lay on the ground, seemingly powerless to stop this monster from murdering them when Lou lobs a glass vial of holy water at Rigoberto’s face. With the enemy momentarily incapacitated, Lou takes Raiyne’s silver dagger and tosses it at Rigoberto, where it lands firmly into his neck.
The impact sends Rigoberto’s body flailing onto the forest floor, and while he is able to remove the knife, the wound is too large and deep for him to suppress it, leading him to fall onto the forest floor. Even though victory is assured at this point, Raiyne decides that she wants to deal the finishing blow in exacting revenge on this cretin. She lifts her tattered body from off the ground and walks over to her foe, where she looks him in his blackened eyes and pulls out her handgun, firing a bullet into his brain.
As Rigoberto’s body decays into nothingness, Raiyne and Lou both heal all of their wounds and return home shortly thereafter. Silence fills the remainder of their day before Raiyne goes to bed at sundown, distraught over what she went through, and wanting to be done with this day as soon as possible. As she drifts off into sleep, Lou looks out into Rainy Woods and sees the beginning of a downpour.
Chapter 04: Wisp
Things resume with a dream sequence wherein Raiyne and Lou are searching for an elusive Rifter, one that resembles a palm-sized yellow reptile-esque bird. Lou shoots upon first seeing it, but misses, allowing the bird to draw in closer towards Raiyne, where it launches its body into Raiyne’s left eye, digging into her flesh. Raiyne tries to tear out the bird-like Rifter, but it burrows further into her skull, causing her body to break out in hives that inspire her to strip herself to stop the chafing.
The hives precede a larger bodily transformation, as Raiyne’s form aggravatingly twists and contorts itself into something distinctly more avian and human. Raiyne sobs as she crawls near Lou, suffering as she tries to so much as breathe with her mangled biology. Lou, knowing there is nothing he may do to help her, decides the most humane and kind thing he may give to what remains of his niece is a bullet between the eyes, which he delivers with a tearful goodbye.
Raiyne wakes up after midnight and finds her body covered in a layer of sweat. Being too anxious to go back to sleep, and too uncomfortable to begin her day, she decides to take a shower. On her way out of her room, she feels as if something is off, but is unable to locate anything amiss until she makes it into the confined and brightly lit bathroom, where she begins to strip down to her underwear. Right before unhooking her bra, Raiyne comes in contact with Wisp, a levitating creature the size of a softball that resembles a fox’s head, with white and yellow fur, magenta whisker-like stripes, and cyan eyes, along with a yellow-tipped tail poking out from what would be its neck. They speak to Raiyne using a voice similar to an adult woman’s subpar impression of a young boy.
Curious, Raiyne tries to strike up a conversation with Wisp, who is quite cordial and responsive in response. He identifies himself as a Rifter but dissociates himself from his own kind. Wisp explains that the Rifts that appear on Earth and allow one Rifter the ability to travel to Earth, where their actions are viewable from the Rift in their homeworld. Because the Rifters are able to view Earth from the Rifts, they have seen thousands of their kind murdered by the “Huntsman,” and developed a culture surrounding them. Rifters view the defeat and death of the Huntsman to be their ultimate goal as a disassociated society of creatures.
Raiyne is surprised to hear this, having not thought too deeply about where Rifters came from, but she is still apprehensive to trust Wisp after what Lou told her in the past. However, Wisp claims to be a non-violent creature that knows better than to try and fight the undefeated Huntsman, and instead simply desires to learn more about these Rifts and the world he had only observed in small glimpses before. He also claims to have had the power and opportunity to murder Raiyne in her sleep, ascertaining that if he wanted her to die, she would be dead right now, and he could return to his homeworld as a renowned figure for slaying the “Huntsman’s damsel.”
After Wisp tells Raiyne that the Rifts have some sort of translation-based abilities, explaining why Rifters were able to speak English in the past, the two hear Lou shouting from downstairs. Lou explains that he could not find the Rifter and that the Rift closed before they could be exterminated. Raiyne, dressed in her sweat-riddled clothes, and Wisp head downstairs to confront Lou, who points his rifle at Wisp as they lock eyes. Raiyne is quick to defuse tensions with the two before they can do anything more than spark and urges her uncle to talk to Wisp before taking any brash actions.
Lou is ultimately perplexed and intrigued by Wisp, as he seems to lack the hostility borne by all other Rifters, and simply desires knowledge. They reach an agreement to allow Wisp to observe their actions, as per Raiyne’s insistence, but Lou threatens to keep Wisp on a tight leash, ready to place a bullet between his eyes without hesitation.
Chapter 05: Dead
Things cut forward to the morning of November 15th, 2003. During the past two weeks, Wisp joined Raiyne and Lou on several encounters, effectively becoming the third member of the makeshift team, searching for Rifters as they appeared, highlighting their properties, and attempting to interact, distract and reason with them. However, Wisp could not reason with or hold a meaningful discussion with any of the Rifters encountered thus far.
Today, much like days prior, the trio is searching through a denser part of the woods for a Rifter that, based on tracks found by Wisp, is a snake-like creature. As such, Raiyne and Lou incorporate the use of bladed weapons and onion grenades in an effort to strike and fan out the creature as it slithers through the forest underbrush, narrowly escaping the three’s vision.
Their search continues on for several minutes before the three finally hear a sort of rustling amidst a nearby bush. The group brandishes their firearms with confidence, ready to kill this creature before it can lay an appendage on them, only to pause as they see Caroline emerge from the bush. Having not seen Raiyne in over two weeks, Caroline whines about how Raiyne abandoned her, and how Raiyne ditched her during an intended get-together a few days ago. Raiyne is honest with her friend, claims to have been busy hunting monsters. Before Caroline can formulate a response to this claim, she is greeted by Wisp, who distracts her and the entire group while the nebulous black snake-like Rifter makes its way up Caroline’s exposed legs. She panics as she feels the creature crawling up her thigh, but she is able to pry its slippery body off her skin.
Lou shoots at the Rifter, harming both it and Caroline, but Raiyne quickly pushes his gun aside, appalled that Lou would hurt dare to her friend like that. Lou pauses at Raiyne’s fury, deliberating what he should do, all while Wisp floats around, mumbling panicked words. Because of the Constables’ mutual hesitation, the wounded Rifter makes its way past Caroline’s panty, crawling into her body through her lower orifices. Once embedded inside Caroline, the Rifter begins to meld with her body.
This process causes Caroline’s eyes to blacken, arms to transform into claws, hair to become white, mouth to reform itself into a massive gaping maw, skin to become a deep black, and a pair of bat-like wings to grow from her back. As this happens, she vomits out bodily organs, blood, and fat. Lots of fat. This new creature uses its improbably small wings to soar up into the sky, causing Lou to give chase, while Raiyne remains petrified by what she just observed. Lou grabs Raiyne and props her onto his motorcycle as he rides through the winding roads, following what remains of Caroline while cursing himself, shouting about how this should have never happened.
He compares this to a similar incident from 1989 and is overcome with a sense of dread as he realizes that Raiyne’s dearest friend must perish. He eventually makes it to part of the town proper, where he finds the Rifter clawing at a car, breaking the windshield with its claws, and reaching for the driver. Lou shoots at the Rifter, but it merely flinches in retaliation, continuing to tear into the driver, consuming his face as Lou comes to terms with how woefully terrible things have gotten and contemplates how Raiyne will react if he were to murder what remains of Caroline before her eyes.
Raiyne, meanwhile, looks at the scene with dread before she is approached by Wisp, who claims that Lou will not kill Caroline’s remains, and says that it is up to Raiyne to do this creature in. As such, she nervously pulls her handgun out and prepares to fire, but the Rifter rapidly approaches Raiyne, pinning her down before confronting her, speaking in Caroline’s voice. The Rifter demeans Raiyne for trying to kill her best friend, claiming that Caroline still exists inside of it. Raiyne is stunned by these words and finds herself unable to pull the trigger at this creature, even as it draws close to her person
Lou then shoots at the Rifter, drawing its ire. The Rifter brutally tackles him, destroys his guns, and begins ripping and tearing his guts apart, cackling about how the end of the Huntsman is nigh. Wisp alerts Raiyne that Lou’s life hangs in the balance, and inspires her to pick up her discarded handgun, using it to fill the Rifter’s stolen and mutated body with silver bullets. With the last of its strength, the Rifter cries out in Caroline’s voice, thanking her. Raiyne is paralyzed by her actions and is left in the middle of a street as Lou flees the scene, unable to carry Raiyne’s rigid with him.
Given her proximity to this bloody scene, the local law enforcement naturally takes Raiyne into custody.
Chapter 06: Flee
Things resume on November 18, 2003, where Raiyne is still in police custody but finds herself placed in an unused office area rather than a traditional cell. For the past three days, she has been mostly silent, still in shock over what happened and refusing to let go of Wisp, who had been presenting himself as a convincing stuffed animal. From out the window, she looks as the first snowfall of the season sticks to the ground, knowing fully well that a Rift will open once the precipitation ceases. Knowing this, she begins to plot an escape plan of sorts, as someone needs to protect Rainy Woods from the Rifters and she does not know the status of her uncle. Her worry is all that fills her mind, at least until her mother, Natasha Underwood, enters the room.
Natasha explains that she returned home from a business trip as soon as she heard the news that Raiyne was taken in by the police and asks her what happened. Raiyne responds with questions and statements about the Rifts that Natasha does not understand. Raiyne then shouts at her, saying that once the snowfall ends, these Rifters will kill someone else, only to glance over to the window, and see that the snowfall has stopped. Or at least she thinks that she sees that. Wrapped in a panic, Raiyne attacks her mother and the scrawny guard who enters the room, helped by Wisp who confuses the two and allows Raiyne to strike them in the neck. Wisp grabs Natasha’s keys and the two run out of the sparsely staffed police station before Raiyne makes her way into her mother’s car.
She drives in the general direction of Lou’s house, hoping to find him, or at the very least a portable Rift radar she may use. However, her haste, the snowy roads, and her inexperience with driving result in Raiyne crashing the car into a tree. She is not worse for wear, but is ill-equipped for the encroaching winter, and is advised by Wisp to get some more appropriate clothing than the sweater, trousers, and damp socks she wore, along with a weapon if she intends to battle Rifters.
Raiyne informs Wisp that Lou keeps many stashes of supplies across the forest in case of an emergency, and proceeds to look for one. She meanders through the forest for a lengthy amount of time while snow continues to fall before eventually finding a toolshed containing a jacket, some ill-fitting boots, and a silver dagger of sorts. Equipped, she continues marching in random directions, only to erupt in a dash once the snowfall ceases.
Through their aimless running, the two miraculously reach their intended destination, that of a Rift where they find the snow stained with blood, and see the bodies of numerous police officers littered across the forest floor. That not being worrisome enough, Raiyne looks at the Rift itself and sees her mother being dragged into it by some unseen figure. Spurred by this, Raiyne dashes for the Rift immediately, and Wisp follows behind her, warning her of how dangerous this course of action is. As their bodies come in contact with the Rift, they vanish from the Earth and are sent to the next dimension.
Chapter 07: Pain
Raiyne wakes up in the world of the Rifters, which, as far as she can tell, consists of a series of tunnels made of a bright violet substance similar to a hard wet sponge and smells like a wet dog. Due to the nature of the trip, she has a splitting headache and her body feels limp and heavy, making it hard for her to move. Wisp tries to comfort her as she crawls forward on the ground, directing herself towards a light breeze. This leads her to a group of Rifters, the same species as the mud-based creature she fought in Chapter 02, also known as a Lutum. She is dragged by one as it latches onto her feet and struggles to fight back due to her immense fatigue.
She regains her composure in an orange cave-like area with cylindrical pillars that connect the floor to the ceiling and look to be made of a material similar to sandstone. She sees many more Lutum as she is dragged throughout this settlement and hears the murmurings of onlookers, who refer to her as the “Huntsman’s Whore.” Many of the Lutum follow Raiyne as she is brought to the leader of these people, a large variant of these creatures that solidifies itself into a being similar to a golem, known as the Duke of Lutum. The Duke asks Raiyne what she is doing here, but she cannot speak coherently because of her immense fatigue.
Wisp speaks on her behalf, talking to the Duke and begging him to allow them to carry on their search for another human that was brought into the Rift. The Duke dismisses his comments, speaking ill of Wisp’s race, and claims to have heard that he became an ally of the Huntsman, which Wisp confirms. Wisps then tries to explain that the Rifters’ disdain for the Huntsman is misplaced. He theorizes that the Rifts instill a sense of bloodlust within all Rifters as they enter Earth and claims that there is no glory tied in battling the Huntsman or any other human. The Duke scoffs at Wisp’s words, brandishing him as a traitor to his homeworld and all who dwell within it. The Duke contemplates killing the two, but instead, he orders them to leave the Lutum domain. For he sees no glory in killing those who cannot fight back and is confident that Raiyne will not survive in this world for long.
During their discussion, Raiyne finds the strength to stand up on her two legs, and is able to walk away from the Lutum on her own two legs. Returning to the moist purple caverns again, and supporting herself against a wall, Raiyne and Wisp wander for several minutes before Raiyne crumples down to the floor, vomiting her last meal due to an agonizing pain throbbing through her stomach. After clearing her stomach of bile, she carries on and happens across a figure resembling Raiyne’s mother. Raiyne uses all of her energy to approach her, calling out to her, but the figure turns itself around to reveal another Rifter, one that attacks Raiyne with its claw-like-hands.
As she recoils from the impact, Raiyne is filled with a sense of adrenaline and disdain, inspiring her to strike the creature down and use its own claws to rip open its own throat. Raiyne ensures the creature’s death by repeatedly stabbing it with its own claws but stops as her own injuries become too much to bear. Raiyne falls to the ground, unable to move, overcome with pain, and covered in her own blood. Raiyne is on the verge of death and Wisp, realizing this, brings himself closer to Raiyne’s head, causing his body to enter Raiyne’s.
Chapter 08: Freedom
Raiyne’s thoughts are rife with morbidity as she lays there and contemplates her regrets as her life nears its end. She reminds herself of how she let down Lou, how she killed her best friend, and how her future will never come to fruition. Seeing her think such morose thoughts, Wisp communicates with her mentally and offers a few options on what she can do now.
He says he could heal her wounds, but doing so would just leave her vulnerable for another encounter with a dangerous Rifter. He could turn her into a Rifter, much like himself, and rob her of her humanity. Or he could allow her to die with thoughts of a perfect life playing before her mind’s eye, allowing her to pass on with a sense of fulfillment and happiness, rather than have her final moments be spent wrapped in pain in a dingy cave. Wisps urges Raiyne to select the last option, claiming that it is a false life, but that life in general is pointless. And if she can spend her final moments alive in a state of bliss, it may be better than elongating her life just so she can face more pain.
Raiyne begrudgingly agrees to the third option and allows Wisp to meld with her brain in order to facilitate these memories. Thoughts of happiness, friends, family, and personal satisfaction fill her mind as blood continues to pour from her body before her heart stops.
Seconds later, her heart resumes beating, her wounds heal, and her once pale blue eyes open to reveal a sharp crimson color. She stands up and dashes into the darkness, casting off her tattered clothing as she lets out a maniacal laugh.
Chapter 09: Chaos
On November 22, 2003, Lou wakes up in a hospital bed as he is accosted by two young men who draw attention to his amputated left hand. They explain to him how the town of Rainy Woods has transformed into a sort of battlefield between three factions, who are vying for the favor of an individual known as the Divine One. Lou is confused and panics as he learns of the date, but struggles when getting out of his bed, due to his missing arm. While trying to stand up, the two young men are shot in the skull by a large man with a revolver in his hand who manages to overpower Lou, drags him out of the hospital, and shoves him in the trunk of a car.
In the trunk, Lou’s head clears and he thinks back on the events of the past week. After he saw Raiyne murder the Rifter that had taken control of Caroline’s body, he was unable to bring his niece with him as he fled, for her body refused to move. He spent the following days in hiding, keeping an eye on Rifts while also avoiding his home, worried he would be confronted by the police. Then, on November 18th, he tracked down a Rift using a portable radar and saw an empty clearing (devoid of any bodies or blood) where Raiyne rushed into a Rift, with Wisp following behind her.
He ran into the Rift to pursue her, but it closed as his hand passed through it, severing his hand from his body. Due to the pain of having part of his body be transmitted to another world, Lou passed out alone and in the cold. He was eventually found and brought to the hospital, but after being stranded in the cold for what he could only assume to be hours, he had fallen into a deep coma-like slumber that he only woke from a few minutes ago.
As Lou’s summary of these past few days catches up to the present, the car stops and his captor brings him into what was once a small neighborhood. A neighborhood with trees filled with the corpses of hanged men, women, and children, and a group of dozens of people of all ages gathered around the center of what was once a residential block, chanting about a Divine One. Lou is carried through this crowd to the center of this clearing, where he is dropped before this Divine One. As he looks up at a makeshift throne, adorned with pits of fire on both sides, he sees none other than his niece, Raiyne Underwood. Wearing a stylish white suit and a matching hat. Her hand is on her chin as she looks down at Lou with her crimson eyes.
Lou asks Raiyne for answers to myriad questions, but she only scoffs in response, claiming that he is mistaken. That Raiyne Underwood is dead, and they have taken her body for themselves. Lou is aghast by this concept, but the figure with Raiyne’s body soon gives their original name to cease his confusion, claiming that he is none other than Wheatley Quinlan.
Chapter 10: Storm
As Lou recoils in shock from this two-pronged revelation, Wheatley recounts his life story to his old friend, explaining what happened to him over the intervening 14 years. Wheatley and Lou were lifelong friends and, back in 1989, Lou convinced Wheatley to experiment on the Rifts. Lou viewed it as a way to put a stop to his days as a protector, while Wheatley viewed it as an opportunity to unearth a scientific discovery that would bring him fame and acclaim. During his final experiment, Wheatley maimed Lou’s wife and former Rift Constable, Babs Underwood, in an attempt to distract the two as he traversed into the Rift itself, hoping to harness the power that it held by investigating what lay beyond the veil. However, his body could not withstand the transdimensional travel nor the environment of this other world. Rapidly, his human form mutated, turning him into a Rifter. After coming to terms with his new ghostly and inhuman form, he adopted the name Wisp.
During the ensuing years, Wisp learned much about his new form, and about the secrets that resided in the world beyond the Rifts. He learned how Rifters were summoned, how Rifts worked across worlds and learned that his new form had the ability to influence other beings, control their emotions, earn their favor, and create illusions. Though, that is not all. As he learned, Rifters of an ethereal form, much like himself, had the ability to join with other lifeforms if there exists a consensual bond between the two. A prospect that became all the more enticing upon the discovery of a substance that would enhance the effects of the bonding process, granting this new bonded being with immense strength and deific powers.
Wisp dedicated his existence to this pursuit, observing Lou as best he could and awaiting the opportunity to emerge in hopes of somehow befriending and earning the favor of a poor human enough to execute this plan and amass this elusive and obscure power. Wisp waited and researched for over a decade before learning of Raiyne, a young woman who he felt was ideal for this plan. From there, Wisp waited for the right opportunity to enter a Rift in hopes of befriending Raiyne. He used her to get on Lou’s good side and used his abilities to help nudge things in the right direction. He obscured the presence of the snake-like Rifter. He encouraged Raiyne to kill the remains of her best friend. He put Raiyne in a paranoid state after Caroline’s death. He tricked Raiyne into entering the Rift through a vision of her mother being dragged through it. And he obscured the appearance of another Rifter, making them resemble Raiyne’s mother, in an effort to kill whatever remained of her spirit.
At the end of this process, Raiyne was left broken, and Wheatley used that opportunity to take control of her body, making it his own, and gaining the many powers that came with it. Including immortality, enhanced strength, boundless stamina, enhanced intelligence, the ability to manipulate minds, the ability to transform any and all matter through a process known as Real Booting, and the ability to cause miniature explosions with a snap of his finger. This was all in addition to an ability he picked up after gaining his new body control over the Rifts between the two worlds. He began testing the full extent of his abilities by tampering with the mental state of several hundred residents of the town, which allowed Wheatley to send the entirety of Rainy Woods into a ritualistic panic as people pronounced him as their deity.
After explaining all of this, Wheatley orders one of his worshippers, a small child, to bash their head against a stone until they perish, displaying to Lou his immense power. Lou is utterly appalled by this and hangs his head in shame as he proclaims that the 30 years he has spent defending this town have been a waste. With his family gone, his town in shambles, and those he protected left deranged and manic, he claims there is truly nothing left for him to live for. With despair in his throat, Lou surrenders and subjects himself to his former friend, assuming that his life is at its end. Instead, Wheatley opens up a Rift with a snap of his finger and throws Lou inside of it. The Rift then closes, and Wheatley lets out a hearty laugh, having accomplished a dream 14 years in the making.
From here, he parades across the town, observing the destruction before him, and makes his way to Lou’s home. After robbing him of his motorcycle, Wheatley snaps his fingers to detonate a gas pipe, causing the home to catch on fire. Wheatley then summons all surviving members of the town to him, telling them to coat the town with his name and battle to the death. They blindly agree, thanking him for such a blessed destiny. As the citizens disperse to carry out their last orders, Wheatley revs up his motorcycle and leaves Rainy Woods behind, eager to start his new life as a demigod.
Aftermath
Raiyne’s Whimsy was a far more modest project for Vincent Dawn, and because of that, he was able to conclude things in a way that left him quite satisfied. His companion, Abigale Quinlan, or rather Shin Abigale Quinlan, was also quite pleased with the origin her lover devised for her, even if she was able to see the multiple shortcomings present with the story, most notably its rapid pacing and lack of detailed development or explanation. Which Vincent wound up agreeing with, after the two discussed things in detail.
Still, the two enjoyed seeing the events of the Scenario unfold, and shortly after completing it, Vincent developed a desire to make a follow-up to this Scenario, one that would detail the transformation of Wheatley Quinlan into Oni Abigale Quinlan as she used her divine powers around the world, wrecking various sorts of havoc throughout it. His initial plans for this project would come to be known as The Extraordinary Excursions of Abigale Quinlan.
The Scenario would involve Abigale joining alongside a transforming mass of sapient meat, simply called Meat, along with a sassy 25-year-old foul-mouthed fart-loving nun who was turned into a 12-year-old boy with a leather fetish, named Peatrice. They would travel across a series of dimensions via Rifts in spacetime, and bizarre adventures would ensue. But the original Abigale Quinlan was quick to point out to him how the idea’s similarities to Nari’s Log. As Vincent took in this criticism and realized the grandiose scale of his ideas, he dropped the concept.
Vincent tried other ideas, yet kept running into the problem of making an engaging narrative when the protagonist is so powerful and intelligent. Eventually, Abigale Quinlan gave Vincent the idea of putting someone else inside of her body in the story. Vincent, being an established lover of body swapping, quickly jumped on the idea, devising a story set after Abigale established herself in the world. A tale that would place an innocent yet typical young man by the name of Jad Spencer into her body, where he would need to deal not only with his new forms and powers but the consequences Abigale had been avoiding for a decade. With his ideas in place, Vincent began work on his next Scenario, My Life As Abigale Quinlan.
