Snake

Background

When Snake tries to remember, he can see his mother, maybe other children. His brothers and sisters? He remembers Saturday nights going round the nightclubs with his friends...but which clubs? He can't quite see. Sometimes, Snake can even remember, in his dreams during the day, a girlfriend who perhaps became a wife. Of course, he wasn't called Snake then, when he said 'I do' to Linda. But it's dangerous to dream like this, dangerous to tell names...because then they can find you.

Snake's problems started when he left school. He came from a large family and his mother had struggled to make sure they were all clean and clothed and fed and they all went to school, all had the chance to better themselves and get a job, or maybe even follow their big brother Snake, who had gone to Bristol University.

It might have been the pressure of their expectations, or the unexpected homesickness, away from his brood of brothers and sisters. Or perhaps it was something which was always in him, waiting for the right time. Whatever the case, it wasn't long after he arrived at the University that the Voices began. They told him about the other students...they were bad people, most of them. They took drugs, they slept around, they cheated at their exams and the talked about him, behind his back. The Voices told him these things. The tutors were the worst. They could see the value in Snake, they knew he was a good person, brought up to know right from wrong. So they tried extra hard to change him, to corrupt him, to make him like one of them.

At first, Snake tried to ignore the Voices. Probably because he knew that only mad people heard Voices in their heads at night and during the day, too, sometimes. Sometimes, if Snake lets himself think about the Voices, he thinks that he should have listened to them then, in the beginning. After a while, Snake began to notice that people _were_ looking at him strangely, that they _were_ talking about him. Their eyes were unfriendly, dangerous. So Snake began to carry a knife, just in case.

This is why Snake sometimes thinks he should have listened to the Voices then. His tutor wanted to talk to him. He took Snake into his office and he talked and talked and Snake tried to listen but the Voices were too loud the Voices and the voice of his tutor buzzing like bees and he took out his knife and showed it to the tutor, just showed him to make him stop buzzing. That was when Snake should have listened, because the Voices said kill him, kill him, KILL HIM, KILL KILL KILL.

But he didn't. And so the terrified, shaken tutor talked Snake into putting down the knife and then he called the police. Because no assault had taken place, Snake ended up in a hospital, not a prison. And Snake hated the hospital that was a prison, hated it more than the corrupt university because...because they made the Voices go away.

When he left the hospital, he was cured. Or in remission anyway, as long as he remembered to take the tablets that kept the Voices away. Only at night he could here them sometimes, buzzing in his dreams. Of course, he couldn't go back to Bristol but he managed to get a job at home. Only stacking shelves in a supermarket, but it allowed him to pay his mother some rent. Did he meet a girlfriend from school? Did they get married? Snake can't remember, now.

The Voices came back, of course. They were angry because they had tried to warn Snake about the bad tutor and he hadn't listened. They told him they were angry, that he was worthless, stupid, nothing. They wanted him to kill his wife, if she existed. Or they wanted him to kill himself. And however it happened, Snake found himself on the street, homeless, jobless, without any hope. And just when it couldn't get worse, the vampire came.

For a few wonderful weeks, Snake thought the voices had left him. Then they came back, worse then ever. They haunted his dreams during the day, filled his every waking moment at night. Now the only word they said was kill, kill KILL. Sometimes Snake did what they wanted to make them go away but afterwards he felt so bad that he wanted to be dead himself but he already was. He fed from drunks to drown his sorrows only a little drink never to kill never to hurt but he awoke with blood on his hands and his cloths and in his hair. One night he went into a cinema, wondering if the noise would hide the Voices and as he watched the actors he thought do they hear their voices when they stand on a stage do they hear their voices or do they hear someone elses?

Then it struck him. The actors must hear the voices of their _characters_. And the best actors must hear them loudest. So if he could be an actor, he could hear someone else's Voices. He could hide in someone else and the Voices _couldn't find him_ because he was reading from another script!

It took a while for Snake to find the right part. For a while he tried to be characters from films but it was no good. There was too much unknown. How did they get dressed? How did they feed? How did they wash, or buy clothes, or answer the door? He would get by for a while then an unknown would arise and the Voices would find the crack and get in. And if there wasn't another script ready they would tell him bad things. And he would believe them.

So Snake tried copying Kindred or Kine. He quickly found that the mortals had too many gaps in their lives. A vampire couldn't hope to copy them for long before he lost the script. Kindred were different. Sometimes he could keep up a role for months, living every aspect of his dopplegangers life. But it made them angry and in an angry confrontation with his double his mask would slip and...the Voices. Then, Snake met Tommo.

Snake liked the Nosferatu at once. He also liked his idea of a Kindred theatre group. Parts within parts... Anxious not to lose this chance, Snake hit on a novel strategy. He told Tommo that he would join his group, if he could become a Nosferatu, like Tommo. Exactly like Tommo. And Tommo said yes.

Now, Snake is more stable than before he joined the Steelworks. He loves playing his parts in the groups' stories, so much so that he sometimes stays in character when not on stage. But his main role is still that of a Nosferatu. Most of the time, Snake uses Obfuscate to look like a Nosferatu, except when they are performing, when he uses Obfuscate to look like himself. Although a bit erratic, Snake has written some of the Steelsworks best pieces, although most are not suitable for performance before mortals.

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