Dramatic Re-Enactment
He was standing back by the vending machine.
Frank Costel's heart began to race. She didn't, he thought desperately. I was useful. Why would she do this to me?
He started walking, first slowly, then at a brisk pace towards the end of the hall. He threw open the door at the end, glancing out at the cool countryside. He stepped out--
He was standing back by the vending machine.
His panic was an unstoppable tide now. He ran towards the door again, flinging it open and leaping out.
He merely landed face-first on the floor next to the vending machine.
With a look of fear and hopelessness, he looked up and down the short hallway he'd spend the rest of his life in.
At least there was a vending machine.
----
The body of Frank Costel was never found. Partially this was because nobody went looking for him; everybody knew not to question what Möbius did with servants, and trying to find the man would only dishearten the survivors. A secondary reason was because the hallway in which Frank Costel met his end was not accessible by any conventional means. From the perspective of anyone trying to find Frank Costel, the hallway and its vending machine never existed. All that remained was a cheap roadside hotel which was now inexplicably missing a hallway.
Frank Costel did not die from starvation, or thirst, or disease. Frank Costel killed himself by repeatedly slamming his face into the hallway exit's doorknob, finally collapsing his skull. In the end, it was the hopelessness and solitude of his situation that drove him to hate his life, doing whatever he could to end it.
Möbius
Pre-Calamity Information
Her name was Alexandra Hawkins. Alexandra was a 19 year-old college student who lived in a small Californian town about twenty miles south of the Oregon border. She felt that she was pretty and smart, a sentiment that was shared by the majority of her peers and professors. She was shy and introverted, rarely coming out of her dorm except to attend classes and work her job at a cheap, dingy "sushi bar" with a menu as unauthentic as the faux Japanese artwork that decorated the place. She hated every second of her day job, but she carried on in order to pay the bills; not only did she have a college debt to pay off, but her mother proved to be a substantial drain on her income. Alexandra, being the kind young woman that she was, didn't much mind. After all, years spent with an abusive husband had taken their toll on Maria Hawkins, and all she felt like doing nowadays was nap and watch cheesy local soap operas.
If Alexandra were more comfortable talking to people about her life, she would have explained that she was ultimately satisfied with her lot in life. There were parts she loved and parts she despised. She loved attending the local college--she hated the debts that came with it. She hated the time she spent at the sushi bar--she found her self increasingly enjoying the company of one of her male co-workers, a handsome guy named Josh. And while her mother would urge her to socialize more during the midst of soap opera commercials, Alexandra was quite content to edit Wikipedia and read the sporadically updated ecology blog "Towards the Light," maintained by a young professor who lived in Sacramento.
When the impossible star Calamity appeared in the heavens, Alexandra Hawkins was overjoyed at such a monumental discovery being made in her lifetime. Within minutes of the official announcement, Alexandra was drafting the Wikipedia article, finally coming out of her shell to explain the star's significance to Josh. All who knew her were delighted by her sudden behavioral changes.
Around a year later, Alexandra's behavior was to change again--as were other traits surrounding her. Calamity's gift bestowed itself upon her, and the young woman changed her name and demeanor.
Her mother, her fellow college students, and her recent fiancee Josh disappeared shortly afterwards, as a new Epic named Möbius made headlines as the most powerful Epic to hit northern California.
The sushi bar, of course, was obliterated from the face of the planet.
Powers and Abilties
Alexandra Hawkins--soon to be known as Möbius--possesses one of the more mysterious yet deadly of Epic powers. Möbius was capable of manipulating space. Möbius is capable of controlling the omnipresent medium through which three-dimensional objects travel. Her mastery over the fabric of space made her capable of a wide variety of feats, summarized below.
The first use of this ability to manifest itself was the folding and tunneling of space, allowing Möbius to create wormholes capable of connecting any two points in space. She could take a step in California and wind up in Australia, taking a step out of the bathroom and finding herself on Mars. Distance, she soon discovered, meant nothing to her. If she could visualize a location, she could travel to it effortlessly.
Having studied a book on Einstein's theory, Möbius understood that gravity is best defined as the curvature of space. So she tried it--within a few days of practice, she had mastered the ability to control the force of gravity, allowing herself to hurtle through the sky or crush objects with massive bursts of weight.
But the young Alexandra soon found another use for her ability that suited her introverted nature far more--and eventually, would be used by her hidden inner sadist to horrifying effect. Möbius discovered that she could seal off regions of space, creating "pocket universes" completely disconnected from the main body of space. No one save teleporters could enter these pocket universes, and no one save teleporters could escape once sealed inside. They took the forms of infinite loops, in which all "exits" merely led to the beginning of the loop. Frank Costel's vending machine stocked hallway was made into one such pocket universe--his attempts at escape always caused him to find himself standing by the vending machine he soon came to curse.
It was of course from these pocket universes that Alexandra Hawkins drew her new name of Möbius, after the famed Möbius strip. An infinite, closed off loop.
Current Information
Möbius staked out a claim for a large section of northern California--a claim which is disputed by few, as this "Einsteinium Empire" is contained within its own pocket universe, impossible to invade or escape. It is largely governed day-to-day by lesser Epics, as Möbius herself retains introverted tendencies and generally cannot be bothered to deal with the people. Using her own teleportation, she frequently makes forays into other Epic's territories to raid supplies or simply to cause general destruction.
The traits which once made her a sympathetic individual now fuel sadistic tendencies. Her introverted shyness became a callous demeanor that leaves her unperturbed by her victim's pleas for mercy. Her natural kindness and aversion to violence leads her to avoid prolonged conflicts, preferring to simply seal anyone annoying her in a small pocket universe where they eventually lose the will to live and kill themselves. Her empire is both surrounded and filled with such pocket universes. They are scarcely connected to our own universe at all--except that occasionally, one can hear the frenzied screams of those trapped, or hear the sound of melancholy men slamming their heads into doors.
She once ventured out of her little empire to meet with another Epic--a man named Lightwards was crossing through California, whom she soon learned was the ecology professor whose blog she used to read. They chatted briefly, until Lightwards realized his servants--undead "Warriors of Light" whom he traveled with--were no longer following his orders. He quickly came to the realization that something about Möbius had set off his weakness, causing his powers to fail. The professor attempted to kill the young woman, failing rather pathetically and nearly losing his life in the process. Möbius was infuriated to meet both a reminder of her past life and a threat to her current life, and was unhappy at the man's escape. She wasted no time in destroying his increasingly self-aware "Warriors" and beginning to track the professor down.
Lightwards attempted to flee the area, but was soon tracked down a bare ten miles from Portland city limits, where Möbius appeared from nowhere and took his life. Leaving the professor for dead, Möbius returned to her closed-off empire, content that a challenger--no matter how small--had been eliminated.
Calamity this turned out to be longer than I'd anticipated. Sorry about that TwiLyght, feel free to berate me for spamming the thread.
Any questions on things I left out or didn't explain properly? I'll be happy to explain. As the length implies, I've been thinking about this character for a while now.
Pony coming soon.
