Shannon Gregory

Character Sheet

Your name is Shannon Gregory, you grew up in Western Massachusetts. You have (or rather, had) one older brother, Darren. He was 3 years older than you and you two always got along. That's not to say you two didn't fight, but everyone fights with their siblings, it's natural.

But you two got along, you had the same taste in music and movies, so you loved to hang out and go to the movies or concerts. When he got old enough, he even snuck you into R rated movies with him.

Your childhood was... interesting. You weren't the best behaved kid, but you didn't get into trouble much because Darren was older and he got into more trouble. Your parents used to be called into his school all the time, so when you didn't get great grades, your parents didn't get upset, because they were too busy getting upset at Darren who was getting suspended and such.

It's not like you were selling drugs or anything horrible, you were just skipping classes every once in a while, failing exams and so on. You didn't have many friends, and you weren't all that happy. You liked hanging out with Darren and you were happy about that.

In the summer before your freshman year, your father got a job in a prestigious law firm in the Chicago area. Your parents didn't give you much of a choice, but as you didn't have many friends, so you didn't care all that much. Darren, however, was furious. So the three of them argued for days about it, but your father had already taken the job, so it was an experiment in futility.

So your whole family moved to Chicago. Darren went into his senior year at the same school you started your freshman year. He didn't adjust well. He didn't try. You found this a good time to start over. You made a bunch of friends, and you started to actually pay attention to class. You saw Darren's problems with getting into college after not doing so well in school, and it scared you into working hard.

Freshman year was nice. You got to have lunch with Darren every once in a while, and you had some interesting classes. Things went fairly well, and your parents were too busy trying to get Darren into college to pay much attention to you, so you hung out with friends or Darren a lot after school most days.

Things went fairly well. That is, until Darren went off to college back in Massachusetts. He went to a place called Lashane. He said he went to be closer to the friends he met in high school, but you know it was mostly because he wanted to get away from your parents.

This was the first time you've been without your brother since... well, forever. There were a couple of downsides to him leaving. You didn't get to hang out with him anymore and you couldn't get into R rated movies anymore. But more importantly, your parents now had their undivided attention on you. They starting bugging you about what classes you took and your grades and how much time you spent on homework and who you hung out with and so on and so forth.

So you retreated into the only thing you could, which was your schoolwork. Your parents left you alone as long as you got good grades. Unfortunately as soon as you started doing anything that resembled having a good time, such as go to the movies with friends or something of the sort, your parents got on your back. Therefore your only choice was to give them nothing to get on your back about.

And that's how things went for the next few years until graduation. Your life wasn't very interesting, but you got fantastic grades. As you got older, you knew that your plan was to do well in high school so you could get into a good college, preferably one far from home.

So you took a page from your brother's book and when you got to junior year, you started looking into schools on the east coast, focusing on Massachusetts. However, you weren't as interested in the liberal arts as your brother was. You weren't sure what you wanted to do, but you figured that you'd find something you liked while in college.

With your grades and SAT scores it wasn't hard to get into the college of your choice. You could have gone to Lashane to be with Darren, but he was only going to be there one more year and you didn't like the idea of going to a mediocre liberal arts school. You had gone to visit him a couple of times. You met his girlfriend Jessica (you didn't like her, she didn't treat Darren right), some of Darren's friends, even the band he started (you can't remember the name, but you remember it was silly).

So you looked elsewhere in the area. Your parents wanted you to go to MIT, do something in the "hard sciences," make "a difference in the world." In addition to your unconscious disagreement with anything your parents say, you've never really liked science classes. Your top choice ended up being Harvard. You figured that if they didn't like the idea of you going there, then there was really nothing you could do to make them happy.

So you got into Harvard and you were generally happy there. You liked living in Boston, you made some good friends and you enjoyed your classes. You still weren't sure what you wanted to do, but you had time to figure that out.

You also liked being near Darren. You didn't get to hang out with him that much, but it was nice to know he's in the area. He spent an awful lot of time with that girlfriend of his, Jessica. You really don't know what he saw in her. It's true, she was pretty, but she treated him horribly.

About halfway through your sophomore year you realized you needed some sort of focus in your studies. You didn't have a major or anything. You talked with your adviser and thought about what classes you'd liked so far, and what you've thought about doing and you came up with the idea of going pre-law. Becoming a lawyer was an interesting prospect. You finished up with a degree in sociology and a minor in psychology.

Meanwhile, Darren had moved back to Chicago after graduating. He didn't like staying there, so he quickly looked for a job in Boston to be with Jessica. He moved into an apartment with his old roommate and got a job with Nation Magazine. After a couple years, he got a promotion at the magazine and a couple months after you graduated, he moved in with Jessica.

He had been talking to you about this decision. He was a little iffy about it, but it seemed like a good idea. You tried to convince him not to do it, but he went ahead and did it anyhow. He told you that he wished he had listened to you when a little while later he told you that Jessica was cheating on him. You weren't horribly surprised.

However, you were surprised when he told you about his life insurance. Apparently he had set it up so that you and Jessica would be the main benefactors. He wanted to talk to you about the legal process of getting that changed. He sent you all the information and you set up a meeting with one of your professors to talk about it.

It was three days later when you got a call from the Boston police department. They told you that for some unknown reason, Darren fell into the train tracks of the Red Line and was hit by a train. He died before getting to the hospital.

It's been almost a year since then. You've been spending the majority of that time studying for law school and trying to settle the issue with Darren's insurance. Since he died before the papers were filed, it's taken a great deal of effort to get the insurance company to talk to you and you're on your way to talk to the old family lawyer in Cambridge. He wants to meet to see the insurance papers and talk about what needs to be done.

So you're getting on the Red Line of all things. You're really not comfortable with that. In addition to the fact that this is the place where Darren died, you're quite claustrophobic. You have been for most of your life. It hasn't really come into play, but you don't like being on the train. It should be alright, though. You're only going one stop, it should be over quite soon.

Last Thoughts Before Game Start

You really haven't liked going on the train. You haven't done so since Darren's death. But you have to now. You'll brave it. It'll only be a couple minutes.

... Why is Jessica here? It's not that unusual, but it's a little weird. And hey, isn't that William Hughes? He's amazing. And Mike Jones? Both of them on the same train? That's amazing!

Who you know on the Train

01. Jessica Hawthorne – That awful girl that Darren was dating. She was the reason he was so depressed around the time he died. You never could stand her. God, does she have a new boyfriend already?

02. This guy seems to be here with Jessica. This must be the lug she's replaced your brother with. Hey, wasn't he in the band with Darren back in college?

03. Louis Dalton – Darren’s friend from high school. You were never sure what he saw in him; he always seemed pretty weird to you.

04. This guy looks like a private detective straight out of a movie.

05. A woman in a really elaborate gypsy getup. Gives off a definate weirdo vibe.

06. William Hughes - Wow... it's William Hughes, the author. You haven't gotten a chance to read his book of short stories yet, but you've meant to, and you've read all his other work a bunch of times and you're waiting for his new book to come out any day now.

08. Christopher Wright – A coworker of Darren's back when he worked at Nation Magazine.

09. - This guy on the other hand looks like he'd kill you as soon as look at you. He looks like someone you don't want to meet in a dark alley. Or a brightly lit alley for that matter.

10. Mike Jones – In college, he was that guy in the band with your brother, but now he’s MIKE JONES, world-famous rock star. You’ve become a big fan of his. Maybe you should introduce yourself! The only thing is, you recognize some of his songs as TMRfOH songs, and well... you didn't exactly know who the band's songwriter was, but you didn't think it was Mike. But if he didn't write them himself, isn't it kind of wrong that he's taking the credit for them?

11. Another big, tough-looking guy. He doesn't look very friendly, so you'd better not get on the wrong side of him.

12. He looks lost in thought, like he's wrestling with something internally.

13. This guy definitely doesn't look like he belongs here. He looks like his limo broke down or something.

14. Of course, the cliched hobo on the train. You want to be polite, but it's uncomfortable being around an unwashed street person.

15. The conductor. From the way she's so stressed and distracted, she's got to be dealing with something or other.