Casey Hale

[Stealthoneill]

 

OOC: This is the Start of me developing a character backstory. Future parts already drafted and just need editing and posting - hoping this fills a 3/4 part backstory leading up to Casey travelling to Los Santos.

-Five Years Ago-

Casey dropped his olive drab duffel on the sidewalk, the maroon badge adorned with the white pegasus frayed, showing signs of age. His entire world packed into a single bag. Casey sat down on the hard metal seat and leaned back resting his head on the cold glass panel behind him and down against his shoulder. Casey’s hand ran across the stitching on the bag his eyes reading over the words for the thousandth time since he had left the barracks for the last time.

“Sergeant Hale,” He said softly under his breath. Casey had spent a number of years in the British Army and served his country with distinction. As a Pathfinder he was what they considered the tip of the spear - he went in first and his teams went hard in the fight against terror. They were highly trained and had absolute confidence in each other. But that work took its toll on him. Casey spent his life witnessing the worst parts of humanity. His life to this point had been a fight to combat external threats with a team and orders from higher up the food chain. Casey’s battle now was internal, the demons that grew inside of him had taken over and compromised his team in the worst way. He stepped away from the team and handed his notice in. This battle wasn’t one anyone could help him with.

Casey grew up in a small town. It was the sort of town where everybody knows your business and gossip was quickly passed around at the single local bar. So when Casey returned to his parent’s home all of those people he knew growing up started popping up, attempting to reinsert themselves in his life once again. This quiet, quaint life he had left behind, one that he had coveted when planning his recovery, had become more of a nuisance than he ever could have imagined. He spent days outside taking in the local scenery, finding sanctuary in isolation. He’d return each day to a home cooked meal prepared by his mother and a game of chess Casey and his Day had been mulling over for a number of weeks.

It was too much, though. The prying eyes, whispers and over-enthusiasm from people he no longer had anything in common with. His isolation needed to be something different than this, somewhere he could find anonymity in the world to recover.

-One Years Ago-

Liberty City was cold in the mornings. Casey watched as the sun crested over the park from the bench he had found earlier this morning. In the years since he had moved to Liberty City he had taken to walking the city in the early mornings. The frigid cold during the winter motivated him to move quick through the city but the summer nights, like tonight, held different possibilities. He could sit and watch the world go by as the sun rose. He watched as the world rose from its slumber, sat somewhere different each time, away from people but close enough to observe.

Casey had taken on a number of contract jobs over the past few years so he could get by. Although he struggled at first with the nature of these jobs he found them to offer some form of closure. He was selective about his jobs, ensuring those he took were focused on helping those in need that, he figured, would appease his conscience. Nothing ever truly worked though, nothing could take those images away.