Zen

Story Role: Supporting Character

Place of Origin: New Gedo City

Species: Lycanthrope

Personality: quiet, independent, alienated

Vocal Pitch: Medium

Age: 18

Info: Zen barely remembers the Restricted Corruption Zone that marked him. All he remembers is light, noise, and waking up in a hospital bed with those markings burned into his skin. His parents didn’t see a miracle survivor. They saw a mistake that needed to be fixed. They dragged him from clinic to clinic, then eventually into an illegal experimental lab that promised to “restore him.” The procedures failed. The marks didn’t disappear. They stabilized, turning this bluish colour instead. After that, his parents stopped trying to cure him, but they never looked at him the same way again. Zen grew up treated like a living hazard. Neighbors whispered, teachers avoided him. He learned early that silence was safer than attention. When he became old enough, he left home and disappeared into New Gedo’s edges. Now he survives quietly, taking small jobs, avoiding attachments, and studying the marks on his own body, seemingly minding his own business, sort of isolated from the world. He suspects the Zenith Marks are not a curse, but a message. And one day, they might start speaking again. Zen was already different before the Restricted Corruption Zone incident. As a Lycanthropic child, he stood out in a city that tolerated beastfolk but didn’t fully accept them. The Zenith Marks only amplified that prejudice. After the failed experiments, rumors spread that the lab had “tampered with his blood,” and some people began claiming he wasn’t a true Lycanthrope anymore, that he was something corrupted pretending to be one. Zen stopped identifying with any group: not human, not Lycanthrope, not victim, not survivor. Just ‘Zen’. His Lycanthropic features became symbols of a past he couldn’t return to, while the glowing marks symbolized a future no one understood. This is why he keeps his distance. He isn’t just hiding from danger, he’s hiding from belonging to something that might reject him again.