b. 1942, age 27 (+56 years in the Void)
Mother: Katya Krushev
Father: Takeshi Nakamura
Army brat, raised on bases all over the world. Her father was instrumental during her early years, as her mother was usually busy with her duties as Army Major. During the Korean War, their family was stationed in Japan, both for their experience fighting in the Great War and for Takeshi's connections with Japanese intelligence.
When she was 10, Takeshi was killed while they were in Japan, and their family was reassigned back to the US after the Korean War ended in '53. She grew up with a strong dislike of the military, and she left home at 16, hiding in a friend's trunk to sneak off base.
They drove all day and reached New York City at sunset. They followed the sound of music to Greenwich Village and lost themselves in the thriving, bohemian culture of the Village. She grew up among the Village's eclectic clubs and coffeeshops and among legends such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg. She loved the freedom and artistic expression of the Village, so different from the rigid bases where she grew up. She loved the music and the soul and the sense of community as writers and musicians shared their art and pushed each other to grow.
For nearly a decade, she was happy. As the conflict in Vietnam escalated, the Village became a center for political activism and protest. The art and the music still flourished, but now its purpose shifted. It condemned a greedy government who threw boys onto landmines and burned children with napalm. In '69, after another protest ended, she left the Village for the first time in 11 years, hitching a ride to a music festival everyone was calling Woodstock.
She can't really explain how it happened. One moment she was dropping acid and swaying to music that may or may not have only existed in her head. The next, the world around her cracked open, splitting like a torn seam in front of her. The yawning nothingness inside the hole was disorienting but wildly beautiful. She had been doing acid for years, and she was used to mind-bending trips, but she had never seen anything like this.
Wide-eyed, she stumbled toward it, reaching out to touch the frayed edges which were rippling slowly, like something underwater. It was cold, and as her fingers brushed the substance, they turned black. The blackness crept rapidly up her arm, the cold clawing its way to her shoulder. She shook her arm, still aware that this was probably just a bad trip. It was no less terrifying. Her flesh was dark and inky.
She squinted, trying to focus on it, but it was like looking into the night sky. Her arm seemed to be there but also not there at the same time. It was like her flesh was a gateway into the same yawning void inside the crack. She reached out to brush at her arm, but shrieked as she made contact with her skin. Despite its appearance, it was as hard as stone. True panic gripped her and stumbled, brushing and clawing at her skin as the darkness spread over her body. The crack that had opened before her widened, swallowed her flailing body, and closed just as silently as it had appeared.
Inside the Void, time was meaningless. There was no sense of direction or substance or feeling. She lost all sense of awareness. She lost herself. And at the same time, she didn't. Her skin, as inky black as the Void itself, protected her. Her mind seemed to slow down and stop. If time didn't exist here, neither did thought.
When a rip appeared beside her, she saw chaos on the other side, explosions and shouting. She turned away from it. When another crack opened beneath her, time seemed to have passed in that place. Things seemed more calm now. Another tear opened directly in front of her, this one too close to avoid, and she felt herself being pulled, pushed, falling, flying, being born into the world outside the Void.
She fell amid rubble and smoke. For a long time, she didn't move. Her entire body hurt. When she did finally get up, she followed her nose and her stomach to a restaurant. She had nothing, but she was no stranger to that. She was a product of the beatniks and the hippies and she wasn't afraid to sleep on the street. The world around her was strange and wildly different from the one she had left in 1969. Everything felt cold and harsh. Eventually she followed the sounds of music to a show, but it was unlike any show she had ever seen. It felt ancient and wild and powerful. She found the band after the show and has been traveling with them ever since.
