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Miles 'Mr. Smiley' Gabriel Miles had a hard life. His mother's presence was nearly nonexistent, with how drunk she often was. Though his father was present, Miles wished he hadn't been. Throughout his childhood, he would suffer at the hands of his father in numerous different, horrific ways. When his father wasn’t at home, he would be out bar-hopping, and doing God knows whatever else with the family’s limited income. With all of this going on at home, all Miles had in life was his schoolwork, and he made decent enough grades despite the trouble at home. During one of the few times his mother was sober enough to carry a conversation, she taught Miles something of great importance. In times of stress and sadness, he could always look to God for guidance. One night during his early childhood, Miles did just that, and was given a guardian angel to look after him. The guardian angel introduced himself as Maximillian Cerestrino. Maximillian talked, but only to Miles and only when the boy was alone. Whenever he wanted to talk, Miles would get a splitting headache, signalling the guardian's presence. The two became good friends over the years, and Ceres made Miles' difficult upbringing a little easier. Due to the stress he was under, given his horrible parents and the odd, overbearing, holy presence in his head, during his teenage years, Miles began to self harm in an effort to cope. Though it was difficult to hide, he kept his scars a secret from his parents, as well as his teachers. He never got caught. Except, of course, by Cerestrino himself. Seeing Miles' wounds seemed to trigger a change in the guardian angel. As such, Cerestrino appeared to him less and less. With no help from his parents, he passed high school without much of a problem. As his parents didn’t have the funds to send him to college, he never attended. He kept a simple retail job for quite some time, eventually got a house of his own in the middle of nowhere, and never contacted his parents again. Soon, he met a woman named Charlotte, fell in love, and they had two children together, both daughters. Their names were Anne and Melissa. During one cold winter, the two daughters caught the flu. While Miles and Charlotte did their best to care for them, their illness kept fighting back. Both of the girls developed pneumonia, and died as a result. Upon this, Charlotte and Miles' marriage began to fall apart. Charlotte grew distant, and Miles became emotionally abusive. He promised Charlotte he'd never lay a finger on her, but the verbal abuse caused more than enough pain on its own. One day while he was at work, Charlotte left him, taking nothing but the clothes on her back. She left him a note explaining her reasoning. It was then that Maximillian reentered Miles' life, and he was welcomed with open arms. The guardian angel promised that he would lead Miles back onto the path of God, and free him of his sins. His methods, however, were odd - he would instruct Miles to cut himself, much like he did when he was a teenager. With encouragement from the angel, though, he steadily got accustomed to their nightly ritual, going as far as to almost enjoy it. Though Miles never did it very much when he was younger, the addiction to the pain grew stronger in his adult life. What used to be a harmful coping mechanism, then holy punishment, became something bordering on sexual. Miles has an obsession with sending letters. It started out innocently enough. Miles never wanted anyone else to feel as low as he did when he was younger. He would send happy messages and words of encouragement to random addresses every once in a while. Once or twice he would get some confused responses, but often times, his letters would simply be ignored. Due to his wife’s disappearance and his daughters’ deaths - not to mention Ceres' subtle influences - he would have frequent breakdowns. These breakdowns would show up in these letters from time to time. Recipients would be greeted with a bloodstained letter littered with apologies. |
