Cassandra Troy

Yes, she was that Cassandra...

Cassandra Troy was a character that I created. She didn't pop up like Azrael or Nemo. Instead, I needed a character for a very specific purpose and... because my brain connects things in weird ways, Cassandra Troy became the right peg to fit into the hole my world had at the time.

See, I was working at a senior living facility (not a nursing home) called Sunrise Senior Living... or I'd moved on from working there to Crestwood Nursing Center. I'm a bit fuzzy on when she was created, it was in my early college years. In fact, Cassandra Troy may have existed before Nemo.

I don't have very clear notes from that time with dates on them.

Either way, I had this crazy/genius/silly idea: a sort of hospital for the supernatural beings that populated the world... that looks like a nursing home to everyone else. The patients are even disguised to some of the lower-level workers as residents... especially the long-term patients because my world would be populated by a lot of non-humans who needed specialized care.

Even back then I knew I hadn't created a very nice world to imagine.

Anyhow, this grew to a network of facilities all hospitals-for-the-supernatural-disguised-as-nursing-homes.

I knew I needed someone with vision... literally in this case. I needed someone... iconic. I needed a character who people would look up to, but would seen as... different. Even wacky. Even insane.

So, Cassandra Troy became a once-crazed vampire who somehow regained her sanity through Gandhi. After that, she decided to take the world by storm... by helping it. She went from killing anyone who crossed her path for their blood to... healing those who needed it. Because she could. She also either was the vampire that changed Azrael into a vampire or she knew the vampire that did it.

Did I mention she was that Cassandra? As in, she went insane because she could see the future, a future where she became an utter monster after her family and people were slaughtered... and no one believed her because... why would they?

And then her worst nightmares came to pass and she became a horrible monster because... Why not?

She basically needed a lot of therapy.

Or a miracle.

Of course, my definition of vampires has drastically changed since I created Cassandra,  Like Azrael, she's part of a race of creatures capable of converting humans to their species via blood exchange that are extremely vampire-like so they use the title, but... as you may see in the future, they aren't the only thing that defines themselves by the word "vampires" in my world.

I know that makes things confusing and ambiguous, but think about it this way: any being who requires the blood of the living in some form to continue to live can call itself a vampire.  Just like: anyone who identifies Jesus as their lord and savior can consider themselves a Christian. Like with Christians, there are a plethora of different vampires with various origins. Most aren't the fluffy bunnies that appear in teen fiction unless something horrible has happened to them.

Cassandra has a vast network called the "Hope Network". Every single one of her nursing home/hospitals are, in fact, called Hope Nursing Center. She has psychics (like herself and sometimes more) who find potential patients in danger. She has fighting types for rescues (or she recruits them for special cases). She has many doctors and healers who specialize in different species and healing different wounds. She has places that are genuine long-term care facilities as well as the original idea of hospitals-disguised-as-nursing-homes.

Cassandra prefers to hire humans with training as nurses and nursing assistants who may or may not know about the supernatural because they usually have the appropriate training as well as having a group of recruiters who occasionally strike gold and find gifted people who both know of the supernatural and are trained for positions she wants.

Oddly, I now work with someone who looks a lot like how I always imagined Cassandra to look... It makes things very awkward, but I get through it.

Next post...BENNY THE CAT!!! I'm really excited about talking about him.