Cardinal

We all have grieved over the loss of someone important to us at some point in our lives. How we mourn their loss says a lot about ourselves. When my Nana Florence passed away a few years back--I watched how it affected my mother, my aunts and uncles, taking little time to focus on how it affected me.

While living alone in Richmond, Virginia--a new city to me--I started writing the story of a lonely man going through a state of self-isolation. There were a lot of similar emotions and characteristics that we shared, this character and I. Except this fictional character had a dark and violent trait. He was a serial killer.

As I wrote this character and later mourned my Nana, I thought--what if grief manifested itself in the form of violence. Life creates life, death creates more death. What if this character, Peter, could grieve his mother the only way he knew how--through creating the loss of another human being. And what if these emotions and this characteristic he built for himself was in a way planted inside of him by his mother before she passed?

I wanted to create an interesting story filled with realized characters and study the idea of overcoming grief. From this, Cardinal was born. Through this psychological thriller with elements of horror, I wanted to create a new horror antagonist who not only felt real, but played with whether or not you want to root for or not.

They say when you see a cardinal, it is someone sending a message from the spirit world--maybe the idea of this story was the message my Nana was sending me?