Raymond Armstrong

Age of Appearance: 31 | Date of Birth: 4th October, 1947 | Actual Age: 70

Located: Evermore City, Colorado | Status: Immortal | Born: Off the Fort Myers Coast, Florida

Family: None | Species: Celestial

Distinguishing Marks: Mark of the Cetus Constellation

Faceclaim: John Boyega

The small town of Citidel was one of those not too far away from Fort Myers, Florida but an easily missable ones. Often travellers found themselves driving down the small streets and even before they could comprehend the presence of the town and the people, they would be driving past the exit sign and back into the woods.

So when Raymond Armstrong, a nobody was found by a group of villagers not too far away from the east coast, the unidentified, unknown male caused a turmoil in the quiet and peaceful town. He was immediately taken to the hospital, many sympathizing with the gorgeous looking male that had landed out of nowhere.

Sheriff Dalia Smith was called at once to the hospital. New to the job, Dalia was hesitant about what she could do other than informing the neighbouring towns and going through the missing persons list. However, as her eyes fell on the light-haired, strong featured male, Dalia was in for a shock because the man almost looked like her dead husband, David she had buried a month ago.

Not believing in her eyes, she chose to wait for the man to wake up, regularly bringing in flowers, checking with the doctors but nobody could figure out why the male was still unconscious. Days turned to weeks and there was no response other than the light rise and fall of his muscular chest and Dalia was almost losing hope.

It was during the fifth week that Dalia had promised herself she would no longer visit the man. She needed to move on from the obsession of a second chance life had thrown at her. However, as if by miracle, as Dalia placed the last bunch of flowers in the bed-side vase, a croaky whisper sent chills down her spine.

“Water…” The man groaned, finally reopening his eyes and Dalia was captivated by his voice - it was just like David’s. However, once the male was completely back to his senses, he couldn’t still remember his name. Neither could he remember anything of his past life.

This caused a great ordeal within the villagers as everyone tried to put forward their opinions of what could have happened to the man. The male however, was unsure of all the attention he was getting and it wasn’t until Dalia had offered him a place to stay at her home, away from all the chaos that he finally began to feel relaxed.

Dalia took great care of him, and the fallen star was deeply grateful for her kindness. She was also beautiful, a trait that he was trying to ignore his best, in case that stirred an emotion the widowed wouldn’t have appreciated.

She named him David for the next few weeks, after her dead husband who he apparently resembled. And although hesitant at first, he saw in this a step taken by Dalia to show her feelings for him. The two worked together to find his lost identity, shuffling through missing persons report, car accidents, workers who were meant to be at the coast on the day he was found, but nothing remotely helped their case.

It wasn’t until one night when the electricity had been cut off, and the two were in Dalia’s office, working as usual that the male finally accepted how divinely she looked with the pale candlelight illuminating her face. She reached out to her, and before she could protest, he pressed his lips against his.

But the kiss didn’t exactly turn out the way you’d expect it to be. Instead, like a jolt of electricity, a name popped up on the fair-haired male’s mind and he pulled back, the tattoo of what they had recognised to be the mark of Cetus constellation on his lower arm almost burning his skin. “Raymond Armstrong.” He told her his name was, but that was all he could remember and that was all there was to know about his past life, at least for the next two years.

The couple had slowly given up on trying to find out his past, instead they wanted to create a future and together, Raymond and Dalia, deeply in love decide to get married. However, during those times, a female, recently widowed and already in the arms of another was not something people would keep out of their gossip sessions, so the two decided to keep things on the low, take it slow and wait for enough time to pass before they could be wedded.

Towards the end of their second year together, Raymond finally asks Dalia to marry him at a Christmas event and Dalia, elated, agrees. The villagers, to their relief, openly accept their relationship with love and warmth and the whole town falls into the preparations for the Sheriff’s wedding with the handsome stranger.

But, things did not turn out as perfect as they thought it would be. On the day of their wedding, Raymond, standing in front of the long wall-length mirror, fixing his tie, heard a knock on the door. Opening it, he came face to face with tall, hefty looking males. Before he could express his confusion, they threatened to harm his bride-to-be if he didn’t come with them without causing an alarm.

Raymond, forced by circumstance, agreed to be taken by the males who he later found were Ailward Guards. He hoped and prayed to whatever God up there that he would be released in time for him to come back and marry the beautiful Dalia, but fate had other plans for the Fallen Star.

Upon reaching the Isle of Skye, Raymond was immediately locked inside a dark age where he was to spend the next 68 years of his life. His only companions were the others who were trapped in similar cages lined up in front of him. He was heartbroken, and no matter how hard he tried to escape, the cage seemed to weaken him to the point where he could only crawl to his feet and reach for his food when the Guards slid it along the prison floor.

The oldest of the captives, William, as he introduced himself, then told Raymond the entire story. He was a Celestial, a fallen star, hunted by men who wanted to kill him for the celestial energy he possessed. Obviously cynical about the man’s words, it took Raymond a few more days to realise he had been ignoring the signs throughout the past two years - how his body gave off an inhuman glow, the little snippets he could see when he touched someone, it slowly but surely began to make sense.

But that didn’t exactly help his situation because Raymond was enraged. He probably would not see Dalia again and have the future he had promised to give her. He couldn’t imagine the sorrow she must have had been feeling, and in that rose a disgust for the guards and a wish that he could be a simple human.

The disgust soon turned to hate and decades later, when the Isle of Skye fell and a female who William had told him about - the Wayfinder, Ophelia Dreyvalian, came to their rescue, Raymond at once went to search for Dalia. He soon found out that she passed away ten years back, and never did she let a man in again. She was driven to the point where she refused to acknowledge that Raymond wouldn’t come back, still wearing the engagement ring he had given her.

That broke Raymond. He fell in front of her grave, crying his eyes out. A hand rested on his shoulder and Raymond looked up to find William, shaking his head with a sympathetic smile, “We’ll get back at them,” Was all that he said and that was it.

The Celestials traveled the world in search of Ophelia’s amulet, Raymond joining them in their journey but it wasn’t until they were in Evermore City where the Ailwards had taken up residence that Raymond finally was willing to settle down with the rest. A promise was made at Dalia’s grave and he had every intention of keeping it.