𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐲

👁 SOVEREIGN 👁

THE SOVEREIGN PROPHET OF THE BLEEDING EYE

The Prophet of the East

"Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?"

"Sadly goes the wind on its way to Hades.
Would I, should I, could I be a stranger,
I shall walk right by and sigh goodbye."

"When there are clouds in the skies, and they are grey.
You may be sad but remember that love will pass away."

⚠️TW mental health issues, war, violence, discrimination, cult activity

backstory
mitya minsky was born to a loving family with four other children in lebanon, indiana with his parents both working as history teachers at the local high school. his father and mother grew up in moscow, his father studying history intensely and his mother a prodigy at mathematics. they grew close after meeting in university and finally decided to move to the united states together, long before immigration was banned. they shared a wonderful marriage of many years, ensuring that their relationship would never soften despite the burdens that having so many children could present. they had date night every two months, and it was a common sight for there to be a bunch of yellow roses (signifying friendship, since his parents were and always would be each other's best friend) laying on the kitchen counter to surprise his mother. growing up in such a loving environment, mitya and his siblings (age at mitya's birth: 8M, 6F, 5F, 2F). still, growing up as the children of immigrants had its growing pains. mitya was never allowed to have what was so popular among other students if it was frivolous, no matter how much he would beg for it. they were frugal, almost at a cost to his social wellbeing and financial wellbeing, since they imparted onto him a fear of running out of money, which could sometimes make him feel as if he were a financial burden, thus being more hesitant to ask for help. he played hockey as a child and was a team player, always hosting the team to his home afterwards and eagerly teaching them words in yiddish and russian which they received with interest and delight. he had a tendency to cry often in school, however, which was noted but considered rather unexplainable at this time in his youth. his siblings made fun of him for that at one point in time, but gradually stopped as they heard their parents speaking and realized that this situation was not meant to be funny. his father returned to russia somewhat frequently, both for family meetings which were common as his brother was a prominent russian cabinet member, and for his own work (as he taught russian history, it was encouraged for him to attend seminars and to present his own work in russia, as well as to take students there). when he was seven, he participated in the local spelling bee, which he won. his siblings would always hold the medal and joke that they had never seen their parents be so proud of anyone ever, and it was true. he went to state and took third. his parents were still delighted, and they took the family out to dinner as a special treat, where they would brag to the waitstaff about how talented and hardworking their son was. that was only the second happiest day of his life, however. when he was nine, his family took a trip to moscow along with a couple of his father's students. this trip is one of his favorite memories and he uses it to ground himself at times. he adored the architecture, played hockey with his cousins, attended movies, went to the market, showed off his spelling skills in front of his uncle, and he absolutely hated to leave. he returned to a promise that he would be able to go alone when he turned thirteen to meet his family, a prospect which excited him and served as his dream for the next several years. when he was only ten years old, upon a culmination of teacher reports from his life indicating nervousness, misplaced fear and confusion, and an increasingly worse score on essays which he had once done so well at which the teachers marked down as disorganized thinking-- he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on medication. thankfully, it was not a severe case nor one that had debilitating hallucinations. his family had simply thought he had clung onto imaginary friends for too long. equally thankfully, his improvement was marked on medication, and he started to excel at school even more. he grew older and started to attend public school from the private school he had previously attended, immediately joining a vast array of clubs. his older sister had faced some bullying in middle school, but he found that was not his experience at all. he had all of the boys on his hockey team as his friends, and he joined the swim team, the student council, the russian language club (his father was so proud), the boy scouts, and perhaps, most importantly, the choir. he had a beautiful, clear voice, but one that had not began to take on its characteristic haunting sound until much later. still, it was beautiful enough to earn him a solo, which his family was proud of as well. however, when he went through middle school, something began to shift. subtly at first, just a little bit of suspicion when his name was uttered out loud. just a little question of where he was from every now and then, and what he had been so proud to declare before, he hesitated. once the war had officially began from the assassination that had began this shift, his mother warned him and his siblings not to speak russian or yiddish in public any longer. he chalked it up to paranoia. the russian language club disbanded, along with the chinese language club. while he had previously been the vice president of the student council, the principal told him that unfortunately, he could no longer serve as that position. when the united states became involved in the war, his hockey team, swim team, and the boy scouts informed him that unfortunately, he could no longer be involved in their organizations. his father lost their job, and his mother had to start working a second job while he looked for another one, along with his oldest brother who was then twenty-one, in order to make ends meet. oddly enough for such highly educated people, this process became more and more arduous, eventually having young mitya realizing that his parents wouldn't get a job, solely because of their ethnic origin. his father was also, unfortunately connected to a politician, meaning that the authorities were more aware of their presence. within a month of their neighbors being encouraged to report suspicious activity-- the duration of which the mitskys spent holed up in their home, educating their children, hiding them from the violence that was occurring outside with someone even shattering their window one day-- they had been reported. this shift in attitudes had been traumatizing to mitya, or as he was being called now, michael. his mental health deteriorated. he tried to call his friends, but they refused all contact. mitya would cry at night and in the mornings, shriek at his parents, convinced it was their fault that he had lost all of his friends, activities, and outlets. he was especially aggravated that he hadn't been allowed to return to moscow. his father had tried to get the whole family back to russia, but all flights and boats there had been long cancelled. when they were reported, guards arrived promptly at their door to remove them. his parents gave them a tearfully worded speech about how they would have to go on a journey to somewhere else, but this time, they would never return. mitya wasn't sure that he understood. he was taken to the camp where his family barely managed to keep together, crowded with many other people in the same situation. his parents tried to educate the children there, including mitya and his youngest sister, but they knew the situation was not normal. especially when mitya saw a man brutally beaten for an offense. across their camp swept illness with a fair amount of frequency, and mitya contracted a burning fever for about a week, which only rose in intensity. he had been known as the boy who could sing at the foa camps, and sometimes, if he would sing for the guards (his voice now imbued with its haunting lilt and beauty), they would gift him with extra rations or medication. he hadn't had his medication for his mental health issues since the united states entered the war, which led to his deterioration, increased paranoia, disorganized thoughts, and rare scattered hallucinations especially when he was feverish. he only recovered his health from that illness thanks to one generous guard who, he supposed, did not want to be doing this job, and slipped him some medication. he recovered, but he had a characteristic feature from that fever-- huge, wide, glassy (glazed over) eyes that looked more from a doll than a human. he sang for the guards during this time. when he was only fourteen, his father was shot during a riot while he was standing right next to him, trying to soothe his son-- he can always remember how his father comforted him in their native yiddish for one last time, affirming his love for him and apologizing that he couldn't have raised him in better times, and enveloping him in one more hug before his eyes went still, skin went grey, and body went still. mitya shook him, screaming for him to wake up through his hysterical tears. the guards tore him from his father's body once the riot had ended. his mother passed away from a fever two months later. he had begged the guards to give her medication, but allegedly, there was none left. his older brother had always been a firebrand and had started a riot which landed him in the same grave as his father had been in, and his sister attempted to run away. he isn't sure if she survived or not, or where she is to this day. she took his younger sister with her, but not mitya, as mitya would be noticed by the guards much earlier due to his practice of singing for them every night. mitya was abandoned, orphaned at the young age of fourteen. sometimes he would see his family members at night. sometimes he would have dreams where he was at the spelling bee. sometimes he would sleep for days, huddled up in his small "room" in the camp. other times, he would pace around for hours. he was frantic, traumatized (and has complex post-traumatic stress syndrome as well as having serious disassociative episodes). when he was fifteen, he attempted to run away. he had prepared for months, with holding food in his coat, scouting out the best locations to escape from, and picking a night the guards would be drunk, and perhaps sleepy. he was shot in the calf, leading him to fall to the ground, howling in pain. he was kept in solitary after that, and was only given antibiotics after he was unable to even lift his head from the blood loss, infection, and severe pain. he recovered. slowly, and certainly not fully. it is rare to see him walk these days, for reasons later disclosed, but he would do so heavily favoring his left leg especially as he walks for longer. one dreary november day, the world ended. a bomb went off, multiple, in fact. he was close enough to a military base that supplied these guards to be within the realm for deadly radiation, but not close enough to die. the camp erupted into chaos, as the guards had been enforcing rules with increased intensity in the last few days, and now, the camp was being firebombed. mitya took the route he had followed in the past for his escape attempt, but this time, he made it, there being no guards left to stop him. he evaded the bombs, as he had managed to make it out just after they were dropped, but before they landed. he escaped into the woods and ran. or, better to say, hobbled for as long as he could. he, through well-placed alliances and his overall pitiful visage (thin as a rail, glassy-eyed, barely able to walk correctly), managed to make it to the appalachian mountains around the east coast with only about six muggings upon which they realized he had nothing. he hitchhiked a long way to get there. it was unusual the way he was discovered, as he had no intent to be. he wanted to go to moscow, or to go somewhere where the world had not yet ended. a rather large collection of people had entered that specific area mitya stumbled into. he was bleeding, then, having sliced his hand open on a thorny branch. there was a woman there, who was about to kill him to protect the way of life of the group, with a rather significant arm wound-- he put his hand on it, pushing the arm with the knife up, as a desperate attempt to save his life. it would surely have failed. except for one, unforeseen circumstance: the woman's arm wound was healed, or at least began to. the pain started to ease for her, and she dropped her knife in shock. her arm slowly healed over the next several days. the township kept mitya there, attempting to figure out what had happened, while their leader questioned him and ran several "experiments" (they just consisted of spreading his blood over wounds) to eventually determine that his blood was magical and could heal wounds (in reality, the radiation had altered his dna to where his blood contained an extreme excess of rare antibodies that could fight off infection and promote clotting and would healing much, much better. it doesn't work on himself). he also has a small, nonfunctional eye on his hand that sprung from the radiation, which led them to name their community after it, in a way. the decision was made. mitya was the prophet sent to heal the people from their tragedies and predict the coming of the messiah. he was treated well by the township, to a degree-- that part will be explained later-- but the way he was treated would have been unimaginable to almost anyone else during this time. he said he was not born, but placed on this earth. he gave his name as "sovereign." he lied to them, yes, out of sheer terror for his life. his mental health was slipping. when he would wake up screaming at night, he told them he was having visions. he sobbed when he saw close families. he had a journal he kept, that bounced from disorganized thoughts and scribbles to tact, carefully written words. this serves as their holy book, and all take time to study it, calling it the Testament of the Crying Sovereign's Eye. they gave him food, water, clothing, everything they had in their homes of value to exchange for his mere blessings or to hear him speak or to watch him heal. especially, they would listen to him sing as confirmation that he was sent by the messiah. his voice was so hauntingly beautiful, and he would sing hymns for them, that they became convinced that this was yet another proof of his prophethood. they were following the path of god, they were entirely certain, and they were overjoyed by their fortune. one farmer even brought him a horse for his own use, to ride upon instead of walk. needless to say, sovereign is materially doing well due to his status as a cult leader, he supposes, although he wouldn't think about it like that. sovereign brings people hope, he says. he told them that the messiah will not come soon, but not out of a lack of mercy. instead, he has graciously granted the people more time to change their ways. sovereign's community, known as the prophets of the bleeding eye. they have a symbol they sketch on their foreheads of a bleeding eye to mark themselves as belonging to this cult, which is highly protected by the people and by the structure of the mountains. while they materially treat him well, he is frequently drained from having so many wounds that he cannot heal himself, often suffering from infections and mild blood loss that results in dizziness, and their deification is worsening his mental health. he used to rely on others to determine what was real or not, and used to have confirmation that his schizophrenia was mild, treatable, and consisted of entirely fake hallucinations and emotions. now, when his every move is idolized, he has no one to keep him from falling into his own rabbit holes, at great detriment to himself. as a tradition, whenever his people (who own several ranches) have a meal prepared, the choicest cuts go to sovereign first, and everyone else second. they put in an effort to please him, and as such, sovereign sleeps on warm blankets, has a pillow, and eats well, far unlike he used to. the ptsd he has from his experiences in the foa camps still acts up frequently, and he has new trauma from the fear he lives in every day that his Prophets will one day reject him. as a result of his eating well, he has grown much more than he did in his years in the camp, coming in at approximately 5'11" and growing more by the minute. he is well-built as a result of his ability to have free time exercising with his horse, and having his own physical therapy to attempt to correct his leg injury by himself-- he is no longer skinny as a rail, but looks robust, in a sense. he still has those big, wobbly, glassy, pale eyes that look so unsettlingly like a doll's and has that teary eye on the back of his hand, and a plethora of small, white scars from blood extractions all over his body. at first, it appears as if he has made it in this apocalyptic world. however, take a closer look, and you'll see that these cultists have essentially kidnapped a child and forced him to serve as their god, breaking his mental health down and damaging his physical health.