Background

Growing up, Ripley had been the newest addition to the MacCorry family in Detroit, Michigan. For the most part, she spent the formative years of her life stepping softly around combative parents, but also her sister that was her keeper. However, by Ripley turning thirteen, her sister would end up moving back to Boston, and in another year's time she'd suffer a fall during a gymnastics meet that irreversibly changed her life. Her sister always told her she'd come back to get her. But by the time she had, Ripley had already been moved into a third relative's home over the course of '89 to '93. Her prior fall had left her not just mostly deaf in one ear, but also a brain injury that severely impacted her short-term memory, and nobody ever had neither the time nor the want to understand Ripley. Who at that point, was primarily seen as a burden enforced by court orders until her sister finally returned to collect her. It almost sounded too good to be true to Ripley. One of the things she always held onto was exchanging letters with her sister over the years. Exchanges about where she was, how Ripley was doing, her sister's journey back out east, and sometimes the two exchanged language lessons in German. Ripley always held onto those the most in a little box, as the muscle memory of her motions in writing were one of the triggers to helping her form more long-term memories that she could latch onto. In all of the things she'd inevitably forget, writing letters was a weekly routine that she never lost. When they were in a hotel in Louisville, KY, the two had been on a long, scenic route back to Boston. Her sister had cashed in additional vacation days so that they could make a whole journey out of leaving Detroit behind once and for all. Their little roadtrip had taken an awkward turn as Ripley had quietly grown resentful over the years, and especially when she re-read old letters from before her injury. Deep in her heart, she didn't know whether to be grateful her sister upheld her five year old promise, or if she should be concerned about where else she might be living within the next year. It turned out, it had been the latter, but not for fault of her sister's. Rifts opened up and the whole world was thrown into chaos... And for the first day or two? Ripley was oddly excited. She didn't see the fall of the world order happen, she was too busy losing her mind about the improbability of the events unfolding. As if it was desperately trying to protect what she still had left in avoiding depthless despair.