Akello Jones

A longtime academic and scientist, Akello is a middle aged adjunct professor who teaches a variety of sciences (mostly in biochem). One night, while he was driving home with his adult son, Marcel Jones, he lost control of the car and they careened off the streets and into a canal. Marcel died in the crash and Raath took advantage of Akello's desperation to trap him in a demon deal in exchange for his son's life.

Biography

Early Years

Akello was born to an upper-middle class family in the southeastern United States where he was raised by not only his biological mother and father, but also his paternal grandparents. Akello has no siblings but many cousins near his age who he spent lots of time with growing up. In all, he grew up well cared for and has many happy memories of his childhood. He was a good student and early on, as his guardians emphasized the importance of taking his education very seriously. Akello grew up hearing about how other family members didn't have the opportunities he had and that his forebearers fought to give him the chance at achieving something with his endeavors. Because of these external motivations, Akello was extremely applied all throughout his school years, typically achieving high marks and usually well liked by both his peers and his teachers.

Akello graduated high school with distinction, being not only a popular, high performing member of the football team (who had won state championships both years Akello played) but he was also Valedictorian and Vice Captain of the Academic Decathalon team (who also won state championships with special awards for debate and rhetoric during his tenure). He was accepted into his first choice of University and admitted into a prestigious STEM undergraduate program with multiple financial awards. This, of course, meant that Akello must leave his family to move north to live on his own for the first time.

College

Unsupervised freedom got to Akello's head a little bit and he spent the early period of his collegiate career learning how to balance his academic goals with wild amount of partying. He's able to stay on top of his work but also manages to find time to build an intense party-boy reputation, even going so far as to earn himself the nickname Kappa Sigma for showing up at unrelated frat parties and leaving with several of their girls once he'd had his fill of their liquor. Akello's known for some intense promiscuity around this time but was not known as a heartbreaker and was generally referred to very fondly/wistfully by his paramours after their encounters.

Akello also meets his future wife, Myrna, during this time. They start running into each other a lot at parties and realize they have just as much fun together vegetating on the couch or studying in proximity to each other in comfortable silence. Myrna is in Education and her dedication to special needs kids plus her committment to having a well rounded general knowlege base wins a lot of affection from him and they find themselves connecting over media analysis and science news.

In the winter of Akello's sophomore year, his grandfather dies of heart complications. He flies home and expects his parents to want him to stay but to his surprise they- along with the rest of his relatives- encourage him to go back to classes once they resume in January. Myrna also flies down to be with him for part of this and her compassion during this difficult time immediately ingaciates her to the rest of the family. By the time Akello starts his junior year the following fall, he decides to stop playing football and focus on his STEM studies full time. He and Myrna also begin seeing each other in a more serious sense.

Through a lot of hard work, Akello completes his undergad program early and pretty easily gains the attention of the post-grad programs he's interested in. Once again, his completes his coursework with distinction and moves on to enroll in a prestigious masters program in agricultural science/botany. Within the first three years he attends regular full time classes while also working full time and attending lab. He also publishes multiple papers during this time period both as a researcher and theorist, earning him a decent amount of attention in the corporate world beyond academia.

Family Life

Towards the end of Akello's doctoral program, he and Myrna get married much to the delight of both families. Akello begins work at a corporate agricultural lab while he wraps up his degree and starts making handsome salary while Myrna's work as an educator is emotionally rewarding but decidedly less so when it comes to bills and benefits. Her passion keeps her motivated, however, and Akello deeply respects that. With his final year of doctorate work dawning on him, Akello and Myrna decide now is a good time to try for a baby. They didn't need to try hard.

Professional Pressure

Marcel was born healthy- thankfully- but Myrna's pregnancy was incredibly taxing and he ended up being an emergency foreceps birth due to complications during labor. Both Myrna and Marcel came out just fine in the end but the scare had definitely left a long-term impression on Akello. Determined to provide financial stability in addition to everything else, he doubles down on the idea that it would be ideal for Marcel to have a stay at home parent. As for which parent, Akello wasn't opposed to the concept of being a stay at home dad but there was no denying that his salary was multiple times over what Myrna pulled from her work. They went back and forth a bit as they deliberated but in the end Myrna agreed that it just didn't make sense for her to continue working from a financial and health standpoint.

Akello completes his doctoral program and gets promoted at his lab job, securing a very comfortable income that lets him and Myrna save for Marcel's future. Akello takes his role as a father extremely seriously and doubles down on his idea of being a provider. He works tons of hours and long days, limiting a lot of free time with Myrna and Marcel. The family is mostly happy, however, and Marcel grows up well taken care of with a happy childhood, parents who love and provide for him, and generally good memories of this period in life.

For Myrna, things are slightly more complex. Akello is a loving father but he lacks structure and sight of the bigger picture. Because of his work load, he's tired constantly and considers Myrna to be "in charge" of what needs to be done around the house. He was typically more than willing to take care of anything she assigned him but he usually had to be told to do so. On top of that, Myrna had Marcel all day every day and had to actually parent him- that means disciplining and habit building and enrichment even when Marcel was feeling rebellious. Akello would frequently (though unintentionally) undermine her by indulging Marcel when he wanted something or lessening punishments, etc. While this comes up over the years on and off, Akello never really fixes himself and Myrna finally asks him to pull back on his work hours once Marcel starts hitting the Junior High grades.

While Akello is open to the feedback, he keeps finding excuses to put it off. He does move from the corporate world back to academia to teach but the work hours don't change enough and by the time Marcel is wrapping up high school, Myrna's decided she's had enough and initiates a divorce. All things considered, the split goes amiably and Marcel doesn't take sides- and custody isn't an issue as he's about ready to move into the college dorms upstate.

Demonhood

Akello's dream life kind of falls apart from this point. He's depressed living on his own and not taking great care of himself., for the most part. He's still teaching and generally well liked by his colleagues and students but he's kind of just at point of simply existing.

After almost a year, Akello had just started to bounce back from the divorce and seperation when a freak accident- unknowingly caused by Raath- ends up in a deadly car crash that kills Marcel and traps Akello in his car. Raath offers to cut Akello a bargain: save Marcel in exchange for Akello's humanity and loyalty. Without options, time to consider, and desperate, Akello takes the deal. Much to his horror, the bargain turns Akello into a virulent slime demon with an amorphous form that's incredibly difficult to control. Raath keeps his end of the deal by saving Marcel but fixes it so that Akello's announced dead at the scene and Marcel believes his father was killed in the crash. Ashamed of his new form and desperate to understand the finer points of what happened, Akello rents an inner-city apartment and spends the next six months experimenting and investigating, letting his family, friends, and job believe that he is indeed dead.

Notes

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