KIMBERLY KENDALL
Aliases: Nocturne, PROJECT DRACUL
Setting: Analog Horror - The Nocturne Files
Species: Symbiotically Bonded Vampire Bat-Human Hybrid
Origin: Subject #27, PROJECT MENAGERIE
Affiliations: DNAgency (former test subject), Empire City Underground (target), Veronica Vivian (anchor to humanity)
Backstory:
Kimberly Kendall was born into shadows—but she didn't know it at the time. Her earliest memories were warm: giggles in the golden hour light, ice cream with her parents on stoops, and backyard adventures with her next-door best friend, Veronica Vivian. Her mother and father worked strange hours and rarely spoke of their “business,” but they always made time for her. She had no idea they were low-level operatives in the Empire City branch of the Timurovich Crime Family.
Even less did she know that her parents were playing a dangerous game—gathering evidence, covertly aiding federal agents, planning to escape the criminal life for good.
They didn’t get the chance.
The Family discovered their betrayal. A car “malfunction” finished the job. Kimberly, just nine years old, was left crying alone at home wondering where her parents were and why they never came home. She was taken to an orphanage and told she was being sent to live with distant relatives.
She never made it.
Instead, she was quietly transferred to the DNAgency under forged documents. In reality, she’d been sold—one child among dozens—into the horrors of PROJECT MENAGERIE, a secret black-site initiative aimed at creating symbiotic, shape-shifting super-soldiers using advanced gene-splicing, biomechanical biosuits, and predatory animal DNA. Kimberly was assigned a vampire bat template, chosen for its echolocation, flight capability, and hematophagic traits. She became Subject #27: PROJECT DRACUL.
The next decade was agony.
They broke her body. Rewired her mind. Injected her with mutagens. Grafted living armor onto her skin. The biosuit was semi-sentient—a living membrane that sank its barbs into her spine and nervous system. Some children didn’t survive. Others went feral. The ones who almost made it were dissected to refine the next iteration. Kimberly did survive—but the process left scars deeper than flesh.
She began to forget who she was.
Night after night she dreamed of fangs, of blood in her mouth, of flying through black skies. She began to hear it whispering. At first she thought she was hallucinating—a side effect of the suit. But when she flatlined during one particularly invasive grafting procedure, something answered.
In the endless dark between life and death, she awoke in a chamber without light.
There, seated upon a throne of branching bone and shredded velvet, was a tall figure. Vaguely humanoid. Undeniably batlike. Draped in ragged elegance, it smelled of old blood and forgotten tombs. It spoke with dignity, yet condemnation. Not to her—but to the scientists.
It called itself a shadow of a name long forgotten—and offered her a pact. Power for vengeance. Not just against the DNAgency. But against the entire corrupted web that had stolen her life.
Kimberly reached out.
When she woke, the suit had fully bonded. The experiment was deemed a “success.”
They celebrated too early.
That night, Nocturne was born.
She tore through the facility in a frenzy of wing, claw, and blood, releasing as many test subjects as she could in the chaos. Some escaped. Others perished. Kimberly—more bat than girl now—vanished into the night skies of a world she no longer recognized.
Years passed. Empire City had changed. She didn’t. Hidden in a crumbling asylum deep in the mountains on the outskirts of the city, Nocturne plotted her war on the criminal underworld. She stalked operatives, fed on corrupt men in alleys, and painted her message in crimson: The monster has returned for the ones who made it.
The media called her a myth. A bat-demon. A curse. They gave her a name: Nocturne.
But in truth, she was Kimberly Kendall—what was left of her.
Then came Veronica.
Older now. Changed. But unmistakably her. Veronica was a reporter now, trying to reclaim Empire City by exposing its darkness and bringing the truth back to the people. She appeared one night at the hospital reporting on her first appearance. Nocturne—watching from above—froze.
Something stirred.
A flicker. A heartbeat.
The human inside the monster twitched.
She didn't attack. Didn’t flee. For the first time in years, Nocturne hesitated and the humanity within her began to claw its way back to the surface.
Character Themes & Arcs:
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Lost Innocence → Wrathful Justice → Struggle for Redemption
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Science Horror Meets Gothic Mythology: The “bat entity” may be real, symbolic, or both—a fusion of psychological trauma, vampiric myth, and mutagenic programming.
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Duality of Self: The human Kimberly and the monstrous Bat constantly wrestle for control. This creates moments of unpredictability and deeply emotional inner conflict.
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Modern Vampire Archetype: A subversion of the vampire myth—a synthetic being made in a lab who is blessed by a mythic force, not cursed.
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Loneliness and Connection: Veronica represents the last tether to Kimberly’s humanity. Whether this leads to salvation, tragedy, or both depends on how the story unfolds.
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