|
The first thing you notice about Koi is what appears to be a large port-wine stain birthmark, the shape and color of which suggests a Kōhaku koi fish, layered over her dark olive skin on the right side of her face. But it’s not a birthmark. It’s called SIVBS. Stress-induced vascular bloom syndrome. It’s a rare condition, but it’s not a congenital condition like a birthmark. It’s induced by extreme emotional or physical trauma.
Her face and name you remember. Koi—of course it has to be Koi. And the mark that drives her and how she moves through the world. Her gait reflects an understated but undeniable confidence and we would expect nothing less from a child who changed her name to to disarm her haters. Koi. What better way to own your identity and disarm your abusers than by taking the weapon they wielded as a truncheon against you? Her walk is one of a person who knows the world needs a reset, and she knows just how she’s going to do it. It’s not arrogance when you have the chops to back it up. Koi moves through the world, not cleaving a path through space, but the space reacting to her—molecules and people sense her presence before seeing her and move aside to make room. She’s on a mission and the world knows it. But then you notice a fracture, a slight deviation in her confidence, a gentle stimming, rubbing a tattoo on her left wrist. TMWU. The misunderstood who understand. Look closer and you see the scars, the physical manifestation of a trauma that has defined her life. She’s a cutter. But this is more than self abuse as an act of self-loathing, it’s cutting just deep enough to let the screams out. Cutting until the screaming stops is her neural pressure release valve. At least that’s what she tells herself. The misunderstood who understand. The reason for SynOrganic’s success is Koi seeks people just like her—brilliant, and vibrantly damaged. Koi understands adversity and those who have faced it in all its ugly forms, and what it does to you. Those who have faced adversity have more to prove. They possess a superpower that others who have not been tested do not. They know how to persevere, overcome, and that survival mode elevates them and propels SynOrganics to the forefront in the biotech sphere. Koi isn’t afraid to take action to solve the problems plaguing society, even though it’s making her a lot of enemies. What some people see as a death wish, Koi see’s as a run up to her goal of creating a perfect, karmic form of justice. Now she just needs to stay alive long enough to make it happen. |