Annie

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Annie grew up as a privileged young lady of Feren’s Brock Family, admired in high society and regarded as her parents’ pride. Despite this approval, she felt that nobody asked what she liked or cared about her own wishes. She later said that she became a Transcendent for amusement, after a cursed supernatural item drew her into the Dreamscape 105.

Her family initially accumulated its wealth through piracy in the Black Sea. Annie later revealed a darker foundation behind its position as the Empire’s foremost fleet: abducted women and children passed through the family’s maritime checkpoints to be traded to the Sea Folk 101 124.

Annie was one of eight people caught in a hereditary curse originating with the people who summoned Feldman, divided his body, and consumed it. On Ghost Island, she inherited memory fragments preserved by one of those original eight. She explicitly maintained that she was still Annie Bullock, aged twenty-three—not the ancient person whose memories she carried. Joey’s Spirit Vision likewise found her spirit and body to be a complete match, without signs of replacement or corruption 116 117 118.

Appearance

• Hair: Fiery red, particularly vivid in sunlight 105 112.
• Eyes: Amber 116 117.
• Hands: Small and pale, described as resembling jade 94.
• Clothing: Wears a fitted leather outfit while exploring Ghost Island and a light-blue dress when visiting Joey’s home 105 111.

Personality

Annie is commanding, proud, and accustomed to directing others. She controls the expedition’s supplies, assigns teams, and initially withholds much of her knowledge. Her teasing can be deliberately provocative: she calls Joey a lucky mascot, mocks the passengers’ seasickness, and tests his abilities with a sudden kick 94 95 104 105 108.

Her methods become coercive after Ghost Island. She threatens Joey with death unless he works for her and later uses him as bait without warning him about an explosion. Nevertheless, their exchanges develop into a partnership in which she accepts his argument that sharing information can improve their chances 111 117 119.

Annie’s willingness to use explosives has a firm limit: she does not want to massacre uninvolved people. She distinguishes her attacks on buildings from the trafficking network’s treatment of human lives. When the Sheriff’s Office unexpectedly remains crowded, she abandons the operation’s original objective and tries to stop the detonation 124 127.

Beneath her confidence, Annie suffers from severe claustrophobia. Darkness and enclosed spaces can leave her trembling, crying, or unable to stand. By her final confrontation, her determination to punish the traffickers is accompanied by exhaustion with the curse and hope that death might release her from its recurring cycle 98 109 131.

Abilities & Skills

Pugilist Physiology

Annie’s pathway specializes in physical combat, giving her strength and agility beyond ordinary human limits 105 129.

• Injures Chris’s wrist when he places his hand on her shoulder without permission 94.
• Sends Joey into a stone wall with a single blow 109.
• Moves fast enough to leave a trailing blur while escaping through enemy ranks 129.
• Is regarded as the expedition’s strongest known fighter before Joey reveals more of his abilities 100 109.
• Can be contained by opponents equipped with Transcendent Weapons; Yuri Mo also overpowers her and Joey together in close combat 128 130.

Enhanced Senses

Annie can heighten all five senses beyond ordinary human perception 107.

• Concentrates her hearing while monitoring Joey’s dive into the island’s pool 107.
• Recognizes the familiar aura of Red Spider Silk when Joey deploys it in an unfamiliar way 129.

Occult Knowledge

Her experience in the Dreamscape and inherited memories make her a major source of information about the curse 101 117.

• Explains that complete destruction of a spirit body in the Dreamscape can also kill its real-world body 101.
• Identifies the origins of the cursed objects and the conditions required for the summoned being’s revival 116 117.
• Recognizes weaponized soldiers and understands their status as a highly restricted Imperial secret involving forbidden human experimentation 129.
• Her inherited memories are incomplete: she remembers being told to involve Joey in her plans but cannot identify who gave that instruction 126.

Planning and Sabotage

Annie combines wealth, supernatural items, explosives, and public agitation to challenge the forces protecting Lia Harbor’s trafficking network 114 124.

• Uses Joey’s Fortune Teller spirituality to interfere with the predictive ability of 2-049, the Cursed Telegraph Machine 114.
• Arranges for Joey to gain Benny Hoyland’s trust and access to the artifact 118 120.
• Uses fireworks and a threatened attack on the Church of Light to distract the authorities from her intended target, the Sheriff’s Office 124.
• Disguises Joey as a Sheriff and plants explosives in the underground ammunition depot 127.

Equipment & Items

• Red Spider Silk: Purchased at an underground auction and worn as a red bracelet. It links spirits, shares pain and the consequences of injury, and brings connected participants into the Dreamscape together when one is summoned. Annie uses it to discourage betrayal and protect the group’s unattended bodies 95 96 118.
  • Annie identifies it as hair from the being consumed by the original eight 117.
  • It later fuses with Joey’s blade, Quenching. Unable to separate them, Annie returns the combined weapon to him 118.
• Heart from Ghost Island: Annie confirms that she possesses the heart associated with the curse. Rather than immediately destroying it, she intends to use it against the people behind the sacrifices 117 118.
• Sailing ship: A specially prepared, modified vessel with three equipped decks, enough room for twenty or thirty people, and supplies for an extended voyage 94 95.
• Maps and exploration equipment: Provides an island map, appears to follow a different route map during her private search with Joey, and brings flashlights for the underground expedition 104 105 109.
• Glass spheres and explosives: Places crystal-clear glass balls during preparations beneath the hospital and later carries similar small glass objects during the Sheriff’s Office operation 112 127.

Relationships

• Joey Clive — Expedition member, reluctant recruit, and eventual partner. Annie initially values his extraordinary survivability, then relies on his spirituality and infiltration skills. Their mutual teasing and distrust give way to genuine concern; her final words thank him as her “lucky charm” 95 111 118 131.
• Brock Family — Her noble family and source of wealth and influence. Annie exposes its role in transporting trafficking victims despite belonging to it herself 101 124.
• Chris — Expedition companion and participant in her operations. Initially antagonistic after she injures him, he respects her fighting ability. Annie is furious when his death at Hamilton Shipyard fails to expose the intended warning 94 100 114.
• Margaret — Doctor and expedition companion who helps Annie prepare the hospital operation 112.
• Oli Via and Mi Pang — Expedition companions involved in her later plans. Annie proposes using their deaths to establish Joey’s credibility and later assigns them to the church diversion 118 126.
• Benny Hoyland — Sheriff’s Office director whose power, secrets, and access to 2-049 complicate her plans. Annie uses Joey to investigate and approach him, but does not simply describe Benny as an evil person 114 120 124.
• Yuri Mo — Feren investigator ordered to bring Annie back. He threatens to return with her corpse and deploys weaponized soldiers against her 128 129.
• Mermaid Forest — Enemy organization Annie identifies with the sacrificial trafficking network and vows to punish 117.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Dreamscape Expedition

Annie summons Joey and seven others to Lia Harbor’s Berth No. 2, assembling nine people who have entered the Dreamscape. She presents the voyage as an effort to uncover its secrets and links the passengers with Red Spider Silk. At that point, her longest individual survival in the Dreamscape is eight days 94 95 96.

During the trapped-house incident, she helps deduce that Anderson faked his death. When Joey exposes Rugger Giles and opens an escape route, Annie supports his instruction that the group let the creatures outside kill them so they can return to reality. Afterward, she reveals that their destination is Ghost Island 99 100 101.

Ghost Island

On the island, Annie privately reveals her Pugilist pathway to Joey while pursuing a search whose full purpose she conceals. She subsequently helps investigate Professor Remo’s corpse and descends into the passage exposed beneath the drained pond 105 108 109.

Her claustrophobia becomes overwhelming underground. Joey’s attempt to force her to confront darkness provokes panic and an immediate physical retaliation. Farther inside, she experiences an inexplicable familiarity with the passages and eventually disappears from Joey’s side 109 110.

At the bottom of the pond, Annie receives the inherited memories connected to the curse. When Joey awakens three days later, she has taken control of the group, possesses markedly stronger spirituality, and demands his cooperation 111 117.

Exposing Lia Harbor’s Trafficking Network

Back in Lia Harbor, Annie directs a series of explosive operations intended to expose the people shielding the trafficking and sacrificial schemes. She recruits Joey as an inside man and uses his spirituality to hinder the Cursed Telegraph Machine’s warnings 112 114 118.

Her ultimate target is the Sheriff’s Office, whose destruction is meant to expose Lia Harbor’s role as a transfer point for trade with the Sea Folk. Although she initially tells Joey to stay out of the final operation, a recovered memory persuades her that his involvement is necessary for success 124 126.

Final Sacrifice

After Annie and Joey plant the ammunition-depot explosives, they discover that the headquarters is still full of Sheriffs. They try to return and stop the countdown, but Yuri Mo and his weaponized soldiers block their route. Joey holds off the attackers so Annie can reach the depot 127 128 129 130.

Annie locks herself inside and refuses Joey’s pleas to open the door. When he warns that her intended action may kill her permanently, she responds with hope that she might finally escape the curse. She thanks him, her life force fades, and the danger warning disappears 131.

The explosion never occurs. The depot opens to reveal an empty space without Annie, weapons, or ammunition, its surfaces unnaturally smooth. The exact method she used remains unexplained; Joey’s intuition tells him that she is truly dead 131.

Notable Quotes

“I'm Annie Bullock. I'm twenty-three.” 117

“What else can I do? Am I supposed to actually kill people? If I did that, how would I be any different from them?” 124

“Thank you, lucky charm.” 131