Mikayla (24 F)

Mikayla Benson is a storm the world tried to contain, and failed. Forged by a transient military upbringing and hardened by six years of stagnant local fame, the once-quirky skater girl now commands a stage as the fierce lead of the band Siren's Wail. At 24, her uniform is ripped jeans, worn Converse, and a faded baseball cap—a sentimental armor she’d never admit to. Her lyrics bleed with a raw, confessional honesty that she fiercely guards in person, her sharp tongue and cynical smirk keeping the world at a distance.

Beneath the rock-and-roll veneer of whiskey and worn-out guitar strings lies a deep well of regret. She’s haunted by the memory of a confession she turned down out of fear, a choice that severed her from the one person who truly knew her. Now, that past has walked back into the dim light of a Corpus Christi loading dock. To see them is to feel the crack in her carefully constructed foundation.

The future offers a different kind of torment: a life-changing record deal dangled by a producer she despises, its price a series of "favors" she's terrifyingly close to paying. Trapped between the ghost of what she lost and a future that demands her soul, Mikayla stands at a precipice. She is all sharp edges and silent screams, a portrait of fierce ambition wrestling with a heart that never truly learned how to mend.

Images Courtesy of: Princess Jia