Nathaniel Hawkes

N/A

Born in Crawford City, Nathaniel was the middle child of three siblings. Being the only male child, his father doted on him, connecting with him in a way he couldn't with his daughters. They always went to sports games, did fishing, and things such as airsoft. Some of Nate's earliest memories are of rainy days spent working together on army vehicle models in his dad's garage workshop. Through these shared experiences with his dad, Nate discovered he had an absolute love of football. While he played it in school, he didn't have the talent for it to go places with it and kept at it as a hobby more than anything. His love for forensics came about because of his grandmother, who loved crime mysteries and with whom Nate would often watch shows such as Forensic Files with while visiting her home. He thought it was the coolest thing, being able to solve puzzles with sometimes even the smallest bit of crucial evidence. His grandmother saw the potential in Nate to go somewhere with this interest, and has always supported him in following his dream of becoming a crime lab technician.

He befriended David Walker during his first year of high school, and became fairly close with the guy. Gradually he met the rest of David's friends and soon joined the inner circle. Meeting his brother Seth however was at the time a life changer. Nate had always been attracted to guys, but had been quiet about that part of his life, so as to not draw attention to himself. But when he met Seth, he found himself head over heels for the guy. He was handsome, he played football, he was strong. While it was true that David's natural charisma and talents often made him the focus of everyone's attention, Nate's eyes always strayed to Seth when he was around. Too shy to make a move, and unsure of where Seth's own romantic interests lay, Nate contented himself with instead befriending Seth and forming a good friendship with him.

Once he was done high school, Nate went on to college to fulfill his dream of becoming a crime lab technician. He enjoyed it as much as he thought he would, and eventually he landed work in the city's forensics lab. He has been employed there for the past few years, and for a time had kept up regular communication with his friends from high school. Nate was so proud of Seth when his dream of becoming a pro football player came about, and he did his best to never miss a game that he played in, wanting to support his crush in all that he did.

After they had all graduated high school, they started an annual tradition of heading to Blackwater Ridge, Colorado, for a group camping trip. Nate couldn't help but be rather quite excited when Seth agreed to join them. Nate enjoyed this trip, looking forward to it every year. It was so much fun to take the time off work to reconnect with everyone, and catch up and for a time on how everyone was doing. However, that all soon changed. May 2018, the camping trip was dampened a little by rain but the group didn't let it get their spirits down. They were telling spooky stories when suddenly it was like one came to life. Something big attacked them, and most of it remains a blur to Nate. He remembers screaming, blood, David moving to defend them, and...Seth pinned under the beast. He has no idea how they got away, or what happened to the creature. Nate had gone into shock then, and only really remembers finding himself in someone's car, frantically dialing for help.

When all was said and done, the group had lost David, Gina, Tommy and Jon to the creature. Nate thought he had lost Seth as well, but somehow the man was still alive despite his horrific wounds. Nate remained in shock for a long while after the funerals, and the event left him a bit changed. He visited Seth while he was in the hospital,  but he could already sense that he had changed as well from the attack and what it had done to the man. When Seth withdrew from society, Nate tried to keep in contact but eventually gave Seth his space. If he didn't want to see him, Nate decided pushing Seth wasn't going to do him any favors. He still checks in with him every few weeks though, mostly wanting to be sure he's still alive and to try and reassure him that he still has a friend who cares. Someday he hopes they can reconnect again, and that maybe he can confess his feelings for him then. Regarding the rest of the survivors, Nate only keeps up regular contact with Peyton. He cut communication with Jessica as he never got along with her and she became even more unbearable after the incident. 

Nate is a diligent man, who works hard and is quite careful with the attention to detail in his work. He enjoys the kind of small detail work that requires patience that many lack, finding it to be almost meditative. He is a very calm man, and tends to keep a clear head when in the midst of chaos or tense situations. If he is scared enough though, he will come across as being calm when he is more or less actually slipping into shock and mentally shutting down.
Since the traumatic incident, Nate has become rather asocial and would prefer to go home than go out to social gatherings. Nate will often throw himself into his work, focusing solely on it as he works to try and do his part to clear cases, partially as an excuse to not go out and partially to not think about the ones he lost just a couple years prior. He's a skeptical man, rarely taking things at face value. He follows his intuition on a lot of things and if something doesn't sit right with him, he'll remain wary and keep poking around until he gets the evidence that gives him a clear picture of whether he was right, or wrong. The one that haunts him the most is that camping trip.
Despite everyone saying it was a wolf, he still doesn't believe it was that. And yet he has no idea how to explain what he did make out in the dark, so Nate is conflicted greatly over this mystery. Someday he intends to find out what killed his friends and drove Seth into seclusion.