Alyssa Delphine (Über-Proto Gerosha)

Trisha Montoya (real name Alyssa Delphine) is a major character in the Meshalutian Trilogy novella Cursed is the Ground, part of The Gerosha Chronicles of Dozerfleet Comics. Much of the plot of that story revolves around her time before she met Jared Rintel, as well as her vow to protect him from Meshaluta.

Character bio
Alyssa Delphine, at the age of 23, felt like her whole life was ahead of her. However, she soon found herself in a situation gone very wrong. Ruth Rintel in South Dakota was about to leave her apartment, where her three kids were staying with her for the week. Alyssa was put in charge as babysitter. Right before Ruth left to go play bingo with her friends, she told Alyssa about a horrible dream she’d had the night before. Shortly thereafter, the gas line leading to the stove in Ruth’s apartment exploded.

The whole apartment burst into flames and only Alyssa survived. The flames happened just like in Ruth’s dream. Alyssa viewed this, horrified by what she saw. Her innocence was gone forever. Yenti Roy, a Chinese-American bounty hunter, saw Alyssa running away from the fiery blaze barely scathed. He immediately assumed arson/terrorism. Losing his mind, he became obsessed with capturing Alyssa. Alyssa and a boyfriend, the latter of whom was wanted on allegations of being involved in drug smuggling, fled to Colorado. However, the boyfriend abandoned her there to get his name cleared. Meshaluta began harassing Alyssa in dreams, as some of Ruth's blood made contact with Trisha's and made her a "blood sister Rintel."

Alyssa moved to Applestream and adopted the alias of “Trisha Montoya” so she could find a job. Trisha arrived in Applestream convinced she could start her life over. Even the town’s most prominent minister seemed to be giving her some peace of mind, what her aching conscience needed most. But she soon realized learning about salvation didn't guarantee that her new life will be problem-free.

She still had to hide her old life from the new town, convinced she was wanted for crimes she never committed. When Trisha is assigned to watch Jared, the two instantly become friends. His strange accounts remind her that her past is back, and that she must ultimately face a Meshaluta who is back with a vengeance. She immediately believes Jared's warnings about the dream with Sanction Harlem in it, although Kenny scoffs at the idea of Meshaluta. Trisha has also heard of the town legend of “Honeybee Samuel” - and the beehive murder.

Kenny Thrinn, Trisha's coworker at the closed ski resort, thinks nothing is wrong until Ally goes missing. Jared immediately deduces that she skipped out the back to get away from her "boring" retreat - and that she was attending a drunken teen rave party in town behind everyone's back. Jared turns out to have been right. But the troupe has worse problems when Yenti Roy finds them. He quickly murders Kenny, then chases after Jared and Trisha. The two of them flee into the wilderness, where they are attacked by virtually everything in it. They get separated briefly at one point, and Roy abducts Jared to set a trap for Trisha. Trisha, feeling she has no choice but to face her fears, baptizes herself in a gunpowder water mixture. This drives Meshaluta out of her life. Feeling renewed in spiritual conviction, she attempts to rescue Jared.

She confronts Roy, letting him know that Roy was the real monster the whole time. Roy responds by shooting Trisha in the leg. He begins taunting her about how she won't get away from him again, when Honeybee Samuel manifests behind him and kills him. Jared breaks free of his ropes right as Sam attacks Trisha. However, he is thrown back into the room and stung by a bee. Trisha crawls in the mud to get away, when a bolt of lightning strikes the Honeybee Samuel specter. He instantly turns into a swarm of bees that drop dead. Jared uses all his strength to drag Trisha to town, where she can get medical treatment.

The boyfriend eventually returns, and Trisha is able to win him over to her new life. The two settle down happily in Applestream. However, Trisha takes Jared to school one day and witnesses a green bolt of lightning in the far eastern sky forming a natural logarithm graph rather than a normal jagged line. Meshaluta lets it be known that she will make her last stand somewhere in the eastern United States.

Personality
Trisha is generally kindhearted and friendly, but also very insecure and frightful. However, if pushed far enough, she'll ignore her fears to rise to an occasion. She only mildly fears Yenti Roy. She has total fear of Meshaluta, having seen what the latter is capable of and being bothered by the thought of such an entity trying to control her life.

Trivia

 * Much as with Vaneesa Abiyoti and Juanita Bines, Trisha was an experiment in creating a sort of anti-heroic female protagonist to be a part of the picture.
 * Dozerfleet female protagonists up to this point were expected to be cookie-cutter clean slate heroines who, above all, were completely chaste. Trisha was among the first few to explore the idea that not all heroines have such ideal backgrounds, but that it's possible to rise above a past of falling short of those ideals.


 * The idea of her being a fugitive wanted for a murder she never committed was first explored following exposure to the first few episodes of Lost on ABC.


 * Trisha's sense of fear and panic over Yenti Roy chasing her was modeled after Kate Austen being an actual fugitive in her show. The part about "Trisha" being an alias, with her real name being Alyssa, was reinforced after it was revealed that there was a real-life Trisha Montoya living in Colorado, who was a Christian music singer at the time.