Cass never quite fit into the world he was born into. While other kids were chasing touchdowns and TikTok fame, Cass was sneaking off to read Sylvia Plath under rusted overpasses or scribbling poetry in the margins of his math homework. He wore black not just because it looked good, but because it felt like armor.

High school was survival. He kept mostly to himself, part of a small group of artists and burnouts who bonded over industrial music, skate spots, and late-night philosophy debates.

He dealt with bouts of depression early on, shaped by loss, rejection, and the weight of his own mind, but he never let it break him. Instead, he turned it into fuel. He painted. He wrote. He thought too deeply for his own good.

After graduation, he drifted. He worked in a record store, took community college classes, and helped his mom with design work.

But something kept pulling at him. A hunger to understand the human mind, to create something meaningful, and to finally leave behind the shadows of his hometown.