DATE OF BIRTH/AGE: July 8th, 1970 / 34 years old
GENDER & SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Cisgender bisexual demiromantic
FACECLAIM: Rosario Dawson
WEAPON(S): M16 rifle; M7 bayonet.
POSITIVE: Pragmatic, protective, self-sacrificing, adaptable, compassionate.
NEGATIVE: Self-loathing, socially awkward, obsessive, dependent, volatile.
All that Zita had owned had come from IƱigo. As soon as she could walk, their mother left Zita in his hands, leaving a fifteen-year-old alone to raise his half-sister. Heād bought a new name, one that didnāt speak of the dirt they came from: Teller. Her given name had come from him, in the hopes her holy name would keep her safe: Tereza. Dolor, he added, to mark the beginning of their sadness. She had been a burden from the day she was born, and IƱigo never let her forget it. Resentment and love marked Zitaās scuffed shoes and knobby knees. Every Sunday, they went to church, where everyone watched the tall brown boy and little brown girl with eyes like knives, as if even the Lord, in his infinite mercy, would renounce them. At home, IƱigo fed her, sent her to a school ātoo good for the likes of them.ā Never a word of affection from him, but she grew up wanting little but love. Zita spoke little, became an easy target among children whoād searched for a scapegoat, for one sorrier than they. In time she learned to raise her fists, to let her knuckles speak where her tongue could not, and their fear kept her safe.
Still, seeds of love grew in the barren land of Zitaās heart. She cradled broken wings in her calloused hands, found sanctuary and purpose in caring for something other than herself. Their home became home to creatures who needed it, but humans rarely dared to enter, afraid of Zitaās dark eyes and explosive anger. IƱigo, all the while, dreamed of being a doctor, of something beyond the odd jobs heād taken to keep the two of them afloat. Zita had no ambition beyond making her brother smile, proving herself not useless. The inner city taught her its ways, and she began to work underground at the same age heād been when heād taken her, leaves traded for paper, saving up to send her brother to college. Before IƱigo could find out, he was caught in the crossfire of a gang war. She broke tombstones at his funeral.
In the aftermath, she discovered that his dream was her own. She used the money sheād saved up to go to college, though everyone scoffed to see such a brute want to heal. Though she loved him fiercely, IƱigoās death had freed her; for the first time, she felt she could grow. As soon as she graduated, Zita applied for med school in another state, in Louisiana, where she could be someone new. There were moments when her anger had gotten the better of her, but sheād kept on, through the long tests and sleepless nights. On her residency, however, she was involved in a freak accident, and her supervisors ā already suspicious of her ā only begrudgingly allowed her to practice medicine. They spread rumours of her heavy hands, and Zita could hear the voice of her brother, yelling at her in a moment of weakness, screaming what sheād known all this time: she was useless.
She found little work as a doctor, certainly not enough to sustain herself. Too tired to move elsewhere, she worked as a medical technician in the lab, far removed from what she wanted to do. The apocalypse was a blessing, though even Zita, whoād seen many unspeakable things, felt her stomach turn at the first site of the zombies. Raw panic gave way to the need to survive; she had long grown used to keeping her emotions at bay. Luna followed her from one of the empty houses sheād looted, and the big dog had been Zitaās only joy until sheād met them.
They were all sheād been searching for, the IƱigo sheād wanted, the god sheād prayed to. At the precise moment she felt she could have laid down and let her spirit leave the earth, they came: the Prophet, the blessed one. She swore allegiance to them, protected them with her life. They were her salvation, the breath of life and truth. She would be the priest at their altar, would break bones to follow them. Though Zita does not know what lies ahead, she is secure in the knowledge they are with her, and that she may glimpse paradise.
the PENITENTĀ is TAKEN by RACHEL / GMT+8.