“Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind.”
Name: Alicia Rivera Vazquez
Occupation: Trauma Nurse Survivor
Loss was part of Alicia’s life long before the world had crumbled to pieces. When she was barely more than four years old both of her parents were killed in an accident. Her mother’s sister took her in and raised her. Old photos and videos of her parents were the only reason she remembers what their voices sounded like and their faces looked like.
Life was still happy for Alicia overall despite the deaths of her parents. Her aunt and uncle loved her like their own, they saw her as their daughter and her cousins always treated her as a sibling.
Wanting to help people was the driving factor behind her becoming a nurse. It also very nearly got her killed on several different occasions since the outbreak began. But Alicia has held onto the compassion that so many others had let go of entirely with the world turning harsher around them.
It was sheer luck that she survived the early days of the outbreak in the chaos of the emergency room. Too many people were brought in with bites or nearly torn apart. She’ll never forget the first time she saw a corpse reanimate. When everything started to collapse and the hospital devolved into complete anarchy she grabbed what she could and rushed back home.
She and her cousin managed to escape the city together, seeking shelter in random until a group they crossed paths with took them in. Alicia did what she could to help anyone that was injured, quickly proving that she could earn her place.
The group tried to stay within a day's journey of a city so it would be easier for them to do runs for supplies. That choice ended up being a horrible one. A horde of walkers was drawn in by the sound of the group making dinner, laughing, and trying to get a piece of normalcy back. They were overwhelmed and forced to flee. Alicia lost track of her cousin, and tried searching for her for weeks. Luck wasn’t on her side this time. While she was able to find a few survivors from the old group, she couldn’t find her cousin.
Eventually they were approached by another group that demanded their supplies. Not knowing how greatly they were outnumbered her group refused to give up what they had, knowing there was little chance of survival without it. They were attacked for refusing. Alicia grabbed one of the injured members of her group and dragged them away from the slaughter to try and help them. She was found by members of the other group but her obvious medical skills spared her from being killed like the others.
Out of terror that she wouldn’t be able to make it away from them Alicia didn’t try to escape. She did what she could to help anytime there was an injury, never wanting to turn a person away in need. Things, however, only got worse and the group grew more dangerous and Alicia knew she needed to escape.
For a long time she didn’t think there was another person she could trust until learned she wasn’t the only one unhappy. When Erik was taken by their group and brought in injured she and Luca helped take care of him. Together the three came up with a plan to escape.
In spite of what she went through with The Law, Alicia still wants to try and help the others that their small group comes across. There’s the lingering fear that The Law will come after them again.
Erik Navarro — Another prisoner taken by The Law and one of the two other people that Alicia escaped with. She helped take care of the still injured Erik.
Luca Ruiz — A member of The Law that grew to want to escape the group as much as Alicia did. Without Luca, Alicia wouldn’t have been able to come up with a plan to get out.