In character information:
Full Name: Santiago Salazar
Age: 36
Gender: Non-binary (Agender, uses They/Them pronouns)
Place of Origin: East Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
FC: Manny Montana
Role within the community: Sharpshooter
How long have they been in Sanctuary: 2 months
Santi was always a child of two countries. Their parents were migrant workers, hoping to get through another season and back to Mexico before Jacinta gave birth to her third child. They weren’t successful and were faced with the heart wrenching choice of giving their child a better life in America, through their birth right citizenship, or return to their two children in Mexico and take that opportunity away. They chose the former, and sent for their other two children when they were able to.
Santiago grew up knowing this painful choice, and it colored their relationship with their family. They avoided trouble and street gangs, did good in school, careful in their friendships and independent in their personal life. They built up an ice wall, sharp and a warning to stay away. Their parents wanted them to be a golden child, their older siblings resented them for ripping them away from their home in Mexico. They were always aware of their position as the future of their family. And one place that offered them a promise of a brighter future was the military.
They were recruited right out of high school, told they would be escaping their life. What they didn’t quite realize was that while they escaped the street gangs, they were joining a legalized gang, flying the flag of the United States. They were broken down, and reformed in the image that their country wanted them in. Santiago became Santi. A quiet, intense and lonely child became one of loud violence and brotherhood, assuming an identity created in accordance with an overall whole.
They were always good at math, followed directions well, could work without being told how to do their task. Handpicked for their performance in their training, they became a sniper. Santi expected to do their tour, get in and get out, and come back to their family in Los Angeles as easy as they left. Afghanistan had different plans for them. Their spotter they went through training with, killed within their first five days in country. Then another spotter, three months in. Santi became cursed, had a reputation of being the most deadly sniper for their spotters.
Nobody wanted to work with them, and they became angry, withdrawn, discontent. Then came a disaster, 15 days designated as MIA with their third spotter who was injured and later died. When they got rescued, they wanted out. Out of the military, out of their family, out of society, out of the United States itself. They went to Mexico, and cut off all contact with anyone who knew them. Â
Mexico was a different world for Santi. With no expectations on them, they felt no need to follow any legality or moral code, only to survive. They worked for cartels, police and communities as a gun for hire, a confusing blur of loyalties destroyed, sometimes killing people they had worked with only a week before. They were simply a weapon for the highest bidder, and regarded as a boogeyman’s worst nightmare.
Yet when Santi felt like they couldn’t sink any lower, be any less human, that’s when she found them. She was the head of a community’s effort to fight back against the police corruption and cartels that had killed so many. She hired Santi and gentled the wolf they had become, bending their head to bridle. She broke Santi human again, and made them a father.
When Santi learned she was pregnant, they married her and moved back to Los Angeles. It was awkward avoiding where Santi had been and what they had been doing in the years away, but Santi tried to settle down. Their new wife was well received by their family, regardless of where she had come from, and the news of a child even more so. Things seemed to be on the upswing for Santi, a baby almost born and their family welcoming them back, but then the outbreak happened.
Their child was likely one of the last babies to be ever issued a birth certificate in Los Angeles. Santi’s wife was still in the recovery ward when the sick started flooding the hospital. It was a miracle they survived, with a newborn baby, but by the time they were able to make it back to Santi’s family, they had either disappeared in the rush of people fleeing or died. Santi was never sure because they had to flee too due to a horde.
It was suddenly only Santi and her again, facing off against the world out to get them. Santi trained her in the use of weapons. They avoided the living and the dead equally, retreating into caring for each other and only for each other. But of course, it was no longer only them. They searched for diapers and formula as much as bullets and cans of food. Santi found themselves giving up food to his wife to ensure their child would have food.
They traveled for quite a while together, drawing close around their tiny family and thinking only for the future of their child. However, it wasn’t destined to last. They were separated, and Santi ended up at the Sanctuary. Their agreement was that if they ever got separated, they would wait for the other at the nearest encampment, until the other found them. Santi is still waiting.