TAHER EFTEKHARI.
twenty five. trader for the library.
i woke and went out to stand in the yard, and there was no moon. so i just stood there, inside the jaw of nothing.
open to : everyone. / location : south santa fe ave.
stealth was part of any survivor’s reason for surviving, taher included. even a man that wasn’t exactly described as graceful as a child had to have some ability to move safely on the open road these days. some of it was trained into him by the others at the library camp, some was just learned on the job. right now, though, not one of taher’s greatest moments. a little tussle with a reaper left him tripping over his own feet (or was it their feet?) and falling on his ass, the snapping jaws above him uncomfortably close to his shoulder. through some maneuver taher wouldn’t be able to figure out the physics of hours later when thinking over it again, he gained the upper hand, flipping the rotted body underneath him and quickly he grabbed for his axe that he forgot that he dropped. uncoordinatedly taher wielded the axe above his head and chopped into the body heavily. once its head was severed, taher stumbled back and knowingly dropped his axe this time. wiping a hand over his forehead and then realizing his face was streaked with dirt and blood, taher made a noise of disgust. suddenly the weight of someone’s stare was on him and his head snapped in their direction. he shrugged and softly smiled, embarrassed.
𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚂 : open to anyone outside of a camp.
𝚂𝙴𝚃𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶 : around 0800 hours, lucia’s flower shop, the town square.
there was still sleep in the corners of her eyes when the woman meandered up the flight of stairs that led to the flat rooftop of her two - storey building. the sun had just begun to rise, casting a glare from the sky that would prompt the undead to seek out any signs of life now that their waning eyesight was assisted with the return of the light. after almost three years of living under constant vigilance, she had gotten familiar with the reapers that stumbled through the emptied square, though it had never hurt to cast her eye over the place every - so - often, just to be certain no large hordes were forming outside town. in the center of the roof sat a brick fire pit that had been made by gathering the debris around the exterior of her store and piling it into a shoddy mirror of the fire pits she had seen on camping reality shows ─ it had taken her a while to find enough loosen bricks to build something passable and sturdy enough to uphold a pot, but it was more practical to find paper, wood and matches rather than seek out and drag back tanks of gas, though rekindling the flame every morning was more of a nuisance than she cared to undertake at the moment.
stifling a yawn in the crook of her elbow, lucia poked idly at the ashy remnants of the fire with a stick, keeping one eye half - opened and trained on the road. it was at the eastern entrance of the street that she first pinpointed a figure moving through the abandoned cars, ducking behind vehicles and darting through ransacked shops quietly. she would have been content to let the other pass, had she not also noticed four other figures trudging from the southern entrance, figures that were quite clearly carriers. ( the woman in a blue blazer, the man with a red cap, the teenager boy with a bad dye job and the little girl. lucia wondered if they had been a family, before all this happened. ) if she did not alert the other living person, they might just run straight into the undead. rubbing the back of her hand against one eye roughly, lucia grabbed an empty soda can and waited, aiming for a distraction ─ the crash that the can made diverted the reapers from their path and she stood to her full height on the roof, waving down at the other and, once she caught their attention, pointed to where the reapers were.
gesturing for them to approach her storefront, she dashed down two flights of stairs, making sure to grab a knife before she neared the door. if they were friendly, she’d let them stay until the four walked through the square, but if they were not … well, she’d worry about that when the time came. a shadow darkened the bordered up glass panes of her storefront and she paused, fingers tightening around the hilt of her knife. ❝ are they near ? i’m not opening this door if they’re right on your ass. ❞
most days, taher would say that he liked his job. if you could really call it a job. he liked that he had the protection of the library’s walls during the nights, but was free to roam during the day, much like a neighborhood cat. the problem with the job, like most jobs, was that it was actual work. different than taking care of a twelve table section with only one other server and one cook and an hour long wait at the door; different than blandly relying the rules to an escape room based on the titanic for only twelve dollars an hour; different than singing covers of sixties folks to a bar crowd full of people that didn’t care to listen, only interested in getting drunk and not witnessing the talent up on stage. no, taher could say that being a trader was the only dangerous work he’d done in his life. most of the time, it was okay. when it was bad, however, it was bad. luckily for taher, most days were like most days: uneventful, besides the dodging (or killing) of carriers and occasionally pissing off someone that didn’t find his motormouth all that funny.
ducking behind large objects, keeping a light jog until it needed to turn into a run, keeping eyes and ears open at all moments, it was all part of surviving. the weight of the fire axe in his hand grounded him. he’d been carrying it for years, nearly since the start, and he would have to testify it was the only thing that he could consider a constant in his life. even staying in the library camp for so long didn’t compare to the bond he had with an inanimate object. he wielded it casually, grip loose enough to keep it close in case things turned sour, but not tight enough to hurt his knuckles and turn them white from holding it all day. quietly he crouched down and scooted behind vehicles, unable to detect any imminent danger in his low vantage point, only to have his attention stolen by the sound of something dropping from a considerable height. popping up carelessly, he noticed a figure pointing towards the other end of the street. instantly he realized they were warning him—who could say there was no kindness in the apocalypse?—and he didn’t have to squint to see there was about to be bad company.
luckily the figure, the alive one, seemed to have a plan in mind. after a few seconds, taher was able to gleam they meant to save him, and he had no qualms about that. instantly he broke into a run, the items in his backpack jangling softly as he moved. it wasn’t a long distance to the storefront, and he realized along the way that his savior was none other than lucia. colliding with the door, he was a bit louder than he intended, but the momentum he quickly gained didn’t lend itself to a soft landing. hearing lucia’s voice, taher couldn’t help his bratty eyeroll and couldn’t care if she saw it. “jesus christ, would you let me in?” he practically hissed, tossing a look over his shoulder — vague figures were closing in, only seeing flashes of blue and red in the few precious seconds he had. “they certainly will be if you don’t open up!” taher paused to remember his manners. “please.”
It is challenging to think of a state more lonely than that of the undead, for they have decayed into a state that may only detect hunger and seek to sate it . The spread of the virus left the world in a state of no return . More often then not , people showed their true colors . The mask they wore was simply that . A MASK . friendly and caring neighbors who were truly cruel and only looked out for themselves . people you thought would help , did not . Of course , that’s not to say that the whole world went to shit . There were still very few out there that kept a good heart . Some might say saya had one . She didn’t mind helping others but she didn’t form any connections with them either .
so when saya had her katana against their throat , it wasn’t because of ill intent . She was startled by the sudden noise . The intrusion of the sound the other made . She wasnt going to let herself be food . “—Sorry .” She apologized as she stepped back and put her sword away . But can she really be blamed considering the state of the world . “ You scared me .”
it wasn’t as if it had been taher’s first experience on the bad end of a blade. it wasn’t possible to exist in the world anymore without at least once having someone get the better of you. maybe that’s just what taher told himself, maybe shit like that only happened to him. either way, it produced a reaction that wasn’t so much scared as it was incredulous. the hoodie of his jacket pulled over his curls, his head bounced briefly against the wall as he stumbled backwards. they removed the blade and apologized, but it didn’t ease the crease of his brows and the petulant frown. “geez. i get what world we’re living in, but i happen to like my head attached to my neck, y’know.”
still, he knew she didn’t mean it, and taher had forgiven others for much worse offenses over four long years. at the end of the day, mistaking someone for the undead was pretty low on the ‘horrible things to do to one another’ scale. “it’s alright.” taher quickly conceded, shrugging lightly. “i didn’t mean to scare you. there’s usually no one—alive or otherwise—around here at this time, so i just moved around like i owned the place. i wasn’t thinking.”
𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚂 : open to anyone near / inside the observatory .
the guard is perched in a spot he was far too familiar with for this time of morning , watching the group of scavengers closely as they embarked out on their task for the day when it was just barely the break of dawn . he’s scouring the streets when he catches some type of movement in the corner of his eye which makes him pull his concentration from the group to see exactly who it is .
❝ a‘lil early to be out ‘n about , dont ’ya think ? ❞ he’ll call out to them , offering a friendly smile as his eyes adjust .
trade routes were less like actual routes and rather just roads that were relatively clear of debris and bodies. it wasn’t as if there was actual markers for where camp traders were supposed to go, and people surviving all by their lonesome could be anywhere. it did help to cruise by the other camps, though, just not too close for their spotters to think he might be a threat. clearly the observatory’s guard didn’t think of him as a threat, which was certainly a good thing, based on their reputation. head swiveling once he heard someone call out to him, taher lifted a hand to his browbone to shield his eyes despite the sun not even high enough to blind him.
“early bird catches the worm, or whatever!” taher hollered back once the other’s words carried through the air to him. “don’t shoot me, ‘kay? just your friendly, neighborhood apocalyptic door-to-door salesman!”
( aria shahghasemi, cis male, he/him ) isn’t that TAHER EFTEKHARI? truthfully, i’m surprised they’ve last this long considering they’re FACETIOUS, but i suppose them being GREGARIOUS evens it out. is that a fire axe they’re carrying ? i heard the twenty five year old is laying low as a trader for the library, while the apocalypse passes.
hellooo! my name is velouria (28, she/her, est) and this is your resident bob dylan stan and full time pocket prince, taher. he’s a trader and very talkative so i hope we’ll all have a bit of fun with him. im me on here or discord if you’d like to plot <3
content warnings: mentions of islamophobia and a (very) brief mention of 9/11, genetic disease/spinocerebellar ataxia, euthanasia/right-to-die
taher doesn’t remember much about his childhood in iran, but the memories he does have don’t resemble anything you’d hear on the news today (or rather, pre-apocalypse). he remembers that when they were living in their home country, the eftekharis were a happy and loving family, with no plans to leave. however, the eftekharis’ had to leave iran in 1998 for the sake of taher’s grandmother, who was suffering from spinocerebellar ataxia, in order to get her admitted into the mayo clinic in rochester, minnesota.
the eftekhari family settled down in saint paul, minnesota, as it was the best place for taher’s parents to find a new job and still close enough for frequent visits to the mayo clinic. while the neighborhood they emigrated to was a relatively upper class area, and had a small pocket of fellow iranian families, the eftekharis weren’t as fortunate as their neighbors. despite their meager savings and later salaries, farhad and simin worked hard to provide for taher and later, his little sister laleh. they certainly didn’t have as much as their neighbors (or as much as their neighbors pretended to have), but they made sure their children would grow up comfortable.
his childhood in saint paul was quite quaint, playing peewee hockey and visiting the mall of america just once like any other minnesotan. it wasn’t easy growing up in post-9/11 midwest, but taher believes he got out of it rather unscathed. he grew up observant of his religion and though he’s distanced himself from all religion these days, especially after the outbreak, taher still considers himself muslim.
his grandmother, the reason why they moved to america, unfortunately progressed rapidly in her disease. by the time taher had entered middle school, his grandmother had lost nearly all motor functions and was restricted to a hospital bed full time. when his grandmother’s condition worsened, taher’s family and the hospital entered a lengthy battle over his grandmother’s right to die. though his grandmother signed a dnr, his father had power of attorney. taher doesn’t remember much about this period of his life, but his testimony in the case that his grandmother could follow him with her eyes (which, while not exactly untrue, was exaggerated for his father’s benefit) helped draw out the legal battle. eventually, his grandmother died naturally, but it’s instilled something in taher: tell people what they want to hear.
though his experience with his grandmother’s disease and death was traumatic, taher proved to have a great deal of resilience in him. even while the case was on-going, he was able to distract himself with a growing love of music, particularly with the music of bob dylan (fellow minnesotan!); practically from the moment he heard it, taher wanted to make his own music, constantly singing and banging spoons on pans in a childish effort to drum along with the song playing on the radio. by the time he was nine, he was taking guitar lessons, and taher chose it as his own personal instrument the second he started to strum. he joined the school band in middle school, playing the cymbals to please his parents, but he absolutely hated it and it didn’t follow him into high school. several little garage bands did, though. taher tried to start many bands with his friend, all with worse names than the last, but they never made it past the formation stage, only once making it to the battle of the bands (and losing).
while his buddies weren’t serious about the music, or at least not serious in the way taher wanted, he decided being a solo artist was a better fit. you can’t get mad at your bandmate for showing up late to practice if there’s no bandmate, right? when he graduated high school, he didn’t go off to college, instead deciding on making his passion for music his life. his parents were hesitantly supportive, on the condition that he went to community college to at least take a few music classes and some other classes to fall back on, which taher obliged as long as he didn’t have to pay for it.
the thing was, taher was actually good at music. a decent singer (in a grumbly, bob dylan-way), a good guitar player, he favored covers over original songs but he played them well. teenage boys wanting to be rock stars is as common as breathing, and taher, while good at music, wasn’t truly anything special. all the famous (not necessarily good, but famous) people were getting attention on social media, so taher tried that too, but agents never came a-knockin’, and taher was ready to give up and follow his father’s advice on focusing on a real career.
just when he was ready to give up, he found a flyer for a guitarist wanted; while he vowed never to join a band again, he was desperate, and he texted the number on the paper to get more information. after an audition or two, taher was part of the band, but not in any way in control of it; he was just a replacement guitarist, a little backup vocals here and there, but he was (mostly) fine with it as long as he got to keep playing music. the band was much more popular than taher had ever been, doing gigs across the country, even opening for some prominent singers, when things came to an end in los angeles, california.
the band didn’t die or end, they just kicked taher out. sick of his pretentious attitude and fuckboi ways, they abandoned him in the city after a blowout fight. he expected his parents to send him money for a flight back home, but farhad was irritated with his son’s increasingly entitled behavior, and they left him to rot until he could pay his own way back home.
the band didn’t die then, but it wouldn’t have any chance to take off with the outbreak occurring only a few months later. taher had settled into working as a waiter at the same place he tortured with his music on open-mic fridays, sharing an apartment with three other musicians (though none of them were in any bands together) and dealing with a lot more abrasive, shocking displays of islamophobia since the election a few years before. he had ignored most of the hysteria over the virus, too busy thinking about himself and making as much money as possible, but it practically knocked on the diner’s door when it came to los angeles. taher escaped his workplace, making it home to his apartment and finding his other roommates holed up.
the roommates survived in the apartment for a good few weeks, but eventually they ran out of food and their heightened personalities were clashing. taher and his roommate, alex, left for supplies and ended up never returning to the apartment building. they survived together for awhile, colliding with other bands of survivors occasionally, all searching los angeles for some sort of safe zone, but found nothing. he eventually lost alex on their travels, only to arrive on the doorstep of the central library days later.
the camp wasn’t nearly as established or thriving as it is today, but they quickly accepted taher behind their doors so he wouldn’t get eaten and die. that was around the end of september 2019, so he’s been part of the library for the long time. he’s seen the camp go through changes, people that come and go, people that have died. while he seems like an unlikely person to survive, it’s mostly thanks to living behind the library walls—except for when he leaves to trade supplies. if taher has a talent besides music, it’s the gift of gab. he’s an expert salesman, and he’s built up a loyalty to the library camp, so he routinely risks his life to trade goods (and information) with anyone willing to entertain him for a few minutes. so far, he’s kept himself alive, though it’s only a matter of time before his mouth gets him into some trouble he can’t easily get out of.
wanted connections:
campmates— taher’s been part of the camp for four years now, so he’s bound to know your muse if you’re part of the library. whether they can tolerate his ass is up to you!
friends— while taher doesn’t... vibe with everyone, there’s a lot of people he does vibe with. i imagine he cherishes these friendships more than he’d like to let on, one of the few normal things that still exist in the apocalypse.
enemies— due to his uncanny ability to be an annoying little shit, there’s no doubt taher’s rubbed someone the wrong way in the los angeles area (or his own camp). maybe he traded some faulty shit to your muse, got that muse into trouble somehow, or he just said the wrong thing at the wrong time. there’s a lot of ways to go about this!
romantic or sexual partners— taher wouldn’t let a thing like the apocalypse get in the way of him getting laid lol. the problem is that he’s very fickle so while he may totally be in love with your muse one day, the next day he’s giving them the cold shoulder. luckily for him, it’s kind of easy to ghost your hookups when the world has ended.
ex-girlfriend or boyfriend— same as above, but they had an actual established relationship that ultimately ended. it can be for any reason, such as him being an asshole or anything else you’d like.
regulars— taher is a trader by trade, and i imagine he’s got established routes to make it easier to do his job. basically he’ll come by their home/general area where your muse is likely to be on any given day, shoot the shit, and see if there’s anything worth trading in your cache. they can either enjoy his little visits or find them tiring. up to you!
anything else you can think of :) message me on here or discord (wanda’s loving boy#1003) if you wanna plot!
— aesthetic / will nature make a man of me yet ?
— answers / the world is ruled by violence but i guess that’s better left unsaid .
— body / here’s your throat back‚ thanks for the loan .
— development / i’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard .
— edits / pictures in a box at home‚ yellowing and green with mold .
— games / you've got to promise not to stop when i say when .
— gifts / beauty walks a razor’s edge‚ someday i’ll make it mine .
— introspection / well‚ who doesn’t want the sun after the long winter ?
— mail / i survive everything and my punishment for opening my mouth is the sequel .
— mannerisms / i seem always to arrive at the edge of something and then fall off .
— radio / stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before .
— rumors / i know i was wrong when i said it was true .
— wanted / scratch your name on my arm with a fountain pen .
— visage / you look like an angel sleeping it off at a station .
— ship / tag .
au revoir les enfants! that means fuck queue!
hold your horses honey. i’ve got coupons for the pringles. ( ooc. )
arc › threads. / arc › muse. / muse › 001.
snowghoul
titsay
jbbartram-illu
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
