Hope, 28, is a botanist at the New York Botanical Garden, usually tending to the flora and fauna in the garden, in charge of the greenhouse at the conservatory of plants for research and scientific experiments and oftentimes holding school tours and classes for kids. Coming from a line of doctors in the family, she stuck out as the one Zhang kid that never made it, and she couldn’t be happier. Stuck in a greenhouse at the garden’s conservatory when the outbreak happened, she locked herself in until things didn’t seem to be ending and she packed up and headed north, meeting Santiago’s and Scout’s team to follow them on their journey with nowhere else to go. However, with the team’s direction back south of New York, she wanted to go back to NYBG, whether to find people she knew, or find supplies, or just a hidden layer of sentimental value wanting to check on the plants. But somewhere in between she got separated from the group, and her only option was to follow the vague direction Santiago said he was heading for, south, and the only thing she knew in the south in Manhattan, was the Wexley from an old friend or two.
Useful Skills
Botany, Herbology, Wilderness Survivalist, can climb very well, has good grip strength, Bouldering, Rock Climbing, Tree Climbing, Has the willpower to argue with you for days if you let her.
Additionals.
Full Name: Hope Zhang Xue Qi
Chinese Name: 张雪荠
Nicknames: Chestnut
Birthday: 5th August, 1996
Birthplace: Long Island City, Queens, New York
Current Home: the Bronx, New York pre-outbreak, most likely found in a tree or something.
Religion: Buddhist
Orientation: Pansexual
MBTI: ENFP-A The Campaigner
Enneagram: Type 8w9, The Bear
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Face Claim: Chase Sui Wonders
Voice Claim: Chase Sui Wonders
Physical Attributes.
Height: 4’10”
Build: Lean, Small, Strong arms and shoulders
Exercise Regime: Burning Calories through pure spite and picking fights. And also climbing, hiking and bouldering.
Allergies: None.
Hair Color: Black, Brown in the Sunlight
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Glass/Contacts: 20/20 vision baybee, fight me
Dominant Hand: Right
Tattoos: ankle tattoos, left with a dandelion, right with a chestnut
Scars: scraps and cuts the never healed right, mostly callus on her hands and scars on her knees.
Piercings: ear piercings
Outfit Clothing Style: Oversized shirts and utility pants, flannels, combat boots, dr martens.
Background Information.
Hometown: Long Island City, Queens, New York
Current Residence: preoutbreak the Bronx, New York / now apt #502 at the Wexley
Spoken Languages: English / Mandarin / Conversational Spanish
Driver’s License: fuck no
Occupation: Botanist at NYBG
Biography.
Hope was one of those kids at the hospital that liked to sit on the counter and just watch her parents and everyone work, swinging her legs around with such blind optimism that the Earth and everyone will get better, it’s just a lil’ sick and needs the right medicine. She was ambitious at first as a wide eyed 9 year old kid, excited about helping people and making some miracle drug to save Mother Earth and her people. And then she realised how much effort and science it took. A second generation American, her parents were both doctors at a hospital, working their way up to where they were in the medical world. Her parents dedicated their lives to two things only, surviving in these lands as doctors and making sure their children could do the same, passing the medicinal knowledge down the line, hoping that their children would continue to help people this way. But perhaps Hope’s brain just wasn’t.. sciency enough for them. Her older siblings all seemed to fall in line with their studies. Once she was old enough to be introduced to study, she kept asking the annoying question “Why?” Being from a family of doctors, Hope just didn’t function like the rest of them, still smart, still bright, but in completely different sectors - plants. Hospitals soon exchanged for gardens, watching doctors turn to watching botanists work. Biology fascinated her, just not in most human biology like her family had hoped. Most of her youth studying biology and medicine had been spent doodling flowers and plants, singling them out in public, being able to point out their names, from the sturdiest of trees to the most delicate of dandelions. What a disgrace.
Hope tried her best to ignore the disappointment rolling over her shoulders, walking in strides towards a degree in botany, pretty sure she would’ve been disowned if there wasn’t the prospect of joining the elite list of Dr Zhangs, even in plants, she’d still be a doctor right? A PhD in botany wouldn't be too shabby too, she knew she could do it. Still, the blowback from her parents was a lot and she chose a college as far away from New York as possible at Clemson in South Carolina. But by the time she finished her degree, Hope didn't really feel like wasting more time in books, she wanted to be with the plants. She landed herself a job back in her home city at the New York Botanical Garden, remembering being a young girl getting lost in the beauty for hours there, it was all she ever wanted. Skipping a doctorate, she did the ballsy move of kicking herself out of her parents house before they could after moving back from South Carolina, paying rent, living in the Bronx with a couple of others sharing a shitty New York apartment. Contact with her parents became minimal, once every few months, cold, transactional as if the check-ins were just out of formality. But she was happy, kicking ass, loving plants, no one takes the botanists seriously, when there are lives to save in this new world, and she takes no one’s shit either.
But when the world comes crashing down and Mother Nature turns her back on them, guess who will be in her corner, working hard in taking care of the only Earth they’ll ever have?
Hope was in the greenhouse at the Botanical Garden working her shift when the outbreak hit up north in the Bronx. She hadn't been paying attention to the news at all, music blasting and humming while she worked overtime, the winter was hitting and she was hoping to make sure all the plants were transplanted and settled in the artificial warmth until they started work on the outdoor winter exhibits. She pulled out her ear buds when she finally heard screams, "what?" and the grotesque face slammed against the glass panes right in front of her, high grade glass the only thing protecting her from death. She immediately fought back the oncoming chompers at the entrance with a shovel and managed to lock the greenhouse. Just her and the plants. They were safe. She tried to call her family she hasn't spoken to in months, her housemates, her old college friends. Nothing. Hours, days, weeks passed. She had access to water, electricity, edible plants and fruits. Following the news on her phone until service was cut off. Fuck it, she was a fighter, she wasn't going to just lay down and die.
She whispered an apology to her babies in the greenhouse, packing seeds, seedlings, fertile soil, several sturdy useful plants, everything she could carry and couldn’t bear to leave behind and left the greenhouse to find a way to survive up north. It wasn't until she was picked up by a group, she remembered Santiago, she remembered Scout, they were heading back south into the city, which sounded stupid to Hope, but she understood the reason, and she had no other reason not to tag along.
With no goal other than to survive, she was happy to go wherever the group was going, learning to defend herself properly, foraging edible plants and food for the group, carrying her own small portable garden as they jumped from place to place. But as they headed further down south back pass the Bronx, Hope wanted to go back to the Botanical Garden, just a quick trip, it’ll be good for supplies, wanting to see if any of her colleagues survived, and most importantly, if any plants survived. But a series of unfortunate events got her separated from the group, by then she had gotten used to being with her new found family, and the only sense of direction she has, was south. And in the south to Manhattan, the only thing she had to her knowledge - was the Wexley.
Headcanons.
Her family took the family on a trip to the botanical garden for a family day and they absolutely lost their 5 year old girl. Hope got distracted by a rare species she’s never seen before and trailed behind one of the workers in the garden following them around all day. By sunset, she was found hands in the dirt, giggling over getting to pot seedlings and young trees into the ground, excited to grow up with them. Years later when she joined the Garden as a botanist of her own, she looked for those plants and trees, and greeted them with humility - thank you, and I’m home.
She also once got lost hiking with Beau during their college days in South Carolina and from then on was made to wear bright colored clothes into the forests for their weekly hiking trips. She had way too many ugly ass college football shirts way too big for her that really grew her into that oversized clothing style for awhile.
While out there surviving, Hope had fashioned a small portable garden she carries with her as the group moves from place to place, allowing them to grow small humble, but useful plants yet bring them wherever they go.
Despite it all Hope was glad her parents instilled strong cultural values and practices in their ethnic roots. Her parents had insisted on keeping their kids’ Chinese Names as a sense of cultural pride in the system. Her Chinese name means snow chestnut, the nickname of chestnut from close friends and family has grown on her. But they also wanted to make sure they had an English one as well to make things less complicated for them in their future. It perhaps created more bureaucratic confusion than necessary if they had just westernized themselves with first name last name, hospitals where they were born were baffled at what to write, schools were confused, thinking Qi was her last name, classmates didn’t get it, but their family gets it. She gets it. And that’s what matters.
She is absolutely terrified of driving and tried to learn to drive in South Carolina in a pick up truck from Beau on stick shift and absolutely hated it. Probably the biggest reason for not staying there after graduation even though she loved the nature there so much. Hope cycled most times during her college years unless someone else was driving.
immunity: delayed || 6'3 . he/him . demi . former cult member . INFP
Knox Lovelace is 31 and grew up in a community as hermetic as cults get. He escaped the group with his sister, Petronella, and they left Lucerne Valley in California to enjoy freedom and start their new, exciting lives even though the world had just ended.
Knox helps at the Wexley Hospital and on the farm, feeling surprisingly good as part of those teams. Perhaps he's learned something from Sada's Fall project. He still doesn't trust people outside his circle, but that doesn't stop him from being Aspen Horowitz's training buddy with benefits, or trying to find out if Hope Zhang really knows that much about farming.
Headcanons:
Can and will read lips because he's nosey.
Having watched The Fifth Element more times than physically possible for people their age, Knox and his sister have learned The Divine Language.
He and Petronella found and adopted a Mojave Green Rattlesnake. They named it Noodles.
Knox loves sunglasses and doesn't care if it's cloudy or he's indoors. When he isn't using them, they sit comfortably on his head.
When a tattoo artist joined The Starlight Oasis, Knox asked him for a tattoo. Two sleeves, a huge piece on his chest and back, and a few more on his leg later he's satisfied with the look.
The first thing he did after leaving the group was bleach his hair.
Self-appointed surgeon.
Supplies:
VCR player
Auron's knife
Rope
Something (someone) for the chompers to feast on
A magnet from every place they stopped for longer - isn't it fun, collecting things?
Sunglasses
Noodles' first molt - he knows it's not the first-first
Hair bleach
Shotgun & ammunition - found on their way to the East Coast
First aid kit
Chewing gum
Binoculars
Pet's scrunchies
Bedazzled water bottle in classy lavender - a gift from Pet
meticulous and organized, vikram has a compulsion to keep his surroundings as tidy as his mind ; nothing out of place, nothing askew. a fortuitous trait for as studious a mind as his, he has demonstrated a profound and lifelong passion not just for academics and research, but the pursuit of knowledge simply for knowledge’s sake. he is a naturally curious creature with an innate desire to understand the world around him and the exact mechanics by which it operates, a trait perhaps due in part to the distinct disconnect he’s felt from everything — and everyone — around him for as long as he can remember. this sense of alienation led him to pursue a doctorate in medicine as well as a phd in pharmaceutical science — to not only understand how people truly work when broken down to their most essential parts, but to learn how he can manipulate those basic functions through the application of very specific chemical compounds. if you can’t beat them, learn how to control them.
for as estranged as vikram feels himself to the world at large, you would never guess it to speak to him ; the mask he wears for the world is carefully crafted, a polite and professional visage modeled after years upon years of observing the social interactions of others, learning by careful scrutiny of example what qualifies as acceptable behavior — how long to maintain eye contact, when it’s appropriate to smile during a conversation, how to sound like he cares. and he does it well ; to be fortunate enough to know only the vikram he chooses to present himself to be is to know a soft-spoken and mild-mannered man, sympathetic and polite to the degree that his manner of speech at times almost feels anachronistic. vik is intelligent and articulate, punctual and reliable ; he makes an effort to appear as such, to walk a line between unassuming and invaluable that would leave his closest friends and colleagues shocked should they ever discover what he does behind locked doors.
in truth, dr. jain is a cruel man. he has very little regard for human life in comparison to the scientific gain that can be offered in its sacrifice. he does not wish to make people better on an individual basis — he is not a physician — but he wishes to make people, as a whole, better, and oftentimes found himself biting his tongue professionally to keep from overstepping any ethical boundaries when it came to the testing of new pharmaceuticals. but the skew of his moral compass extends beyond big pharma ; he has no qualms with torture and has, on multiple accounts, overseen and personally administered chemical compounds against the will of the recipients with the intention to reconfigure or otherwise permanently damage their cognitive and executive function.
biography.
TRIGGERS - neglect / animal abuse / death / physical + chemical torture / medical procedures
even were he to truly think on it, vikram jain would be hard-pressed to procure but a single memory of a time that he did not feel estranged from the world around him ; as a child, he provided his parents more strife than he ever did pride, though not for a lack of effort on his part. vikram was a peculiar child, abnormal in both the eyes of his parents and his peers ; he was quiet and observant, with wide, owlish eyes that seemed to silently soak in everything around him. for the first several years of his life, vikram was non-verbal — in fact, he did not speak aloud until the age of four, by which time he could do so in complete sentences to clearly articulate his thoughts. and even after he did find his voice, socialization did not come easy. children could be cruel, after all, and not least of all toward what they do not understand. and poor vikram, for all that he sought after it, never truly felt like they understood him. his parents, aarav and priya jain, would protest that they did everything they could to give their son a normal childhood and that it was a fault of his own that he resisted. the unfortunate truth of the matter was that they were ill-prepared to handle the idiosyncrasies of a child such as vikram, and rather than try to address his needs and figure out where the disconnect began, they resorted to ignoring it, stifling it ; overstimulated outbursts were punished, subtle self-soothing tics scolded away.
vikram, of course, could never quite understand what it was he’d done wrong and rather than lay himself out for continued lashing, he withdrew upon himself. it wasn’t difficult; he’d never really understood the value of such connection or emotional intimacy. what should’ve been a warm embrace from his mother only ever made his skin prickle and crawl and any attempted heart-to-hearts with his father — an emotionally stunted man in his own right, in different ways — only ever left both parties feeling more frustrated than before. the only exception to this unwritten rule of distance came in the form of a younger sister, odoti. at first, he showed apathy toward her at best — and near disdain for her constant crying and screeching at worst — but by the time she’d grown from a drooling, babbling infant into something at least resembling a small, cognizant human, vikram found himself strangely endeared to her. perhaps it was because of her own apparent fascination with him, or the resulting truth that she was, in fact, the first person who didn’t look at him like he was strange. like he was some sort of anomaly. no, odoti only ever looked toward him with admiration and curiosity and something vikram still thinks, to this day, is the closest he’s ever really felt to understanding genuine, unconditional love. or something he would think, at least, if he ever allowed himself the opportunity. he does not.
as a young boy, vikram was possessed with a curiosity of his own. a morbid fascination, more like, and one he kept hidden from the likes of everyone around him — odoti included. he had an affinity for experimenting with chemicals — caustic cleaning supplies stolen from beneath the sink or shoved into his backpack from the janitor’s cart at school, various jugs and cartons of automotive fluids, anything he could get his hands on. he’d mix the solvents and solutions with food and leave them out for wildlife and feral animals, hidden away in inconspicuous places. and then vikram would do what he did best. observe. he’d take careful note of which chemicals sedated them and in which dosages, which caused behavioral changes or made them ill and which ceased vital functions altogether. when they did die, inquisitive young vikram would often inspect their corpses, oftentimes hiding them away and returning weeks or months later to collect the bones. he had quite the collection once he’d cleaned and bleached them all, and he insisted — to his parents’ horror — that it was all locally sourced roadkill to alleviate suspicion about their origins. it wasn’t that he thought what he was doing was shameful ; on the contrary, vikram saw nothing wrong with his behavior — but he expected everyone else to disagree, to misunderstand and misjudge him. he’d grown tired of being scolded. it was easier, he found, to just be private.
for years, vikram managed to maintain his morbid pastime. he grew bolder, mixing volatile compounds in glass measuring cups in his bedroom behind locked doors ; he fancied himself a scientist, a chemist. he was just shy of twelve years old when his experiments finally proved beyond the realm of his control. as he would discover, it takes only moments for an open container of acetone to evaporate enough to cause a flash ignition if there is an open enough flame, even one so small as a candle, near enough by. the curtains behind his desk were the first to catch and, for a moment, it was all vikram could do to stare on as the flames began to swallow up the fabric, lapping at the walls and warming his skin. he should’ve anticipated it — he wasn’t stupid, he’d read the warning labels on everything he touched meticulously and at least thrice over. but vikram could hear their voices as he watched the fire grow brighter and stronger — his parents, his teachers, his peers. scolding him, mocking him for being so foolish, so careless! they were screaming at him, their voices drowning out the roar of the flames and instead setting every single one of his nerves alight.
by the time vikram snapped out of his haze, nearly half of his bedroom was engulfed in flames. and in truth, the only reason he’d been pulled from his internal cacophony was because he could feel the sting of the fire against his arms and flesh, the burn of smoldering cotton and sizzling flesh. he didn’t tell them before he fled the house in a panic, made no effort to rouse his parents or his sister as he scrambled into the bushes of the backyard and tried to calm down even as the blaze grew brighter. by the time he could see the glow through the kitchen windows, he could already hear his father shouting. vikram was too far away to make out the words, but he sounded desperate, frantic. his mothers wails wove in between the curses, choked and gasping. this, vikram found, did not upset him, for they could not know that they need direct their anger at him. in fact, if only he could hide long enough, they’d never know the chance to scold him again. but odoti… he’ll never forget the sound of her screaming his name, how the sound of her fear was visceral enough to carry her plea through blistering walls. when emergency services finally arrived to put out the flames, the firefighters on the scene found him trembling in the brush with his hands clamped over his ears and his eyes pressed shut in a pair of filthy, burnt pajamas. there were no other survivors.
with all of his remaining family residing out of the country and no viable guardians to speak of, vikram was a ward of the state by the time he reached his thirteenth birthday. he ended up in a boarding school for young men where he quickly flourished in academics but floundered socially with the same haste. it was not the words of his peers that bothered him — vikram was used to mockery and he took no offense to childish insults and name-calling, even at the expense of his newfound scars and rumored history — but the physical harassment. that he should be intentionally injured in a facility meant for learning just or simply existing, a truth which he could not help, was nothing short of baffling to vikram. but he had a keen eye for observation and an analytical mind and it did not take long for vikram to begin studying the behaviors of his peers, picking out details in micro-expressions and subtle changes in speech patterns and intonations as they engaged with each other. things he could’ve noticed ages ago, if only he’d bothered. things he wasn’t doing. he scrawled notes in his journal, practiced making faces back at himself in the bathroom mirror when there was no one around to see.
slowly, carefully, he began to craft a newer version of himself based on his findings — a mask, the illusion of a more socially palatable vikram. polite and charming, always listening and never over-sharing; he learned when to smile and how to laugh loud enough to blend in but not so loud as to get noticed. he learned when it was better to bite his tongue and withhold his opinions — in his case, the answer was often — and how to ignore the desire to crawl out of his skin at the slightest degree of platonic contact. more importantly, he learned how to wear this mask always. it helps in a way, he thinks even still, the level of control it allows him over how others respond to him, how they treat him. it allowed him the privilege of survival by means of camouflage in a cage full of predators ( perhaps maybe one day he could become the predator… ) until his eighteenth birthday, when the call of higher education pulled him beyond the walls of the boarding school where he’d spent most of his formative years.
as it happened, vikram flourished in a different environment. nobody paid any mind to him at university and outside of lectures and labs; he spoke up enough during discussions that people knew who he was well enough, but nobody ever sought him out or made an effort to befriend him, not truly. this, he decided, was the ideal — the sweet spot socialization. it offered him a chance to observe without actively engaging. nobody could ever say who it was that invited him to parties, but at the same time, no one ever batted an eye at his presence, nursing a beer in the corner with a soft, disarming smile. the thing about college students, vikram discovered, was that they seldom had to be coerced into taking drugs. as he learned about prescriptions and pharmaceuticals in his lectures, he learned about street substances — stimulants, hallucinogens, an assortment of psychotropics — in crowded apartments and abandoned warehouses. between these parties and the lectures and his coursework and dissertations, vikram seldom had time for sleep. he adapted, swiftly learning to live without.
by the time he was twenty-five, dr. vikram jain possessed not one but two degrees — a doctor of medicine and pharmaceutical science. though he was not necessarily lacking in bedside manner, he ended up pursuing a career in clinical pharmacology that left him in a lab rather than a hospital, designing and conducting human trials for new drugs in development. and what might appear on the surface a dream job to vikram was rather a test in patience and self-control, a constant practice in biting his tongue to maintain an appearance of morality. it was a tease, is what it was, and vikram found he could only take so much before he grew bored of the limits and boundaries forced upon him by the pharmaceutical research company that hired him, of the countless medical boards churning out guidelines for ethical practices. unexpectedly adverse side effects for blood pressure pills or anti-inflammatories weren’t enough — vikram wanted more.
but the luxury of big pharma was that, at the very top of the ladder on which vikram remained perched on a relatively lower rung, were a bunch of wealthy bastards with morals just as disaligned as his own. one would need to, vikram supposed, to profit so unabashedly from such a corrupt industry. how he came to do freelance work for such individuals is neither here nor there ; a stroke of luck, a matter of simply being in the right place at the right time and being observant enough to catch just enough of a conversation to deem it worth inserting himself into. and if vikram had any woes about ennui, they vanished in the blink of an eye under the new employ of these men. he was allowed the creative freedom to explore experiments he’d only ever dreamed about under the simple condition that he’d administer very specific courses of very particular, mind-altering drugs at their beck and call. the financial compensation was alluring enough in its own right to make the offer worthwhile, but it was the true respect and appreciation for his particular skill set finally being recognized that made vikram realize he’d found his calling.
he can vividly recall the day they brought it to him — odette winters. vikram knew there was something special about her the moment he’d gotten his hands on her ; she was a fascinating specimen, reacting to his procedures in unexpected ways. her body did not take to the drugs like the others, nor did her mind ; no, it was a challenge to concoct the correct regimen to do the job, and vikram … well, he’d always enjoyed entertaining tasks that stimulated his brain. ( surely his fondness for her had nothing to do with the way her name sounded so terribly similar to the only one he’d ever missed, the way he could see a familiar spark in her eyes that caused his chest to ache. ) when it was whisked away from his lab the first time in a state of drooling half-sedation, he did not expect to miss it. he knew better than to get attached to ferals and strays, that they never lasted very long in his hands. but she was a curious one, and his mind often wandered back to the file he’d compiled on her. a silly pastime of thought, nothing more.
until he heard a voice call out to him, shouting to him in a desperate plea one evening when he was prowling the streets of the city’s underbelly in search of something new to entertain him and suddenly vikram was taken back to 1999 — to a crisp september night and the acrid smell of smoke and the prickle of thorns in the bushes and the sound of his sister’s terrified screams. odoti. no, no, odette. it was kismet, vikram remembers thinking in that moment ; he was not a spiritual man by any means, nor did he ascribe much to the notion of fate, but there was no other explanation for why chance might have brought it to him twice unless it was meant to be there. meant to be with him. he protected it that night in the alley, and when he did, it felt like he’d been given a second chance. he brought her home, cleaned her up and tucked her in on his sofa with a heavy quilt and an even heavier dose of sedatives, their bitterness masked by the warm spice of a hot cup of chai. he wanted to keep it, in the way as a child he’d wanted to keep many of the animals he experimented on until they grew ill and perished. but this was different in a way that was unfamiliar for vikram. discomforting, even. for all that he desired to poke and prod at it — and he would — he also felt a strange compulsion to protect it.
for years, he kept odette close ; it would come and go as it pleased in the same way a stray cat might, but he made sure she knew his door was always open — and that it was never wise to stray too far. he continued to test on it, insisting that every new session was another attempt at helping them, at making them better. he was a doctor, after all, someone to be trusted ; and more than that, he cared for it. and to a degree, vikram wanted it to rely on him if only for the guarantee it gave him that it would never leave. ❝ oh, but you cannot tell anyone what’s happened, can you? no, of course not, poor thing. they’d be so angry, wouldn’t they? so ashamed, your father. no, that simply won’t do. they don’t understand that it isn’t any fault of yours, that you’re perfect, odoti, they won’t — but i do. i’m the only one. i’m all you’ve got. ❞ whether it believed him or not, it remained close, decorating his office with its bizarre works of art and showing him affection the likes of which he’d never actually known but which felt innately impossible to refuse. for years, they existed like this.
that is, until one unfortunate night when he’d had unexpected company in his lab in the form of a very particular set of employers. and while vikram had foreseen an unfortunate unfolding of events — he knew its mind well enough by now to expect it to react poorly to the sight of them the moment he heard the rumbling of familiar voices outside his door — he couldn’t have anticipated exactly how volatile it would become, nor how quickly. it attacked one of the men with all the blindly feral rage of a frightened animal ; a pet he’d not meant to keep, and here it was biting at the hand that feeds him! he could forgive it, of course, if only he could remove it from the man before it caused any serious damage. but, like an oiled snake, lithe and venomous and ready to strike, it slipped right through his arms. and then it turned on him. if he’d anticipated a knife in the chest from the creature he held dearest, he’d not known it would be so literal.
the pain was searing, white-hot, as vivid crimson began to soak through the pristine white of a lab coat. but more than that, it felt almost karmic. hard-earned and well-deserved. he saw his sister in it for a second, in its eyes, and even with the hilt of a knife jutting from his pectoralis major, he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry with it. not even when it yanked the blade free before he could protest. not truly. ❝ out! get out! ❞ he’d insisted anyway, his words wet and crackling but sharp as he stumbled toward his desk, one hand wet and sticky as he clutched it to his chest in a desperate attempt to apply pressure to the wound. not in an attempt to scold her, but to protect her. she needed to leave ; the man on the floor had not come alone and he expected that they’d be back for her sooner than later. that someone would be back for her. but his dot was a stubborn creature, and one of the last things vikram can recall is the sight of her tearful face and the sound of her apologies as she fluttered over him, desperate to help. ❝ do not cry, ❞ he managed to mumble, dizzy and hoarse, ❝ remember… remember what i said. ‘s not your fault, odoti. ❞
and that was the last time he would see it. when vikram woke in a hospital bed less than a day later,it was to a swift and unfortunate series of discoveries ; not only had she managed to puncture his lung, but in the process of calling for aid, she’d gotten herself detained. institutionalized. of course he had no intention of pressing charges, but they’d deemed his odette a danger to itself and others and they’d kept it, stolen it away from him as if it had not been thriving under his care before the incident. life went on for a few months following. vikram had never been the healthiest himself, in spite of his profession ; recovery was slow and unpleasant and the break from work it forced upon him was torture for idle hands and an overworked mind. and even when he could return to his day job in clinical pharmacology, it was several weeks still before he could return to his true passion. he’d only just begun to dip his toes back in when the outbreak hit new york.
a man with a skill set such as vikram’s was invaluable in a world as lawless and anarchic as his had become ; he’d been selected and sought out by one of his private clients, offered security and protection in exchange for his medical expertise at access to a camp of survivors stationed at the hotel elysee in midtown. seeing an opportunity and no reason to refuse, vikram remained at the hotel elysee for several months ; the men he chose to align with were a vicious lot, cruel and thieving, but their efforts meant that vikram lived in luxury. his suite was not a modest one, and he’d been gifted an additional adjoined set of rooms to transform into a makeshift infirmary of sorts. what he did behind the locked door of that second room was a business entirely his own. he thrived in this camp through the winter, all the way up until the moment of its collapse — a power struggle that ended in foolish decisions and bloodshed and rendered the hotel overrun by biters. it was by the skin of his teeth that vikram managed to escape, but he was fortunate in that he’d already had his belongings packed. he’d seen it coming. perhaps not to this degree, but he’d anticipated some sort of catastrophe all the same.
it was not chance but a fortunate tip that led him to the wexley, received from one jeremiah rose — a contact he’d not anticipated coming across in the wilds of this new city, though he should’ve guessed the other man was resilient enough to survive. he does not know what to expect upon his arrival, but vikram has grown accustomed to a certain standard of living in the new world order, and he has every intention of gaining that back.
headcanons.
vikram would occasionally engage in non-consensual ( but explicitly platonic and non-sexual ) behavior with his test subjects while they were sedated ; this self-soothing behavior for the touch-starved man included draping their arms around him in an embrace or climbing up beside them on the exam chair he’s strapped them to and resting his head on their shoulder for a while.
vikram has moderate scarring on the left half of his body from burns received during the fire he started in his home as a child, mostly spanning his shoulder, chest and upper arm. these are mostly hidden by his wardrobe choices, although if one were to look closely enough at his collar they might catch a glimpse of the glossy, disfigured skin creeping up his neck.
he suffers from a connective tissue disorder that causes chronic pain he keeps under control with a careful cocktail of drugs for himself, and he made sure to utilize the raiders from his previous camp to ensure he had an ample supply, even after he left the hotel elysee. on his worst days, vikram employs the use of a cane, but years of practiced control over his expression mean that his pain is carefully concealed.
this condition is what complicated his recovery from pneumothorax after being stabbed in the chest; he still experiences sporadic, stabbing chest pains that have been known to steal his breath away for moments at a time and his lungs tend to rattle a bit at times if he breathes too deeply, lending to a dry cough he often smothers into a handkerchief.
supply list.
one nondescript black duffel bag containing the following:
a variety of various pharmaceuticals ( narcotics / opiates / stimulants / muscle relaxers / cns depressants / antibiotics / anti-inflammatories / mood stabilizers )
an extensive first aid kit ( including but not limited to gloves, gauze, various bandages and dressings, medical tape, tweezers, scissors, antiseptic, antibiotic ointment, isopropyl alcohol, several needles and surgical thread )
a rubber apron and a pair of reusable elbow-length gloves
two changes of clothes / three pairs of socks / a sweater / a lab coat
a personal supply of nutritional supplements and vitamins
a beretta 30x tomcat with 32 rounds of ammunition
custom made support cane with engraved handle and concealed 18’ stiletto blade
likes urban exploration + a heavy indica + carhartt coveralls + cold metal on skin
dislikes egotism ( unless it's him ) + head highs + sci-fi + performative kindness
fears losing his brother + being alone + rejection + flying insects
moral alignment chaotic neutral
mbti estp
supplies.
mess kit
spare clothes
two and a half packs of newport 100s
slightly less than a quarter of gorilla glue #4 that’s dry asf now but still smokes
small glass bowl
engraved zippo that’s getting dangerously low
crowbar
vintage swiss army knife
travel tool kit
rope
9mm pistol + ammunition
biography.
When Sylvia and Mark Fisher discovered that they were expecting twins, it was an unanticipated but wholly welcome surprise. They were in love, after all, and Sylvia was thrilled at the thought of settling into their modest Staten Island home and putting down roots, building a family, even if the thought of twins did come as a shock to her unsuspecting husband. He quickly acclimated to the idea, but his sense of security was ripped from beneath his feet just as swiftly when a tragic complication during the cesarean left Mark a widow and a single father of two infant boys, Jonah and Judah. Long hours at the fire station and a dedication to his community meant that Mark relied heavily on his sister to help raise his sons, frequently looking after them alongside her own brood of children. They didn’t necessarily have a bad childhood; Judah wasn’t ignorant enough to be blind to the fact that they had more than many, able to boast a father that tried to raise them right, a handful of close family, and a consistent roof over their heads. It never stopped them from staying out of trouble, but it was enough to keep them in check.
Although he’d never felt in any way that he had to compete with his twin, it was almost as if being the younger of the two — even if only by seven minutes — had instilled in Judah an innate drive to compensate. Or maybe that was just growing up in a household with so many heads that it became easy to slip through the cracks. Their father did their best to raise them and look out for them, but Judah still hungered for attention from the start. This inherent yearning encouraged his mind and his mouth in equal part as he grew up, carving out a sharp wit and gilding his tongue — he caught the attention and accolades of his teachers when he was young, even if he did grow into something more of a beacon for wasted potential by the time he reached high school. A warning. Whether he had the aptitude for it or not, he was never meant to succeed within the confines of conventional higher education. The world had bigger plans for the Fisher twins, Judah was convinced of this, even if he didn’t know for certain the specifics when he was burning college acceptance letters over the sink and workshopping possible futures involving the pair of them from the counter of their aunt’s kitchen.
( He’d been pressured by counselors to send out applications, but he was never going to go. Not without Jonah. )
That plan, as it turned out, involved renovating an old auto shop that had been in their family for several generations — it belonged to an uncle and was left to their father nearly a decade earlier, sitting abandoned until the boys were given an opportunity to get their hands dirty and turn it into something more. The idea itself came from Jonah, as did most of their better schemes; his older brother had always been the more creative of the two of them, always full of thoughts and theories and plans, and Judah had an eye for spotting the diamonds in the rough. Perhaps the most promising of them all? A combination tattoo-piercing-and-chop shop. The first of its kind, to the brothers’ knowledge. Judah never had the same proclivity for art that his brother did — if the pair of them shared a brain, there was no doubt Jude was the left lobe, all logic and analysis and mechanical parts — but he found his own place among the scrap metal, whether piercing holes in clients or stripping parts from the boosted cars that ended up in their garage. And maybe the shop was never a raving success, but the boys did well enough to get by and look out for each other, and it was a staple location in Staten Island, well-known by the locals.
It was no wonder, then, that when the outbreak occurred, the Fisher boys’ shop swiftly became a safe haven amidst the chaos. And it was no surprise either, was it? How many years had Judah spent entertaining his brother’s long-winded theories about the apocalypse and end-times, nodding along and offering questions and scraps of opinion to hypotheticals he figured would never come to light? He would’ve been biting his tongue in the moment if he’d actually had the time to process and not just act, but Jonah didn’t need to speak his ❛ I told you so ❜ out loud for Judah to hear it. They were surprisingly prepared when the shit hit the fan and it didn’t take much effort to fortify the shop with the materials they had on-hand and the handful of employees that were either lingering around the shop that morning or had found their way there upon hearing the news. With a well to provide fresh water and a series of solar panels spanning the roof in conjunction with a generator, the shop maintained many pre-shitshow luxuries long after the rest of the city had been robbed of them. Society might’ve gone to Hell in a handbasket, but like cockroaches, if you were to ask Judah, the twins thrived in the chaos of the new world order.
Or, at very least, they did for a while. The winter was long and cold and unforgiving, but they holed up and hunkered down and, damn it, they made it through. Judah spent the winter brainstorming and workshopping new ways to improve their camp — securing the perimeter with reinforced fencing, plotting out locations across town to scour for supplies once the thaw finally hit — and had high hopes for the success of spring. What he hadn’t anticipated in all of his thinking and planning was the possibility of a mutiny. These folks were his friends, after all, his community. Christ, he and Jonah had taken them in out of the kindness of their own damn hearts when they could’ve just as easily barricaded everyone on the other side of their wall of half-gutted cars. Maybe they should have. But the Fisher boys were raised better than that, their father made sure of it. There was never a world in which they would’ve kept anybody out. It might not always look like it, but they had a half-decent moral compass. ( Half-decent, Judah thinks, because he’d still had to talk Jonah down from burning the entire building to the ground when they fled. Was that a morality thing, though, or was it more selfishly motivated? There was always a chance they could return. ) There was never a world in which they would’ve kept anybody out.
When they were forced to flee their safe space — their home — Judah and Jonah packed everything they could carry on their backs and sought out refuge in the first place they could. What Judah couldn’t have anticipated was safe harbor coming in the form of an actual harbor. Neither one of them knew how to operate a boat, much less drive one, but the twins were nothing if not resourceful, and with their working mechanical knowledge combined, it wasn’t too difficult to find their sea legs. They stayed on the boat for a while, but the sight of a rather impressive pyrotechnic display on the shore captured their attention. Survival instinct kept them from rushing in to investigate immediately, but the twins eventually found their way into the city. Carefully and methodically, they building-hopped their way through Manhattan, keeping an eye out for survivors until they were eventually led to the Wexley. The place is a far cry from the familiar comforts of their Staten Island shop, but Judah is determined to make the most of their time there while they reset, recalibrate, and start to establish a plan to get their home back.
pets a ginger tabby cat named nacho that belonged to his boyfriend pre-outbreak that he found in his apartment alone a week later when he went looking for him and took back to the wexley
likes clean socks / early morning workouts / poetry / sunrises / game days
dislikes social media / awkward silences / toxic masculinity / uncertainty / rats
moral alignment neutral good
mbti esfj-t
Before the outbreak, Beau Clary was just about one of the most charming fellas you could hope to meet in a place like New York City; he was raised on the notion of southern hospitality and helping thy fellow neighbor, and even after gaining more fame and fortune than a small-town boy like him knew what to do with, Beau never let it warp his attitude or his ego or make him forget his roots. Hard-working and helpful, he was always the first to lend a hand. And, to be fair to him, he still is, but it isn’t quite the same. He’s hardly a shell of the exuberant, social creature he used to be; where most nights would have previously found him mingling with other residents of the Wexley or heading out to any of the countless bars or clubs studding the streets of the boroughs, lately he’s become enough of a recluse that he mostly only comes when called unless there’s work to be done. To most, he appears aloof and detached - a defense mechanism to keep from letting anyone too close - but to those he trusts, glimpses of the Beau that once was still remain in fleeting smiles and occasional warm, rumbling laughter. In truth, he’s soft and sensitive at heart, and where he used to wear as much as a badge of honor in a sport that previously defined toxic masculinity, in this new world, it appears to be a crippling weakness and one that Beau has tried desperately to stifle and hide away.
biography.
Despite the pressure and public scrutiny that came from being such a high draft pick, Beau seemed to thrive in the world of professional football. The chaos and cacophony of the city were certainly something to get used to, but Beau quickly acclimated - or, if not, he made enough trips home and flew his family out to the east coast enough that he was able to keep grounded in an overwhelming concrete jungle. The next several years were spent working hard and playing harder and he’d been in the middle of an incredibly successful — and potentially Super Bowl worthy— season and it could be argued that Beau was in the prime of his career - and his life - when the outbreak hit New York. The explosion of the entrance to the Wexley was, in a sick, twisted sort of way, the perfect visual representation for the tumult of emotion that accompanied such catastrophic panic and grief. His entire world was in shambles, and it took significant convincing from those closest to him not abandon his apartment for a foolishly suicidal mission to get back home to Alabama — to his family. He did, however, make two separate trips to try and find his partner, the man he'd been beginning to grow serious with just before the outbreak ; both trips to his apartment were met with disappointment, and no evidence whether he was dead or alive. Not knowing only made it worse. Winter was long and hard, and though Beau could often be seen around the Wexley, coming out of the woodwork wherever work needed done to lend a quiet hand, he’d frequently slink back to his apartment without a word once the work was done, keeping to himself. He grieved the loss of a family he feared he’d never know the truth of, nursed the guilt of knowing that if they were gone, it was in part because he’d not been there with them. He hadn’t been there to help them, to protect them.
Beau Clary was born in a small town in rural Alabama where the number of stoplights could be counted on one hand, everybody knew everybody else’s family, and twice a year, the local high school had a drive your tractor to school day. There wasn’t a whole lot to do growing up, and when Beau wasn’t at school or helping tend to his family’s land and animals, he was playing pickup games with friends out in wide, open fields, quickly proving himself to be a natural at football. Despite the limited opportunities available for someone like him - and they were few and far between in a town nestled so far below the poverty line and nearly forgotten by the rest of the state - Beau was determined to make something of himself and get out of Alabama. He channeled this energy and determination into the sport, excelling on his high school team and garnering the praise and encouragement of local coaches and faculty. In his senior year of high school, Beau’s dedication finally paid off. Even out in the middle of Nowhere, Alabama, there were universities sending out talent scouts. He’ll never forget the way his mama cried and hugged him the day she found his acceptance letter from Clemson in the mailbox - she didn’t even wait for him to get home to open it, and she was waiting at the door when he walked through because, in her words, her baby got a full ride!
With his tuition covered and his degree paid for, Beau was able to focus all of his energy on honing his skills at the sport. At Clemson, Beau continued to shine on the field, becoming a dominant force in the league and a leader amongst his teammates. When he wasn’t on the field, he was studying for any number of his horticultural science courses - academics did not come naturally to him in the same way athletics did, but Beau worked hard to ensure he maintained a respectable GPA the entire time. He was well-liked by his peers and his educators, a friend to everyone who happened to cross his path, and in the end, his limitless positive karma and perseverance paid off. His success on the field coupled with his natural charisma and leadership skills caught the attention of NFL scouts and, when draft day came, Clemson University running back Beau Clary was selected in the first round by the New York Jets. He drove back home after that to spend a few weeks back home in Alabama before flying out to New York to get settled in his new place before he left. A photo snapped by a sports photographer at the airport of an openly-crying Beau hugging his mother goodbye achieved viral status after it was shown on ESPN, and from that moment, his name became a household one and his life was never the same.
On December 23rd, when rock bottom opened up like a giant chasm beneath the Wexley — quite literally beneath it, in the basement — and Mr. Wexley encouraged everyone to abandon the building in light of the newly-chompified residents and return once it was safer, Beau was among those staying behind and forced to evacuate. In the chaos, he tried to help anyone else he came across in his own pursuit to safety, and he and the few people he could find holed up in a bodega not half a block down from the Wexley that had been ransacked but appeared secure — save for two chompers that Beau managed to dispatch with the aid of another survivor to secure the premises. When he finally returned, it was to devastation and grief — it seemed inescapable these days. He dove headfirst into cleaning up what he could of the physical mess left behind by the chaos, his body and his mind itching for busy work. He just needed to keep himself occupied, focused. Distracted.
headcanons.
Beau still writes letters to his family back home - at least one a week, but often even more - even though he knows he’ll never be able to send them or receive one back.They've been collecting in an old shoebox, but it's starting to fill up as of late.
He was the second-ever active player to openly come out as gay in the NFL, and his decision to do so was divisive amongst fans, but his team was unwaveringly supportive.
Beau was in a somewhat serious relationship before the outbreak, and he’s not seen his partner since it all began. He’s made two reckless and dangerous attempts to visit his apartment, but he’s found no evidence that he’s alive or dead aside from his cat, alone and unfed — and somehow, not knowing what's happened to him is worse.
He’s got a section of his smaller, open floor plan of apartment - he had to downsize when he moved to the third floor from the tenth level - filled with the two things that make him happiest - his family and nature. He’s tended to a number of houseplants as best he can in spite of everything, and the walls are covered with photos of his parents and siblings, cousins and friends.
ruth’s confidence in her abilities comes from years and years of hard work and training. that doesn’t mean that she’s not annoying when she explains for the third time that yes she can do something with her eyes closed, and yes in fact she does know the right answer to the problem. she still hasn’t managed to turn off the competitiveness that she instilled within herself, it might even be worse now that she’s found herself in a life and death situation where her skills do make all the difference. it comes across as arrogant because it is arrogant. she graduated high school at seventeen with her associates degree already done, why shouldn’t she be. there’s no small amount of luck that factors into these things, but she will not accept anything other than the acknowledgement of her diligence and commitment to her studies.
but that doesn’t mean that she’s not sometimes pleasant to be around. on the days that she’s not working and the specter of her career isn’t hanging over her head ruth can be actually charming to be around. she loves to exchange stories and talk about her mom. having worked for everything in her life, she’s easily empathetic to other people’s struggles. her apartment could be a social hub on her days off, and she channeled the continued energy into the people of the wexley, offering support however she could.
NOTABLE SKILLS—
phd training (the mayo clinic, rochester MN)
biomedical research
associated lab abilities
her phd program had mandatory classes including but not limited to: immunology, bioengineering, pharmacology, and neuroscience
md training (columbia university, new york NY)
trauma surgery
emergency medical intake
she has completed all medical rotations and so is also proficient in: internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, neurology, obstetrics, and psychiatry to varying degrees.
HEADCANONS—
she’d been cutting her own hair since high school as a way to save a few dollars. she had a little cosmetology kit that contained different combs and scissors for when she needed a fresh trim. she's happy to take a few inches of hair off of anyone who needs a freshening up.
despite a tough relationship at the outset, she and her mom were actually extremely close before the outbreak. they talked on the phone often, and facetimed at least once a week. it’s been incredibly difficult knowing the pressures her mom must be under now that they’re disconnected and she cannot help.
in her time off she was very involved in the NYC avante garde art scene. the more abstract, the better when it came to canvases and film reels alike. it was always her hobby to go to gallery openings and shows, dragging along an unsuspecting victim so that she could interpret the art for them. if she’d had more time in this life, she could have seen herself as an artist, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.
Lindsay has always been private, especially when it comes to matters of his personal life, and the outbreak has only seemed to amplify this about him. In his prime, he was a skilled leader and communicator; his nearly two decades spent in service with the Scottish Royal Regiment have left him vigilant and selfless, always at the ready to keep a sharp out for the sake of those close to him, whether friends, family, or battalion. Professionally, he had a sternness about him that was not unkind, often softened by a quiet charisma and sudden and unexpected bouts of dry humor, and own his own time, he lived a life surrounded by vibrancy, more an observer than a participant. He’d frequent bustling bars and cafes and music venues, existing as a stoic fixture in the background, enjoying and observing with a simple smile twitching at his lips. He doesn’t take time for the simple pleasures anymore, and those glimpses of humor, of the lighthearted man he could have been, they’re rarer now than they ever have been.
supplies.
95-ltr. capacity tactical backpack / rucksack
first aid kit ( nearly empty )
two stainless steel water bottles
water purification tablets
utility knife / swiss army multi-tool
solar powered flashlight / power bank
hand-crank emergency radio
lighter / magnesium fire starter
signal mirror
tarp / rope
a children's sleeping bag
small plush rabbit
glock 17 + ammunition
machete + thigh holster
biography.
tw: brief mention of homophobia + abuse + drug use + death
From the outside looking in, the O’Halloran household is almost picturesque; with a modest but lovely two-story in the heart of Elderslie and two children, a son and a daughter, it would appear that Graeme and Eilidh have it all! Graeme has a government job that provides well enough that Eilidh can stay home and mind the house and the children. Lindsay Amos O’Halloran is younger than his sister Niamh by two years, but the pair are incredibly close; their father is strict — they’re mindful of their manners, their marks in school, for fear of his reaction if they don’t — and their mother is … well, Lindsay suspects she hasn’t been in her right mind in years. ❛ The pills will do that, ❜ Niamh tells him, ❛ numb you right up. ❜ She tells him this is why their mother never says anything. Lindsay expects all children must live like this — quiet, obedient. They protect each other, Lindsay and Niamh — best they can, at least. He walks her to class, she helps him with his coursework, and then they hide away in her bedroom and make up stories, elaborate tales of all the places they’ll go once they only get out of Elderslie.
To his credit, Lindsay does well to appease his father and keep relative peace in the house for many years. He learns when to mind his tongue, how to behave. If he yearns for approval, he quickly learns what it feels like to go without. Praise comes in the form of a quiet night — no shouting, no dishes thrown. He is careful to make no mistake significant enough to not be forgotten after his father’s spent a few long nights at the pub. Not until he turns fifteen. All his life, he’s been keeping it a secret; from his parents, his sister … sometimes it almost felt like he was keeping it from himself. For a while, it isn’t hard to keep it locked away; between school, church, and chores, he doesn’t have time for sinful thoughts. He can almost pretend …
His world ends on a brisk September afternoon at nearly three p.m. He’s sitting on his bed with Colin Bigbie from trigonometry, trying desperately to figure out how to calculate angles. And Colin’s tutoring him, which should be helping. It should, but Colin’s sitting so close Lindsay can smell his spearmint gum and he can’t stop looking at his lips, the way he grins around the eraser of a pencil. He still remembers the way his mother shrieks when she opens his bedroom door to find her son pinned under another boy in his own bed, a tangle of lips and limbs. ( How could he have let himself get carried away? How could he have let himself get caught? ) Colin has the common sense to scramble out of the house long before his father comes home. Lindsay is not so lucky. He has nowhere else to go.
Only a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday, Lindsay enlists in the Royal Regiment of Scotland. His mother nearly worries herself into an ulcer over the idea alone, but his father is supportive. Thinks it’s a ❛ wise move, ❜ in fact, that Lindsay could use the structure. She weeps over afternoon tea the day he brings home the forms, cannot even bear to look her husband in the eye as he fills them out. The more unpalatable truth need not be said aloud, for Lindsay already knows it in his heart — as far as Graeme O’Halloran is concerned, he no longer has a son, not in the eyes of God. Perhaps if he leaves now … learns what it means to really be a man, to bring his family respect in lieu of shame, of disappointment … well, perhaps he might return home to more welcoming arms.
This, Lindsay thinks as he packs a sparse duffel the night before he leaves for phase one training, that’s what he wants out of enlisting. He wants to feel like he belongs again. ( Has he ever? Has his father ever actually been proud? ) ❛ No but for christ’s sake, fuck ‘em all, Linds! Honestly! It’s all a bunch a’ shite, and anyway, you’ll always belong here with me,❜ comes a tearful reassurance from his sister over a shared rooftop cigarette the very same night, a possible last ditch effort at convincing him to stay. It doesn’t work! His mind is made up, and when she pinky swears that she gets it, that she understands and she could never hold it against him, Lindsay believes her. He cries when she hugs him goodbye the following morning. In spite of his best efforts, he cannot hide red eyes and mottled cheeks from his father as he climbs into the car. He says nothing, but Lindsay can feel his gaze; he cannot bring himself to meet it for the entirety of the six hour drive from Elderslie to Berkshire.
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst provides twelve months of intensive training to all prospective young officers. Lindsay is desperate to succeed because, in his mind, there is no other option. He learns to operate on a strict schedule and quickly becomes regimented, disciplined. But Lindsay does not socialize with the other young men in his barracks. Many of them are quick to make friends — he sees them being raucous in the mess hall, hears them slagging off their superiors when they’re out of earshot — but Lindsay always keeps to himself. He never joins in. In his spare time, Lindsay pens letters. They’re mostly to Niamh. He tells her of his successes, embellishes his happiness in neat lines signed with love. The letters he receives back are the highlight of his time at the academy — they keep him going. Occasionally, he’ll write to his mother and father; to those letters, he hears nothing in return. his mother takes his phone calls on holidays — he expects that’s the only grace his father allows — but beyond that, they make no effort toward significant contact.
At least not until he graduates. They all show up, all three of them, but make no mistake it is not a grand affair. He knows from his sister’s letters things have not grown better in his absence but worse; his father’s temper flares and without Lindsay there to take the heat, his mother and sister suffer in his place. At dinner that evening, Niamh announces her plans to move overseas. She’s nearly twenty now, and after all, they’ve got relatives in America, distant cousins in New York, and she intends to relocate with their help. Her news doesn’t go over well; their father shouts, their mother wails, and when they leave, it is with the assurance that the entire lot of them are banned from what was Lindsay’s favorite Italian place in Berkshire for life. In the end, it doesn’t actually matter though, does it? He’s leaving again anyway.
Lindsay returns home for two weeks while he awaits his assignment. He helps Niamh pack and does his best to avoid conflict with their parents. When she leaves for New York, Lindsay is the one who takes the family car to drive her to the airport. ( He finds out that day that maybe he doesn’t know how to say goodbye to his sister without crying. Once can be written off as a fluke, but twice? ) He doesn’t know what to expect when he receives the call specifying the location of his first tour, but Lindsay can be certain that Belize does not even make the list. He didn’t even know they had anyone stationed in Belize. ( If he’s being honest, before he knows he’s going, Lindsay couldn’t have confidently pointed the country out on a map. ) Within seventy-two hours, he’s on a plane. Unlike with Niamh, when his parents leave him at the terminal, Lindsay sheds not a single tear. On the flight, he thinks of this mother’s outpouring of emotion and wonders if it’s sincere. Does she mourn the loss of both her children?
The stifling heat of the South American sun — surely impossibly the same sun that casts clouds over his village back home — fries pale, freckled skin within hours of landing, but Lindsay quickly learns that he enjoys the pain. It provides a welcome distraction. A lucky break, it would seem, because it is found here in no short supply. Tropical Environment Training, it’s called. Or, how to fight in the jungle! From dawn to dusk, he and his battalion trudge through gnarled, swampy undergrowth; they learn to camouflage themselves in the wild, how to use nature and the elements to their advantage. He learns to blink past the burn of sweat in his eyes, to claw his way forward when his limbs threaten to give out. His limits? Clearly he’s been underestimating them all his life! Out here in the harsh wild, nobody cares about his story, where he came from. Nobody cares who he loves. They only care that he can perform. Endure. It matters not who he is, only what he is capable of.
Belize teaches Lindsay O’Halloran that he is a very capable man.
When he first enlisted, it was without a clear, intentional path in mind; he’d known then that he wanted to serve his country, but he hadn’t the foggiest what he could even offer. would he be sent to kitchen duty or put on the frontlines? Were there even front lines? Six months after arriving in Belize, Lindsay completes his training. He’s adapted extraordinarily well to the environment; his superiors watch as he takes lead of his battalion, seizes control to lead his brothers- and sisters-in-arms to safety. He watches his team with the fierceness and precision of a hawk. When his entire battalion completes the program with flying colors, Lindsay is asked to remain in Belize. For someone so young, he displays potential. For the next ten years, Ladyville becomes his new home. He immerses himself in its culture just as much as its jungles; his accent twists the words in a funny sort of way, but he learns to speak spanish and Belizean creole. He drinks belikin and shares panades with locals. He becomes familiar with the forestry, teaches it to hundreds. And he writes to Niamh about all of it.
One day, when she writes back, Lindsay learns he’s an uncle. When his tour ends, he hops on the first plane he can catch to New York so he can meet his niece. Her name is Maisie O’Halloran and Lindsay is convinced he falls in love the second he holds her in his arms. He spends several weeks in the states with Niamh; he sleeps on her couch and spends day in and day out with her to make up for all the time they’ve lost. She tells him Maisie’s father isn’t in the picture, and Lindsay makes her pinky swear that she’s safe, that she’s okay. He wishes he could stay, but he’s given another assignment far too quickly. He tells himself he won’t cry this time when Niamh and Maisie leave him at the terminal, that he can keep it together. He can’t, and they’re both laughing through their tears as she makes him promise they’ll meet here again in a few years and he relents on one condition: she sends him weekly updates on Maisie in the meantime.
When he lands again, Lindsay is in Nigeria. He has been assigned to the UK’s permanent outpost Abuja to aid in the training of the Nigerian military. What he lacks in knowledge about the country and terrain, he makes up for in a passion for the sharing of knowledge, of valuable, life-saving skills. Hausa and Yaruba are more difficult to learn than spanish, he’ll admit, but he spends enough time there that he becomes at very least conversational in a few different local languages. When he returns to Elderslie after another six years, he does not sound the same and the streets no longer look like home. His country beckons him back before he can visit Niamh, but he promises soon. He still writes every chance he gets; she convinces him to start video calling because Maisie is talking more than ever. His parents don’t see their only grandchild, don’t get the privilege. He visits them once while he’s back on home soil. Once in two years. It’s tense. His mother doesn’t recognize him. His father shakes his hand.
It takes fifteen years, but Lindsay can finally feel the weakness in his grip.
Time slips through his fingers faster than Lindsay can stop it and before he knows it, the year is 2023. He’s back in Berkshire and, as it turns out, that little Italian restaurant? They don’t even remember him anymore. Lindsay is in his flat when he receives a phone call from an unrecognized number. It’s his cousins from New York, bearing news of his sister. Grave news. He can barely make out the details over the ringing in his ears the moment he realizes what they’re trying to say. ❛ …it was a break in … she’d just gotten back from work … didn’t even know she’d been struck …’m so sorry … ❜ And just like that, Lindsay O’Halloran’s whole world shatters.
By some grace of God, Maisie isn’t home when it happens. Their cousin had been watching her while Niamh was on shift, had just gone to take her back and opened the door when … ( oh, she saw it, the poor girl saw it! ) Lindsay requests immediate discharge and his years of dedicated service allow him to catch the next flight out of Heathrow to New York. He has to begin making arrangements. It takes six days to find a flat in the city and get Maisie moved into it; with his cousin minding her for a few hours, he packs up his sister’s apartment in a single night. Delicately, he tucks away years of memories into boxes — some he’s seen, many he’s missed out on. He does this alone, and he realizes a truth he’s known his entire life. He will always cry when he says goodbye to his sister. This night is no different. He weeps openly on the floor at the center of her apartment, surrounded by sweaters and pillows and photos — he cries for every little piece of her that he is forced to say goodbye to. His grief echoes off the walls. He gives so much that by the time they bury Niamh, Lindsay has no tears left to shed. He is exhausted. And for this, he is grateful. It allows him the ability to stay strong — he does not do well with emotion, but he knows how to push through fatigue. For Maisie, he will. From this day forward, his needs will forever take the back burner to hers. He is no father, but he will raise her the best he can. He owes as much to Niamh.
To provide for them both, Lindsay secures a position at a private security company called Sentry Solutions. His extensive military and combat training make him the perfect fit for private security, and he finds that he approaches his new career with an inherent sort of dedication. Blame it on the guilt — he wasn’t there to protect his sister, couldn’t save her, but he’ll be damned if he can’t protect everybody else. Most of all, he intends to protect Maisie, to provide her with anything and everything she could ever possibly need and keep her safe. He wants to keep her happy, too, but he knows that’s a more difficult battle won. Though he could count the number of times he’d seen her face to face before moving to New York on one hand, they were hardly strangers; he used to call weekly at minimum to speak to her and her mum, often sent her gifts from Nigeria and then again from Berkshire. This does not make the process of familiarization any easier or less awkward, but Lindsay does his best and eventually, they fall into a routine. He learns what Frozen is and how to dutch braid hair. He wakes up early on Saturday mornings to make chocolate chip pancakes and commits the details of a traditional tea party menu to memory. Every Wednesday starts with a visit to Maisie’s grief counselor and always ends with gelato from the little Italian place on the corner of their block. After a few months, Lindsay starts to believe he can actually do this. That they both can.
And the moment Lindsay thinks he’s finally started to find his footing again, it’s as if the rug has been ripped from beneath his feet again. The world is ending. If it was dangerous to live in the city before, it begins to feel like a death sentence the moment he hears the news. He immediately begins formulating a plan. They need to get out of the city. The population is too dense, the layout of the city too labyrinthine to feel safe. He packs a bag and instructs Maisie to do the same. ❛ Only take what ye can carry, Mais, ❜ he says as if he’d not carry the moon on his back had she told him she wanted to take it along, ❛ only take what’s important. ❜ Her backpack is pink with faux-fur straps, stuffed with crayons and fruit snacks, plushes and photos of her mother; the matching sleeping bag is attached to his own rucksack.
Lindsay expects it will take them some time to leave New York, but no amount of training or planning can prepare him for the chaos and bloodshed that ravage the streets. The streets are gridlocked but the cars are abandoned, some with windows smashed or doors left wide open. Driving out of the city is an impossibility, and every sidewalk, every building is like an active war zone. To think he'd been worried about the barricades. Moving through the city is slow. Every new street, every building promises new threats; if it's not the undead, it's the living trying to ransack them for supplies. Desperate people. Lindsay tries not to fault them ― fear can make people do all sorts of irrational things. He knows this. But if Maisie's safety is threatened, Lindsay does not hesitate to exterminate said threat, living or otherwise.
Distances Lindsay expects might take hours to cover instead take days. Weeks, even. Maisie is scared, confused, but she holds up better than he expects her to. He should've expected she'd be resilient like her mum. He keeps watch while she sleeps, operates on bare minimum and learns how to whittle his exhaustion into something functional and sharp under the cutting edge of adrenaline. He's never been in survival mode for this long. He thinks back to Belize, to the way the sun blistered his skin and the way his muscles screamed for mercy. He'd been able to push through it then for family who didn't give a damn about him, and he'll dig his heels in and survive this too. For Maisie.
When the snowstorm hits, they take shelter in an elementary school. It appears as though it had been used at some point in the recent past as a makeshift shelter, but aside from the biters that Lindsay methodically removes, it has been thoroughly abandoned. ( Some of the ones Lindsay exterminates, they look fresh. He does well not to dwell on this. ) The winter is long and cold and grueling but they survive. Lindsay is careful to ration what food he can scavenge from the cafeteria and, by some grace of God, it's enough to last the pair of them through the coldest months. He's grateful for the sense of familiarity the location provides Maisie; there are books and toys in the classrooms to keep her entertained and enriched. She has the chance to be a child and Lindsay finally has the chance to rest. At least for a little while. Come spring, they'll be getting out of this city.
Lindsay thinks so, anyway, but he's beginning to realize that what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men might actually be true. Maisie falls ill sometime in late February. It's not that he hasn't been keeping track of the passage of days, either, only that he doesn't know for sure when it actually begins. Her sniffles are easy enough to write off as a symptom of the colder weather, of course, but the cough is admittedly concerning. She seems unfazed, so he keeps an eye on it for a few days and intends to wait for it to resolve itself. Only it doesn't resolve itself. Maisie gets worse.
When the fever appears, Lindsay can no longer deny his concern or the way it steadily seems to morph into panic. He's never dealt with this before. He's only been responsible for her less than a year. There are no useful medications to be found in the nurse's office, nothing more than old antihistamines and cough drops in the desks. He's not familiar with this part of the city, and even after scoping from the rooftop, there's not a pharmacy in sight, not that he can tell. It isn't as if he can leave her, either, to go looking further, or even take her along in this condition, out of fear he'll come up empty-handed and make her feel worse in the process. But he's been surveilling the area, watching. He's seen survivors at the Wexley, coming and going. They must have supplies. It's a short enough distance that he could run it from the school even with his pack on his back and her in his arms, and, with no other options, that's precisely what Lindsay does.
Ashton, 32, is a astrophysics PhD student at NYU, often teaching bachelor lectures as part of his post-graduate program alongside his research. He's been in New York for the last 4 years, renting in the Wexley in #306 ever since. Before that, he had spent a bulk of his time with the US marines, fresh out of high school, following his father's footsteps, taking his Physics bachelors and masters while serving. A mishap of a mission left him the only survivor of his team, suffered a bad injury and he stepped away from being a marine raider for good. His father was a military pilot though he died in combat and Ashton was mostly raised by his mother, an elementary school teacher, growing up in a small town in Minnesota. Moving to New York was hard but he needed to find something else to do with his life, to prove that he isn't completely useless yet.
Useful Skills
Military Combat, Gun Marksmanship, Reconnaissance, Extreme Conditions, Good Swimmer, Jet Piloting, Military Medical Aid and Combat Trauma Care, Theoretical and Practical Physics, Can debate for hours on the theories of Dark Matter .
Additionals.
Full Name: Ashton Finley Ryder
Nicknames: Ash, Ryder, Fin (ice hockey days)
Birthday: November 3, 1991
Birthplace: Taylors Falls, Minnesota
Current Home: The Wexley, #306, 4th year resident pre-outbreak
Religion: Loosely raised Catholic / Currently Freethinker
Orientation: Asexual, Biromantic
MBTI: ISFJ, The Defender
Enneagram: Type5 Wing6, The Troubleshooter
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Zodiac: Scorpio
Face Claim: Luke Mitchell .
Voice Claim: Luke Mitchell (i) | (ii) *ii - tw mentions of abuse .
Physical Attributes.
Height: 6'1"
Build: Muscular, Athletic
Exercise Regime: Alternate days USMC conditioning training
Allergies: people that walk slowly in NYC, people beating around the bush, & lilies.
Hair Colour: Dirty Blonde
Eye Colour: Deep Blue, that turns deeper when he cries
Glass/Contacts: none, but sometimes if his eyes are strained he has reading glasses
Dominant Hand: Right, but mildly Ambidextrous
Tattoos: only one, solar system running across the inside of his left forearm
Scars: Too many to count, the most prominent, ugly one that never healed right is the one on his left shoulder, operated on by Dr Tobias
Piercings: Earlobes and Helix on both ears
Outfit Clothing Style: Sweaters, idk what else to tell you, whatever Charlie and Ria styles him with
Background Information.
Hometown: Taylors Falls, Minnesota
Current Residence: Manhattan, New York
Spoken Languages: English / Russian / Spanish
Driver's License: yes + military license
Occupation: Ex-marine. PhD student and lecturer at NYU
Familial Information.
Relationship Status: Single? In love. It's Complicated
Mother: Amelia Kayley Ryder, Elementary School Teacher, Taylors Falls, MN / status unknown (open wanted connection)
Father: Ben Colin Ryder, U.S Army Officer, Captain / deceased, KIA
Siblings: None
Other: Rose Siblings, as close as family.
Pets: A german shepherd called Dawn, that Ash trained as a military dog beside him during his service, she listened to no one but him and so when he left the force, Dawn couldn't work with any other soldier and retired for Ashton to adopt her back home, currently living with his mother in Minnesota.
Headcanons
Starting with the military, Ashton applied to the marines very early on before getting accepted into the Special Ops as a CSO and Marine Raider. Was in service for about a decade before leaving it all behind.
Ashton is always in this serious mode, small smiles come by only ever so often and fun is a hard concept to grasp. Few can bring that side of him back.
Despite a few years in, he finds it hard to decide on the mundane things in life. He has no preferences for anything really. If you ask him what his favorite food is, he probably wouldn’t know how to respond. He can’t even decide his favorite food, let alone everything else in his life. He has one constant in his life and that’s enough for him.
Being young and dumbly spontaneous, he had a tattoo on his left forearm of the solar system at 18 to just be able to look at something and feel. Remember that there are things so much bigger than themselves.
Ashton teaches- taught the bachelor’s classes once in a while and the students will often gossip on the military vibes the class had. And those that couldn’t handle it dropped the class, but the ones that do stay on, often come out of it thankful that they did.
The Outbreak brought him back into his military instincts, trying to help out where he can to protect the building still standing in protecting them, but Ashton is also one to be more willing to go out, to scout, to scavenge.
Weirdly enough, he’s still working on his research paper, apocalypse be damned, he was finishing this residency and research paper one way or another. Or perhaps he just needed some kind of normalcy, to keep moving, because he knows the idleness will destroy him.
Ashton back in his military days was a skilled jet pilot and a good shot with the highest qualified level of marksmanship. Now if only he had a plane and a gun…
His apartment is a library of its own, well, if you’re ever looking for a book to learn about Kepler’s second law of planetary motion.
