N A M E: Benjamin Zachary Brennan
A G E: 19
P L A C E O F O R I G I N: Aspen, Colorado
G R O U P: None
F C: Nick Robinson
❝ Because we will die, but at least we will die unbroken. ❞
↪ p e r s o n a l i t y ;
P O S I T I V E T R A I T S: charismatic ; assertive
N E G A T I V E T R A I T S: obstinate ; reckless
L I F E B E F O R E T H E O U T B R E A K:
In the entirety of Benjamin Brennan’s life, there were only three people who would manage to worm their way into his shielded heart: His innocent little sister who acted much too old for her age, smartass brother that excelled in almost everything and everything, and a best friend who bellowed even at the tumor seizing his lungs and everything above. Raised in a community far too wealthy for its own good, Ben knew nothing of the offenders roaming the streets, nor did he realize his father was almost as scum as them. The Brennan family were the kind of people you would want framed and polished, perched upon a fireplace ledge; they were everything another wasn’t, perfect and elegant who brought finesse the very second they pulled in the driveway, cradling and cooing at a newborn child while moving trucks trailed behind them. The Brennans were the cool kids on the block–sang carols around every corner nearing the holidays, headed school charities and hosted parties where every guest was treated to champagne and a night in the abode of a faultless family who reigned the local social hierarchy, even if money didn’t run through their fingers like grains of sand.
So it was truly disgraceful when the middle child succumbed to the claws of normality, grooming his personality to be someone a Centennial abider would never accept. After all, what good was the American Dream family when their second son was nothing but a waste of charm and charisma? He was always the troublemaker; tugged his sister’s hair every time they even sat beside each other, colored on his brother’s books at the tender age of seven and ruined the local baking fair at nine. The loving people they were, Ben’s parents had thought their little boy was mildly dysfunctional or harboured some sort of mental issue; how could they have raised their child like that? To cause mayhem and laugh at the brooding faces of the victim, never facing the consequences but suffering the aftermath of scrutinization and disdain from all those neighboring adults. Only, the little boy didn’t reallycare. He loved playing with his siblings; loved bickering with Kylie and acting with their brother; cherished the time he spent with Charlie Greene and the adventures they embarked on together within the solitary confines of the Aspen Valley Hospital. He was a happy boy, truly, and it was on those nights he saw his father’s back and mother shaking her head that made him wonder what was so wrong with him; what had he done?
But he didn’t know what was worse; his mother’s chiding or the scornful glares the neighbors had sent them every time a woman other than herself walked through the front doors. She would’ve never known, he had often told himself, never knew that Dad had fell out of love with her and fell solace in younger, prettier girls who weren’t her. He wondered what his siblings thought of him when he finally marched up to her room, eyes bawling and clutching onto the simple, pure bra that she didn’t recollect as her own. “It’s not fair!” he had screamed, “he’s sleeping with her and you don’t even freaking care!” Did she know? Was she aware that the man of her dreams spent hours longer at his office, finding women and making his way with them until going back to her, tainted and dirty and adulterated? It was the following week Ben never saw his father again, and it was the next month he caught sight of divorce papers stamped with approval and a mother who buried herself in work and curing for the sick. He blamed himself, mostly, and he wondered if those two blamed him too.
The more silent the Brennan household became, the more frequent he found himself out on the streets, clenching bloody fists and gripping an arm that took too hard of a hit. Violencewas something Ben thought he’d never resort to–and, hell, changing his name was nowhere on the list either. Soon ‘Ben’ became ‘Zach’–a new, reinvented version of himself; a boy who had carved his heart from his sleeve and buried it so deep within him not even his dear little sister could see the jailcell. He noticed their mother slipping more into her work day by day, only coming back on weekends to order Chinese and shutting herself in her room to cry and eat in loneliness. It was that one night Zach still pictures so damn vividly in his head: Heavy breaths, black eyes, blood staining everywhere and a shaking body cowering before him–a person none other than Charlie. And he’d turned and kicked him in the shin once again, leaving his dying best friend on the rooftop and sprinting his way back towards the house, crying and so utterly angry at himself for ever doing such a thing. It had been a Friday, and though her appearances were rare, she had decided to take two hours off and drive the commute for a night of more takeout food and attempts to squirm her way back into her children’s hearts. Zach had never expected the hospital to call his house so quickly; so absentmindedly, as if they suspected him from the very beginning. And he had saw his mother stand before him on the porch step, frowning and so utterly tired. Tired of anything and everything she’d been put through up to that point. “What have you done, Ben?”
He laughed, big and hearty and so completely fake. “You know what’s the funniest thing to watch?”
“You trying to be a mother.”
L I F E D U R I N G T H E O U T B R E A K:
Despite the long gash their father had left in the Brennan family, the three siblings never once strayed apart by even a single thread. Of course, each had found their own separate ways in taming their raging hearts, but it was the time they spent together in the end that counted. Zach still went out of his way to tease Kylie in her growing teen years, pestering her with questions and snarky comments, showing her that he cared and not even his violent tendencies could beat them apart. The three cared for each other, forming a sort of family that not even the one years before could compare to. There was no betrayal, no lies,definitely no deception or abandoning. It was even written in the very unofficial rulebook of the Brennan siblings.
So it was when the three had been huddled around the old television that the news first spread, a grand-slam turn in human history and something Zach had no interest or care for. It wasn’t until a while the infection would reach a state like Colorado, surrounded by eight others–he’d heard coastal cities went down first, and as long neither of the three ventured anywhere close to California, Zach and his own little world figured everything would be perfectly fine. Only it wasn’t, because the morning he had finally given up on being a wimp and mustered all his courage to visit Charlie and his sickly self, the boy was found stumbling along the dusted streets, eyes swirling grey and clasping boney hands to his chest. A very torn and shredded chest, bleeding dark blood and showing old bone. Zach should’ve known hospitals were what wold be infested first; after all, diseases always spread where they were cured, and it just so happened that this one would change history forever. He remembers himself running back to the haven of his home, reliving the night he’d done in a fit of rage and disappointment in his own self.
If there was one time Zach’s heart thundered so much from his chest, it would have been the moment he saw Kylie’s terrified gaze and the back of his brother gathering wood and metal from the basement, already forming a ‘battle’ strategy and tending the fireplace like the wisecrack he was. There was never a time he had been so relieved–even when still imagining his best friend at heart roaming the streets, battered and bruised and looking exactly like he had did that night. It never even dawned on him that their mother hadn’t come home in the darkness of the night.
L I F E A F T E R T H E O U T B R E A K:
It was only a few weeks of eating pantry food and shivering behind boarded windows when the three had come to the consensus of moving–the most adult-decision Zach had ever made. Staying in Aspen was a blunt and empty road, and nothing could persuade them to ignore the constant groans and shuffling shaking their front door. And it was only a few days after that they moved again, splitting and going their separate ways in hopes to see the next on the other side. Zach had feared nothing more than that–to be cut from his siblings, running on his own, defending on his own, killing on his own, being on his own. Constant nights of shaking and sweaty tears resounded in his head, and all he could do was huddle deeper in his sleeping bag in the crook of the tree. Cheyenne–the three had agreed to go there, where there was rumored to be supplies and food and above all, people.
After traveling on his lonesome for a week or two, Zach had found himself having to resist the urge of turning back and hiking to Aspen once again; giving up and letting the undead take him, betraying the promise he had sworn to protect. Only he didn’t; the boy had somehow managed to trudge on, thinking about his siblings and reaching the border in just a few days. It was inevitable he’d run into trouble, but finding his brother resting near the woods and sparking a fire was the first thing that truly warmed his heart in the ice cold winter. He stands before the gates of Hell now, wondering and wondering if Kylie ever made it to Heaven. Wondering if she still walks this earth today; knowing that she’s become a strong girl and it wouldn’t take just some measly ugly-looking foes to take her down. And he wonders if he can survive as well–not as some sad shell of a boy, or a troubled teenager prone to anger and frustration–but as Benjamin Zachary Brennan, a boy who was once happy.
BENJAMIN ZACHARY BRENNAN is played by JESSICA. (15 ; she/her ; EST)
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