Realistic or Modern 𝘿𝙔𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙇𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏 (CS thread)

[BELIAL.]

DYING LIGHT
character sheets

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."​

• sheet guidelines
• cs outline
• roles

• 
  
  
  APPS WILL BE DUE IN ONE WEEK. NOVEMBER 11.
  
  Gonna keep this brief!
  
  Leaving quite a bit of creative freedom with the character making. While still adhering very basically to the initial 'roles' that have been written, I am welcome to anything adjacent or amended to them-- an engineer, a cook, a psychologist, what have you. Whatever cast we come up with I will add/subtract certain plot points or relevant twists, but if you are confused or unsure of anything always ask and I can let you know if it 'works' or if it would be a little too 'lore-breaking'.
  
  Again, I'm going pretty vague with histories, per-country lore, moreso so folk can create the world around us a bit as well.
  
  As well, my ideal is to have 10 characters (not contingent on 10 players). If the number ends up smaller, no complaints, but I will open up doubling to get to the 10 if need be. FOR NOW: one character per person.
  
  As a reminder for characters as well:
  
  Please have them over 20. Age diversity is welcome but not required. Sometimes everyone really is 30 and hot.
  
  Real life images please. No anime, no drawings.
  
  Most should be proficient in their field. If you are not a 'student', don't be afraid to add qualifications and we can talk through perhaps some achievements your character has as well. This mission is a joint effort between the US/UK/Australian Governemnt - but feel free to have characters elsewhere so long as they have some connection to be involved.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Leaving this fairly simple; CS layouts/Code is not required but it's always nice Feel free to drop placeholders.
  
  CS OUTLINE
  
  Basics
  Name:
  Nicknames:
  Titles/Honorifics:
  Age:
  P.O.B: (place of birth)
  Citizenship/Residency:
  Occupation:
  
  Appearance
  Faceclaim:
  Written description: (roughly a paragraph, just include things that aren't otherwise in the photos or if you want to elaborate on them)
  Height:
  Tattoos/Piercings/Etc:
  
  Personality
  FOUR positive traits:
  FOUR negative traits:
  Written description: (optional)
  Fears:
  Wants:
  Hobbies/Interests:
  Skills: (things related to their field)
  Talents: (things not related to their field)
  
  Background
  Family members: (spouses, siblings, children)
  Personal history: (please include at the very least how they lived/were during the initial breakout days, during, and up to recently.)
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  THE STUDENTS (2): University graduates or degrees in progress, with special interest to the topic being discovered, were hand-picked to assist on this extremely important venture. Whether they are working on their thesis or simply a dedicated student and lab-rat, they're fresh meat nonetheless.
  
  THE SCIENTISTS (2): Hailing from the CDC, they represent the best interests of the initial research venture. Can come from any walk within the CDC, with special interest to the mission at hand.
  
  THE RESEARCHERS (2): Professors or masters of their field, the researchers are the 'brains' of most of this, their interests lying in the potential archaeology discoveries at hand. While the research mission is to find more traces of this antibiotic fungus, the possibility of a frozen society beneath the ground is just as fascinating.
  
  THE SPECIALIST (1): Unique to their field and a sought out recruit of the mission, the specialist is good at what they do. Up to any kind of specialization, still relevant, with a number of contributions to the scientific community.
  
  THE MEDIC (1): The Doctor is in! A medic is most needed, especially someone equipped to deal with potential frostbite.
  
  THE TECH (Taken, BELIAL. ): A whiz with computers, analysis and computation, they are a walking talking computer themselves. A glorified IT as much as the sole reliant for keeping all tech equipment safe from the cold or potential malfunction, they've got quite a bit on their shoulders.
  
  THE LEADER (1): Assigned head of the base, the Leader may have a control over things by jurisdiction, but it is not required that they may be liked by everyone. They may also be completely pleasant and easygoing-- but how likable can you be if you're sent out to the frigid tundra to watch over a bunch of nerds?
  
  
  

 

[BELIAL.]

PLACEHOLDER​

amelia "mack" mckenzie

28; the tech

olivia cooke

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[MePersonally]

Basics
Name: Lukas Altendorfer
Nicknames: Alti, Luki, Bullet Magnet
Titles/Honorifics: the Austrian equivalent of a Captain in the army, Paramedic
Age: 50
P.O.B (place of birth): Salzburg, Austria
Citizenship/Residency: UK (currently)
Occupation: Battlefield Medic (formerly); guide and bodyguard (currently)

Appearance
Faceclaim: Richard Madden
Written description:
Luki is buff, but not very tall. He has been working out since he joined the army at 18, so he has some considerable strength and some good muscle definition. There is a huge burn scar that covers his right upper body and his arm and if you look closely, you can also see light scarring on his face, which is probably most visible on his right ear. His eyes are green-grey and in one of them, the pupill is slightly dialated. This is due to an old brain injury that doesn't affect his performance, though.
Lukis hands are petite, compared to the muscle mass on the rest of his body, but they have the advantage of being able to reach through small openings, as well as being very stable.

Height: About 175 cm
Tattoos/Piercings/Etc: Nope.

Personality
FOUR positive traits: Selfless/Altruistic, funny, protective, easy to get along with
FOUR negative traits: Sarcastic, trust issues, kind of suicidal (helps others with a certain disregard for his own safety), aggressive/violent
Written description: Sometimes a soldier comes back from war and has changed so much that even the people he used to love don't recognize him anymore. That was what happened to Lukas, when he returned from his first year abroad. It wasn't only the PTSD that changed him, but also the things he had seen. When the whole Zombie-thing happened, he volunteered to fight, took a flight to the UK and never went back home. His coping mechanism of choice is ignoring problems until they go away (or turn into a crippling complex of emotional turmoil that he releases over the next best provocation he encounters). Alti likes to joke when there is no time to joke, his humor being gory, but never too inappropriate (he was well socialized, after all).

Fears: Abandonment (which is why he avoids making friends), failure, his own mind (sometimes)
Wants: To survive, help others do the same.
Hobbies/Interests: Up until he was 18, Alti played soccer in a professional team. He likes sports in general (which is probably the only healthy coping mechanism he posesses).

Skills: As a soldier with heart and soul, he also knows his guns and- of course- posesses a respectable amount of medical knowledge. He is an experienced battlefield medic, so everything from cuts and bullet wounds to broken limbs and amputations are right up his alley. Because he has worked with emergency doctors very closely, he can perform small surgeries (anything to keep people alive long enough to take them to a hospital), as well as administer medication for vital stabilisation purposes.

Talents:
Luki is a hell of a sprinter. He was always the fastest in school.
Alti is also a wizard when it comes to anything that involves throwing things (e.g. a ball, or a piece of paper). He almost never misses.
Lukas speaks three languages: English, German (his native language) and Arabic.

Background
Family members: Luki has a mother and two older siblings, but he is happy not to see them anymore. The only person that our soldier sometimes misses is his boyfriend, David.
Personal history:
When Luki signed up for the army, it was because he thought that it was the only thing that he could do with his life to give it meaning. Before that, he had never excelled at anything except for soccer (and that wasn't really a carreer path, he was told).
So, when his mandatory training at the army started, he found that he was amazing at something for the first time. That was the reason why he became a soldier.
Somewhen along the way he got together with his best friend, David, who was studying to become a teacher.
Alti rose the ranks quickly, mostly because he was intelligent and dedicated. When he was 21, he signed up for his first abroad mission. Since the Austrian military only provides aid and supplies, he was never there to fight, but only to save injured soldiers and assist the doctors. Even though he never saw the frontline, he sa the repercussions of war. He saw civilians getting hurt, children being slaughtered, soldiers bleeding out despite best efforts. And it changed him.
When he came back home six months later, his life felt meaningless and dull. So he went back. Again and again. His relationship crumbled, but they somehow always made it work when he got back home for a few months.

At work, Luki was known for attracting trouble. It wasn't even his fault, buit he just seemed to have a certain talent to be at the wrong place at the wrong time- hence the name "Bullet Magnet". In his carreer, he has been life threateningly shot three times, blown up two times (once with an entire building, which is where the burningscars come from) and crashed with a helicopter. That is a considerable track record, considering he was only ever there to provide first aid and never remotely close to the frontlines.

Then, after the last injury, his boyfriend made him choose: David or the job. Luki chose David, of course, and it seemed like it was a happy ending to the story... Until Z Day came.
Luki got a call- they were gathering soldiers to hold off the hordes of undead, which were threatening the living. Without thinking, the soldier packed his stuff and let them take him wherever they needed him.

When things started to settle again, Luki started looking for David, but couldn't find him. So he stayed where he had been stationed last, somewhere in a small English town, in a small apartment, earning his money by taking people through dangerous zones safely, killing zombies and providing protection.

 

[Togy]

Monty, watching a pigeon fly off with his Croissant, circa 2031
Basics
Name:
Montague Allaire Arquette
Nicknames:
Monty
Titles/Honorifics:
Dr. Arquette
Age:
38
P.O.B:
Versailles, France
Citizenship/Residency:
France, living in America for work
Occupation:
Epidemiologist

Appearance
Faceclaim:
Gabriel Aubry
Written description:
Monty's most notable feature is the fact his limbs are asymmetrical. His left arm from the forearm down is entirely plastic, metal, and wires. He's had a prosthetic for at least a decade now, and before that he'd had to make do with one arm. Don't be mistaken, the prosthetic is purely a medical instrument, there's nothing sci-fi like super strength or any kind of go-go gadget bullshit involved. It's a plastic and aluminum frame over a light titanium skeleton with a few electrical components and servos to allow a full range of movement in the joints in his hand. If you really tried, you could probably break the arm beyond all repair with just a crowbar. You'd think a metal arm would increase your strength, but you'd be forgetting it's pretty much a 3D print. If he punched a wall, he's not breaking the wall, he's breaking the servos in his fingers and just threw eighty thousand dollars down the drain. Monty usually wears long sleeves and gloves to hide his prosthetic, because believe it or not, the fact he's missing an arm is not a conversation topic he enjoys.

Other than that, Monty almost always looks like he hasn't seen the light of day in three weeks, hasn't even dreamed of a shave in days, perpetually coasting a hangover, hasn't left his lab in months, and hasn't slept in days. Which he likely hasn't. Monty frequently works for fifty hours or more before crashing from exhaustion and sleeping for up to sixteen hours.
Height:
5'8
Tattoos/Piercings/Etc:
Two gold earrings only.

Personality
FOUR positive traits:
Excellent crisis manager, intelligent, generally wants the best for everyone involved, calm under pressure
FOUR negative traits:
Gruff, workaholic to an obsessive degree, will take almost any risk if it means finding a cure, borderline alcoholic
Fears:
A second wind for the zombie plague, disappointing his children
Wants:
His real arm back, to find a cure to the zombie plague, to make it back home in time for his son's birthday
Hobbies/Interests:
Making pointless experiments, such as: Experimenting on how much coffee you can substitute for water before being hospitalized. He needed a new experiment to focus on after the one where he tested to see how much saw dust you can put into a rice crispy treat without anyone noticing. The answer is fifteen grams.
Skills:
Epidemiology: Monty has a very firm understanding on the function and operation of diseases
Anatomy: Monty has dissected more corpses then he feels comfortable to admit, he can be expected to effectively lead an autopsy.
Behavioral Studies: Monty has studied the behavior of zombies and what makes their undead brains tick. Give him enough time and he should be able to figure out the motives and patterns of any living, or non-living, creature.
Talents:
Weapons Handling: You don't survive the zombie apocalypse for near a decade without picking up a thing or two.
Ambidextrous: He was left-handed before he lost his arm, forcing him to become right-handed after the fact before he got his prosthetic. Monty has learned to do most things with only one hand, with either hand.

Background
Family members:
Delphi Arquette (Mother-Deceased)
Florent Arquette (Brother-Deceased)
Julius Arquette (Brother-Deceased)
Maribel Arquette (Sister-Deceased)
Adeline Dupont (First Ex-wife)
Marianne Laurent (Second Ex-wife)
Cécile Toussaint (Third Ex-wife)
Angeline Toussaint (Daughter)
Quincy Toussaint (Son)
Personal history:

Spoiler

By the time Monty had turned three, his dad had already fucked off without a trace. This in itself wasn't that surprising, since they'd done it before, but never permanently. They were in and out of Monty and his siblings' lives, staying for a few months because he felt like being a family man before hitting the road and disappearing off the face of the Earth. Not very well, mind you, since he once took Monty to the zoo when he was eight, accidentally dropped him into the penguin exhibit, and skipped town before anyone could hold him responsible. On an unrelated note, Monty has despised penguins since he was eight years old.

Monty blames that for maybe 6% percent of his problems. Mostly, he's moved past it. His siblings, all younger than him, were little hellspawns that made every day a waking nightmare. Naturally, he loved them unconditionally. With his mother mentally incapable of handling even half the stress she faced on a daily basis, it was up to Monty to make sure his younger siblings didn't swan dive off the stairs or lick the electrical outlets.

Monty was only in his senior year of high school when the outbreak struck. The news had reached him of the infection, of course, but it both wasn't widespread and limited to major cities in France. He'd freshly turned eighteen, working part-time at a florist's when he first encountered the undead. His boss had returned from a trip to Paris, one of the most heavily affected cities at the time, and returned much worse for wear. About halfway through his shift, helping a customer pick out peonies, his boss stumbled out of the backroom and sunk their teeth into the customer. This in itself wasn't that unusual since Monty knew his boss grew pot in the back and was frequently too high to distinguish Monty's forearm from a crepe, so the man had bit him before-Which, usually, is a deal breaker for most employees but Monty can't really iterate how much he needed the money-but never a customer.

Monty had managed to trap his boss under a pile of fertilizer and used his shirt sleeve to bandage the customer's neck wound before the police arrived. Paramedics looked after the customer so they could die some time later, and because it was early and before the general euthanasia order was given on any infected individual, the police took his zombified boss alive. The insistence to consider the undead simply as sick patients was, in hindsight, one of the leading causes of why everything went to shit so fast in France.

The Santé Publique France stepped in soon after to detain Monty, the customer, and his boss. Any and all exposure to infected individuals was considered a risk, so Monty was carted off to a quarantine camp-with no say so whatsoever-filled with people who were either actually infected or poor fucks like him.

It was a bomb waiting to go off. Thousands of infected individuals in an enclosed space with thousands more uninfected individuals in a confined quarantine camp that was still being built even as new arrivals filed in. Needless to say, once the infected group finally began to turn, it was a massacre. The only reason Monty managed to survive was thanks to the help of Quincy Caddel, an epidemiologist working at the camp to study the disease. Even together, the two barely escaped the camp with their lives, and while Caddel had to make it to another Santé Publique France facility to regroup with his colleagues, he felt a moral obligation to get this high school kid back to his family before parting ways.

With the quickly rising number of undead, travel across the country had been forbidden, borders were put on lockdown, checkpoints were being set up on roads, and everyone was forced into mandatory quarantine in a futile effort to stop the spread of the disease. It was hard enough to get back to Versailles, even without the undead, but the two of them managed. Versailles was much worse off then Monty had left it however, with his family infected along with half the city. The collapse of order was quick after that, emergency services going dark and the government retreating to small pockets of safety.

Without any family left, Caddel let Monty tag along with him and the two set off for the nearest Santé Publique France facility. When they discovered it was overrun, they tried the next, then the next, and the next before eventually recognizing a lost cause when they saw one. Caddel maintained his research on the fungus and the infected even while disconnected from the Santé Publique France and used Monty as both an apprentice and living research log so that in the event he died, at least someone would be able to remember his research, whatever good it may be.

Six years into the apocalypse, the two were searching for possible Russian Ministry of Health remnants in St. Petersburg when Monty was bit. Cutting off his own arm with a wood saw was probably one of the most horrific things to ever happen to him, shortly behind his second marriage for sure. Monty was bedridden for months afterward, but once he managed to regain his strength he was fit to continue traveling, so him and Caddel began traveling along the Scandinavian peninsula after the Ministry of Health lead proved to be a bust.

Two years after he'd lost his arm, Caddel was bitten on the neck. He spent the last twenty-four hours of Caddel's life by his side before he was officially on his own.

Another two years saw Monty's return to France, and coincidentally, his return to civilization. Him and Caddel had met some safe havens constructed by governments during their travels across Europe, sure, but what ones they did find were either bordering on totalitarian, one foot in the grave, or shot at them. Marseille had been reclaimed, along with enough industry and farmland to make them an actual city instead of a half-starved refugee camp. He'd even been supplied with a prosthetic, though that put him eighty thousand dollars in debt.

Monty had entered college to continue studying epidemiology-A lot of public records were lost in the initial outbreak, so the university had a number of students like Monty who had lied their asses off about finishing high school and they just had to take their word for it-when research on immune individuals began. Monty insisted on being involved with the research so much that what was left of the Santé Publique France sent him a cease and desist order, but the manpower for the team was so low that even Monty, a man without a degree and no work experience but who had an-alledged, mind you-connection to one of the top epidemiologists in France studying the disease pre-outbreak, was considered to take part. They were desperate, not idiotic though, so Monty was put through rigorous tests before deciding he'd actually be an asset. After he was assigned to the team, he was also expected to continue the course work from his university while he was working for the Santé Publique France.

The training Caddel had given him was enough to make Monty an effective member of the study, though he quickly became disillusioned once he realized not every subject was there willingly. What followed were what he considered some of the hardest years of life, which means a lot considering he survived the apocalypse, alone, with one arm, for about two years.

Was he proud of any of it? Not really. He still has nightmares about it and he's scared he's going to hell, but he did what he had to do. It was around this time that his love life took a nose-dive and he began entering relationships less out of actual interest or capability to maintain one and simply to cope. He'd forever be remorseful for failing as a husband to Adeline, but it was for the best she cut contact with him after the divorce. Not Marianne though. She tried to kill him. Multiple times.

He met Cécile sometime after he earned his doctorate and finally finished his work with the Santé Publique France. Monty had learned his lesson from his first two marriages and actually tried to improve, seeking a therapist and trying to cull his bad habits. They had two children together, his daughter Angeline and his son Quincy, who he'd named after Caddel. His best wasn't good enough, however, and try as he might, he simply wasn't fit to be a proper husband or father. Cécile filed for divorce, though Monty and her stayed on decent terms and he was allowed to regularly visit his children.

Monty had moved overseas to America to work with the CDC when they discovered a possible fungicide that could kill the virus. Monty had developed a near obsession to see work on the cure to end and jumped at the chance to lead the team of researchers leaving for Antarctica. Naturally, after years of self-destruction, the ones in charge were hesitant to put him in charge, but he's proud to say that after countless hours of rehab and rigorous therapy, he only drinks himself to sleep some nights.
[spoiler/]

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

the leader.

What died and lived between us — haunts me still.

• .
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  requisite.

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  full name

  
  

  Gu, Zheng

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  nickname

  
  

  Everett

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  gender

  
  

  male

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  sexuality

  
  

  bisexual

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  age

  
  

  44

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  p.o.b.

  
  

  beijing

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  occupation

  
  

  Director of Safety for New England Coast

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Citizenship

  
  

  United States of America

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  visage.

  
  
  
  

  scroll

  
  
  
  

  
  

  height

  
  

  6' 1'' // 1.85 m

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  eyes

  
  

  Dark brown, with matching dark circles underneath

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  hair

  
  

  Jet black, neatly trimmed and combed over with gel

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  fashion

  
  

  As with most of the people who work for the government, his office job requires he be in rather bland suits more often than not, with uncomfortable shoes. During his time off, he wears significantly rattier clothing, perhaps garments that have come from prior to the outbreak itself, given their condition

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  scars

  
  

  Despite the fact that he is largely seen as a pencil pusher, he had to survive those long years before the Department of Safety was set up and running the way it is now. Evidence of this is kept via the scars he obtained, fighting for his life and the lives of those he loves— a jagged knife wound on his lower right abdomen, three inches long; a gunshot wound on the side of his right thigh, thankfully missing bone; three dragging claw marks from the top of his left shoulder blade at an almost forty-five degree angle that stops right before his spinal column; another knife that sank into the flesh of his left calf. His face has somehow been spared.

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Faceclaim

  
  

  Mark Chao

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
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  persona.

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  Zheng has always been a man of action, a doer who commits to the task and executes it as soon as the opportunity presents itself. However, this does not mean he runs into things stupidly, no. This simply means that if a situation arises, he thinks quickly, and acts with purpose, without a second's of hesitation. He is a man of great social intelligence, able to scan the room and shift what he is to say or do depending on the atmosphere, the way someone might hold themselves, gaze at him with wariness or hatred or indifference. And above all else, he is a loyal man— to his loved ones, to his morals, to the cradle of hope that all will be well one day, if they keep moving forward. Surprisingly, or possibly because of his passion for others, he is a shockingly good team player, drawing in the viewpoints and opinions of those he works with in an effort to create the best possible plan when there is time to think.
  
  On the other hand, his loyalty can translate to stubbornness. As someone who makes decisions for swaths of people, he believes he ought to have the utmost confidence in his decisions, in those that he surrounds himself with, and it can be a battle to make him realize that perhaps there were choices made that were incorrect. As a result of this, he can be a bit wooden and standoffish to those that first meet him, or those that he has nearly come to blows with before. He has a hard time forgiving and letting go of grudges, though he perhaps is not resentful, simply overly cautious and wary of those that he has felt have wronged him or those that he cares for. Another reason for his constrained appearance is the lesson that he learned, brutally and at the cost of his relationship with his child— that a soft, sentimental heart and desire to provide chance after chance to those that he is loyal to and cares deeply after may not result in that sentiment being returned.
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  fears

  
  

  
  

  The blood on his hands, the absence in his home, the howling of the dying, running into an apex predator like an alligator, tiger, or shark, earthquakes, his father's rotting corpse

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  wants

  
  

  
  

  Those he cares for taken care of, his family united once more, some goddamn peace and quiet, a house with a white-picket fence, the food he used to eat, before Z-day like duck, soup dumplings, roasted lamb, and pork belly

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Hobbies/Interests

  
  

  
  

  Chess, tending to his orchids, going for a jog in the early morning fog, reading or watching fantasy stories

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Skills

  
  

  
  

  Detail-oriented, basic first-aid, proficient marksman, decent at hand-to-hand combat, outdoorsman

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  Talents

  
  

  
  

  Surprisingly good singer and ballroom dancer, innovative cook, high alcohol tolerance, can make various shadow puppets

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
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  history.

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  Prior to Z-day

  
  

  
  
  
  

  TW: allusions to domestic abuse.
  It is a tale as old as time, replayed over and over and over, and it starts thusly: his mother is required to marry his father. The reason for this is simple— she is expected to play wife and mother, and in order to do so, she must have a husband. He is an upstart, an intelligent man, and he will take care of her, so her own mother and father tell her. Go to him, and she will have no worries for the rest of her life.
  
  And so she plays the game, plays the part of the story she is told to play. She is wife first, then mother, to one boy, then two. She follows her husband across an ocean, follows his whims and desires (his harsh tones, his firm hand— she has no job prospects of her own, barely able to speak this foreign language, and so she had very little ability to fight back against his demands, even if she was not so much smaller, so much frailer).
  
  There is a twist here, though.
  
  She makes a choice.
  
  She decides enough is enough. Her older child is still a child, and cannot bear the brunt of this. She will not have it.
  
  And so she leaves.
  
  New scene, then: the tale is different.
  
  Zheng grows up with fear for his father, but that fear is an abstract fear. That fear is memory. That fear is old terror, terror that has burrowed itself into him, yes, but that cannot be enforced at this moment. There is difficulty, of course, there will always be difficulty (there are brutal, difficult times to come), especially when his mother is still mother, when the promise of being taken care of was broken by him first, viciously and brutally, but ended by her leaving. The other care ends as well, those that turn their noses up at a mother who can barely speak the language, dealing with children who are still growing, finding sympathy in rare supply. But still, she tries.
  
  Still, he resents her.
  
  He dreams of a different home. One where he is father. He will be better. He will be kinder. He will take care. His older brother steps up, does his best, knows the language and tries. But Zheng is just a child, and all he knows is that it is difficult. (He does not know what is coming.)
  
  A glimmer of hope manifests on his first true excursion away from home, in his years in college, where there is a girlfriend, and while they play at being adults, they are still children. But still, they try and for a moment, for a mere snapshot, they succeed. The baby is first, of course, unexpected but pink and healthy and screaming at the top of her lungs, and he gets down on one knee like he has seen in the movies and promises that he will take care of her. Just like his mother was told.
  
  And for this blink of an eye, this fragment of a lifetime, he does. He continues his college career, as does she, and they raise this baby between them in an apartment that is a bit cramped, but well-worn with love, until they can move somewhere larger, as she gets larger. She is still healthy and still screams at the top of her lungs, and they call her a new beginning, their baby, their precious little thing that has wandered into their lives, unexpected, but welcomed.
  
  There is something else looming over the horizon. Something unexpected and not the least bit welcomed
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  Z-Day

  
  

  
  
  
  

  It tears through the community, this disease. In the distance, he is informed that his father falls. An old childhood nightmare turned into a new one, one that shambles about and refuses to give him reprieve. He races to his older brother, to his mother.
  
  They both by his second chance some time. His brother falls to the infection. His mother takes a final stand, trying one last time to save her child, to play the role of mother in the way that she is expected to.
  
  They run.
  
  The air is filled with the sounds of the living and the dying, the screaming and the wails that all blend together until it sounds like the planet wailing for the loss, the affliction that has destroyed everything, that has taken hold of his glimmer of hope and torn it asunder. They argue, he and his wife (because they managed that, they managed the confirmation, the dedication, in the eyes of governments that have left them to fend for themselves) and their child grows up knowing only fear, like he had, except his fear, this fear lurks around every corner and his turned the world upside down. This fear affects more than just a singular family, this fear affects every corner of the world, and it bakes itself into her skin, her hair, her eyes, her heart, until they are dull and void of hope. He watches her wither away into a husk, even though she has not been infected, and he swears, he swears he will change this for her. That he will feed her the hope that he lived on for so many years, even if it kills him.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  Post Z-Day

  
  

  
  
  
  

  Once more, new scene: they make it.
  
  Well. They make it to the city. To the haven. To a place where they can finally lay down and rest. There are parts of each of them that have been lost to the months spent wandering and running and desperately trying to survive, clinging to one another when they weren’t trying to tear each other asunder, the only outlet for the stress and the fear and the fright. They are new people in this city. They are changed people. Despite this, he remembers that he promised to take care of them.
  
  He joins the government, and he rises and he rises and he rises. He works, day and night, to try and do something, grasping at straws, grasping at nothing as they all fumble through this impossibility that there is no fix.
  
  He makes choices.
  
  His wife learns of those choices. His daughter, too. His wife disappears, unable to stomach it, leaving behind their daughter, though why she chose to abandon a child that had nothing to do with this, he does not know. Nor does she, and that confusion, that hurt curdles into resentment. The fear is all she knows, and she weaponizes it, becomes something else. There are friends and classmates and neighbors that are disappearing and she pushes and pushes and pushes, and he can only take so much before he snaps that this is the only way.
  
  She has only known fear, but there is also a sense of strength in that, in permitting oneself to feel that. He forages ahead, insisting to himself that there is an end, that there is hope.
  
  One day, there is a ruckus. One day, there is an explosion. One day, there are those who have watched the disappearances, who have never believed the tales they are spinning, the insistence they are pushing, because they do not believe that there can be anything more than this, that they must learn to accept and live with the fear. One day, they are swept up and taken away, prevented from disturbing the peace anymore, and that day, he gets to see her and the fact that it is just fury, soaked to the bone, and disgust.
  
  From that day onwards, he works.
  
  There is nothing left. He is as good as a dead man.
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
• 
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  connections.

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Shi, Lian

  
  
  
  

  ex-wife/unknown

  
  
  
  

  Together just briefly before Z-day truly began, the start of a new life for both of them was fragile even before it was destroyed by forces completely beyond their control. They tried to tough it out, tried to make it count— you couldn’t exactly get a divorce when half the time, you were on the run from the diseased or the living but hungry and desperate.
  Perhaps, in this reality, their hope was all for naught. He has not seen her in quite some time and views her as the ex-wife at this point— marriage doesn't matter when your certificate is rotting in a house you may never be able to return to.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Gu, Ming Xia

  
  
  
  

  daughter/jailed

  
  
  
  

  The years that have made up her life are filled with fear, with the smell of rotting, decaying flesh. Those precious handful of years before, when they lived in a house and could ensure that she was fed and clothed and bathed and warm are seared into his memory, but have been snatched away by the darkness, by the screams and wails of the dying and the dead. Even so, she is stronger than he is in many real ways, acknowledging the futility, the laughability, the utter hopelessness of ever returning to a time where she could feel safe, completely and utterly. The two stand in stark contrast on how to handle the world nowadays— and it was with a heavy, broken heart that he watched her be dragged away, spitting and snarling and cursing him all the while.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Gu, Cheng

  
  
  
  

  older brother/infected

  
  
  
  

  A childhood companion, both friend and enemy, as brothers are to one another more often than not, dead and gone alongside the rest of them. Well, perhaps not gone— transformed, but present, somewhere in that harsh, unforgiving world. His one hope is that in this state of undeath, in this state of bastardized living, he continues to escape the wrath and grasp of their father.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Gu, Rong

  
  
  
  

  father/infected

  
  
  
  

  Even though it has been years, Zheng's father haunts him, still. In each of the rotting carcasses, he wonders if he is finally fulfilling his tainted, childish dream of defeating his father. And even then, what is there in that victory? The man is no more, even if his body is shambling about. On his darkest days, Zheng thinks about how it would only be proof of his father's hold that he would be the last corpse left shambling.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Xia, Ning

  
  
  
  

  mother/deceased

  
  
  
  

  A woman subject to the whims and wills of the laws that govern society, even to the end. But, in that end, she decided to make one final stand. It haunts him.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  extra.

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  question

  
  

  answer

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  no children

  
  

  the mountain goats

  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[rakshasa]

kinza chaudhry
the student
~

~
fc: sajal aly​