[hider=Dalton Spears][b]Name:[/b] Dalton Michael Spears, Jr.

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Race:[/b] African-American

[b]Age/DOB:[/b] Twenty-eight. 12/23/1991

[b]Appearance:[/b]

[center][img=http://oi57.tinypic.com/o8hyqw.jpg][/center]

Dalton Spears is a relatively athletic man in the prime of his life. He stands at six foot even, and possesses notable muscle that is the result of a lifetime of activity, a dedication to the gym, and the kind of brawn that only a man with a blue collar could grow. Having gone without any maintenance since the siege, his coarse hair is already beginning to grow into a modest afro. His formerly neat goatee has gone completely unkempt, transforming into a short, scraggly beard. A portion of his right ear is missing, chipped away by an unlucky sniper in the first days of the conflict. A prominent, fresh scar on his left wrist denotes a botched suicide attempt.

[b]Background:[/b] Born the son of Dalton Spears Sr., and Loraine Spears, both police officers working for the city of Roanoke, the dream of police work was always alive in the impressionable Dalton junior. It was an aspiration that, as he grew, made him a pariah to his peers, rebellious and anti-authority. Instead he grew up somewhat sheltered, even as he entered into his teenage years having few friends outside of those who were the children of his parents' coworkers. It was within this circle that he met his high school sweetheart and future wife, Delilah. After graduation, he started pursuing a degree in criminology online, and began his employment with the Roanoke police department, a profession that he would love.

Several years went by, and the happily married couple were blessed with three children. It's been said before that the stress of police work can break a man, and after the first few years the allure of the job faded quickly in a disillusioned Dalton. He began to resent his work, seeing it as a futility as he saw the same faces in the back of his squad-car time and time again. The culmination of this was a routine traffic stop that turned into a gunfight as a passenger with open warrants for violent crimes exited the vehicle and opened fire into the windshield of Spear's Crown Victoria. Using the dash for cover he returned fire, and fatally shot his attacker, though he maintains that a part of him died along with the man that he killed that night. After being investigated and cleared for the shooting, he formally retired, an act that shook and distanced his now retired parents. He took to drinking, entering a period of depression-induced alcoholism that nearly ended his marriage. 

When his wife asked him to go to church with her, he laughed at the idea, whiskey on his breath. Neither of them were religious, he hadn't been raised Christian, and his time in law enforcement had taught him to be cynical, skeptical, and pessimistic. Instead, he found himself resuscitated as a man, and took to making service every Sunday. It was there that he saved his marriage, his relationship with his growing children, and met a foreman for a construction company that would help him get his next job. Construction work was rigorous, but it was simple, and there was something in that that Dalton found incredibly enjoyable. You show up, turn your brain off, and work. Dalton Spears, a saved man, earned an honest living here into his late twenties, providing for his children and burying his parents. 

When the war broke out, it didn't mean much to him: With the way politics had been going the last ten years, these kind of things were bound to happen, the government had a plan to deal with this, and it would blow over just like any other unrest. He kept thinking that until the day that the siege began. With the short amount of time that the army gave the citizens to evacuate, and the congested freeways and streets that blocked every turn, Delilah could only make it in time to pick up the children. Speaking to him frantically over the phone, the roaring diesel engines of tracked vehicles and shouts of soldiers blockading road after road in the background, she told him that they'd wait for him at the house. He ran the entire way home, abandoning his pick-up truck at the site of a half-constructed Walgreens pharmacy. He was accosted by army checkpoints twice, demanding identification and eating up precious time, before the military presence on the ground, as well as the majority of civilian traffic, all but disappeared. He was only four miles from his family's home when he realized why, the distant pounding of firing artillery batteries punctuated by the shock waves of much closer explosions. Half of the street he lived on had been replaced with a smoldering crater, a sight he saw several times as he sprinted the remaining length back to his family.

Sitting against the wall in a nearby shipping store, he looked up at windows blasted apart by the force of the impacts, and decided to end his own life. Suicide was a cardinal sin, but the realization that God either didn't exist or didn't care was in his mind's forefront as he gripped a shard of glass and slashed open his wrist without the slightest hesitation. He did not, could not, live without his family, and Dalton's last thought before passing out was that he wished he had died with them. In truth he had just barely missed the artery and it was likely the shock of the situation that made him lose consciousness. He was found soon after by another seeking shelter, and is attempting to rebuild himself and what he can of his life amidst the ruins of his home town.

[b]Personality:[/b] Dalton, like most anymore, is a deeply troubled man. Though owning a strong survival mindset since his suicide attempt, he suffers from clinical depression to this day. He tries, and mostly succeeds at hiding his suffering, but the man is prone to emotional breakdowns, mood swings, and can seem detached and withdrawn at times. He has lost his faith in humanity, and finds trust difficultly, though once someone is a proven ally, he takes a stewardship upon them and will provide for them to the best of his abilities. From his police days, he remains suspicious of nearly everything, cynical, and a patron of humor so dark that only those on the extremes of the legal scale could appreciate. He is a natural leader and a surprisingly bright man, quick to learn and willing to speak his mind.[/hider]