Kim Marie

18

The Forgotten

Before the infection, Kim was a happy-go-lucky girl. The youngest and only daughter in a family of reasonably affluent means, there was little she had to worry for. She was clever enough, and got good grades, occasionally topping her class in the good years.

But she came to the Forgotten a shell of who she had been. At the start, she was just a scared, shaking fifteen-year-old, who quaked in her Converse sneakers. Now, she is nothing if not quiet. You would have to pry her lips open for conversation, and her replies are often grunts, or monosyllabic. She’s a person of few words, Kim is, and sullen. She would make a good soldier; sometimes, she stands like she’s carved of marble, still enough to convince flies to land on her. Even then, she does not move. She takes orders, if they’re yelled at her, or passed under a breath. Enlist her into a turf war and she’ll throw herself into the battle, frontline or no. People have whispered rumours about her, but just because she is close to mute, she’s not deaf. She knows some of them think she’s cold-blooded. She’s heard gossip that she kills squirrels for fun – ridiculous, there are hardly enough around for that anymore. It’s strange though, she could embark on a mission with almost suicidal determination. But the moment she is attacked, she lunges forward screaming, fighting ruthlessly, tooth and claw, her way back to life. Once, when she was out on a personal scavenge, a Scorp jumped her. They scuffled, but it was Kim who left with nothing but a bloody lip and crooked tooth, and the nameless Scorp lying in a pool of growing blood.

Kim was fifteen when the outbreak struck. With one fell blow, she lost mother, father, and twin brothers. For two weeks, she sealed the windows and locked the doors and grieved. She barely ate. In the bubble of her home while the world wreaked havoc outside the walls, time was not sanctioned to pass, as she haunted the halls like the ghosts her family had become.

One day Kim opened the door after someone had been banging on it for five minutes straight, to reveal an old friend on the other side. Josephina forced herself in and locked the door behind her back. She was bleeding from a cut above her temple, but she managed to propel herself into Kim’s arms and almost knock her over. Perhaps it was the way warm blood dripped onto Kim’s back and shoulder, or the sensation of heat and flesh under her hands, but it was enough to pull her back into the present, and do for Josephina what she had had no opportunity to do for her family. Kim cleaned the wound and wrapped Josephina up; Josephina made sure Kim had enough sustenance and brought her back from the brink of a wasted death. She told Kim about her short stint with the Gamers, that she had abandoned when fights for glory and bullshit started taking place. She had tales about a faction they could both go to, and live out the rest of the apocalypse back-to-back, arm-in-arm.

Kim had to admit the prospect of having someone else to live for was attractive.

When they were both well, Josephina led them out the door for the last time, the two of them laden down with all the supplies they could carry. She had heard that the Forgotten were stationed in a shopping district, and that was where they went. But on the way, they encountered Coyotes, who fell on them like a tsunami wave, pouring in from all sides. Armed with bricks, shovels, and pitchforks, they descended upon the two girls.

Kim fought back, scratching and kicking at hands that tried to fall on her. Eventually, she wrenched a hammer out of one Coyote’s hands, and began to beat her way out. She broke elbows and collarbones and the fingers of someone who had been holding a gun. He dropped it. But not before a shot rang out and Kim heard a quiet exhale of breath from behind her.

Death never loses its flavour. At least, it hadn’t in the first three weeks. Even though the population had been decimated, and the streets were still littered with errant corpses no one had bothered to clean up, the children from The Coyotes weren’t acquainted with murder. But as they scurried like kids about to be told on, and she crawled to Josephina - whose blood was flowing in a steady free stream from the gunshot wound over her heart - Kim felt she could kill someone right there and then. Or had she already?

She stayed there for a long time, Josephina’s head cradled in her lap. She watched those eyes empty until they were as blank as the sky they stared up at, and the life drained from her cheeks through a hole in her chest. Kim waited for a deathbed acquittal, for the Coyotes to return with whooping calls and an axe to cleave her neck clean through. But neither ever came. Josephina died quietly, the wind whistled hollowly around them, and the blame for her last friend’s death sat heavily on Kim’s shoulders.

Kim picked up the pistol – ill-gotten gains, that made her feel sick to the stomach – and the bag Josephina had been carrying. With each step feeling like lead, and each breath like a knife in the heart, Kim found her way to the Forgotten.

She never spoke Josephina’s name again.

'The Fox'

Unknown

20

5'4"(164CM), 122lbs(55KG). Pale blond hair, tanned skin with obvious tan-lines around clothing edges. Rather lithe with some impressive upper-arm strength. Scars cover his hands, in very thin lines and some thicker jagged cuts. They mostly cover over the second joints of all of his fingers, around his wrists, the palms of his hands, and on the outside of each hand. A lot of them connect and cross over each other, a few places are even purely scar-tissue. On the right side of his head, trailing from the corner of his right eye and traveling back into his hairline, a crude and jagged scar can be found.

Ex-Coyote (By Personal Choice), Currently a Straggler

Fickle with loyalty and adaptive, Fox is someone purely driven by self interests that change more often than the weather. He does not trust anyone as far as he can throw them and lets be honest here, he isn't built for throwing human bodies very far. While friendly and respectful to an extent, he really doesn't get close with people unless he becomes curious- which is rather rare. He is easily bored with 'common' things and it isn't uncommon for him to throw a stick in the middle of someone's plans to see more of a reaction or to cause trouble. If anything, he likes to test people, he likes to watch people squirm. And in the same hand, while he does enjoy causing trouble for others, he always has some way of keeping himself out of it most of the time. At least enough to the point that he cannot be directly blamed for it. Fox, as a few who have met him before or maybe heard rumor, has absolutely no empathy for other people or any other living thing. While it doesn't seem like he was always this way, it is how he is now and because of it he has been known to be downright monstrous when people try to double-cross him or put his observations/plans on hold. He isn't above killing someone- or entire small groups- that get in his way.

He really isn't all that bad though! Somewhere... deep down inside. Probably.

Fox, despite what he says at times, cannot remember anything before the Virus or the first year or so after it spread. The most that can be recalled it something along the lines of 'The Coyotes found me and gave me a name and a purpose' and 'Then I got bored and moved on to greener pastures'. Someone (or Someones) within the Coyote's took Amnesiac Fox under their care for a time and within that short time managed to create a monster they lost control of.

Fox wears typical scavenger garb. He has a very thick jacket that bundles up around his hips with a few places where it has been patched, a single massive front pocket that has been modified to hold various things. Each arm has a special 'wrap' of thick cloth that is cut out at the elbows to allow for perfectly free movement, it is held in place with straps and buckles on his upper arms and forearms. Covering his hands most often are a pair of heavy duty gloves, a mixture of cloth, leather, and small metal plates individually put in place to protect the pads of his hands and the sides of them. He seems to have several pairs of these gloves. Going down the rest of him, he has a very heavy-duty belt that is always tied securely around his waist. Attached to this belt is several small bags and pouches, filled with all sorts of things he uses and or has collected. His pants are well worn, the knees have been purposely cut and a few other places have been as well to allow for the best possible movement for the wearer. Though they are also patched in several places as well. As far as footwear goes, Fox only ever wears a pair of black combat boots that lace all the way up to the middle of his calf. They are old seeming and have been well used, nails have been inserted into certain parts of the bottom of the shoe. They seem pretty sharp and dangerous.

As an Ex-Coyote scavenger, Fox is never without some kind of weapon. He has an array of pocket knives and daggers of the sorts. But his most well used 'weapon' is wire. Somewhere on his person he carries at least three different kinds of wire. Some of it is simple and basic metal wire, but mostly it is razor wire. Most of the scars on his hands are from having used said wire long before he got his metal-plated gloves.