A 74 year old retired chef, the son of Spaniards fleeing Franco's regime, Carlos worked himself up from potwash to owning a small hotel in Claremont along with his wife, Alejandra. At 65, they sold the hotel and retired to the countryside. After his wife's passing, he decided to solve the problem of being alone in a house far too big to inhabit or maintain by himself by offering rooms to students at lower rates in exchange for help with housework.
One of the lucky few whose lifelong career had been their passion and hobby, Carlos is a cheerful fellow, nearly impossible to anger, at worst disappoint. A self-made man, he has no patience for lazyness and false excuses. Unfortunately, youth spent in financial insecurity and draconian working hours are catching up with him at his age in the form of Osteoarthritis.▅
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A 21 year old third year student gamekeeper from the Czech Republic spending a semester abroad. Adopted at an early age by a gamekeeper and a teacher after her biological parents died in a flood, her father instilled in her a love of the outdoors and she eventually chose to follow in his career footsteps, enrolling in a bachelor's gamekeeping program at the Mendel University in Brno.
In her third year, she took a semester in the United States as part of research for her bachelor's thesis, which is where the outbreak caught her, now stranded almost 6500 kilometers away from home.
An active, outdoors person and an avid fantasy fan, Alena is outgoing, irreverent and loves to talk about her field of study to anyone who's interested in hearing about it. She is also a competent guitar player, particularly of the folk and country genres.
She's been staying in Hudeen for only a few months.▅
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A 19 year old second year undergraduate student of electrical engineering from Fayetteville, NC. The eldest of four siblings from two marriages, son of a USN machinist aboard the USS Helena and an optometrist. Finding the technical education in Fayetteville sorely lacking, he aplied to the New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord, NH.
A bashful Sci Fi nut, physics aficionado and amateur astronomer, Carson is the quintessential nerd. Unfortunately for the situation he finds himself in, he's spent a grand total of 20 minutes outside of a city in his whole life, the only reason he can even be found in what he would privately describe as the armpit of the universe being the drastically cheaper rent offered by Mr. Valero, althugh he would never admit his opinion of Huddeen to any of its citizens, especially since being in a sparsely populaated area might've saved his life.
He's been living in Huddeen for a little over a year.▅
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DJ is a caring, nurturing young woman of only twenty-seven. She knew from a young age that she wanted to take care of those who were ill, so working in healthcare was a no brainer. There is one flaw to her design- she dislikes children. Being a general practice Nurse Practitioner, however, she has learned how to work past that dislike. The only children she'd accept are the furry kind.
In other areas of life, she is outgoing and laid back. She is stern when she has to be, but soft and gentle when it's important. Delaney is currently single and a mom to her puppy, Weasley. When she isn't working, Delaney loves to curl up with a good book and play fetch in the backyard.
Having been an Emergency Department nurse for years at the neighboring hospital, she is no stranger to chaos. She thrives on the chaotic energy and is always up for a challenge. Now as a Nurse Practitioner she takes full advantage of the new control she has over medical situations. ▅

A four year old English Springer Spaniel, he takes good care of his mom inside and outside of home. He routinely hangs out at the clinic with her and enjoys all the free pets and hugs from patients. The goodest good boy around, yet a fierce protector of his owner when the situation calls for it.

A 24 comic book artist from Rhode Island. Kyle had always wanted to join a comic book company and make a popular comic book. He got his chance after marrying Tegan and graduating from college in Boston, and for a while, it was a dream come true for him. Only about a year in, did making comics take a turn and Kyle had to work under crunch to cut time and pump out comics. It forced Kyle to work long hours with no extra pay, and he was barely home. Which did put stress on his relationship with his wife, Tegen. Eventually, after a year of crunch did, Kyle's body give out and he collapsed while at work. After spending time at home to rest, Kyle decided to quit his job, and it was Tegen's suggestion that they move to a small town called Huddeen away from the city. A suggestion that he accepted, and now he is both resting and figuring out what to do next.

Kyle is an optimistic person that is cautious after his time with his first comic book company. Not wanting to make the same mistake again and foolishly get himself into a situation he never wants to be in. So he prefers now to be careful with his decisions and spend more time with his wife. To make up for the lost time he lost during crunch.
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A 24 year old from Boston. Tegan after college and married Kyle. She took a job at a tech company in Boston, and at first, things were going well for her. But things changed when the company got brought out, and new management came in. What was a calm and welcoming work culture turned into an oppressive one. With strict rules and making their employees work long hours. Tegan tried to be her best not to get on the bad side of her new boss for months. Then she started getting harassed, and when he got tired of it and reported it. Only for her boss to come down on her and when she asked to take time off to take care of Kyle after he collapsed at work. She was bluntly denied, and after being treated like this and seeing how bad things had gotten. She quit and, after talking with Kyle about how to proceed. She suggested that maybe moving away from the city would do them both good. Like the small town of Huddeen, the two would agree, and they would move to Huddenn. Now with time to relax and destress from their time in Boston. It was time for a new chapter in her life and one that she hoped would be a good one.

Teran is a rather cheerful person that rarely gets down. Even during stress, she can still give a smile and is a hard worker. She is not one to watch as someone she cares about suffers and is someone can go to if something is troubling them. ▅
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The older brother at age 22, Haruo, or Harry as most people call him, was always the more responsible son. Growing up as the son of two of the most famous people in town, Harry always tried to stay out of the spotlight, not wanting to be known simply for his last name. It didn’t help that he excelled in school, making the honor roll several times at the local high school. As Harry got older he wished to get away from Huddeen, finding it boring and believing that it was beneath him. As such he left home as soon as he could, leaving town at age 18 to attend a prestigious University.
Pursuing a degree in Engineering, Harry would have little contact with his family, trying to start a new life in a far off city. Things were going well for Harry as he had almost obtained his bachelor’s degree, had a solid group of friends, and was in a dedicated romantic relationship. But then everything came crashing down when he received the news of his parents’ death. Harry would return to Huddeen for the funeral, during which time he felt he should remain to help out his younger brother. So Harry abruptly left his schooling to move into his parents’ house and become the man of the household.
While Harry mostly just interacts with his brother, he has something of a bad reputation in town for how fast he left the town and how he seems to think he is better than everyone else. Of course the people of Huddeen are too polite to say it to his face ▅

Born the younger of two brothers, Kitaro, or Kit as he was commonly called, was three years younger. Unlike his older brother, Kit was fine with all the attention he got because of who his parents were, often bragging to his peers. He even fashioned himself a writer as well, dabbling in short stories and poetry. However, he never really had a talent for it, often producing sub par works. As such he was mostly aimless throughout his schooling, kind of just bouncing from class to class. And then his brother moved away, leaving Kit with just his parents around.
Kit would begin to get into trouble, often exasperating his parents. Still, he managed to graduate high school on time, just barely passing. With no solid post-secondary plan, Kit declared he was taking a year off from schooling. After a few months of just not doing much, Kit’s parents forced him to find a job. As such, Kit became a server at the local diner. Kit actually excelled at this, as his friendly nature meant plenty of tips. Once it was getting near the end of Kit’s year off, his parents would be killed in a car crash. Wondering how he could maintain the house by himself, Kit would be rescued by his brother who moved back in to help settle things and send Kit on his way.
Most people in Huddeen don’t have a problem with Kit as he is quite friendly. While he can be something of a braggart, he does mean well. Kit has friends among all the different cliques of young people in Huddeen.

Growing up, Alana was just about the most obnoxious possible version of a ca. 1995-2002 first-gen edgy gamer girl. She never thought she'd be a psychologist. She assumed her job would be something in a creative industry but, here she is, and there's a kind of art to patching minds back up, she supposes. She's certainly had to do more than her share of that over the course of her life. As an ex-urbanite, this mother of three commutes into Manchester for work whenever her job requires it of her. While she was born in nearby Nashua, Alana's parents broke up when she was small and she bounced around. She spent much of her later childhood and early teens in Huddeen with her grandmother before moving to Boston with her dad and becoming a child of the early internet. Luckily, her most absurd exploits were pre-social media and, just after her twenty-second birthday, she was a mother anyhow and her crazy days fast faded. After inheriting her grandmother's house a dozen years ago, she packed her young family up and moved out to Huddeen, with its lower cost of living and safer streets. Now into her early forties, Alana's weathered far more storms than she'd ever imagined and is a lot number to it all than she imagined that she'd be at this point in life. She'll often go on about how she loves this town, and is an active member of all the relevant community organizations. Embarrassed about her wild past and her husband's at-times immature behaviour, she tries as hard as she can to fit in, never quite feeling like she manages it. Secretly, her interest in her marriage is waning but, remembering her childhood, she's determined not to let it fail. You know how they say that shrinks are as much of a mess as their clients? At least she's not abusing prescriptions... yet.▅
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If Alana eventually grew up, Devon never quite managed the trick. A storyboard artist and gig worker, he pursues jobs in the videogaming industry with particular gusto and has built up a fairly impressive portfolio. A proud nerd and daydreaming creative, he lives for his work and loves his family, very much in the mold of the 'cool dad'. He convinces himself that it's natural, but he works hard at it. Yet, he can also be a bit of an avoidant husband and father: enthusiastically there for the good times but absent for the more challenging ones. While he's certain it's only an unfortunate coincidence, he's beginning to understand how bad it looks and how much trouble it's causing his loved ones. Devon's never quite mastered the fine art of 'adulting', but he's trying. He's always been somewhat awkward but has grown socially and in confidence over the years and has become unused to failure. Sometimes, however, in his more anxious moments, he suffers from impostor syndrome. He constantly worries that his creative spark is leaving him and that he might end up embarrassing or holding back his family members, particularly his daughter Lila. As his career has finally started to take off in recent years, he's been seeing more of her in New York and they've grown somewhat closer. At the start of our story, Devon's trapped in Boston where he was attending a conference. He calls his family on the phone at every opportunity while they still have service. He's trying to get someone in the Boston Quarantine Zone to do something or, barring that, to make his way back, but he doesn't quite know where to begin.▅
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A surprise child and the reason that Alana and Devon are married, Lila is twenty-one as the story begins, and was visiting home from university in New York when the epidemic struck. A perfectly average, if somewhat rambunctious kid before being paralyzed from the waist down in a tree-climbing accident at the age of twelve, she was forced to reinvent herself and find new purpose. Since then, with her mother's relentless support , the oldest of the Sparling children has become the sort of inspirational story that's a magnet for bursaries, scholarships, speaking engagements, and interest pieces by local new outlets. An extremely talented violinist from an early age, she has already featured in major productions and boasts nearly a hundred thousand subscribers on her YouTube channel. Living the young, sophisticated urbanite's dream, Lila has left her small-town roots behind and flourished in New York: a young virtuoso headed for success. Yet, deep down, vicious insecurities about being a burden - about being incapable and unattractive - tear at her, and the constructed world and its many obstacles act as constant reminders that she cannot just do many of the things she would like. In truth, she is very much like her younger siblings, though they probably don't think of her as such. In her dreams, she's still a spontaneous creature, wandering the neighbourhood with Jason in tow, climbing trees and hiking in the ravine, pulling Winnie in a wagon, and playing games of tag or basketball that stretch into the night. There's a shared history with her family and she loves them, but she hasn't spent all that much time with them in years. She loves her mother, too, who pushed her hard to pick herself back up and to succeed, but there's something else there as well: resentment at stealing her away from her childhood with endless practice, rehearsal, and travel, for molding her into an 'inspiration' instead of a person. With her friends, in their little shared apartment, Lila's fun, irreverent, and vivacious, always ready with a quick quip or pithy observation. Here, at 'home', she increasingly feels like the odd one out in her family of lovable losers. Huddeen is a pleasant place full of fond memories, but indelibly part of her past, not her future.▅

Three and a half years younger than Lila, Jason was always playing keep-up with her when they were kids: in school, where teachers went on glowingly about her; for attention, where she seemed to lap up their parents' love with her musical talent and witty remarks; and in the little pencil marks measuring height on the doorframe, where he could never quite catch her. Then, after she had her accident, he won the third of those battles definitively, and lost the others. As his parents' and, especially, his mother's attention reoriented itself toward Lila, and his playmate returned home less able to... play, the boy found other ways of entertaining himself. Where his father was a genuinely creative person, Jason merely aped and dreamed. Instead, his talents lent themselves elsewhere. A natural athlete and good with his hands, he is a mediocre student at school, but well liked by both teachers and other students, co-captaining his high school basketball team to the state's final four in his junior year. Yet, the scholarship offers from major universities haven't exactly been flooding in. He enjoys shop class, console gaming, and skateboarding more than anything else, and is just tall enough to dunk on the basketball hoop in the driveway. In between occasional games of Horse with his dad or his sisters, it takes relentless punishment while the curbs and railings in town see similar treatment from his skateboard. At the end of the day, Jason is more than a little bit edgy, with a mohawk, a couple of tattoos, and a fondness for music that would make his once-rebellious parents blush. This, he eagerly blasts out the window of his 2007 Buick, recently purchased from an estate sale for $1700. There is nothing academic that really interests Jason, but he can play shooters and zombie survival games for hours and, yes, he has a (very humble) sword collection. With little to no direction in life, a secret part of him is... weirdly kind of excited that the apocalypse is nigh. He's already constructing traps and barriers and he practices with his cheap knockoff katana in the backyard. Perhaps the dire nature of the situation just hasn't dawned on him yet, so the question is: when will it?▅
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Six years younger than Jason, Winnie was - like her sister - an 'accident'. Her parents hadn't intended to have a third child, but her older siblings were thrilled. At eleven years of age, she's a quiet, socially awkward, and very active girl who doodles, explores, and daydreams as much as her father ever did growing up. He'll never admit to it, but she's the child he understands most and he spoils her with new games, art supplies, and the sort of long solo father-daughter days out that Lila never had the chance to get. Lanky, gangling, and much taken with idiosyncratic fashion and scary things at a young age, Winnie is greatly enamoured with minecraft (and secretly, sacrilegiously, roblox as well). Both in-game and out, she often tags along with her older brother when he lets her and tries to recreate that sense of adventure in real life. He's become a more reluctant partner in crime lately, though, as he heads toward adulthood, and she's started playing more mature games in an attempt to keep up with the person she most admires and wants to be like (though she'll never admit it, of course). While not actively disliked or bullied at school, the youngest Sparling daughter is definitely not one of the popular girls either, and she catches some flak for spending almost as much time with the boys as she does with her assumed tribe of rambunctious pre-pubescent girls. A characteristic of both ADHD and autism, Winnie goes through intense monthly obsessions, gobbling up every bit of knowledge that she can on random subjects of interest. A cultural magpie plucking greedily from the fertile environs of tiktok, discord, reddit, wikipedia, and YouTube (where she's dutifully subscribed to her sister's channel), she is almost uncannily knowledgeable about random trivia and it is the one thing aside from minecraft that she will reliably and enthusiastically speak at length on. Out of necessity, she has now set her mind to the task of zombie apocalypse survival and relentlessly marshals her family to do the same.▅
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Carina never set out to live up to her name. She never wanted to be a 'Karen' and she cringes inwardly (and outwardly, for she can do nothing with subtlety) at the thought that people might consider her one. Three failed marriages, a circle of friends as superficial as they are materialistic, and repeated run-ins with the glass ceiling pushed her to the edge. One ill-advised incident broke her. As a girl, Carina was always the favourite child, and quiet, awkward, artsy Devon ever her shadow. Popular in school, she looked out for him, she protected him, and when he was getting his start as an artist, she let him surf her couch for months on end. More than one potential boyfriend was scared away in that manner, but she never said a word about it. Carina loved her little brother. Rather, she loves her little brother, and her nieces and nephew. She just wanted a family of her own, but she fell for jerks: handsome jerks, badboys, rich jerks, and just, well...pigs. She'd seemed never to make a bad choice growing up and, even as her career advanced and she made all of the right connections, everything seemed to go wrong outside of ever-fancier job titles. The men in charge said that she was bossy, but was she really? The first time that she was passed up for a promotion, she held it in, waited, and didn't jump to any conclusions. It happened again, though, and again, and she took her story to the media. Not much happened except a couple of articles and a horizontal move to a new firm. Again, she was passed up, despite giving her all to the company and sacrificing her marriage for it. A third job and a third marriage ensued, and then came the fateful day when she'd just had too much and a Starbucks employee gave her this smug little smile as he knowingly shortchanged her on her Venti. There were cameras and they didn't pick up any of the nuance and she went viral. She was publicly released from her job. She was doxxed. She was divorced. She was canceled. Carina was even sorry at first, but not after how vicious they all got. So, she bought herself a gun for self-defence, packed up her things, sold her apartment, and moved out to Huddeen to lick her wounds once the worst of it died down. She will see if her brother is as generous with her as she was with him.

Axel is the eldest child of two, 27 years old, his younger sister being Harper of 18. You could say that the passion for cooking has been spoonfed to him. As the only child for 9 years, his father Paul involved Axel in the family restaurant as soon as he could hold a spoon. However, his dad never put pressure on him to take over. Despite that, Axel developed a real passion for food, creation and oddly, making coffee. Since Axel took over the restaurant, it has modernised and turned into a restaurant/cafe, where a lot of the town gets their regular coffee and the high schoolers come to hang out. Axel does not live on Mulberry road anymore, but visits his childhood home often due to his sister and father still residing there. When his father left to visit a relative, Axel packed his bags to stay at the house for a bit with Harper. Axel has type 1 diabetes and requires medicine.▅
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Harper is a happy and sunny teenager, who usually sports a smile on her face. Her father endearingly calls her little sunshine. She is fresh out of high school and ready to take on the WORLD! Or at least, she was, until this all happened. She has a very strong bond with her brother and confides in him. She also works as a part-time waitress in their family restaurant, especially while preparing for uni. She is hard of hearing, and the type she has makes it so she can't localise where the sound comes from quite well, but with the help of her hearing aid you wouldn't notice much about this. While she does have a passion for food, it has much more to do with eating it rather than cooking, and her passion lies more in becoming a nurse, and even volunteered at the local clinic before this all happened.▅
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Blake is a man that looks more like someone's grandfather than someone in his middle forties. Time and stress has weathered him considerably to where one might mistake him for being older than he actually is.

Driving semis for a living, Blake was often away from home hauling cargo deep into Canada or elsewhere. Sometimes it was apples to Quebec, other times it was Christmas trees to the Midwest. It was long, tiresome work, and it often kept Blake from being home with his high school sweetheart, Jill, and their two daughters. But regardless of how stressful the hours were, it kept his family comfortable, and that was all he wanted.

Then came the diagnosis. His beloved wife had ovarian cancer—and it took her, fast. She had passed while he was out on the road, far away from home. Since then, Blake has been beating himself up for not being there during her final moments; his grief still affecting him to this day even into the apocalypse.▅
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A paragraph or two of characterization goes here, briefly touching on their personality, background, etc. Add more or remove tables as needed.▅
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At five years old, Morgan was an unexpected yet welcomed member of the Holloway household. She doesn't quite understand why her mother is gone, and is known to ask innocent questions about her whereabouts. Additionally, Morgan also remains ignorant of the apocalypse, deliberately kept in the dark in hopes of somehow preserving her childish innocence. Her older sister, Holly, wants to tell Morgan about both, but she ultimately doesn't have the heart to do so. It'd crush her, and she likely would never be the same.▅
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