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quote:Name: Alexandra Gibson Alexandra, Alex to her friends, was a country girl through and through. Her family was poor, a few generations removed from dust bowl farmers who moved out west to what they though were greener pastures. Her great grandparents moved to the farming areas surrounding Modesto, Ca and lived there ever since. Her dad taught her all he knew about the surrounding country before he left for the first gulf war. They hiked, shot tin cans off a fence and talked about her studies. He didn’t come back, and now, years later, she couldn’t remember his face anymore. Her grandmother provided love and encouragement but it wasn’t the same. Years later she went to the University of Chicago to study zoology on a full ride scholarship. For once being smart and poor got her somewhere besides being stuck in a locker. She bucked down and passed all her classes with with flying colors, heck, she even got an internship assisting her professor in his project tracking coyotes in the Mojave. Camping under the moon and listening to the sounds of the night changed her. Professor Wright was like a second father to her, he taught her the secrets of tracking animals, the sounds each bird made in the morning and how to disguise your scent and shape from their quarry. Her favorite parts of those nights were the most unscientific, when Professor Wright regaled them with stories about coyotes he had studied, research in wild places and the best ways to get grants. It was like being a kid and going camping with her dad again. That summer she fell in love with her chosen area of study and decided to make it her life. To her delight, when the project ended Professor Wright helped her get into graduate school and she eventually got the Master’s degree in zoology . She planned on heading back to the Mojave and studying her coyotes once again, however, for the sake of money she took a job in West Virginia, studying the migratory pattens of several species of animals that summered in the forest. When the first news of cerebrosus struck she was deep in the woods, living in a fire observation tower. She decided to stick to solitude until things died down a little-after all, how long could it last? The first year she kept busy, going from outpost to abandoned outpost, grabbing any food she could get. Her company pick-up wasn't much, but it sure helped her in those first few months. She made occasional forays into smaller towns and didn't like what she saw. Eyeless, soulless things that used to be people wandering around. Alex lived alright for that year, she was lonely but it was still the wilds that she loved. And then it changed. It didn't happen all at once, but one day the change that the world went through became apparent even to her. It was like seeing through a dark mirror, the animals changed, some even became warped aberrations. And those sounds she heard at night seemed to be getting ever closer to her hideout. This was not her forest anymore, it was theirs, it belonged to nightmares now. She drove out of the park carefully, and got closer to the burned out wreck of civilization. She skirted main cities and stuck to country roads. A few times she saw survivors, if they could be called that, killing and savaging others unlucky enough to get in their sights. So Alex ran, hid and went to ground, watching and waiting as the world sunk further into hell. Everyone else could kill each other, but she would stay out of it. Alex used to the world as a fascinating place before cerebrosus, and still does to some extent. If she catches wind of an animal doing something clever or unusual her prior enthusiasm returns. Her time alone has damaged her previously level nature and left her a bit jaded. At first Alex is a bit wary of any new person she comes across and tends to think her way is the best, after all she has survived this long by listening to her instincts! She eventually warms up but this can take quite a long time. She wears her heart on her sleeve most of the time and has never been good about keeping her thoughts to herself. Despite the state of the world Alex has retained a fondness for books and always has a few in her backpack. If she gets the chance to loot a library or bookstore she quickly takes it. Alex has tried to keep her hair quite short and generally tries to dress as boyish as possible. In her mind people to hassle a man than a woman. Her outfit currently consists of BDU pants, a black shirt, and sturdy hiking boots. She has a medium complexion, straight black hair cut into an uneven bob. ----------------------------------------------------- Alex was running quite low on food. Sticking to the back roads may have been safer from the cerebrosus victims, but it was slim pickings in terms of supplies. It didn't help that the pick up truck she looted was almost falling apart from rust. Cautiously making her way into the outskirts of another town, she chanced on a road sign marking the directions to a CDC lab. She figured that it may have supplies or medications she may need in the future and decided to investigate. To her shock, there was still a lone scientist living in the abandoned facility. After observing him for a while she decided he wasn't infected and approached him cautiously. She had barely any human contact in over a year and although Alex would never admit it, she was lonely. After a bit of post-apocalyptic small talk and cautious inspections Alex found that they had a bit in common. Daniel had been isolated for about a year and happened to be a biologist as well. He wasn't really her type of biologist but at least they had a few undergraduate classes in common. Daniel had something else in common with Alex, he was running out of food too. Since two people would fare better than one in a search for supplies, Daniel and Alex banded together. NoControl fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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