Miami 2017

Character

NAME:
June Flanders

AGE:
19 years old.

ABOUT:
On the first day of the sixth month of the year 2282, an aging woman named Saja became a mother. Not in the traditional sense with panting, and screaming, and shouts of "PUSH!", but in rather an unusual turn of events involving a pile of dead bodies, an imminent fire, and the keening cries of an infant.

Saja Bashir, a roaming scavenger, had discovered a large corpse pit during one of her forages to the community formerly known as Flanders, New Jersey. There were more than two hundred dead bodies filling a hastily-dug crater in the center of town, including a teenage girl who had recently given birth before succumbing to the septilence, the seven-day/seven-night plague.

Still at the girl's chest was her baby, purposely ignored in the body collection, wailing in the unsettling silence as a person in a black-hooded cloak paced around the edges, drenching the contents of the pit with some liquid from a jug. The grim-reaper-like figure then lit a piece of cloth and dropped it into the hole of death. Flames spread immediately, catching from body to body like the dreaded contagion, as they greedily devoured the sacrifice they had been given. The baby howled for its mother and its life, taken all too soon.

But before the fire could consume the only life amongst the dead, Saja, who had witnessed the horrifying event play out, risked her life and climbed into the crater to rescue the baby girl from certain death.

That was the night June Flanders was born and Saja Bashir became a mother once again at the tender age of sixty-four.

Barely surviving infancy, June was a sickly and malnourished child despite her new mother's best efforts; the second-degree burns she had sustained from the fire had permanently scarred her upper back and neck, and her mind, leaving her body vulnerable to infection and her brain vulnerable to something much, much worse: memories she should never have been able to access.

Memories of a past life...

*

June can easily be recognized by the scars on her skin, and though they limit her flexibility, she refuses to let them define her. Physically, she is not very intimidating with a bird's fragile frame and a short stature, but it's her child's-eyes that tell her story; blue like the sky used to be, and burning with soft, incessant determination. She is a kind, compassionate young adult in a heartless world that would have torn her up and spit her out years ago, had it not been for Saja, whom she loved deeply.

June is a scavenger like her mother was, a drifter who travels alone but who wants to help others. She refuses to use weapons of any kind, partially because of her naivety, but mostly because she does not want to ever hurt anyone ever again. Even animals are off-limits; she is a strict vegetarian.

June is also drawn to places of extreme death. She doesn't know why.

WORD COUNT: 496 words

1) What is your greatest fear?
I was scared of the dark for a long time, but I'm not afraid, not anymore. The dark hides me, holds me, protects me from harm. It's my asylum. The bad things can't find me in the dark. That's when the fire comes and exposes me to the bad things and they tear me to shreds. I can't stand fire. I guess you could say I have a psychological fear of fire, my childhood accounts for that. But what am I really afraid of?

Death.

Who isn't afraid of death? It's a life-long struggle against a force that just snuffs you out when it's done with you, when it's no longer entertained by your daily struggles. It took my mother. It took... her... too. I am afraid of death and it knows that. It's coming for me...

I can feel it closing in. It's suffocating me.

2) What is your greatest strength?
A strength? Hmm... Spending lots of time alone has made me pretty self-sufficient. I can survive on my own in the badlands, undetected for the most part. I'd say that's pretty key to not getting your throat slit in your sleep, or starving to death.

I'm also pretty good at finding alternative methods. I don't like to hurt people or animals, so I don't. I've taught myself self-defence that disarms opponents and might incapacitate them mildly, but they'll always get up and walk away. For food, I live off the land, or whatever's left of it. I'm a vegetarian. It sort of adheres to my code.

Oh, the code?

It's like my morals, I guess; what I will and what I won't do to survive. I stick to the code, and I've made it this far, haven't I?

3) What is your greatest weakness?
I... I don't like to... depend on others. They always let you down, they say, "It's okay, Juno. It's going to be okay. We're a family, we'll get through this together.", even if you hate it when they call you "Juno", and they know they're lying and you know they're lying and—

...

Sorry... I just... I don't like to depend on others, I don't like feeling vulnerable. I don't like being lied to, but I'm too naïve to realize the truth. Family and friends always go away, and it's hard for me to trust new families when they say they'll stay. I guess that's another fear of mine; not of having a family, but of losing one... of losing another one...