Nathan Hawn
He/Him
18 years old
Peaceful
50 kg
Personality
Despite everything that happened, Nathan is a pretty joyful youth: he’s convinced that there’s a reason for which he’s still alive and don’t let despair drag him down… It’s a new world and whether these are the end times or not, it’s still worth it to fight to live one more day.
This courage in day-to-day life doesn’t always translate well into survivor life however, as Nathan a coward who'd always prefer fleeing to fighting… Like anyone else, he’s had to fight against the undead, but sneaking is his preferred way of dealing with them. As for conflict against other humans, he’ll always try to de-escalate a situation and eventually run away if possible, violence is only a solution if a peaceful resolution is absolutely and definitely out of the question.
Another thing that characterizes him is a grand sense of generosity: he would never refuse to extend a helping hand to a stranger as long as it doesn’t involve hurting someone else. This trait, however, comes with an expensive price to pay as he’s been taken advantage of more than a few times and is generally unable to detect ill intend from his fellow humans (unless said ill intent are absolutely evident).
One other defining feature of Nathan’s personality is that he’s a very wiling boy, always ready to learn new things and to work hard… Not a fighter by any standard but definitely an asset for any community looking for someone to absorb work.
For the rest, he is always very polite and his broken English is spoken with a cute French accent.
Appearance
Nathan is a young teenage Asian boy, with traits characteristic of both his Chinese and Korean origins: he of course has a pronounced epicanthic fold and very dark, straight hair that are semi-long and oftentimes groomed in a voluntary messy way.
He has a juvenile face that befits his age and was relatively spared by acne, which makes his skin soft and smooth. He can be found smiling most of the time.
He's neither tall nor short, just average for his age but the last year spent in a refugee camp meant that he did not always fill his stomach, which has rendered him skinny, a bit skinnier than a boy his age should be.
Background
Nathan was born in southern Paris the 20th of June 1976, from a Chinese mother and a Korean father. Since he was born in France and thus, a French citizen, his parents gave him a French First name at birth, like his sister Amélie and contrary to his eldest brother Xiang-Shu who was born in China before the emigrated.
From the get go, as a second-generation immigrant living in Paris' “Chinatown”, he’s always had some struggles with his own cultural identity: French in public and at school, but Chinese everywhere else. Thankfully, even though the Chinese diaspora was merely an emerging phenomenon in France at the time, he was shielded from racism and discrimination by the fact that his neighbourhood was precisely an ethnically Asian one... Thus, kids didn't discriminate between nationalities at school and stuck together outside of it, which at least made growing up in a foreign country a much easier affair...
Although it was a busy one, his childhood was very happy: Nathan was the little brother and thus well looked after by his siblings and caring (but demanding) parents. In the end, it was a sane and balanced childhood, spent between studying, helping out at his mother’s shop and playing with kids from every walk of life.
It was only when he reached the age of 14 that the kid understood what he wanted to do : when his parents opened a restaurant as a second business, he was of course expected to help out on a daily basis, and it’s there that he fell in love with cooking and everything related to food. At first, his parents were dismayed that their son wouldn’t be an engineer or a doctor like his big sister, but they started to picture him as a great chef quickly enough, so it was settled. Their only requirement was that he get his baccalauréat before joining culinary school… An odd request but one that Nathan didn’t mind since he still liked school.
Being a focused child, Nathan didn't stop applying himself at school and, among the many school subjects he was good at, English was good enough that he was chosen to be an exchange student for his year of 1ère (Junior year). Although reluctant at first, he was eventually convinced by his parents not to pass up this incredible opportunity.
Autumn 1992 rolled around and it was time for Nathan to depart to America for his exchange. First, Chicago, and then a Greyhound for Indianapolis and finally another one to Seymour, where he would spend his year in an American high school. This year spent in America was to him the best of his life: Nathan made numerous friends, adapted well enough to the American way of life and generally enjoyed everything (apart from the food... Sadly for him...). but, unbeknownst to him, the apocalypse was creeping in…
Like everybody else, Nathan was taken by surprise when the portals opened and he alongside several of his classmates poured into the nearest refugee camp, where they stayed for a long time… Many people didn’t survive the winter of 93 and when Spring roamed around, dysentery stroke the camp. Due to his work assignment at the military kitchen, Nathan had been spared by the disease, but not his friends. Knowing full well that he would face huge consequences if caught, he used his insider knowledge to steal some medicine from the military’s stock from them. Nathan saved his friends but, fearful of the repercussions when he would eventually be caught, he sentenced himself to exile...
After saying his goodbyes, he packed as much as he could and slipped out of the camp, not fully knowing where to go… He headed south, in the countryside, trying to survive on his own. He quickly understood that knowledge was the key to survival and every waking moment not spent walking or scavenging, he spent reading about injury treatment, recognizing mushrooms, improvising tools and other first men shenaningans. This certainly did not make him an expert, but this accumulated knowledge made a difference between life and death a couple of times... Courage was also one the things he improved while out there as he went from sneaking around in fear every minute to being semi-confortable at the idea of taking on a few zombies at a time in order to get access to food or gear. He struggled, he struglled hard, be he was OK...
After weeks of heading southwards without a real objective, Nathan felt something… Something like a distant humming, something drawing him ever southside, towards Kentucky, towards Louisville, towards the Mall… With a newfound determination, he resumed his travel and finally, after a few days of walking and quite a few encounters with the undead, he reached it: Louisville, the promised land! Or at least that’s the way he felt… He didn’t know what to expect but still, he felt a strange thing, both soothing and uneasy: for the first time of his life, even though his family wasn’t with him, even though he was lost in a country that wasn’t his own, he felt home… REALLY home…
