Background

Pre: Anya was born in 1979 within a relatively stable household within Michigan, a happy family that moved around a lot in the state. Her mother, Karla Amata, was working toward becoming a doctor at a hospital through a residency program, while her father, Nick Amata, was a general factory worker. Her childhood was a mostly happy one, growing up in a nice household that gave care to her dreams to helping people while also spending time with her grandparents within Indiana every now and then. She was a near perfect child in school, straight A student while also taking on advanced stuff for each class, however she'd slowly learned she'd preferred her reading to talking to others, tending to be the quiet girl. Others found her strange, most hated her success, but she'd graduated high school at the top and been offered a scholarship in college to which she took a year of in biology as well as botany. She'd gained most of her interest in flora, liking plants the most and how some can be beneficial while others harmful. She wouldn't be able to go too far into these studies before the chaos of the world came to be, though the things she learned would stick with her and she'd come to use what she learned to survive. Post: Around early 1999, Anya's parents began to struggle trying to keep up with paying for her tuition and housing even with her scholarship. Moving to Indiana to supplement this, her parents stayed at her grandparents, and once everything began to fall apart, she'd rushed her way over to join them. Her family ended up trying to find somewhere to go, traveling south even through the horrors of what was left of the county, eventually reaching a safe place to settle in the middle of nowhere. Klara began teaching Anya how use herbs to help people, how to forage them, and the limitations of it, which began to push Anya into the mentality of trying to help others as she learned all this through some books her mother had kept for her. Late 2002 her grandparents began falling ill, then noticeably her father fell ill as well, next was her brother, which left only her and her mother. Her father passed first and became one of the monsters that wandered outside and that'd once so driven fear into them, which meant the household had been suffering from pollen. She'd taken all her books and things shortly after her family buried her father, having dealt with him and the image of what had happened being burned into her mind. She'd traveled with them and lost more and more of her family and by 2003 she'd left her mother behind, becoming a silent and lonely person traveling through the zone alone. Later that year she'd ended up finding a secluded place to stay, living out of a cabin hidden away and untouched. Anya mostly lived out this isolation foraging alone until she'd ran into someone within the woods, doing a terrible job at sneaking upon them and being found out quite quickly. A tall figure stood before her, staring down and freezing her in place, her silence adding to the tension before the figure parted ways, which wasn't the only time. Throughout the following months they'd run into each other in the woods at random, to which Anya found a pencil and paper to begin leaving a note, then two, then she'd sit down and write while the person spoke to her, this stranger would eventually introduce themselves as Farah Callahan, from the Callahan family. To which were a group living nearby at the time within a place that Anya had not seen before. She'd asked to go back but Farah declined her, and they'd parted ways again. the following months were still a repeat for Anya, berries, water, firewood, avoid the daisies, run from the monsters, talk to Farah. However winter came rolling around, the first one she'd been alone in. Within the first frost she'd burned away all of her firewood, and her water began freezing up soon as well. Berries rotted and she was reduced to shivering under a blanket made from clothes she'd found and out of material her own clothes were tattered and torn. Not having gone out in awhile Farah seemed to have grown worried, and since she'd learned how often she'd run into Anya and Anya's usual path, she went searching, and eventually found a cabin, door unlocked and a shivering pale Anya on the brink of frostbite. She carried her back to the Callahan's and Anya stayed with them throughout the winter. Within the following years she stayed with the Callahan's like it was a place to rest, gathering things for them and following Farah around whenever she could. Throughout the following years she'd spent her time living there and helping where she could, every task they had for her she'd complete and anything she could do she did. After a long morning of work in the summer of 2007, she'd gotten lost out in the woods and traveled in the wrong direction, heading out back south before getting completely lost. She as searching around further and further in the wrong direction before going out far enough to find the coalition, and her mother. She'd stayed there throughout 2007, time with her mother was nice and they'd caught up on lost time, however she'd ended up slowly feeling more and more out of place. Her mind always dropped back to the Callahan's and her friends, to which she'd missed. They felt like real family to her and after awhile she left her mother behind in the middle of January of 2008, heading out towards the last place she'd been with the Callahan's, and then following their trail towards Kentucky, hopefully reuniting with them.