Background

Elizabeth Harper was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, as the middle child in a group of three and with rather ordinary parents. Her childhood home was a quiet place, practical and peaceful, and the children of the family was raised in a home where routines were the norm and intent and emotions usually were expressed through actions and achievements rather than words. Early on in life, her parents deemed her as a serious and intelligent being. She spoke early compared to other kids, read early and preferred quiet reading time indoors or solo play times with bricks and plastic animals rather than going outside to play with her siblings or the neighbor kids. Elizabeth herself found out at a young age that she had a hard time understanding other people the same way as others seemed to understand each other. When people joked, it sounded like lies, other kids’ games changed rules midway through the process and expressions would say other things than the words coming out of their mouths. It didn’t really make her dislike other people, but it made it difficult for her to find a social spot in between, and so quiet moments and hobbies became her place of rest and recharging and social activities became opportunities to study other people and their ways rather than one for making friends. School reports stated that she was polite, intelligent and observant, but that no one ever saw her smiling or joining in on group activities if she wasn’t strictly forced to do so. Despite being a hardworking student, she would often get detentions for talking back to teachers, and at several occasions social services had ended up coming by the family home based on her behaviour, though nothing was found amiss at the house. Her parents naturally worried for her even though they loved her deeply, and they struggled to interpret her inner world or figure out why she differentiated from her siblings despite all three of them getting the same conditions and upbringings. In the end her mother would take her out of school to be homeschooled, taking night shifts to help aid her strange daughter’s education and support her well-being in a world that didn’t just quite seem to fit her that well. In between college text books, museum visits and state provided exams, Elizabeth would use her free time at home getting into crafting hobbies and quietly fixing things at home. Untangling cords, repairing torn book spines, fixing uneven door hinges and closing holes in old socks and sweaters. In her midteens, she discovered late.night college radio, a sudden door into the culture of gothic rock and darkwave, and for the first time in her life she found something she could relate to. The music itself was structured the same way that her thoughts felt like and as she dug into finding out as much as she could about the played bands, their members and fans and further on to other things said fans was into, she began dressing in black lace and long coats and happily joined concerts and outings of the same theme. Her parents even swore that they occasionally saw her smile a little. The new found aesthetic mixed with an unfortunate resting bitch face, made her intimidating to a lot of her peers, though she didn’t mind too much, to this one it just meant less pressure to attempt being a part of a conversation and more time for music and books. After her high school exams, Elizabeth stopped homeschooling and instead started studying records management and archival systems at a local community college, and it didn’t take her long before she managed to get herself a position at a historic Louisville Cemetery, maintaining burial records while at the same time getting lessons and mentorship from local funeral directors. She enjoyed her worklife there, it fit her need for structural tasks, quiet surroundings and a strange obsession with the concept of death and mortality and the beauty of it. Elizabeth was at her job in the underground archives, when the rifts first started to appear, learning about the world going into absolute chaos, as the few colleagues of hers came running downstairs for refugees, the outside graveyards overrun by animated bodies. The group stayed underground for a small bit together, with limited supplies from the cemetery office, and whatever they could manage to scavenge in the nearby area before having to flee back down into the archives. A few months in though, unexpected rescue came to the group, as a few looters had found their way to their hiding spot, both groups surprised to find each other. They got offered a few supplies and escort back to the mall, being told on the way how the underground megamall had become a big refugee for most.