Background

Alayna's childhood started in the bustling city of Manila, Philippines. A daughter to Lando and Augusta Gutierrez. Being the youngest sister to her 3 brothers, Alayna was taught how to grew up competitively and be treated like a princess at the same time. To protect her, her brothers made sure she knew how to survive the harsh reality of the world as soon as she started going to school. With an age gap of 10 years minimum, she grew up seeing life as is. No bubbles, no filters. Her early childhood consists of the ideology - If you're weak, people will take things from you. Take advantage of you.. and so, she was taught how not to be strong but how to get back up on her feet when things bring her down. She was molded into failure, to be used to it and setting her bars of expectations low each time to avoid being disappointed. She was given a taste of what actual punishment is like when she makes a mistake, not to shame or abuse her.. but for her to be acquainted to the feeling - that judgement for a single mistake you did over the 99 good things you've accomplished. And from all those rigorous 'training', she rose up. She was ready. Her teen life were mostly focused on academics while one after another, her brothers started migrating to different countries for their work. She stayed in the Philippines until she finished her pre-med in La Salle University. Diving back into studies as soon as she passed her NMAT, straight into Med School while taking extra-curricular subjects on the side, learning entry-level Nihongo and Mandarin to bridge the gaps when she's in a limbo. After years of worth studying and reviewing, she was finally licensed to take her own residency. Her residency took her into the grim corner of the ER, being one of its trauma surgeons in a well-known hospital in the heart of Manila. Where it's a good mix of rich, entitled people and the poorest of the poor that she meets on a daily basis. Her ideology and understanding of human psychology started to amuse her further, seeing how a good sum of the people she helped chose to thank their deity than the actual person that pulled them off of Death's grasp while others think that their wealth alone can save them from /ANYTHING/ and grant them immortality. With every stroke of her scalpel, every clipboard she held infront of her patients, she felt.. power. A power to manipulate people further into what she wills. And so, it went. Running her residency to its conclusion, she managed to move up from trauma to general medicine and surgery. Focusing on where the biggest chunk of money is while treading the boundaries of her Hippocratic Oath, she started building her generational wealth. Around 2 weeks before the rifts started appearing, one of her brothers from California invited her for a vacation. She accepted, finally taking a break from her life grind. Surprisingly being successful in her chosen field requires celebration, afterall. And so she went. Her first few days consisted of partying all night and waking up late in the afternoon, a hook up here.. a fling there, she was living life to the fullest until the ear-piercing crackles started. Once the tear started appearing in the sky and all around them, She didn't waste time into making the most sense out of it. Things dropped out of them and people started screaming. Those were enough reasons for her to get herself and her brother to safety before making any logic out of it. Gathering more information as they went, they started rushing over to people they know. Eventually clinging to the governmental bodies that also failed to keep a hold of any safe zones long enough before they get overran. As more and more of their communications started falling, their trust on the government started dwindling. This is when Alayna decided that they'll both join bigger groups for better chances of survival. Being a medical professional made it easy for them to jump from one group to another as soon as it started seeing their demise. Growing tired of seeing how each groups and settlement fail.. and how their last group was such a close call to losing her brother. They decided to just go on their own, in hopes of reaching somewhere they've been itching to reach for a time now. Knox. Having collected enough supplies for their travel, they trekked their way through the abandoned freeways, taking months to eventually arrive at the border of the county. After setting up camp near the southern borders of Knox, a migrating horde started trampling around during their sleep. Woken up by panic and screams of her brother, her initial instincts to run and get herself to safety kicked in overdrive before fully realizing what she's done. Now in search of her brother again, she made her way into the mall after multiple radio transmissions of it being the safest place in town.