sometimes even to LIVE is an act of COURAGE.

DOSSIER.

• return.

BACKSTORY.

backstory.
^{_{all emelia ever knew was this world — and the fedra tyrants who ruled it. the kansas city quarantine zone was a place of brutality, and none escaped fedra’s watchful gaze.emelia and her brother were raised in the heart of that gaze. their mother, once a teacher, and their father, a military engineer, were folded into fedra’s machine — civilian workers without choice, without privilege. no protection, no mercy.it was her brother who would learn that lesson first. emelia was only twelve when it happened — a friendship they thought harmless, a boy with too much confidence who led them over the wall. they were lucky fedra found them before the infected did, but the luck ended there. the boy confessed, was tried, and executed to set an example. curtis lawes, the unwilling accomplice, was sentenced to six months of hard labor.whatever fedra intended, they never got the chance. curtis found the fireflies instead — loud, angry, and brilliant with explosives. he taught his little sister more than just how to survive. he taught her to fight.but loss found her too. whispers from an informant led to the execution of a friend’s entire family. fedra didn’t care about guilt or innocence — only control.for a time, emelia dreamed of being a revolutionary. a hero, just like the stories. but reality came for her dreams, as it always did. her brother was only twenty-five when they caught him. no lies, no tricks could hide the explosives. no excuses could undo the five fedra soldiers he took down before they dragged him away.in the darkness of a prison cell, curtis whispered a secret to her — a place, deep in wyoming. a community, safe and thriving, far beyond fedra’s reach. he told her to leave that night. but she wouldn't leave him to die alone.emelia stood in the silent crowd, tears carving rivers down her face, as they hung her brother for all to see. nobody cheered. nobody spoke. not a soul in kansas city wanted the young revolutionary dead.that night, with her parents beside her, emelia ran.
they slipped through the dark streets and crumbling ruins, ghosts in a dead city. they made it as far as north platte, nebraska, before tragedy struck. a collapsing building, her mother swallowed whole by the earth. it was not a clean death. it was slow, and cruel, and every second of it a curse.her father pressed on, broken but driven by the single purpose left to him — to see his daughter safe. but as they neared jackson hole, the final light fading on the horizon, he crumbled. a man who had lost his wife, who had no reason left to survive.
the riding party found them both. starved, sick, and dying from tainted water. they brought them inside the walls of jackson — but only one of them would ever walk those streets.the last of the lawes family, emelia was lost. broken by grief, drowning in memories.it was maria who found her, who gave her something to cling to. her mother’s old profession — teaching — offered an escape. emelia, who loved books and learning, found a purpose again.she became a teacher to the children of jackson. to those just learning to read, to dream, to believe in a world beyond survival.it was the perfect escape. a quiet rebellion against the life she left behind.}}

• return.

SOLOs.

• return.