Piper Vox's Questionnaire

I do not live in a communal hub. I occasionally visit one, when I need to bring a haul back home, but I have others who can carry the load. The walls are my home. I live between pipes and rust, the creaks and groans of the hull are my lullabies when I rest. The darkness is my roommate, and the eerie silence is my neighbor. Sometimes when I am at the edge, I hear others. I listen to their conversations. I learn their languages. And for one, I've possibly befriended them. No one suspects another being in the walls. People will say anything when they think no one else can hear.

I have a small cabal that I work with. They do most of the heavy lifting, bringing back stashes to our home. I do the scouting, the listening, information gathering. And then we set up and we wait. We intercept. We kill. And we collect. We clean up the mess, take inventory of what we can bring home, and the rest is forgotten. Sometimes they leave their gear and run, and we let them. Sometimes they are easier to hit when they can't see it coming. 

It's never a pretty job- these people have friends. Family. Children.

But so do we.

And that's all we have.

My ambition is simple. We are a people driven to extreme means of survival. We are wrongfully punished and oppressed for simply wanting to live. Is it such a crime to crave food and seek water? Medicine? Shelter? They would rather waste a clip to our heads and abandon our bodies than help feed our children. They never hurt anyone. They wouldn't dream of it, I know there was a time I didn't. I still don't want to, but we do what we must. We must fight tooth and nail to get by, because one small slip up could cost us our lives. 

My ambition is simple, it is something I kill for today, and would continue to kill for in the future. I always stand within arm's reach of death's door.  

I just want my people to survive.

Astrid (22, f), Bastian (18, m), and Emmett (16, m)

My younger siblings, who remain at home helping where they can. Astrid holds down the fort while I'm out, she's a decent fighter with a high pain tolerance and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. Bastian and Emmett have been helping the local infirmary with the medical supplies my team comes home with. I hate my job, but I do not envy theirs. Rationing supplies and making the difficult decisions of who lives and who dies is not something I wish to step into.

Echo Daze (26, f)

A fellow squad member, she does intel gathering and handle the tech side of work. She's just a few years younger than me, but we get along well enough that I consider her a sister. Knows her way around a rifle, and won't hesitate to pull the trigger. 

Atlas Rays (52, m)

He was a friend of my father. Another very scary man, with a scarier attitude. He gave me an in to this line of work, said I was the oldest and it's my duty. I never once argued with what he had to say. 

My mother was our primary caretaker growing up. She was always ill, and would push herself to care for me and my siblings. Being the oldest I took on a lot of responsibilities a second parent would normally be around for and gave her a break to look after herself. The little ones weren't too much trouble until they learned to walk anyway. 

My father was absent most of the time, which was great for mother since she didn't need the stress. He was...an angry man. Resentful. Violent. Loud. I never fully understood why growing up. Mother was just doing her best, we all were just doing our best with what we had. I never understood why until I had to become a monster too.

We didn't have school. Mother would teach us when she was feeling well, or another adult in our community. Some children only learned trade, or crime, or basic care. I count myself lucky that I know what I know, and the rest was learned through exploration during work.

Maybe. I have felt familial love towards my mother and siblings, but that's a different kind. I have caught men gazing at me before, but it I don't think that was love. If anything, it was frightening, but their eyes would turn to someone else and I would be left alone. Echo and I are close, perhaps there would be potential for something more than comradery and friendship, but the danger that would pose for work, for survival, would be too much. I cannot bear the thought of starting a family, bringing children into this kind of environment, or even risk becoming my father. 

No, I have never been in love, and I likely never will.