Before the outbreak, Anne was a student at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) in Pasadena, studying Biology. She didn't have any fleshed out plans for the future and she only took Biology out of her curiosity regarding how the World works. She was the only child of Gustav and Charity Himmler so, when she got her acceptance letter from Caltech, her parents weren't too keen on letting their baby girl go all the way across the country.
Once she arrived at Caltech and settled in the dorm room she was assigned to, Annie was quick at making friends . Her above average IQ made her into an extremely curious person and that could only spell trouble for both herself and her newly found friends. She often found her classes boring, but there was always something triggering her curiosity, always causing her to drag her friends into a "sneaking party" with the goal of sneaking into the labs and facilities on campus at night. Somehow, she managed to remain undetected for most of her crazy expeditions. When she was caught, however, the punishment was always harsh. Anne, however, never saw it that way. She enjoyed every bit of her crazy adventures as she couldn't help wonder what she could do better to avoid detection.
Because of her rather low attention span, Annie was never a straigh A's student but she always managed to get grades high enough to hold on to her scholarship. When she wasn't getting distracted during class or dragging her friends through some weird "sneaking party" adventure, Anne prefered the peace and quiet of her dorm room where she would listen to music whilst studying the things that she found interesting. Under her bed, she kept a suitcase full of various books ranging from cook books to weapon maintenance books to child rearing. In short, if anything seemed interesting enough to hold her attention for more than two seconds, she would go for it.
During a Spring vacation she and her two closest friends (as well as her acomplices in her crazy outings), Hannah and Jade, went to downtown Los Angeles for some shopping and a bit of fun. There, she ran into Jessy, a man her age who was from Kansas. Annie and Jesse quickly made friends and the young woman spent the remainder of her Spring vacation going out with the man, enjoying herself. As the vacation was nearing its end, Jessy and Annie had to part ways as the woman had to return to her studies and the man had to return to Oregon where he was working as a car mechanic in a friend's shop.
In the early days of the outbreak, Anne and her friends listened to the broadcasts every hour from the safety of Anne and Jade's dorm room. Things seemed to be getting worse and Annie knew that, sooner or later, they were going to have to move. She called her parents several times a day, making sure they were alright.
Although the campus was still relatively safe, Annie knew that she had to be ready so she urged her friends to prepare a backpack each with water, a change of clothes and supplies that would be of use to them should they need to relocate such as enough food for a a few days between them, torches, batteries, matches, medicine, bandages, rechargeable batteries for their phones and a swiss army knife each. The woman also packed a hand-crank charger she'd recieved as a birthday present from her father a couple of years back as she was very prone of forgetting to charge her phone before leaving the house. She felt they were prepared enough.
Around day four since the news broadcasts started, Annie made her usual call home. Her parents sounded scared and something didn't feel quite right. They assured her that everything was fine but, as they were talking, Anne could hear glass being shattered, her mother's scream in the background and father dropping the phone, followed by muddled screaming and talking after which the line went dead. The woman knew that something terribly wrong had happened and that urged her to leave. She knew, however, that they couldn't leave unarmed so she had her friends wait in her dorm room whilst she snuck into the building's maintenance room and grabbed a ball peen hammer, a claw hammer and a screwdriver.
Upon returning to her room, Anne found only Hannah inside who told her that Jade thought she heard something and figured she would go after Annie to help her and make sure they both returned safely. The woman told Hannah that Jade never came to meet her and that she didn't see her or anyone on her way back. The two women decided to wait for another ten minutes after which Anne wrote a note for their friend, detailing the route they would be taking and left it in an easy to see place. Hannah and Annie then set out towards Hannah's car at the other side of the campus, in the parking lot. Their first encounter with the undead was grim and unforgettable for both of them. They had just gone out of the building and walked alongside it, using the hedges for cover when, around the corner, they spotted one of "them" slouched on top of someone, feasting. It hadn't seen them yet so they managed to go around it, but they couldn't help looking over to see who the victim was. To their surprise, their friend Jade was the victim and she was on the fine line between life and death. The huge gash in her throat rendered her unable to scream or make much of a sound at all and, due to the massive loss of blood, she barely had any strength to struggle, her eyes tearing up uncontrollably. It took everything in Anne's power not to scream or burst into tears. Her survival instict kicked in so she covered Hannah's mouth and dragged her away, a sense of urgency befalling her. As the two women snuck around the campus on their way to the parking lot, they could get a glimpse of how serious this whole outbreak thing was. The campus wasn't in a state of chaos yet, but the women could see more and more of the corpses shambling around, looking for victims to prey on. Anne didn't let go of her friend's hand until the two safely arrived to Hannah's car.
Once inside, Anne told Hannah that she had to get back to Salem, to make sure her parents were alright. Hannah apologised saying that she could only drive up to Portland, Oregon, where her family was. Annie thanked Hannah for the lift to Oregon and decided to try and contact Jessy, in hopes that he would be able to at least give her a lift up until Kansas. Luckily, she managed to reach the young man who told her he was in a town by the name of Brookings and that he was ready to leave. Anne begged him to wait for her and explained the situation. The man reluctantly agreed and gave her a day to reach him, after which he would leave without her. Hannah told her friend that she knew where Brookings was and was more than happy to drop her there on her way home.
As it often happens, things don't always go according to plan. Most of the roads were blocked or teeming with undead as the two girls made their way North. They had to find detours and plenty of alternate ways to go through certain areas. To make matters worse, Hannah's tank was running out faster than she anticipated and they soom had to stop and try to get some gas. A lot of the gas stations they found along the way were on fire, others had shady characters loitering around and some were just way too crowded with the undead. The two or three they found that were safer than the rest barely had any gas left or had abandoned cars blocking the pumps. All the girls could see along the way was chaos, all they could hear was screaming, the sound of fighting, things being shattered. Annie couldn't believe just how bad it really was. She was slowly starting to lose hope in ever finding her parents alive. Eventually, the car ran out of gas around Sacramento and the two girls had to set out on foot. Hannah wasn't very keen on that and quite frankly, neither was Anne. But they had to keep going. Before they knew it, one day had gone by thus Annie lost her ride. A day later, their phones suddenly lost signal and power started going out. That was extremely bad news for the two women as they still hadn't managed to cross Sacramento. They had been sticking to the suburbs and tried their best to avoid the center of the city as, based on previous experiences with all the towns they went through, the nearer to the center, the higher the concentration of undead. A couple more days down the line, they lost one of their backpacks which halved their remaining food and gear and that made it even more difficult to press on. By the time they reached the outskirts of Brookings, a few weeks had gone by and the two women had to resort to breaking and entering in order to get more supplies. They managed to avoid most of the undead by hiding and travelling only during certain hours of the day and never at night. When they couldn't avoid the zombies, the two would cleverly work together to split whatever group they faced up and take them out one by one. Neither of them was particularly strong, but they soon noticed that a good blow to the head with their hammers seemed to be enough to dispose of the walking corpses. That is how Anne concluded that destroying or damaging the brain was the only way to get rid of those nasty creatures.
When the two women finally reached Brookings, they headed straight for Jessy's friend's shop but all they could find was an empty, clearly looted place. Annie gave her friend Hannah the backpack and the two said their goodbyes as she urged her friend to be on her way before night fell. The town so far had been a bit too quiet for Anne's taste so she wanted to be on the move as well. After seeing her friend off, the woman returned to the auto shop and gave it another look. Tucked in a corner she found an empty hiking backpack that seemed to be in good condition. She picked it up and checked every pocket to make sure she didn't miss anything. Then she put it on and snuck out of the shop, making her way inside the town. She had reached what looked like a diner when she noticed an old looking man climb inside through a broken window. She decided to hide and watch from afar, unsure how safe it would be for her to approach a stranger. From her hiding place, she soon after observed two men, one hoding a shovel and the other holding a cleaver. The two looked well-stocked with supplies and were talking rather loudly as they went inside the very diner the man she saw before entered. The woman snuck closer to the place, careful not to make any noise and listened. No sooner than five minutes had gone by when she heard a commotion inside and what sounded like a fight. She watched carefully until the fighting stopped. She then saw the older man walk out, seemingly unharmed which was all she needed to know that he wasn't with the two dangerous-looking men. Grabbing her claw hammer, she slowly and cautiously revealed herself to the man.
2 (can carry 50 weight)
Anne wasn't the strongest of people and she wasn't very big on sports.Her weeks on the road with Hannah, carrying around the heavy backpack and her ocasional fights with the undead did seem to pay off as she managed to build up a bit of muscle and endurance. She soon found herself able to carry quite a bit in her backpack before she parted with it and gave all of their supplies to her friend, Hannah.
3 (can travel and roam in any sector in any other zone, but must remain in that zone at the end of the phase)
Anne's "sneaking parties" required quite a bit of stamina to pull off since all her sneaking around needed some ocasional climbing and running. Due to the nature of her curiosity-induced game, she needed to be able to run and run fast.
2 (can speak to, calm, and negotiate with Level 2 NPCs)
Although friendly, Anne wasn't much of a people person. Her group of friends was usually quite small and she always prefered spending time on her own over interacting with people more than she deemed necessary. She tolerated her friends, but not so much other people. Against her better wishes, the woman does know that she needs to find herself a group or a travelling companion if she wishes to survive.
3 (can learn how to craft and design from Level 3 books)
Anne is no doubt intelligent and resourceful. Her bad attention span and the fact that she gets bored easily have gimped her ability to grasp certain things and skills she deems boring, no matter how useful they may be. She's always open to learning and improving her skills but only those she finds interesting enough to keep her dedicated.
