character :: Vanessa Abbott
Vanessa was, as her parents put it, an “accelerated learning” child. This was the obvious next step of genealogy for a gifted family: her mother being a mathematical biology professor and her father a lab supervisor. She begged for science kits for Christmas and spent as much time as she could out in the hot Arizona sun discovering “prehistoric creatures” such as lizards hiding under rocks. Even when ants chewed on her fingers and her sunburns turned into freckles, one thing was for certain; Vanessa would do great things.
When her little brother Kyle was born, no one could match Vanessa’s excitement. A friend! Fortunately for Vanessa (and unfortunately for Kyle), her little brother would be the pinnacle of her attention for her early years. Making friends isn’t easy as the only bug collecting, dirt-sifting, plant-identifying girl in an otherwise small and quite boring city. When her love turned to plants sometime in high school, and her want of biology outgrew what were available at the small public school, she began taking dual classes in biology at the local community college – it was then that Vanessa lost all hopes of ever becoming a popular student. She was too much of a know-it-all for high school, and far too young to understand the college-aged students she attended with. Even seeking affection from her parents could end in frustration; while they weren’t loveless for her, they were certainly more on the studious and less emotional spectrum of child-rearing. Somewhere in the middle, Vanessa was alone: but there was always Kyle. She doted on her little brother, pouring all of the attention she should have been able to give her friends and parents into him.
daughter of medicine.
When Vanessa graduated early, obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in Botany, she signed up for an internship with the Environmental Protection Agency – with great timing, as a curious new fungi has swept the world in an epidemic of catastrophic proportion. The center of the activity seemed to be in Brazil – a world away from her dry and inhospitable home – but duty called her. Vanessa was ready to leave, truth be told: she hated everything about high school, no one in college had caught her attention, and university was a faceless blur. Even her parents were eager to get her out of the house and allow her to excel - the only pang in her heart was Kyle.
Vanessa tried to remain upbeat about her leaving, after all; this was her dream. The homesickness for her only friend was heavy on her heart, however, and Kyle had a surprise for her in typical Kyle fashion: looks like he’ll be tagging along! He’d saved all of the earnings from his part-time job while he had been earning his Associates, and he had a one-way ticket to go with Vanessa. Kyle made a big show about how he wanted to go because “Brazil was far too dangerous for a single woman to go alone!”, but Vanessa could see that secretly, Kyle would have missed her, too.
Upon landing in Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, however, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong. While the fungi had been kept centralized to only the “Hot Zones” as they were called, keeping the US relatively sheltered from the insanity that had been going on in the tropics, here in Brazil it grew rampant. Vanessa was shocked and intrigued by the foliage that had crept up into the city: within the week of landing, all planes had been stopped in or out of the country. She had to do something! So with great difficulty, Kyle and Vanessa travel to the outskirts of the city, hoping to find answers in the jungle. Vanessa loses it when their guide is poisoned by a curious fern, but Kyle remains resolute: all until a massive tree drops a heavy limb from some unseen force, pinning Vanessa under it’s trunk. All she could remember before blacking out was an intense pain as the rough bark of the branch tore through the skin on her legs and her fingers as she struggled; and a white powder seeping into her wounds.
and every science should become art.
When she awoke, Vanessa’s life had changed forever. Kyle looked distraught in the hospital, his stubble growing as wild as the plants outside as he tried to explain to Vanessa what had happened before she found out on her own. Missing four fingers and part of a thumb between her two hands was a shock: finding out that she were missing two legs from the knee down, however, was almost too much for her to take. Given the state of her rib cage and the black skin stretched across her middle, however, she made it out lucky; that fungus that had been killing the tree, causing it to lose huge chunks of it’s lower branches, was hungry for anything living. Too bad Vanessa had been the most recent victim.
Shortly after her awakening, Kyle and Vanessa find themselves at the mercy of a group of kind Brazilians who had set up camp in the outskirts of Sao Paulo; and it’s a good thing to, because the local vegetation had grown out of control. Now, the groups were lucky to stay alive: and for some unlucky inhabitants of their team – maybe not so lucky. All Vanessa knows is that there’s very few of her kind left, and now that she is left immobile, well, she’s luckier than ever to have her big brother around. Luckily, there’s many distractions around to keep her occupied in between breakthroughs! The only question now is how, when or ever, can she cure this rapidly spreading disease?
