Annie

Annie, a Tolling Retriever infected, is a Raider and former Edener in the Rage. She works well as a medic in a side job.

## History

Annie-Mia was normal from birth. She was of average weight and size, nothing disconcerting or unusual about her. The only thing that was slightly different was her thirst for knowledge. It was unrelenting. While the other puppies slowly stopped asking questions as they began to grow older, Annie didn’t. There was always more to be known, more to be asked, more to be learned. Her desire for knowledge seemed endless. She would go out of her way to ask as many dogs as she could talk to about information. It wasn’t long before she started asking questions they were unable or unwilling to answer honestly, “Why can’t we leave the nursery?”, “Why do we dim the lights at night at the same time? We don’t need that much dark.”, “Where do puppies come from?”. The false answers satiated her curiosity, but the inconsistencies between answers left her wondering as to why they weren’t all the same.

When she finally left the nursery, Annie took up the practice that interested her the most. That of the physician. The way that they changed lives through their work really interested Annie, dogs that had bodies that appeared to have been through hell and back were cleaned and treated until they were able to work again. It was truly fascinating. In her time as an apprentice she was relentless in her questions to the other physicians. Medicines and ways to ward off pain were being administered and they were able to save people from the fallacies of their own bodies. There was just so much for her to learn. It didn’t take long for the other physicians to -while not tire of her enthusiasm to learn- push her elsewhere, in the direction of books. She was able to lose herself in the writings, armed with a dictionary and her thirst for knowledge, she had reached a treasure trove of information.

Her realisation soon came to the fore that, while other dogs had lied to her, books hadn’t. She began to invest more of her faith in them. The more she read, the more she learned about the world; and the more she wanted to know. However if she learnt it, she couldn't trust another dog to tell people and she couldn’t tell everyone so she began to write down all her notes that she found for herself. It didn't take her long to begin filling journals with realisations and discoveries of hers. She often spent time studying the anatomy of dogs and how they worked. Apparently there were more creatures that resided on the surface but she was yet to meet them and she could only work with what she knew.

In her free time, Annie had created many small journals on her discoveries of dogs and how they reacted to certain things happening to their body. The dark carnival of injuries that ran through Eden gave her great variety and opportunities for research, although they soon became minor discrepancies on the same case. No new medicines were being created either, they were sticking with the same old formulas for creation of medication and not learning anything new. Rinsing and repeating grew to wear on her so she began to pester to be allowed to study in the wastes. It took weeks of asking, but eventually she was fitted with a gas mask and allowed to study outside of Eden in her own time. She couldn’t travel far from Eden in her short time free, but it gave her opportunity to study the botany that survived in the wastes.

It took several months for Annie to begin to tire of this study. She had been unable to find notes or examinations of these organisms so she had created her own. One thing that greatly bothered her was the barrier the infection enforced. How she would love to take her research a step further. She was unable to taste or smell the plants, much less bring them into eden to study their effects on the body. These plants could be the medicinal boost that they greatly needed. It was so infuriating to her. Casual talk with convoys who headed into and out of Eden had revealed somewhat of how plants acted and how the infection worked and affected dogs. She did not record this information though. It was not hers to jot down, and who was to say it wasn't a lie designed to keep her in eden. Also in these months she collected an apprentice, Elyse, who learnt what she could from Annie's meticulous work. Annie wouldn't have minded having the lively dog around if she didn't nearly walk in on her research numerous times when she was being too inquisitive for her own good. This also led to her having to become more secretive in her studies and notes. Annie did her best to hide the feelings of contempt that rose for her apprentice the longer they spent together.

After some time she finally went into the wastes at night, feeling confident enough in the times before that she had left Eden. She wasn’t going to go far, just studying how a certain plant that always seemed close may open at night. The first thing that amazed her about this excursion was the sky above her. It had changed from a dust and sun choked burning colour to a sky that was black as pitch, beautiful lights nestled in the heavens above her. The simple night sky encapsulated her mind for days afterwards. The synthetic night cycle of eden was but a cheap and ugly trick in comparison. However that wasn’t all she found that night. While studying the flowers nocturnal bloom, she sighted something moving out in the wastes. It was a solitary dog, not a member of the convoy; they would be in a group this close to Eden. The existence of dogs that lived out here was clearly true. After returning back she began to ask more questions about the infection than ever before. The lack of answers proved to be extremely frustrating as so little was known about it. She couldn't trust the words of others anyway, the best way to study this would to be on her own. Leaving Eden would mean she could never return, but it did mean she could see the majesty of the night sky above her every night. She prepared her notes and left them with Elyse, whether she read them or not Annie never knew. They contained copies of all her important research and her simpler notes from early study that hadn't strayed far from the already existing books of Eden.

One day she set out in her usual fashion, but this time with no intention of returning. Her extra satchel arousing little suspicion. After moving away from the site of the gate, she slipped off her gas mask and breathed deep. No going back she began to head off into the wasteland to explore. She quickly realised that she may not find any subjects to test her theories on the canine body on for a while. After a few weeks the fear overtook her that she never would. Desperate she took an old umbrella she found lying in a building. It wasn't much but it would do. She then took the hacksaw she'd bought from Eden and, biting down on her satchel, Sawed through her leg and bone, leaving a clean bloody cut. Working quickly she forced the umbrella into her stump. The pain cause her to pass out, but from the experience she had gained an object to study and bait to give her a chance to run from eaters.

After a while of working her way through the wasteland and making notes in her journals, she came upon the rage pack. They didn't accept her in lightly. Although the reason she wasn't dead when they first met was the disconcerting nature of anything willing to cut its own leg off - of their own volition- and then carry it with them through the wastes. Her knowledge of the wasteland and medicine proved of some interest to the pack but she needed to prove she could keep her own. The umbrella tip she had meticulously sharpened have her a range slightly further than her other paw and allowed for scalpel like slashes to be made. While she didn't kill the dog who challenged her when she attempted to enter the pack, she took one of his legs as a trophy. Annie now had two legs which she kept stored in her area of the clan territory. The reason why was kept private to her alone. All others knew was that she called it her project. The torso she acquired one night and dragged back only further worried those around her but none dared question it when it seemed to disappeared without being eaten. Cannibalism was fine but wasting food was offensive to them all. She managed to ward  them off by telling them it was for her project and they would understand in time. Few could read her notes or understand her diagrams but that simply added the sense of mysticism that she knew what she was talking about. The pack let her stay as she gladly pulled her weight and didn't get in the way of others.