Anthem

Anthem, a Shepherd mix infected, is a Barbarian and former Edener.

## History

Anthem was born in Eden. His parent's died when he was very young and- as expected- he was to become a digger. It wasn't long until he became a part of a small click among other diggers. At first they bullied him, beating him quite often. Eventually, he had had enough and lashed out at his attacker, who hadn't been expecting it. He beat on this dog until it was reduced to a sniveling heap, begging for him to stop, nearby onlookers doing nothing to help. Eventually Anthem stopped, looking down at the bloodied dog. He felt good, better than he had ever felt in his entire life. Anthem began getting into fights as often as he could, abandoning the click and going off on his own, his passion for causing pain developing.

Anthem was about one year old when he was relocated to digging out another part of Eden. That's where he first saw Nyx, another, slightly smaller Shepherd mutt with a coal colored coat. At first he didn't speak to her, sticking to his own antics of trying to find someone he could fight with- at this point Anthem had become quite a skilled fighter and not many diggers could best him- but there was something about her that interested him, something he couldn't place. One day he came to dig beside her and strike up a conversation. Mostly he talked about fighting, but she didn't seem at all off-put by it. Anthem found that talking to somebody for a change- not just fighting them, that is- was okay.

 Two years passed by uneventfully. Anthem would still look for fights in his free time, but whenever he was digging he was with Nyx. Sometime towards the middle of Anthem's third year, a new dog had begun to heckle Nyx. Taunting her, telling her she wasn't digging fast enough. Who was this dog even? He must be incredibly stupid. Anthem was about to tell him to 'stick it where the sun don't shine' when Nyx suddenly whipped around, tackled the dog to the ground and ripped his throat out without hesitation. Anthem's eyes lit up as he looked over at her a smirk making it's way onto his face. Of course, Nyx fled from Eden the next day. Anthem tried to continue on with his life, but found that he missed Nyx terribly. She hadn't been gone a week when he found himself at the gate that led into the turmoil of the wastes, demanding to be let out. He even went as far as to attack and unfortunate Edener that happened to be nearby.

    Anthem decided life in the wastes wasn't terrible. After breathing in the toxic air, his body had quickly succumb to the infection. He began to have severe migraines on a daily basis and he was almost always hungry. Blood-flow from his mouth and eyes irritated him. He even began to claw at his skin and flesh out of sheer irritability, but eventually it stopped hurting- all except for the headaches that is, they just became a little duller. He eventually found his lifelong friend though this triumph was short lived as she was killed and eaten not long after.

    When Anthem found what was left of her corpse, he was crushed to say the least. Later that year, he signed up for the Battle Royale. Perhaps a part of him hoped he would die in the intense competition though the killing of other dogs was strictly prohibited, perhaps he just hoped *something* would happen; something that might change hi empty life even just a little bit. However, very little happened. Anthem fought his way to the final round of the fights where he was defeated by the iron-hided dog. That's one more year spent out in the wastes...