Samuel "Sammy" Taylor

Sammy Taylor

Sammy Taylor was a tertiary character in ***WILD University***. He was the older brother of Riley.

## **Backstory**

Sammy was born to two very happy, loving parents, Joshua and Kim, both of whom were very eager to build a new life together in their young age. Kim would always take Sammy out early in the morning when she went for her runs, pushing him in his stroller as he giggled gleefully. Joshua would take Sammy with him when he went to run errands, and even took him to work multiple times. The little family was content, and even more-so when Kim found out she was pregnant again 3 years later with another boy, who she named Riley.

Sammy absolutely *loved* being an older brother; he would teach Riley how to run super fast, play with his race cars, and even play soccer together.

## **Death**

One hot summer afternoon, Sammy and Riley had gone outside to play outside as usual. They’d been chasing each other around playing soccer for about an hour, when Riley complained he was thirsty. Sammy offered to get them both juice boxes, tossing the ball to his little brother and telling him to stay put until he came back. Riley nodded, and as predicted, quickly got bored of the “sit still and wait” game. He began to clumsily kick around the soccer ball, losing his grip on it and sending it into the middle of the road. Without thinking, Riley toddles into the street blindly. Sammy comes out just in time to see Riley in the street- and a swirling car barreling towards him.

The next few seconds were a complete blur. Riley reaches his ball and faintly hears Sammy call out his name. Suddenly, Riley looks up and freezes: an SUV is millimeters in front of him. He *wants* to react, but his legs won’t let him- he lets out a grunt as something shoved him face-first into the grassy patch to his left. A set of tires screeches across the pavement, and what sounds like a watermelon splattering comes next. Finally, the screeches abruptly stop and a loud crash is heard. Petrified, Riley carefully peeks up, the taste of blood on his now swollen lip. For the second time that day, he freezes: there in the middle of the road lays a mangled, broken Sammy.

Riley walks cautiously over to his brother, tip-toeing as if not to disturb him. After all, he looked *asleep*…but he'd just awake not even 5 minutes ago! Riley calls out to his brother, shaking him gently and placing his hands behind Sammy’s shoulders, hoisting him up a bit. Sammy slowly opens his forest green eyes, which are welled up with tears. Riley suddenly finds himself asking a billion questions- should he run inside and get Sammy an ice pop? Those usually helped *him* feel better after he got hurt! A-and probably some band-aids…those cuts look like they hurt…Maybe Sammy’s lucky jersey will make him feel better?

The older brother stares at Riley, a calm expression overtaking his scared one. He manages to get out that he’s okay and that he’s just super tired right now- if Riley could just hold his hand, he’ll be all better. Riley nods and Sammy’s hand; it feels cold…w-was that supposed to happen? Sammy weakly tells Riley that he loves him and to keep his head up. Riley’s confused- what’s *that* supposed to mean? Sammy draws in one last, shaky breath, his eyes slipping closed, head resting in Riley’s lap. Panicking,

## **Trivia**

### **Other**

* He is the second canonically dead character, the other being Maggie’s grandma