Fallout Alley Youth Zone. The FAYZ. Someone had tagged it that early on. Someone from Perdido Beach. Indigo only found
that out later. Much later.
Indigo had been enrolled in Coates, the bad-kids school.
Had been. Past tense.
You see, she was one of the very, very few children who actually belonged there. Her parents were the bad guys in her mind.
She was just too much for them. She’s twisted. She knows it. So there she was. At Coates. But she never let herself seem evil.
That was weakness.
That was one way she’d trusted her parents. She’d shown them her incredible intellect by going through every detail of every
every little thing that could happen, 24-7, round the clock. She’d gotten so that, in seconds, she could plan out at least a hundred
ways to come out on top.
Coates does things to you, so when she was sent there...she only got worse, but never, never flaunting.
Then there was the wall. Indigo didn’t remember the exact details. The teacher was there. The teacher was Gone. Not even a
flash, poof, or snap. How could she have expected that? But still she saw how she could gain.
She left that first day and never looked back. So now, Indigo, who’d survived by hunting and scavenging in Stefano Ray national
park and was doing perfectly fine for a long time, even during the dark time, was completely confused and angry that she had
uncaring parents again.
But the one thing indigo did like was the publicity of the after-FAYZ. All those people, all looking at her, there to see her, talking
to her, wishing they were her. It was incredible. It was overwhelming. And no one in the FAYZ had even known she’d been there.
It took quite awhile for anyone to find her after the wall disappeared. Actually, it couldn’t have disappeared sooner. With the wall
gone she could really get away from civilization. Plus, there was this huge fire ruining the woods where she’d been living, and that
was bad, bad, bad.
Then, after she’d just gotten settled in to this new set of woods, they’d found her with a helicopter and all those people who’d
gotten bored with the same-old Sam, Astrid, Diana, Edilio, and Lana were psyched to meet her. So she may have...shown off a
little...you know singing out loud randomly nearby famous people.
Well, it was worth it, she thinks looking around at the eager faces of her new fans. Then she sings. She loves folk songs. She
loves dark rock. She loves the soft, tender, notes of the piano above all. In her album (when she gets one. She knows she will,)
she’ll be sure to make the piano almost louder than her vocals. Almost.
For now, she only has a small concert. Maybe just a hundred people or so. But, then again, a whole hundred is more than Indigo
had ever sing in front of before. It was really quite a lot. Plus, because of some thanks-to-the-FAYZ connections, she knew for a
fact that children of some very important record dealers were in the audience, and that was great news!
Indigo knows that she shouldn’t use the FAYZ as publicity. It messed up a lot of people. 40% of the Perdido Beach + Coates
population had died. That was not something to be used as an advertising stunt. But she maybe, kinda, might’ve put something
about it on her poster.
And her stage title is...well...she calls herself Gaiaphage. She hopes no survivors notice. Then again...does she care?


Lana Arwen Lazar is furious. She’s looking at a poster in a store window on main street in the tiny little town of Hanebridge
where she’d been living since she’d moved away from her parents. Patrick is pacing around her feet, worried about the change of
mood. Lana tears the poster down, storming back home with it crumpled in her fist.
It has been months since the FAYZ. Mere months, and already it was being mocked and tampered with. Had people no respect?
When she gets home she dials up Sam, Astrid, and Diana’s home number. She explains the poster.
"??What?" Sam asks, sounding just as furious as Lana, "??who did this?"
"She’s calling herself ’the Gaiaphage,’ but...but that’s just a stage name. I would know if it were still...alive. If it was alive. You
know what I mean. Apparently she was in the FAYZ. In fact, she blatantly flaunts it," Lana tells him,
"??listen, it says here, and I quote, ’listen to my music and feel the struggle of the FAYZ. I survived and feel this incredible power
everyday. Like ’I’m a survivor, I’m a fighter, now...I LIVE! and you can hear it in my powerful lyrics.’"
She can hear Sam’s sigh over the phone.
"??And it’s tonight?" He asks.
"??Well, we’d miss the concert, but we need to give this chick a talking to."
"??Yeah. I’ll tell Astrid and Diana. Well meet you there in an hour."


Indigo Greene. Indigo Greene. Indigo Greene. She signs autograph after autograph, smiling and hugging her fans. They
absolutely loved her! And, she’d already signed a record deal with Stellar Music Co.
But soon she just couldn’t write any more autographs. Her hand wasn’t listening to her. So she went backstage to get a soda out
of the minifridge. Her favorite was in the back and when she finished digging for it she realized she was being watched. Three girls and a dude stood there sort of glaring at her.
"Oh, hi! I’m indigo. And you are..?" Indigo says and holds out her hand.
They don’t answer.
Now she’s kinda worried. Was anyone else nearby, because if these people had good intentions, they probably would have said
hi. "Umm, look. I’m kinda busy now and I just signed a record deal and... and... umm... Why aren’t you, um, why don’t you, like, go
talk to my agent if you have any, like, business questions," she says.
Man, she hates how dumb she sounds when she’s nervous. "??I’m Sam Temple, this is Astrid, Lana, and Diana. Do you know
who we are?" The boy says. Indigo gulps. She DOES know who they are, actually. She’d recognize those names even if she hadn’t lived through the FAYZ.
"Oh. Umm...I guess I’ve never actually met you. I sort of ran away from Coates really early on," indigo says, now a little less
worried, but not much. These people were legends. Gods. Heroes, but also villains. They had killed. She knew that they had
killed. The corner of her mouth twitches. There was no such thing as mental stability after killing someone. She knew by experience.


Astrid had always hated when people mocked things they didn’t understand. Literature. Various religions. Even some films, the
good ones with complex story lines and wonderful actors and actresses to play the characters. There are always critics. She hates
that.
Could anything be left alone? No. Because even after all Sam had done, he was still sued and tried. Nothing passed of course,
but people had still attempted it, and if the world was going to keep from criticizing one thing, it would have had to have been him.
this girl, Indigo. How dare she? The gaiaphage? And she had left to live on her own from the very beginning? She wasn’t in the
FAYZ, she was just on a really long camping trip. And now, here she was, letting people judge her as a hero. Telling them that
she’s some kind of survivor.
It’s completely infuriating. "?Who do you think you are?" she asks Indigo, really wondering if she thought it was okay to mock them in such a sensitive way.
"??well, my name’s Indigo. I’m fourteen. I was at Coates, but I ran away, so you never really met me. You guys are legends," she
says.
She seems to be a little less nervous now, but she’d most certainly let down her guard too soon.


Diana smiles smugly. She knew this girl. Indigo was one of her timid little followers forever and a year ago before the FAYZ. Just
one more nothing much.
"??Why were you in Coates," Diana just has to ask. Indigo blushes.
"??Umm, do I have to answer? I don’t like my past," she says.
"??Yes," Sam says, shooting a glance at Diana.
"??well, I got a little crazy. I was always starting fights with people, and I always won," she shrugs.
"??You...always won?" Astrid asks, and Diana could tell that she was calculating some kind of variable.
"??Yeah. People said I was a tactical mastermind. It wasn’t that I was strong or anything, I just knew how to mentally weaken
people. Their guards weren’t up, and that’s when I hit them," Indigo says.
Diana never knew this. Wow. Maybe they should keep an eye on this girl. Diana could tell that Lana wasn’t done being angry.