Brainstorming a Six of Crows Apocalypse au…
I’m thinking the last of us vibes… a hint of sweet tooth.
The crows are all young when the outbreak happened.
Kaz is 9, his parents are dead and his brother is trying to give them a new life when it happens. Jordie doesn’t live long after that.
Kaz survives on his own. In fact, he’s got a whole network—he has connections in every quarantine zone, military controlled city,black markets, smugglers, wastelands, you name it.
Kaz is thriving because he knows people are people, even in the apocalypse. They want power, the will exploit, they will still try and build empires.
Inej knows people are people as well, that’s why you can find her praying for living and infected alike.
She was with her parents for a while after the outbreak, they traveled and tried to make the most of it. They never settled. Until she was taken by some nasty bandits (is that the right word? Term?Idk) and sold.
Kaz caught wind and got her out. Mainly because she was useful. They become something more.
Inej moves through ruined buildings like it’s nothing. She gets in and out of places contaminated with military like a ghost. She’s practically an urban legend.
Jesper was 8 when the outbreak occurred, only a year after his mom passed. It was the outbreak that gave him abilities, but he remembers his mother was special too. It terrifies his father.
Jesper left the mundane safe haven that him and his father remained in as a teenager. (Still brainstorming…)
Jesper never misses. That’s what Kaz saw as Jesper was cornered and nearly bitten.
Jesper knows his dad is alive out there somewhere.
Jesper runs towards danger. He’s not a fan of his abilities, can only think of his father’s fear. But he uses it when it counts, sometimes without realizing.
Kaz, Inej and Jesper’s name echo throughout every zone. They’re a mystery and dangerous and for some reason also extremely helpful.
Nina was in an orphanage when the outbreak happened and suddenly she could hear the rushing of everyone’s blood, the beating of their heart.
She was raised as a child soldier.
Somewhere along the way, she found herself taken, shipwrecked, and falling in love with a druskelle.
Matthias was raised in a cult because there is no apocalypse without a group who believes it’s divine punishment. Of course, those with gifts are just a product of the demonic workings of the world. Maybe if they were all taken out, the world would fix itself?
Yeah that worldview cracks when he meets Nina.
They get separated. Matthias is taken by a military run quarantine zone. Nina stumbles upon the crows, has heard this “dirtyhands” can help her get Matthias back.
Wylan is 7 when the outbreak happens. His mother tries his best, his father has become more and more… strange. One day his mother doesn’t come back.
Wylan does not go outside. He does not leave the gates. He does not ask questions.
His life is doctor’s visits and being told he’s wrong for every little thing—his inability to read, his autism (cause let’s be so fr), his affinity for the arts instead of being like Jan.
Wylan learns chemistry because he is good at it and he wants to be useful.
And then one day Jan goes too far—Wylan had been getting antsy, daring to talk back. Locking him in his room without meals wasn’t enough. Jan’s anger gets the best of him and wylan runs, nearly drowns in the process because they’re surrounded by so much water and he has no choice but to swim.
Somehow the outside world, in all of its post-apocalyptic glory, is kinder than the inside of the Van Eck mansion walls.
Wylan survives. For a long time. Alone.
And then Kaz finds him, gives him an option to come with his crew. To be useful.
Kaz of course has heard the last name. Even in the apocalypse, men like Jan Van Eck have managed to climb to power.
Wylan is the final spark to the bomb that is the crows. He’s their own personal mad scientist. Jesper is so in love.
The twist?
Wylan wasn’t sheltered to be kept safe. He wasn’t sheltered because of cruelty.
Jan was involved in the before. Marya was trying to protect wylan and she got in the way.
All of those doctors, all of those tonics, the medicine, being held down, the excuse of fixing him…
One day the crows are out on a supply run, things get nasty, too many infected.
They make it out, of course they do. They’re them. Nothing can touch them.
Nina hears something strange, takes one look at wylan,
“Oh,” is his soft response as blood rushes in his ears, his heart pounds in his chest. The world fades around him.
Jesper is crying out, but wylan can’t hear him. They were just laughing. It was a job well down.
Jesper has seen people get bitten. He knows what’s going to happen. They decide to give Wylan as much time as possible, but Kaz is clear that something will have to be done and he’s willing to do it.
And then Wylan… doesn’t turn.
There’s fever, panic, near hallucinations. But Nina keeps checking. Nothing is happening. Something feels wrong
He survives the night. And then another. And then another.
And it clicks—the isolation, the doctors, his father’s obsession with controlling him… Wylan is immune, andJan played a bigger role than they’d ever had thought.
