Dakota Jackson

In the middle of a scorching summer in 1992, Boston , a baby girl was born, and she was named Dakota. Her parents chose her name after the state where they’d both gone to college and met, though didn’t add North to her name, thank goodness for small favors! Kota was very much loved by her parents, and was an only child until she turned ten, when her parents announced they were expecting another. She had a pretty typical childhood. Friends and school, playing jump rope in the neighborhood cul-de-sac where they lived. When Dakota was seven, she informed her parents that she wanted to start taking dance lessons with her best friend Kennedy, to which they agreed. Three times a week as long as she kept up on her school classes. She loved it, and it was a great way for a child to keep in shape as well. It wasn’t long before both her parents and her dance instructors began to see that there was raw talent in the girl. Dakota was never pushed into anything when it came to dance, if it ever became too much on her, she would’ve been able to quit. She loved it too much for that to even be a thought in her mind.

When Kota turned ten, her parents announced that she was going to be an older sister. She honestly wasn’t too sure how she felt about it as she’d always been an only child and the center of her family’s attention. When her brother Tyler was born, Dakota still wasn’t too impressed. Here was this little screaming bundle of blankets that took away her parents’ attention, as well as kept her up at all hours of the night. She needed that sleep in order to keep on her body’s schedule. She didn't outright hate him, but she just did not see what the fuss was all about. Her parents easily saw the jealousy, but didn't call her out on it, they just allowed her to try and work through things on her own. Sure, they spoke to her about it, and made sure that they spent as much time with her as she wanted. They even allowed her to increase the dance classes that she was already taking, expanding on her styles.

It wasn’t until Tyler was just over a year old that Kota’s feelings began to change. Tyler was barely beginning to walk, pulling up on the furniture and making tiny steps across the room when one of their parents would call to him. One night, their mother Marcy was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and their father, Vinnie, was working in the garage. Kota was curled up in a corner of the couch, working on a school assignment when Tyler pulled up on a bookcase on the other end of the room. He slowly, but surely toddled across the room toward his sister, who was half-watching him out of the corner of her eye,
She lifted an eyebrow when Tyler tapped her on the knee. She put her book down and looked at him. “Hi Sissy...” Were the next words she heard. Tyler had been babbling little words for a little while, but he had never called her Sissy before. It melted her heart, and her mild jealousy toward the toddler. Dakota began spending more and more time with her baby brother, much to their parents happiness. They’d figured if they just gave her time, she’d come around.. and she did.
High school was fairly normal. Dance classes, classes, friends, though she did join the dance and cheer-leading teams to bump up her extracurricular activities. By her senior year, Kota was actually all set for college. She’d known for a while where she wanted to go to school, and applied over the summer. Senior year flew by with National Championships under her belt for both Dance Squad and Cheer-leading. Decent grades combined with the two championships, Kota was offered a full scholarship to dance at college. Come September of 2011, she would be a freshman at UCLA in California. She couldn’t wait.

Going to the university of her dreams also meant leaving home for the first time in her life. While she was excited, she was also scared. However, if there was one thing that Dakota Jackson was, it was that she was determined to get what she wanted, and she wanted to go to UCLA and dance. So, despite being nervous, Kota packed up her life and bid a sad goodbye to her parents and brother and hit the West Coast.

Freshman year was harder than she anticipated. The class and homework loads were heavier than she was used to, plus she had to maintain a certain GPA in order to remain on the dance team and to keep her scholarship. Thanks to being assigned to a private dorm room by chance at the start of the fall term, Kota was able to vent some of the pressure on herself with a good cry once in awhile. During the year, she took every opportunity to return back to Boston during breaks and the summer after the year was finished.

Sophomore year was easier, she was familiar with the routine of it all, the class-load, keeping her GPA up where it should be. She was also able to deal with missing her family much easier now that she was used to it. It was over Thanksgiving holiday, which she spent with some friends in L.A instead of returning home, that her family decided to spent the winter break in Nebraska.
Both Marcy and Vinnie’s families lived in the central part of the country. Dakota would fly out first, leaving California with an overnight layover in Philadelphia before a connecting flight would take her to Lincoln, Nebraska. Her parents and brother would follow out on a later flight a few days later as Vinnie had to work and would meet their older child in Lincoln.
Kota’s flight left L.A on December 20, 2012, and her arrival in Philly was routine. Since she’d known beforehand that she would be staying overnight in the city, she’d pre-booked a hotel room near the airport. When she checked into her room, and went to bed...the world had been normal. It was not that way the following morning when she woke up. Nothing would ever be the same. Chaos reigned, mother nature had was in the midst of taking back the planet, and people were dropping dead all over the place. In the few scattered news reports that managed to come in before the signals all died, Dakota learned that most of the East Coast had been destroyed by a number of natural disasters. She tried to get in contact with her family, but after she failed to, she was almost sure they were dead. Devastated, but with a stubborn streak, Kota was determined to make it out to Nebraska with the hope that someone in her extended family was alive.

There were few people alive in the area, at least from what she could see, which made it easier for her to grab whatever supplies that she could get her hands on. Food, medical stuff in case she got hurt, whatever money she came across. She wasn't ashamed to admit that she went through the wallets and jackets of the deceased. She needed it more than they did after all. Kota got lucky when she came across an abandoned gas powered motocross bike. She strapped both a bag of supplies and an extra gas can to the bike and slung another bag across her back before taking the bike, and herself out of the city. She stopped on the edge of town ti fill up the spare tank and the bike itself, hoping that she'd get far enough to come across another working gas station.