Zeynep Celik

Born in 1980 at the heart of an inmigrant family from Turkey, Zeynep Çelik was the second daughter of Abderrahim and Fatimah Çelik, a prominent Wall Street broker and a housewife. Living in Brooklin, her life was quite average from a first generation inmigrant, translating for her mother, barely seeing her father, and attending school as much as possible, sometimes skipping class.
It was at school when she discovered her fascination with craftmanship, and her hatred for English class. There, she would spend her time creating small necklaces made of plastic beads or whatever materials she could lay her hands on. Necklaces, small earrings, and other imitation jewelry she would sell to her classmates. Obviously, her best grades were in art.
Growing up, her father expected her to follow his steps in the world of economics and finances, as her older brother Hakim was already doing. But she tried hard to convince the old Abderrahim to allow her to pursue a career in jewelry.
On the side of this, Zey loved swimming and practicing other sports with her friends. One of these days, while playing soccer, she was hit in the face with the ball, with such a strength she lost one of her tooth. Luckily for her it wasnt a definitive tooth, but still, it did hurt like hell. Later she used her own tooth to carve a small earring, her first item ever made that wasnt plastic.
She lived an average life, travelling atleast once a year to Istambul to visit her family there, enjoying the country and, in her own words, feeling better than in New York.
When she turned 18, she had a hard time making her father turn the other cheek and allow her to travel to Turkey to continue her studies. Months later, in Istambul, she finally studied jewelry crafting and specialized in authentication and fraud of precious metals.
At Istambul she had a different life than in New York, she changed Big Macs for shawarmas, Mac and cheese for meze, the big city for the old Constantinople. A big turn she took her time getting used to, but atleast she had part of her family there supporting her in case Zey needed it.
It was with the turn of the millenia she had access to her first computer, videogames, new techologies... a change in her hobbies that now also included a franchise called Halo, which she tried to devour everything she could about it. In fact, she loved it so much she spent part of her money on crafting a couple earrings with the shape of the iconic energy sword made of topaz for the blade and silver for the handle.

Her work life after her studies went quite good, owner of a small shop in Istambul, she also used to work along pawn shops, museums and art galleries in fraud identification and authentication of jewelry and metals. But she did want to return to the States after so many years away from her family, even tho she saw them once a year.
Zey's love life? Not good, not bad. She wasnt interested on it since she didnt wanna commit to a man and give away her entire career, life, hobbies and become a housewife, tho she respected those who did.

On late 2009 she returned to the States and spent sometime with her family, taking a break from work, enjoying spending time with her nephews, her sister in law, and old friends she hadnt seen in years since she left for Asia. Curiously, after all those years away, she didnt feel like at home, a feeling she had back in Istambul too. She felt like an inmigrant, even if she was a literal New Yorker.

Months later, she found herself a job as jewelry inspector and authenticator at the art gallery of Louisville in Kentucky. Unbeknownst to her, the Wildfire virus was spreading and she was infected without noticing. In August, when President Obama addressed the nation regarding said virus and the chaos unfolded more than it already did, since she did hear random gossips about it.
She tried to flee New Albany, since Louisville was more expensive for her to live in before the outbreak, and because of the collapse in the streets, she ended up in the countryside, hidden in a small farm north of the Ohio river. She lived there for some time until raiders arrived and took over the place. She managed to escape by the bare minimum by jumping into the river and swimming to the other side, where she landed on Brandenburg.