Sammy is a child of the streets.
She’s been living on, and in them, for longer than she hasn’t ... and at the age of 16, that means most of her life.

For most, her Māori heritage seems somewhat exotic to most Americans; most presuming her, instead, to be Afro-American.
But as Sammy never knew her parents, or any caretaker outside ‘the system’, this heritage is a little lost on her: and any idea of ‘islander’ is a foreign concept beyond the screen.

But Sammy is a survivor.   She survived ‘the system’ that raised her, and she survived the streets that swallowed her.   She learned to stay low, to live small, and how to run and how to hide ... and how to fight, when she had to.

And she learned how to burn the whole fucking lot down.   See, Sammy and the flame are real good friends.
When the orphanage burned down, nobody suspected the little foreign girl. But when the second foster home in a row did the same, the pattern began to emerge.

That’s when Sammy hit the streets, at about 7 years old.   And since then, flame has kept Sammy safe from the predators, the hunters, and the things that go bump in the night.
Fire.   Fire cleanses everything.  Fire is Sammy’s friend.


Today, Sammy hides in the shadows of the streets ... warmed by fire.   And she keeps to the shadows, and she survives.

Sammy wears non-chalent clothing allows her to blend in with the crowds, the concrete and the darkness.
About the only bright thing about Sammy’s appearance is her brightly coloured finger nails; which she keeps painted a bright reddish-orange ... looking like fire.