Maya

Maya
Appearance
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Age	16 17-18 (AR world)
Hair Color	Black
Eye Color	Dark Brown
Other Information
Birthday	Unknown (May)
Occupation	Babysitter Nurse (AR world)
Family	Unnamed Parents Elena (sister) Sofia, Luciana (maternal aunts) Rafael, Peter (uncles) Abril, Axel, and other unnamed cousins
First Appearance	Under Construction

Maya is the main protagonist of Under Construction, the third story of Tales from the Pizzaplex 1: Lally's Game.

Physical Appearance

Maya has long black hair, dark brown eyes, dark skin, and full features. When she visits the Mega Pizzaplex for her birthday, she wears a blood-red dress with a red rose tucked behind her ear, similar to that of a flamenco dancer.

Maya is of mixed heritage, with a Puerto Rican mother and a European father; he says that he's mostly Irish, with some Czech, Greek and Welsh.

Personality

Maya is a young, focused, and polite girl, though she can be sarcastic at times, mainly while hanging out with her peers or parents. She deeply loves her family and friends, and though she sometimes wishes she were the center of attention for once, she is content in life where she is. While Maya loves and appreciates her family, her desire for a "shindig" birthday prompts her to enter the AR Booth in the first place. When thinking about it afterwards, Maya thinks that it's due to the fact her parents are so laid-back that nothing ever felt like a huge deal, and sometimes she wants things to be exciting instead of just happy, and to have her own chance to shine. Other than entering the booth, she doesn't seem to be very rebellious, and instead is always polite to everyone she speaks to, especially her elders.

While her favorite school activity is choir, Maya also likes science, even when she doesn't always understand it. Due to her propensity for gardening, she has a large interest in botany and biology. Unlike her sister, she doesn't like research; Maya is not envious of her sister's brilliance, and in fact is proud of her accomplishment. She also doesn't consider herself imaginative, but she is shown to be incredibly focused. When thinking about the future, she dreams of being a doctor or botanist.

Maya is very good at taking care of little kids, and enjoys their company. She is a trusted babysitter in the community, and loves to play with her cousins.

Maya loves "vibrant jewel tones," and her favorite color is red. She loves romance novels, gardening, sheet music and CDs, makeup and jewelry, teddy bears, flowers, kittens, scented lotions/soaps/candles, keyboards and guitars. She also loves to catalogue the flowers that she grows. She does not like horses, or store-bought chocolate cake.

It is mentioned that Maya and her family are religious, from a Christian or Catholic denomination.

History

Maya comes from a mixed family, with Puerto-Rican immigrant grandparents on her mother's side, and relaxed, hippy European grandparents on her father's. She has multiple maternal cousins, and while she loves them, she finds them to be a bit chaotic when the families get together. She is bilingual, but doesn't think as much about her heritage as her Aunt Sofia does, and usually only speaks Spanish to humor her. Her mother, Violeta, is a grade-school teacher, and her father runs a copy shop. She also has a little sister, Elena, who is extremely smart and able to enroll in college at fifteen.

Maya always has the same birthday party in her backyard, set up by her family, with store-bought cake, banners, and piñatas shaped like horses. While she appreciated it, she wished she could have her own "shindig" party, but her family doesn't have the money for it. They also don't live in a very well-off neighborhood, so Maya's mother always told her that presents were optional from guests; however, after the party, she will sit with her grandparents around a small bonfire in the backyard, a tradition she loves.

Maya loves to babysit her little cousins, especially her favorite, four-year-old Axel. Maya also becomes a trusted babysitter around the neighborhood, specifically to the Davis twins and the Thompson children, who moved in when Maya was about thirteen. Mr. Thompson always makes Maya laugh, and he and his wife pay her well and give her cookies after they return home from partying. The Thompson children always make Maya a homemade gift for her birthday.

Jaxon convinces Maya to spend the day before her sixteenth birthday at the opening of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. At first, she finds the over-the-top advertisements lame, but she finds herself liking the idea of the Pizzaplex's AR booth's "The World Celebrates You!" attraction, in which the celebrant is given the illusion that everyone in the Pizzaplex would celebrate them.

Once there, the three friends have dinner in a booth, where Jaxon talks about quantum immortality and the many-worlds theories. After going to a VR attraction, Maya insists on finally going to the AR Booth instead of the rollercoaster, "Fast Freddy." However, upon arrival, the friends find that the booth is closed, with a sign reading "Under Construction" stretching across the entrance. Disappointed and upset, Maya slips under the sign and goes into the booth anyway. She rushes to the main seat and puts on the headband, and Jaxon turns it on.

Following this, it is unclear when or if Maya exited the AR Booth. It is most likely that she never did, as another group of teens at the Pizzaplex's opening would see the booth filled with smoke, and several employees trying to get inside, implying that the booth shorted out and Maya suffocated inside, and at the faux birthday party, Maya's mother tells her that her gift from her grandparents would "come later," which came true in the false reality that Maya found herself in afterwards.

The World Celebrates You! and Aftermath

As the AR Booth turns on, Maya is given the premier attraction, in which her dream birthday party is set up in the Pizzaplex, with everyone she loves in attendance, every present she could ever want, and all of her favorite colors, decorations, and confections. Everyone is paying attention to Maya, making her feel like the most important person on the planet. Overjoyed, Maya goes into the illusion, finding herself drawn into the party and enjoying herself immensely.

After the "party," the group finally go on the rollercoaster, then proceed to other Pizzaplex attractions. Maya returns home after ten, and plays cards with her parents, relaxing and finding herself deeply enjoying their company. She falls asleep quickly, after joking to Elena that she already had her big party and confusing her sister.

The next morning, while Maya notices that her head hurts where the AR headband nodes had touched her skin, she ignores it and goes to enjoy her "real" birthday party in the family backyard. After the party, her grandparents together give her a beautiful gold rose pendant, which she adores. The family then sing old folk songs for another hour, until Elena asks to go inside to sleep. Once inside, Maya notices her headache again, but shrugs it off once more.

For the next year, nothing seems out-of-the-ordinary, with the exception of Maya's recurring headaches and Gran's breast cancer diagnosis. Maya's seventeenth birthday is spent with her family around Gran's bed as she passes away at home. That night, she clings to Elena and says that it's "BS." In the next few days, Pappy is diagnosed with brain cancer, and Maya's family takes turns taking care of him. As he dies, Gramps gets his own cancer diagnosis, and decides not to fight it. Elena does research on what could cause cancer, confused at why it's happening so often, but soon enough accepts the reality.

After Nana also gains cancer and dies, Maya realizes that the disease is spreading throughout the neighborhood. Maya volunteers to take care of the Davis and Thompson children as their parents are diagnosed, going between both houses in all of her free time. At school, after Sofia and Rafael are diagnosed, she finds out that more and more people are getting cancer, but nobody around her seems to be concerned. Maya is horrified when Jaxon casually says his mother was diagnosed with cancer, then asks if they want to go to the Pizzaplex. She asks if anyone finds it strange that cancer is spreading so rapidly, but nobody else seems to care.

Maya splits her summer time between the hospital, where she sits with all her aunts and uncles, to her auncles' houses, where she'd take care of the kids, and the Davis and Thompson houses. She spends all of her time making food, changing sheets, emptying bedpans, and handing out medication. In late August, Maya begins to taking care of her sick father along with her mother. Noelle invites her to their favorite teacher, Mrs. Carptenter's house to meet her new baby; she says that she saw the baby after getting bored of sitting with her dying mom in the hospice ward. Maya and Noelle bike to the Carpenter house, but Maya is confused by the lack of "baby smell" in the house, and how orderly it seems to be. Mrs. Carpenter then passes the baby to Maya, who realizes the baby smells like nothing, and turns the blanket over to see that she is not holding a human baby, but a featureless, limp, floppy creature. Once outside, Maya finds out that Noelle cannot see anything wrong with the baby.

That night, Maya's mother calmly announces that she has cancer, which nobody but Maya reacts to. When Maya gets upset, her dad simply tells her that the house and girls' schooling is paid off, and then returns to his meal. Maya throws up in the bathroom, and worries that she has cancer, but the hospital clears her, unlike the majority of the world's population. The next school year, most things are cancelled due to teachers and students being sick and dying. Maya is glued to the News, in which people cheerily announce the rising number of the deceased, then continue on with their lives. Worse, more of the weird gooey-baby-creatures start to spread throughout the world and grow at an alarming rate, once again with nobody noticing.

By Christmas, all of Noelle's loved ones have been diagnosed or killed. Maya is the primary caretaker for her parents, sister, cousins, best friends, and the Davis and Thompson children. More and more jelly doll-babies begin spreading throughout the world, but to Maya's distress, they don't seem to move on their own, just lay in clumps and get bigger. Maya asks a sick Pastor Ben why everyone is dying and what the jelly-people are, and he tells her not to question it, and to not distinguish life based on its appearance. Maya goes outside, clutching her pendant, and has another headache. She thinks back to the AR booth, about to wonder if everything started there, but Elena calls for her and she rushes inside to take care of her.

Maya stops going to school, though there are only a few classes left available, and starts taking care of her loved ones full-time; Mrs. Thompson had shown her how to switch out IV catheters, so Maya is now an expert nurse. She hates leaving the house, though, as the jelly-mannequins are everywhere and continue to multiply. Maya sees one of the creatures produce a smaller one on her way to Jaxon's house, but he doesn't find it odd. She tells Jaxon that her parents probably won't make it the rest of the day, and gives him his medication before leaving.

Maya returns home to find her parents dead. She goes upstairs to her remaining cousins, trying to feed them, and then realizes she has to leave to get a new IV bag for Elena. She drives the family minivan to the nearby chemotherapy dispensary that the government had set up due to the hospitals overflowing, and worries as she leaves the driveway that the jelly-things might sneak into her garage. Maya passes multiple jelly-things before having to detour around an Under Construction sign. Maya realizes that she'd seen multiple "Under Construction" signs ever since leaving the AR unit, but she simply keeps driving to the dispensary. The woman there tells Maya to just ttake whatever she needs, too sick to care.

Upon returning to the minivan, Maya realizes a pyramid of jelly-people is close to the van, so she quickly leaves. She stops by the grocery store but is too intimidated by the creatures to go inside, and instead goes to the Thompsons' house to take care of Donny, the last surviving child. As Maya gets food for him, she remembers Jaxon's talk of parallel realities, and wonders for a moment if she isn't in the real world. Soon, though, she has to run to care for Donny, who points her towards a homemade present for her. Maya leaves out the back door, jogging to avoid the creatures. She notices that her mean neighbor, Mr. Vance, is somehow still alive, as she goes to the Davis household. However, there are too many jelly creatures blocking her way to the house, so she runs to her own home to take care of Elena and the cousins.

Upon going inside, Maya holds Abril and sings her to sleep, before realizing that Axel is dead. She sinks to the floor in the hallway, emotionally drained, and wonders why she is the only one not sick. She then realizes that it makes her the focal point of everything, "just like she had been at her big birthday party," and wonders again if she's still in the AR booth. She concludes that everything is too intense to be computer-generated, and wonders if somehow the AR booth leaked into the real world. She goes to check on Elena, and sees multiple jelly-creatures pressed against the window. As Maya tries to care for her sister, the jelly-beings press against the windows enough to break through and enter the house. As they flow into the room and Elena dies, Maya takes off running, trying to find a way out.

She runs to the garage, knowing there's no windows inside and she should be safe from the creatures there. Panicking, she races through the house, which is slowly filling with the alien beings, which move as a communal force. Maya opens the garage door, only to find that it is also filled. She is overtaken by the sticky mass, and as she clutches her rose, she struggles to breathe. She soon finds that she is being suffocated by the creatures, and soon loses all of her senses, save for the awareness of a force above her. She waits to die, but as time ticks on, she wonders how long she will be left waiting for death to come.

Trivia

• Maya's birthday is stated to be in May, which was inspiration for her name, which implies that Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex opened in the same month.
• Maya's favorite flower is a rose, and she has rose-printed bedsheets.
• Maya enjoys rock songs.
• Her favorite flavors are pistachio and buttercream, but she is also partial to coffee cake and apple-and-crumb-topped cake.
• Her favorite color is red, even painting half of her and Elena's room the color red.
• Is Believed that Maya never left the AR booth's, this is supported by the fact that in the 1 vol. of the Tales From The Pizzaplex Graphic novel, in Under Construction the moment when Maya use the AR booth's and the Moment when she is engulfed by the Pink gelatinous Creatures are similar.