Michael Sanders

Michael Sanders is a Senior at Devils Lake High School and the starting quarterback of the high school football team. He is the son of Paul Sanders and cousin of George Vickers Jr.

Relationship with Karina Hernandez
At the start of the series, Michael Sanders has been dating his high school classmate Karina Hernandez for a year. When Karina finds out that people on his football team make fun of him for dating someone on the chess team, it exacerbates her existing insecurities about dating someone more popular than herself. In response, Michael asks her to teach him to play chess and they are seen playing chess together over the course of the series. In season 2, Karina becomes suspicious that he has a crush on their mutual friend Suzy Tan when Michael starts a fight with Blake Kemp over Blake referring to Suzy as a "permafried skank." Karina confronts Michael about the crush and he explains that he has felt the need to protect Suzy because of all the things that have gone wrong in her life. He denies any romantic interest, but is shown messaging Suzy on instant messenger after Karina goes to sleep, implying that he may be hiding his true feelings.

Death
During a powder storm, Michael receives a worrying message from Suzy and sets off into the storm to find her. He passes a car crashed into a telephone pole on the highway and pulls over to make sure no one was injured. Outside of the wreck, he discovers Blake digging into the ground at the base of the telephone pole with his bare hands, apparently suffering psychotic effects from the powder storms. When Michael asks him if he's ok, Blake attacks him and a struggle ensues. Blake bites Michael's jugular. Michael throws Blake to the ground and jumps on top of him, bleeding profusely from the neck while punching Blake repeatedly in the head. Blake finally loses consciousness and Michael stands, but collapses from blood loss on the way back to his car. His body isn't found until the powder storm ends the following morning.