South Boston. Some would call it a historical significance in the early growth and commerce of American history, others, a place to hang out if you wanted great food, drink and bearable company at a reasonable price. To Alex, it was home, and the only place he’d known up until the Great Fall that changed everything…
Not everyone was cut out for blue collar labor, certainly not the brainiac kids living in their basements playing video games or the college dropouts who felt safer hiding behind pages of web code in place of getting their hands dirty outside. The TreVaynes, several generations of tradesmen going as far back as one can remember, and Alex was not much different as he followed in father’s footsteps, starting out as an apprentice welder and half-way decent auto mechanic. Times were tough for most middle class families, and multiple careers wasn’t an unlikely alternative, but they had each other through the thick of it, and no matter what happened, they didn’t allow contention to break them apart. Only when Alex had found out the truth about his father, and his alleged association with the mafia lurking in the shadows of the City, did things begin to shift into a much darker form.
There was a debt to be paid, and the TreVayne patriarch had no way of delivering unless it was with his own life. Alex, now in his early twenties, a tall lean and muscular young man, decided to offer mob a much better deal: hire him as one of their “enforcer agents”, and help pay his father’s debt for good. Needless to say, they took the kid up on his offer, and brought Alex TreVayne into the fold, molding him into more of a weapon as years passed. All the while, the debt never quite seemed to be paid as quickly as it should have been. His father, not one to back down from a fight, had unfortunately picked the wrong fight, protesting the whole idea of his son being used for the mobs gain, and yet going back on their deal in the long run. The mafia didn’t care, and with a swift stroke, took both parents and his three siblings out of the picture, calling the debt “paid” by that time, and allowing Alex to continue working for them if he valued his own life. Funny. He’d joined the Underground to save his father, and yet that very decision inevitably kill the man he sought to free from their iron grip. Why couldn’t it have been him to die by their hands in order to save his family?
The gloves were off by then and wheels were set in motion.
Months passed before a vengeful Alex decided to make a move on several mob connections, gaining as much information as he could to take them out one at a time, and as grotesquely as possible. His trigger finger was guided by the spirits of his dead family, parents he loved and would never see again because the wrong people got greedy. He knew where to find them, and no quarter would be given to those who have the mark of death on their greasy foreheads. One-by-one he’d hunted them down, those responsible for destroying the life he had, for taking what didn’t belong to them in the first place. It was only when the last few who remained gained an upper hand, and turned the tides on the “avenging angel”. A trap was set for Alex, and he’d walked right into, perhaps through blinding anger or the sheer force of will to put a hold in his enemy’s skull, he went from the frying pan into the fires of Hell before anything further could be done. The mob had the last laugh, as they’d lead him straight into a house full of bloodied bodies: men, women, children, cats, and dogs, it didn’t matter. It was a nightmare to behold, and Alex found himself surrounded by a dozen Federal Agents all ready to turn his frame into swiss cheese at the drop of a hat.
The kid wasn’t so lucky, and was fast-tracked to the State Penitentiary, where he’d spend his “triple life sentences” rotting away on Death Row with absolutely no contact to the outside world.
Several years passed, and on the eve of his thirty-first birthday, the world turned from bad to worse in a matter of minutes. Power outages and network issues were the least of the problems as hordes of things ravaged whatever was in sight, killing off guards, inmates, and everything in between. Whatever the infection was, it spread like a wildfire, and the whole prison system shutdown, which made it that much easier to get the hell out, that was, if you could survive long enough to enjoy freedom again. Alex hid as best he could, thankfully having the layout of each floor mapped out in his head well enough that finding the best places to circumvent the danger came relatively easy. It wasn’t until he was grabbed by the ankle by what he’d thought was one of the “creatures”, only to find out that it was one of the guards bleeding out from a wound. He knew he was a goner, but pleaded with Alex to find his sister in Washington State and bring her the few mementos he’d had curled up in his bloodied hand: a photo identification badge, and a picture of the man and his sister standing in front of the Space Needle in Seattle.
With some reluctance, but little time to really contemplate things, Alex accepted just as the guard’s dying breath released. Timing had always been one of his strong points, and this was no exception, because no sooner had the conversation ended, the attacking creatures flooded the area, and Alex headed off toward the most promising of all sections within the prison: The Armory. With bare minimal supplies left, he grabbed what he could, stuffed them into a camo rucksack that didn’t seem to have a shortage of space and fled out into the night, hot wiring a vehicle that was conveniently parked outside with no driver, and took off as far as half a tank of gas would take him.
Two and a half months of traveling had gone by, jumping from one vehicle to another, hiding in abandoned places, scavenging for food, and generally needing a serious bath only to make it to the borders of Washington, where he was going to stop for a drink if it was the last thing he did. Unfortunately, that drink didn’t come, but he’d eventually been guided to a place called the Refuge, which was -for better or worse- the last place it seemed where any semblance of civility was to be found. The gear and clothing he’d found in the prison would give the impression that he was a former law enforcement officer, and perhaps the identification would help to solidify that claim, so toward Refuge he went in hopes of a better life.
...oh, and perhaps even finding that lost sister...
Fuzzybootz,
Hari,
Iracebeth,
Jumbus
