Lorenzo Salazar | Twenty Two; Survivor
House: Torren Security Class: 2 Status: Uninfected Alignment: New Wave Reformists
History
tw: violence, murder
Lorenzo Salazar was probably never meant to go through any hardship in life. The only child to a wealthy couple in Costa Del Sol, the boy was spoiled rotten from his very first years — the only problem was that no one wanted to deal with the consequences later on. As a toddler, he was already a brat. As a child, he was picking fights at the playground. Detention after detention in school, the rich kid couldn’t help swinging his fists at anyone who looked at him funny. He did it for the thrill of it, he’d probably say, but it was mostly for attention. With parents that only grew more absent as he grew older, Lorenzo tried to fill the parental-figure-shaped hole in his heart with scars on his knuckles and the taste of blood on his tongue.
At fourteen, his parents had enough of him. His antics wouldn’t stop and the only way they found they could deal with their son was, unoriginally, sending him away to the other side of the country. Lorenzo doesn’t blame them for it, if only because moving was the best thing that could’ve happened to him. An all-boys school away from home, filled with angst-driven rich kids like himself. The aggression and the fighting continued, of course, but it became more a group activity than a solitary choice.
He was sixteen when D-Day happened. The boarding school was left a mess of debris, but some of the students and faculty survived. Eventually, Lorenzo broke off from the others with a group of friends who’d survived as well, and they set out to find a way to survive in the Wasteland.
In a few months, after the head-splitting headaches and the sickness that seemed to be affecting nearly all of them, things cleared up. Infected, all six of his friends. A plethora of telekinetics, telepaths, heightened senses and whatnot, all except for Lorenzo. For the first time in his life, Lorenzo Salazar was the minority.
They walked the lands together for many more months after that, deciding that colonies were not the deal for them. Lorenzo felt uneasy being the only one in the group without some stupid superpower, and the others didn’t soothe his worries by relentlessly teasing him for it. After two years of wandering, the uninfected boy woke up in the middle of the night and heard a whispered conversation between his friends. They were talking about him; about how he was slowing them down, how they should leave him behind. One suggested they should knock him out, first. Another said something about killing him. Their voices were quiet but venomous. Lorenzo didn’t wait for them to make a decision.
In the chaos, he threw punches, he stabbed with a pocket knife, he grabbed what he could and ran away before he could lose the fight. From then on, he vowed to survive alone. He stole from other clans and slept in hidden corners, he lived on the run like a nomad, always looking over his shoulder, in fear his previous so-called friends might find him again and take him out for good.
If the world had turned into a war zone, then so be it. Lorenzo embraced it. Every person he came across was a potential enemy. Every clan he met was full of Infected people, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting one of those again. He nurtured every terrible habit from his teen years into his life as a solitary looter, and he found that throwing the first punch always served him right. No one expected a knife to the throat from a kid with curly hair and round eyes. He knew his soft look helped him with the surprise element.
He probably would’ve continued surviving on his own if it hadn’t been for one night, about three years ago. He decided he would steal from a couple he saw camping nearby; their tent was filled with supplies, he could tell, and he was starving. Still armed with a trusty blade he stole from his “friends”, he only had to watch the couple from afar for a brief moment to see the woman moving something swiftly through the air with telekinesis, and he made his decision. Killing the Infected never made him feel much remorse. It was kill or be killed. He knew how they were — if they knew he was uninfected, they wouldn’t hesitate to take him out, either. He took the man out first, then the woman. He’s not a sadist, by any means, and so he did it quick and as painless as he could.
It was only when he was done with them that he heard a noise coming from inside the tent. He held up his weapon and inched closer carefully, but for the first time in his life, he hesitated on his attack. Big doe eyes stared up at him, sparkling with tears, noises muffled behind a pacifier. It was a baby, a poor innocent girl inside an improvised crib, bundled up in a sweater and tiny gloves and with a teddy bear by her side.
Lorenzo couldn’t kill a baby, he immediately knew that much. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that her parents were irresponsible enough to have a child in times like these, and outside of a colony, no less. But when he tried to simply walk away, he couldn’t. It wouldn’t take long for this girl to die of hunger out here alone, and it’d be unlikely that someone would stumble upon her. Even worse, her crying might attract some sort of hungry wild animal who would be happy to take her as a meal. Either way, as he tried to walk away, he could only imagine the hundred possible horrible ways she could die, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her behind.
He didn’t know the first thing about babies. His initial plan was to drop her at the nearest colony’s doorstep and walk away, but as soon as he picked her up from the crib, he knew that wouldn’t happen. He wasn’t letting go of this kid. However twisted it may be, he was responsible for this little girl now, and he wasn’t going to let anyone do her any harm — God knew he’d done enough of that already. He filled his backpack with as many supplies as he could, set the girl on his hip, and walked off into the fastest path to get him into the nearest colony he could find.
It was only a matter of days until they stumbled upon a search party for Colony 17, just off the coast of Spain and he asked them for help. He told them the babe was his little sister, that their parents had just been murdered by some lunatic looter, and that he’d grabbed all he could before escaping to save themselves. No one ever questioned his story.
Lorenzo Today
Adapting to the colony wasn’t too hard. He had a place to sleep and food on the table, and he had protection. He wasn’t just surviving for himself now, after all, he had to do what was best for his newly found sister. Sofia, he’d named her, when the Crusaders asked for their information. She was small enough that she’d never remember any of this, probably around nine months, so no one could disprove his story as long as he kept his mouth shut. To that end, he told the doctors that their parents had been Uninfected, but he lives in fear that Sofia might develop some kind of ability; he doesn’t want the poor girl to become a study case.
The betrayal he went through at the hands of his friends hardened him. He’s even more prone to lashing out now, paranoid, untrusting of most people, especially the Infected. As much as Lorenzo tries to be more docile for Sofia’s sake, his anger is still present. He never so much as raises his voice to her, but he’s overprotective. If he thinks someone is giving him or her weird looks, he’s swinging before anyone can begin to explain themselves.
Colony 17 saw him as a nuisance and always refused to give him any sort of elite position, which he resents. But when the NWRF rose, he was filled with a new hope. Finally, the minority of Uninfected were gaining back their control. Finally, a place where he would be heard. Colony 17 started to get overcrowded, and Lorenzo was the first to offer himself and Sofia for a transfer over to Colony 22. He’d heard the rumours about how the NWRF had more control there, and at the same time, more positions open, too. He’d argued that the colony in England had more teachers and better opportunities for his little sister, which wasn’t a lie. Of course, officials were all but opposed to losing the troublemaker with a toddler.
Lorenzo thinks he has a much better chance of rising to a position of power in this new colony, which would mean a much better position to keep Sofia safe. He’ll be doing whatever he can to get to the top, even if he has to claw his way up there.
CLOSED; ORIGINAL CHARACTER
