Unreality

21. Isolation

The town of Zenobia was situated in District 7, the first in the Alpha Dome to suffer the effects of the war during its outbreak, after which the tide of conflict moved on to greener and more significant pastures, leaving those who survived with the task of rebuilding their homes themselves, as the government of Alpha — still struggling to stand up against the onslaught of Omega's allied forces — chose to invest its resources on the production of more effective tools of warfare, such as combat-oriented cyberization.

Thus, Zenobia was rebuilt through humble means, as the population turned to what little resources had been left in their surroundings in the wake of the war to erect their homes once more.

Naturally, everyone who had not abandoned the town by then was called upon to aid in this process of rebuilding, and even outsiders, most of whom had had their homes destroyed in the war as well, gathered there and were accepted in that process.

One of those outsiders was Virgil Margulis, who had been wandering in search of shelter after having lost his family as well as his right arm. Amidst his despondent, aimless drifting, the almost seventeen year old teenager ended up passing out once again on the outskirts of Zenobia, where he was found by an elderly man who then called upon some townsfolk to help bring this lost, unconscious boy to town.

Given his physical impairment, the inhabitants of Zenobia immediately assumed Virgil to be one of their own, someone who had had his body as well as his life ravaged by the war. And, in a way, they were right, but at the same time, Virgil knew there was no way he could reveal the true story of his physical and psychological state, given the now infamous nature of the Margulis family name, which people inevitably turned to as they looked for someone to blame for the war and their misery.

Thus, when the townsfolk asked for his name, the teenage Virgil Margulis came up with a new surname for himself on the spot, and became henceforth known as Virgil York.

In spite of his physical impairment, Virgil was accepted as one of the workers in the rebuilding process, which in turn earned him a place to live and food on the table, as he moved in with the elderly man who had rescued him. This man, Mr. Fields, lived with his similarly elderly wife and their granddaughter, whose parents had been killed during the very onset of the war. Serendipity was her name, and together with Mr. and Mrs. Fields, she lived in the house which became Virgil's new home.

But although the now orphaned Virgil began to live in a room on the second floor of the Fields family house, he could hardly be looked upon as part of their family, for, as the Fields soon found out, the boy was as reserved and uncommunicative as they came, never saying anything more than strictly necessary and choosing to keep to himself as much as humanly possible.

At first, they thought this was understandable, considering he had told them he had lost his entire family in the war — although without specifying how —, but after weeks went by and they learned absolutely nothing new about the boy, they became somewhat concerned.

Especially since Virgil had been suffering from night terrors since the day he had lost his family, meaning he would sometimes wake up screaming in the middle of the night, becoming immediately concerned that he had perturbed the sleep of the Fields family members, who had allowed him to have that room for himself for a small rent.

But as time passed and the memory of that harrowing night became less vivid in his mind, the orphaned teenage boy gradually numbed himself to it all, emptying his mind by focusing his efforts on the arduous process of rebuilding the town. Having never done any serious manual labor before in his life, this was a drastic change for him, but, at the same time, he was surprised to find out how cathartic it could be for one's anguished soul to work and exhaust one's body. And so he went on, carrying and moving things with the one arm he had left during the day, and keeping to himself during the night, generally occupying himself with books borrowed from Mr. Fields whilst alone in his room.