Ch. 1
He felt at home. He truly felt at home for the first time since he could remember. It was a strange thing to see and perceive everything you have ever known as some other place. A place to sleep, eat, work and survive but never really a place to truly call ones home.
Carver had resided in Vault 101 for as long as he could remember, so he assumed, 'twas the place of his birth. It was a stale, cold, and barely filled prison for which he had been stuck. And supposedly the only inhabitable place for life. Protecting the denizens that lived within from what lay beyond the door. The horrors, mutations that must roam in what is left of the world we once lived and thrived and called our own. Or so we were told.
You see, Carver was never satisfied with the Overseers 'propaganda' that was told to them day in and day out. He firmly suspected that there was life, people, beyond where they were caged and they were purposely being lied to, misled for some purpose and he was determined to see beyond these hallow walls.
But that is for another time. For now we must study Carver the boy, how he grew, who he was and why was that.
He was brought up in a cruel and empty place, with only a father to raise him. A father who blamed him severely for the demise of Carver's mother, 'His first victim', his father would often say. Punishment, beating and whippings was a common occurrence in his household. Bloody and raw but never on any body part that could be seen by who should not see it. For a real reason or not, it soon became clear over the years, it did not matter to his father. Drunk or sober, his father was never satisfied with the day until his son bleed and cried out in pain. Over time, Carver ceased to feel. It's a good thing.
When he was young he thought it was because of how he looked. For he knew that physically, he was very different than the young kids around him. He has always been pale. Far paler than one should, even growing up in a Vault, tall for his age as well as a face that seemed older than his young age but that was not the strangest difference. He was born with pure white hair. Exactly the color of snow, for which he had heard some about. He also knew that when you get much older, that was how your hair is suppose to turn white but he was born with it along with his bizarre eyes, like red rubies that seemed to flicker and glow in the dark. Carver knew from the first time he looked in the mirror that he was different. He was scared for the first time.
The difference did not just stop at his physical form. No his mind was different, far more vast and open in its scope than any other his age. For he seemed to absorb knowledge, like a sponge water. It did not matter the kind. Weapons, armor, science, lock picking, manipulation; all that mattered was that it captured his fancy. Loneliness is what started it. Books were his first true friend.
In the end, Caver grew up an all-together beautiful man, all be it a bizarre one at that.
He grew up knowing that he would never advance, never truly achieve in life, and he would never have anyone to hold onto. At least, not in Vault 101 but that is for the future. Let us yet tinkle once more in the past.
At the tender age of ten, young Carver was given a Pip-boy 3000. The only gift he has ever gotten, that he could remember but not really because of his birthday, only because everyone expected to work and be a citizens of Vault 101 was to have a Pip-boy 3000. There was no party to speak of but then again, he had never had one, so it was not like it was anything new in his life.
His Pip-boy 3000 soon became his only companion, because it was with him always. Lighting up when needed, never withholding information and it brought with it the wonder of music. Pip was his world for a long time. And yes in his brilliance, he recognized how pathetic that was but with all he has endured he no longer believed himself sane or human for that matter.
So armed with Pip and as much knowledge as he could get his hands on, Carver preserved for six years through his father's cold and manic beatings, the unfairness of the system of the vault (thanks to the Overseer.), the taunts and pranks of his classmates as well as the barely held off sense of despair. Over all obstacles, he just kept moving and moving and moving and moving until he could ignore the cold, bland world forced on him since birth.
At sixteen, he went bravely, to do what was expected of him. To take the mandatory G.0.A.T. test. The Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test was a test all in the vault went through to be assigned their place they will serve in. A job of sorts. Carver knew not to be concerned with it because no matter what he will answer, the Overseer will have made it so he got the lowest job possible. It was to be expected. Its questions were laughable. So much so that Carver suspected that they were made for that purpose but he had just sighed and answered to the best of his ability. He was not disappointed in learning that he had become a Garbage Burner. His father was not impressed. Not in the slightest.
It was just threes years later that he had begun to resign himself to his fate. Trapped and empty for all to see and laugh at, when something happened that has never happened. The vault door had been opened and out went father.
Face smiling slightly, Carver eyes burned brightly in the artificial night.