Chapter Text
Prologue:
I was to be exiled.
I knew what they did with people like me. The city is a lie, and anyone who goes against the government is either exiled or taken into custody. Nobody knows what they do to people in there, the place where they hold you. They say that it’s a hospital for the un-well, but anyone who gets admitted is never seen again. If you’re handi-capped, mentally ill, a homosexual, or perhaps someone with learning difficulties, then they’re scared of you and so you’re punished. They hunt you down. On most occasions, they snatch you right from the streets. You disappear without a trace. I’m guessing that this is to avoid suspicion. How would the entirety of the city react of they knew what was going on around them? Unless you yourself have been exiled, you won’t know anything about the dark secrets the city holds. And then once you know, there is no telling, because once you have been transferred over the border, out of Utopia and into the vast, other world beyond, there is no going back. Your very existence is wiped from the data of the world you were once part of. Eventually, anyone who knew you will forget you, whether they want to or not.
I ran. I ran for my life. I had to. I had dared to love another man, and so I was to be killed. They left me to die. Once outside in the open, it’s a completely different world. The closest village is miles away, a trek through bitter weather, dirt, and a landscape rich with vicious creatures. There is water, there is food. There is life, there is shelter. But you have to find it. I was lucky. I’m strong, I’m healthy, and so I was able to reach the village miles from the great walls of Utopia in which I now reside. But for someone in a wheelchair, or for someone weaker than I, it’s impossible. Myself and a handful of other outcasts have now devoted our existence to help other exiles survive. To find them. To feed them. To care for them. Nobody deserves to die, so I won’t let them. Every day before night-fall, we venture out, back towards Utopia. I always hope that my trip will be pointless, and I return empty handed, because that means that there have been no exiles to pick up that day. We find the occasional body of someone who sadly could not hold on, and sometimes its days before we find any survivors, for they continue to walk in circles, looking for something that can save them, so when we do eventually find them they are weak, limp and lifeless. It’s heart-breaking. But it’s the reality of our world. But it’s our job as human being to protect each other. We call ourselves the Vikings, powerful beings unlike any other. We have our differences, but combined, they make us stronger than those of Utopia.
And so I, Berwald Oxenstierna, will do all I can to protect the lives of fellow exiles no matter what their reason for exile was. I will do all I can and guard their life with mine.