Daren Wessic

## Backstory

Before the apocalypse, Daren lived a simple life. He grew up in Northern Ontario with his father and aunt after his mom died of Cancer when he was young. His father worked at a lumberyard while his aunt was a moderately successful author, getting a few small time novels to hit shelves. They all lived in a cabin, close to his father's lumber yard. Daren then grew up to go to the University of Toronto but dropped out after 1 year in Marine biology to go work in a dock yards to support his father's medical bills after his father got crushed by a falling tree and rendered him paralyzed. His father only survived for about 3 years after that, there was too much internal damage. After that, Daren moved to North Dakota and fell into a pit of depression which included alcoholism. After another year in North Dakota, Daren found himself in a hospital after a bar fight left him with a broken arm. There, he met a nurse named Diana. She treated him and they fell in love as she pulled him out of his darkness. She kept him away from the bottle and got him back on track, she tried to send him back to college but he didn't want to spend any prolonged time away from her. Daren went back to work as a dock worker and after 2 years of dating, they were wed. They enjoyed their time as newly weds, traveling abroad to different parts of Asia and Europe and returned home upon the news that Diana was pregnant. His son Danny was born a few months later. Not long after, Diana was pregnant again and then Daren's daughter, Lisa, was born. Daren's life was on track, keeping up with his aunt, who had now reached success as an author in her older years, through phone calls and simple letters. Life was good for Daren, he had been sober for 8 years, he had the love his life, and 2 beautiful children. They lived in a cabin like the one Daren had grown up in with his father. A steady 9-5 at the docks and Diana's job as a nurse gave them a fairly comfortable living. That's when it all went to hell. One night, Daren was comfortable on the couch, watching some World War 2 documentary when the emergency broadcast service popped on. It talked about some kind of virus turning people rabid and telling people to evacuate the cities. Daren shot up immediately since the hospital Diana worked in was in the city. Daren called his aunt and her come and pick up the kids in the middle of night and to get them far from any city and hide out until everything blew over. When Daren got into the city, everything had gone to hell. Fires and explosions seemed to engulf the city as people scream and ran through the streets. The hospital was no different case so he grabbed a fireaxe off the boy of a firefighter before continuing. The newly infected feasting on the staff and other patients, but Daren wasn't focused on that, so he darted through hospital looking for his wife and he found her alright. It was too late, 2 of the dead had been chowing on his wife for a while now. At that moment, Daren lost it and cut the infected down. Something in Daren was gone, he seemed to have lost himself. Everything he was now was because of the beautiful he let in his life, and she was now gone at the hands of some creatures. He was not going to let them take his children too. After a tearful goodbye to his love, he struggled his away out of the hospital back to his car and drove off towards his aunts house. After an hour of driving, he saw his Tina's truck had crashed off the road. In a panic, he hopped out and searched the wreck. They were gone, it looked they hit a wandering infected and spiraled off the road. Daren spent months in the wilderness afterwards, searching for any trace of his family. Once he finally decided there was no hope looking there anymore and found the rations he had been finding in small houses were now getting smaller and smaller, he had to move his search back out into the world, but by then, he had found the society had completely crumbled. The world was unable to retake itself after the virus had spread. He was a broken man, now in a broken world.