Through a combination of hard work and luck, you escaped the violence. Perhaps you allied with a local warlord and gained enough money to pay someone to smuggle you out of the country. Maybe, you simply had a few lucky breaks that provided you with a way out. Unfortunately, though you had left the warzone, the warzone had not left you. Years of fear and distrust are hard to shake. For a time you wandered the streets of whatever sprawl you eventually landed in, one of the many nameless and homeless refugees from lives just as terrifying as yours. You tried to integrate yourself into normal society but your skills were of little use in respectable society. Besides that, the horrors that you have witnessed make it hard for you to truly relate with others. Eventually, you discovered that your only recourse was to enter the dark world of the shadows.

    Now you are an up-and-coming shadowrunner. The same skills that were of so little use to you in normal society have saved your life many times during operations. In a relatively short time, you have raised enough money to buy some good cyberware that has helped you to advance your career. Though most of your co-workers do not truly understand you, at least they are far more accepting of the minor idiosyncrasies and paranoia that your home bred. You are not, by any stretch of the term, truly happy with your life but at least it appears like you might be... someday.