2 - Beginning of the Journey

"Gus, you're worthless. Why won't you Evolve?"

"This was my idea, and he won't even work. God, this is embarrassing. Why me, why did it have to be mine?"

Gus saw himself surrounded by a swarm of children, all of whom were pointing and laughing at him in a mocking way.

"Haha. Gus is the only one who failed," they would shout. "Haha. Gus is a failure!"

The images around Gus changed. Suddenly he found himself in a room with a middle aged man.

"Dad, I can still fight. And I will."

"I don't care. My own son, the runt of the litter of my creation. Why you? Why did it have to be you? Why couldn't I just get what I wanted, what we needed?"

"What about what I wanted? I had no chance at a normal childhood. Instead I had to follow you around everywhere. And even that wasn't enough, I acted as a guinea pig for you. Why did you test on me before everyone else?"

"A normal childhood? What about all those on the frontier? Or the homeworlds that are at risk? Things had to be done. I had orders to succeed at all costs. And yet my own son..."

"What more do you want from me?!"

"I wanted you to be a success. Instead, you're an embarrassment, both to me and my entire mission.

I wish you had died and she had lived. She could have at least given me a child that would succeed.

Go and join the military. I don't care. I hope you die there."

Once more, the images around Gus changed. He found himself looking into the black night sky on a cloudless night.

"You know he didn't mean that, right? He wouldn't have," she said, attempting to be reassuring.

"I don't know. He changed a lot when she died. And I was often the victim of that change."

She remained silent for a moment.

"Hey. I'm being sent out there tomorrow. Remember our promise? Don't make me wait for too long, okay?

Once you get strong, you come and find me, okay?"

"I won't be. I'm a failure. You should know this," Gus said dejectedly.

"No, you're not. You don't need to be a successful experiment to succeed. You have something natural, that they can't give you.

A heart."

"A heart?"

She nodded. "You care about everyone and everything. You are willing to sacrifice for others. You're willing to help, to do what you can."

"How does that make me strong?" Gus asked.

"Because being mentally unwavering is much more important than being physically strong.

You don't need to be one of the evolved. You just need to keep being you. And when you're ready, come and find me out there."

Gus awoke suddenly. He shuddered, as an uneasy feeling grew in his stomach.

Glancing over at his clock, he saw that he still had a little time before he had to start leaving to catch the shuttle to the academy. He sat up in his bed, and rubbed his eyes.

"Why now? Why am I dreaming about all that now? I'd forgotten about all of it, about her. And what was that thing, just outside of my vision?"

He hadn't realised it during the dream, but upon waking up Gus remembered seeing something in his dream. What it was, he was unsure about, but he was certain that there had been something lurking on the edge of his peripheral vision. Just the thought of it made his spine tingle.

After sitting still for ten minutes, his mind wrapped in thought about his dream, Gus decided to move. Swinging his legs out of bed to his left, his mind became wrapped up with thoughts once more.

"Well, Kaya, I guess I'm starting to fulfil our promise. I'm getting off this rock, finally, and soon I'll be out there," he muttered.

Paranoid about the risk of being late, he hurriedly threw on his clothes, a simple white tee, blue denim jeans, black socks, and a thin, blue overcoat. Once dressed, he frantically brushed his teeth, threw the remainder of his unpacked things – an identification card, his travel papers, and a fresh toothbrush – into a bag that he proceeded to throw over his shoulder. He then slid his feet into a pair of shoes, before leaving the tiny apartment that he had called home for the last time.

It was fortunate he woke early and decided to leave with some time left, since the elevator in his building was broken.

"So I have to go down twenty floors worth of stairs, on today of all days? Typical," he muttered in frustration as he approached the top of the stairs.

Gus sighed in frustration multiple times as he descended, annoyed at the state of the building. Discarded litter was thrown into corners on almost every corner. On several occasions, he had to negotiate his way passed large groups of people who had inconveniently decided to congregate in the stairwell. Although technically a bad thing, if one was to consider the law, each floor was covered with spectacularly made graffiti, which at least brightened his journey compared to if he had taken the elevator.

Eventually, he stumbled out of the stairwell and into the lobby of the building. Gus approached the desk just across from the stairs in the lobby and dropped the key to his room off with the worker.

"Today's the day, huh?" the receptionist asked.

Despite having lived there for a number of years now, Gus knew very little about the receptionist. Due to their appearance, which was extremely ruined by an overexcited cybernetics technician, at least in Gus's opinion, Gus had always been dissuaded from asking questions.

"Yeah," Gus responded. "Today's the day," he said, as he handed the worker the key. "I can't stop sorry, I've really got to rush."

"No worries!" the worker responded. "The credits you paid for your deposit will be transferred into your account within twenty four hours of confirmation of the state of your room. Good luck! Stay safe!" the worker said with a facial motion that could have been a smile. Gus couldn't tell. It all looked like a mess to him, anyway.

Gus said goodbye and turned right, heading towards the door to the building.

Towards his new life.