Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Origin

The Jiltre Vastiga is the wellspring of life for an expansive spiral galaxy. Within this galaxy is a planet that coalesced some four billion years ago and was seeded with life through the process of panspermia. This world that would one day become known as Earth. Panspermia is a complex process whereby life is passed on from world to world, all on the chance of success of small creatures invisible to the naked eye. The development of unicellular life is quite complex, each cell a world in itself. Some of these microorganisms became extremely adaptable to several possible conditions. Of the strongest and most genetically diverse of supercells, the Vastiga chose a select few million candidates to form a unified world seed.

A diverse cocktail of millions of lifeforms that could each evolve into different varieties of unicellular and multicellular species after enough successive generations pass. These seeds would travel the galaxy on small meteorites in a state of suspended animation. The seed would not be able to grow in the vacuum of space and would only be able to exist indefinitely, carrying vast quantities of intact genetic information, waiting to be thawed out on a habitable world. Millions of years might pass by the time the meteorites reach another solar system and many of these meteors may fall into stars or inhospitable planets. But, one of these meteorites landed on the empty world of Earth which was undergoing a thaw after experiencing an ice age. It was the perfect conditions for a bloom.

A billion and a half years pass.

The planet of Earth is finally noticed by the Vastiga, a being capable of observing the galaxy even from Omicron through an advanced spiritual network that traverses any world that has received its seeds. It discovers through this network that Earth is deemed habitable and hospitable to more complex varieties of life, as if the world has had a layer of fertile soil added to it in preparation for farming. So the Vastiga uses its authority of Life Radiation upon Earth. On land and under the ocean, smarter and stronger creatures start to appear in multitudes and rapidly claim dominance over their environments. The competition of life enters a new phase and species fall into and out of existence relatively quickly. Due to this influence of the Vastiga, many of these growing species start to receive souls as their members have reached the proper neural complexity. They each partake in the omnipresent soul of the Mother that permeates the totality of existence and as a result are capable of entering the cycle of reincarnation after their respective deaths. Souls from Earth will inhabit new bodies in other worlds upon their deaths or even new bodies within the same world. The soul of a flying pterosaur could one day be born again as a mammal in this world or even born again as a god in another world. Such is the transcendence of the absolute cycle of reincarnation administered by the Mother.

Hundreds of millions of years pass.

Eventually, a certain primate species develops the ability to pass knowledge on to other members of its species. Their descendants use the evolutionary advantage of the ancestors to develop tribal culture and progress as groups through cultivation of knowledge bases. At first the knowledge base is limited and held within tribes. Eventually, the tribes of primates meet one another, war, compete, and form larger groups resulting in the first civilization a few thousand years later. More civilizations start to develop. Eventually many nations are born and the primate race comprising the category of "humanity" becomes a species of incredible intelligence, complexity and power on the planet Earth.

One of those nations of humans came to be known by the name of Western Britannia. It is a nation of opportunity. The indigenous nations of the continent were ethnically cleansed and exterminated in some cases and eventually the colonizers created a land of excess and wealth, an empire that would be the greatest the world has ever seen, capable of extracting countless resources from other nations that cannot stand before its military power and colonial advantage. Within that nation is a province called New Amsterdam as well as a suburb city mix known as the town of Briboia. Within the suburb division of this town live two individuals. One of them is a young man named Ajax Leonid and the other is a young woman named Shaula Seikennith. They live together with Ajax’s family, his mother and younger sister; Ajax’s father works in another province of Western Britannia temporarily. Shaula currently has no living family members and, besides Ajax and his family, has no close relationships or friendships.

They both go to the school of Anne Bond Collegiate, a prestigious public highschool, where 19 year old Ajax is about to complete his 12th grade and secure his spot in the chemical engineering program of the University of Lower Dietrich, an ivy league institution. Lower Dietrich as an ivy league institution is popular among both STEM undergrads and those who wish to become members of intelligence agencies and politicians; Ajax will be entering quite a new environment. Meanwhile, 19 year old Shaula is about to complete her own 12th grade year and enter the Skilled Trades College of Nor Rasmussen, a popular program where she will participate in a paid industrial electrician apprenticeship. Both of these two are model students of innocuous birth and have become friendly to one another while meeting over and over in the same high school classes. Through a series of adverse circumstances, Shaula had no choice but to impose on Ajax and share his home with his family and him.

In truth however, disregarding all of the details of their human environment, the origins of Ajax and Shaula are not the same as every other creature on their world. They have a certain special advantage over all other lifeforms, one that neither of them understand yet. While the two of them were born through the behavior, actions and reproduction of countless generations of Earth-born lifeforms, their souls are not the same as those of other living creatures. However, they have been born as humans and they have lived as humans their entire lives. They have found joy, love, pleasure, and pain just like any other human would. They both have goals and dreams that humans could sympathize with and understand. For now.

Ajax Leonid. He is a high school student who puts in enough effort to make his parents proud and live up to his potential. He is extremely happy to have been accepted to Lower Dietrich but the University has asked him to maintain a certain Grade Point Average in order to keep his spot in his program. Today is the day of his last exam of his 12th grade year. If he performs well on this exam, his grade in English will be kept high and he will have no worries about his first year of University. His future will be set in stone. His morning starts rather inauspiciously however. Ajax has woken up in a sweat after experiencing a nightmare he cannot fully remember. He uses his shaking hands to wipe the sweat off of his face. His breathing slows down; he was hyperventilating just a few seconds ago. He combs his hair back with his fingers and finally takes a look to his right.

He realizes he hasn’t woken up in the middle of the night as bright sunlight is seeping through his blackout curtains. He checks the time on his phone and sighs. He woke up just a half hour before his alarm would have gone off. Without any further delay, he throws off the tiredness of his rough sleep and goes through his morning routine. As soon as his clothes are prepared, he goes downstairs to eat breakfast with his family.

“Boo!!”

“Woah!?”

As Ajax walks into the kitchen, an apparition pops out of nowhere and terrifies him. This is one of the most blood-curdling moments of his entire life. How did the apparition get into his house? Where is his little sister? His heart goes into cardiac arrest and he slowly falls to the ground clutching his chest. He dies, five seconds later, his tongue comically lolling out of his mouth, his eyes unmoving as he stares at the ceiling above him where he can see the apparition looking down at him.

“...”

The apparition speaks no works, silently staring at his lifeless corpse. As he lays there dead on the ground, certainly dead, the apparition takes off its mask and by some accursed twist of fate, it appears that it wasn’t an apparition or poltergeist at all, it was actually his 6 year old little sister. What could have possessed her to play such a devious trick on him? Has she ever considered that he would fall to the ground dead as the dodo before she decided to do something so vicious?

As the dead Ajax’s eyes continue to stare at the ceiling of the kitchen, in his sight he sees his endlessly cruel and mischievous sister give a short prayer.

“Please Lord God above, please give my brother a nice time in heaven, don’t jump scare him like I did, he might curse you out and go to hell.”

“Hey, come on, I wouldn’t swear at God… damn…”

“Yeah you would.”

“...No, but also don’t give up on me so easily, Rita, you’ll hurt my feelings.”

Through some miraculous twist of fate, Ajax’s heart starts to beat once again, his tongue goes back into his mouth and his eyes turn to Rita with sadness. He starts to cry tears of deep deep anguish as he considers how his own sister would give up on him so easily if he died. How unfortunate can an older brother be?

Rita turns away from Ajax still on the ground towards the kitchen sink and slowly pours herself a cup of water. Ajax who sees this action stops his bountiful tears, gets up off the somewhat dirty kitchen ground and runs to the kitchen sink to ask her what she’s doing with that.

“Babies need a little water in their face if they're gonna cry over nothing.”

She is so amused with herself in that way that little kids get, as if all of her thoughts and actions have never been done before by anyone in the history of humankind. New ideas fall out of her head all the time, new mischief to be had, new games to play. She is well on her way to becoming a spec ops captain at this rate if she continues to display similar levels of cunning and cruelty as she grows older.

"Hey." Ajax calls out to Rita cautiously.

"What?"

"Let me see that glass of water for a sec, I'm thirsty."

"..."

She looks at him in disbelief at the obvious ploy he's attempting. Her face shows a wide smile with too many teeth and she looks up at him. He notices that her eyes are refusing to smile.

"Oh? You want this?"

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"Y-Yeah… don't worry, I'm not going to throw the water back in your face and run away from you, I'm not going to do that."

How foolish, Rita thinks, he's given away his whole plan! 

Ajax looks towards her, while slowly reaching out his hand for a moment before stopping.

"...?"

So far this morning, he’s been having a good time playing along with his sister’s childish antics. However, an unwanted flash of memory reaches him and sours his mood. Rita looks at Ajax’s face. She sees a look of fear. A look of deep primal fear that she's never seen on his face before. It is a fear that she's seen only once. It was that time her mother had told her about when Ajax broke his leg and had to be taken to the emergency room after school when he was 8. At that time without being able to put descriptors to those thoughts, Rita had seen her mother consider the event in horror. Ajax had quietly, with shame in his demeanor, explained to mom how he tried to climb a fence and slipped when he was about to reach the top. He fell onto the hard concrete sidewalk and broke his right leg.

“One wrong move and he might have split his head open. Kids die like that all the time, just by being unlucky. What would your father and I have…”

Her mother revealed that face to Rita then for just a second. It was a sharp emotion on her face. As if she was considering how her life might have been if Ajax had died on that day. It had scared Rita and now Ajax was showing that same fear on his face. She felt panic.

"...What's wrong? A-Ajax, are you okay!?"

"...Huh? Whoa, what’s wrong? I’m alright, I’m alright, Rita. What got you so worried?"

Rita looks once again at Ajax's face and as if that previous moment was a lie her eyes had told her, his face is back to normal. Rita’s expression slowly returns to normal as well.

"...Nothing. No, it’s nothing, Ajax. I’m hungry."

She doesn’t want to explain her thoughts to Ajax. She feels like it’s just herself doing some overthinking, she probably just made a mistake. Rita vaguely understands that today is an important day for Ajax as well so she decides not to push further. Ajax misunderstands her thoughts and moves on to the next phase of his morning. He woke up early today so he can easily make breakfast for her and himself without losing any time.

"Come on, let's eat breakfast, you have to be ready soon."

"...I can be late, you know, summer’s almost here already." Rita pouts slightly.

"Well, alright that's true but if you're late then mom will be late for her job so come on, let's eat!"

"...Alright."

Rita decides to let her thoughts go for now but the way she's currently thinking about her brother makes her feel odd. That wasn't acting, there wasn't mischief at that single moment. That’s why it scares her and she doesn’t know what to do with her fear. It lingers in her periphery, an intrusive thought. It makes her think that today isn’t going to be a good day. She wants to ask Ajax not to go to school today, to just stay home so nothing bad happens to him, but she cannot do that. She sits at the kitchen table waiting for a plate to land in front of her. Ajax doesn’t notice her odd behavior as he whips something up for the two of them.

Ajax places two plates of food in front of the two of them: some scrambled eggs, slices of toast, leftover coleslaw, apple slices and a few drops of hot sauce. He continues to think to himself about his dream; even though he forgot its details already, the fear is still there. The details of the dream feel as if they’re behind a veil, as if he could gain glimpses of it if he really tried to think about it. But, he doesn’t want to really think about it.

He knows that within that dream there were one or more moments where he felt pure terror. Ever since the terror, he felt a poor omen of the day, as if those bits of fear are representative of how things will turn out for him. He looks over at Rita who is quietly eating her food. He wonders what she was thinking about earlier when she looked at his face but he doesn’t come across an answer. Hopefully, her day goes well even if his day doesn’t. He wonders if this is his mind talking to him with worry about his English exam today but he doesn’t believe such a dream would be caused by just that. Even if he somehow fails the exam, he can still go to Lower Dietrich, just not in the chemical engineering program. He still has options and if he does well in his first year in the right lower-tier STEM program, he might be able to cross over into chemical engineering in his second year. Today shouldn’t be so stressful for him. It shouldn’t.

He continues eating his own breakfast when Shaula walks into the room. While working on autopilot, she makes an oatmeal bowl for herself as Ajax and Rita finish their own breakfast. Rita then goes off to see mom while Ajax brushes his teeth, gets his school stuff ready, and does ten more minutes of review for his English test.

He waits by the front door to his home where he sees his mom walk by with Rita. He wishes them both a good day at work and school respectively and Rita wishes him back as well. He notices that look of Rita towards him, a slight worry that Rita herself doesn't fully understand. He's already forgotten that earlier moment himself and doesn't perceive Rita's own worry for him. Then, as if resolving herself, she looks directly at Ajax who notices her sturdy gaze, and speaks.

"...I love you, Ajax!"

"I love you too Rita. Have a good day at school. Bye mom, I love you."

"Bye, Ajax, sweetie, love you. Also call your father after your test, he'll want to hear about it once you're done."

"Sure mom, I will."

With that, Ajax’s mom and Rita leave for the day. Of course, neither of them would be able to comprehend that Ajax won’t be returning home today. The next few days will be painful for the two of them. Ajax’s father will rush home immediately when they receive the news around 11am today. His mother will go to Anne Bond in order to hear the details. Even though all of Ajax’s and Shaula’s classmates and their teacher are clear on the details, it will not make sense to her. They tell her that Ajax and Shaula died in the middle of the classroom, their bodies disappearing. She will consider the teacher and the students to be insane but no one will have a better explanation to offer. The news of his and Shaula’s deaths will be treated as an odd bit of unsolved mystery by local news outlets. It will be covered in true crime podcasts for a few weeks after the event. News outlets will consider the most realistic theory is that the two of them were attacked with an unknown form of atomic weaponry, corroborated by the destruction of all smartphones and electrical devices in the entire school on that day. The Western Britannian military will become involved in the matter. They will directly question Ajax’s father once and then never visit him again.

His mother will undergo a nervous breakdown while going through the details provided from the witnesses about how horrible it was for Ajax in his last moments and attempt suicide in front of her husband. His father will start to fall into a pit of alcoholism after his wife undergoes psychiatric evaluation for a few weeks at the local hospital. He will be at home for a while in order to take care of Rita while his wife goes through treatment. Rita doesn’t speak to her father about anything after she sees the way he starts to hit the bottle and she will be by herself in her room for most of the time until her mother leaves the hospital.

Rita will wonder for the rest of her life what Ajax was thinking on that day. What that moment of fear was. Her future friendships will be colored by the memory of her beloved brother but she will get through this pain eventually. One day, her mother will return from the hospital and start to take care of her again. Their family’s stopped time will start again. Although not everyone can move past an event such as this, Ajax’s family rebuilds itself. The pain will fade slowly while never fully disappearing, a permanent scar upon their lives. Rita will excel academically just like Ajax and will go to the same high school as he does. She will hear about him from his English teacher once she meets her during her tenth grade; the teacher was one of the last people to see him alive and his final moments. Rita will continue to ponder why Ajax meant so much to her and why he had to disappear.

Rita will give a speech about her brother when she becomes valedictorian in her final year at Anne Bond. She will explain to everyone why he meant so much to her, what his life was about and why she wants everyone in the audience to remember him. Her parents will be in the audience and they will cry their eyes out. She will cry too on that day and for many years to come as she continues to remember him. 

But none of this has happened yet. Ajax meets Shaula at the front door after she gets herself ready. Unaware of the flow of events towards this future, he walks forward out the door locking it behind him, looks up at the clear blue sky above him and smiles slightly.

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