• Chapter one: Preparation


    The green color of the leaves was what first caught the young child’s attention. It was a color he’d only heard about, that now, only holographic devices could reproduce. He was born onto a once beautiful planet, covered in lush green forests just like the ones he was viewing now. Now, though, the planet was covered in coats of metal, and entirely new splendor than before, and the boy could on feel remorse for the beauty that was lost. The planet itself had all but died, but these inhabitants, the humans, seemed to have lived beyond that, though they could not produce anything of their own, contact with other planets provided everything they needed.

    These people weren’t the first to travel through the infinite sea of space, but they were among the most numerous, and quickly placed themselves among the ranks of the star travelers, those who had left their own planet, and took to the stars, as their ancestors took to the seas so long ago. They populated other planets, and turned pits of lavas into an almost paradise-like planet. They interacted with others species, fought many wars, and continued to live, many forgetting their original planet, which they called Earth.

    The boy was still transfixed by the image before him. Before the giant metal cities took over, before the planet withered away, it was a beautiful blue jewel, and that image was hovering before him. The boy had passed 6 Summers before this one, his seventh, and he was about to begin the long learning process, and go to his first school, something he wasn’t exactly looking forward to. ‘The only good thing,’ he thought, ‘about this, is that I get to see these holographs…’ It was his first time seeing them, though his older brother had often spoken excitedly about them to him.

    “Cyrus…” someone called the boy’s name. He turned to see his mother, smiling at him from across the room, in the doorway, “Cyrus, come on, get ready…we have to send you on the way to your school!” she said happily, striding across the room, to ruffle the child’s black, untidy hair.

    “Mother, I’m not a kid anymore! I’m about to go to school…stop doing that!” he muttered, with an injured tone, and he shook his head. She’d messed up his hair, and now it felt weird to him.

    His mother stared down at him, and smiled pleasantly, “Oh, Cyrus, you’ll still be a child for a long time!” she said, with laughter, which made Cyrus redden. She smiled gently, and then continued, “One day, when you’re my age, you’ll wish you were a kid again, mister, so enjoy it while you have it! Don’t spend your childhood wishing you were an adult.”

    Cyrus blinked wonderingly at his mother. Did she wish she was a child again? He didn’t really understand. As a child, you were powerless, with no more control over your future than you did your day. At least as an adult, you could choose what you wanted to. He couldn’t even choose what he wanted to wear!

    His mother seemed to sense his confusion, and knelt down by her son’s side. “Oh Cyrus, you’ll understand one day. One day, there’ll come a time where you have to make a choice, where it will become the hardest decision of your life…choosing isn’t always easy.” She said, getting a sad look in her eyes that confused Cyrus greatly. She laughed, a sad little laugh, and hugged him tightly, “Oh Cyrus, I’ll miss you…you have to write every once in a while, okay?”

    “Okay, mother…” he responded, not knowing what else to say, or do. She released him, and then ruffled his hair playfully again, to which he groaned loudly, scowling at her, before they both fell into laughter, and embraced again.

    “Okay, come on, little Sun boy,” she said, calling him by his nickname, which always made him blush. His name, Cyrus, meant ‘of the sun’, and his golden yellow eyes certainly looked like the great star. He sighed, and took his mother’s hand. She led him out the door, and glanced back at his room. It would probably be the last time he saw the room, for many years, as he left for the school he would attend, far away from everything, everyone, he’d ever known. When he was born, it was decided that he’d be best suited for a job like being a Star traveler, as dangerous as it was, it was a great honor. Not everyone was selected to go out into the great ocean of stars, as people like to call it, and travel. Earth was slowly running out of supply sources, and with the population still growing on other colonized planets, star travelers were needed to find new planets, in which they could inhabit, and make inhabitable, to support their own mother planets, whatever the cost. The cost was often many, many lives, and that prospect filled Cyrus’ mother with a cold fear. She didn’t want to lose this child, which was dear to her.

    Although Cyrus didn’t know it, his brother had been in an accident at one of the energy plants, and had died. The government prevented her from telling him, though. That was one of its rules. A possible Star Traveler had to be kept in peak mental, and physical, condition. Even if she, his mother, died, they would act as if nothing had happened, and he might never find out. They liked to wait until he was distanced enough away from the family members to tell them of any accidents. It was twisted and heartbreaking for his mother, but there was nothing she could do about it, even as one of the Planet Board’s member’s wife, she didn’t have enough power.

    `As they walked outside the room, the lights turned off behind them, leaving the room in almost complete darkness, aside from the small, holographic little jewel in the center off the room.