(Earth: 5 years ago)
"Lunch is ready, Kael. Come eat," Mom called.
I was staring at our photo album again, like always.
The same thought came back, sharp and sour: why did the pictures only start when I was seven? Why were there no baby photos, no memories before that age? It felt like my life had been cut and spliced into someone else's timeline.
The hum of my life support carried me down the hall, gliding me toward the dining floor. Tubes pumped blood, nutrition, waste. Breathing, eating, moving—it all happened for me, inside the machine. Sometimes I wondered if I was the boy… or if the machine was.
Lunch, my silence, my drifting thoughts—everything was routine.
Until the day bent sideways.
A girl my age was sitting at the table, talking to my little brother like she had always belonged there.
"Kael," Mom said, her hand on my shoulder. "This is Elissa. She'll be coming here regularly from now on. Make sure you three get along well."
In three years, this was the first time I had met someone other than my family. I had no idea what to say.
She spoke first.
"What is that? The chair?" she asked, pointing at the machine that carried me.
"Oh… it provides my nutrition. Pumps my blood. Takes me places. Removes my wastes and… everything," I mumbled.
Her eyes lit up. "Wow! That must be wonderful. Just relaxing all day."
The smile came out of nowhere—huge, bright, undeserved.
"Yes," I answered, flat and confused, having no idea how to talk to someone who smiled so easily.
---
We went to my room. My brother left for tuition.
The interrogation began.
It wasn't small talk. It was like she was making a documentary about me.
"Your parents?" she asked.
"Father's a maintenance worker. Always planning how to 'develop the society.' Mother stays home. Takes care of us."
"And your routine?"
"All physical therapy. Practicing walking. Exercise."
She tilted her head, waiting for more.
"My age is twelve." That's what I told her. What my parents told me. But my memories only went back three, maybe four years. Nothing before that. I didn't tell her that part. Mom told me not to.
I threw her a question back, not really knowing what to ask.
Her mother worked here, as a maid. So did she. Her father? Gone. He ran away after committing "a crime done by adults."
Her routine was cleaning this house, helping my mother, helping me try to walk.
"And I want to be the strongest girl of my age," she added with pride, like it was a destiny she'd already chosen.
Then, out of nowhere, she asked:
"And you? What do you want?"
What I want?
Answers flickered in my mind: Who was I before? Why do I need this machine? Why does my life begin at seven?
But I didn't give her those questions. She couldn't answer them.
"I… want to walk, I guess."
It wasn't my answer. It was Mom's. But I said it anyway. To escape the question.
---
She left the house at six. But her words stayed behind.
What else do you want?
I had never wanted anything before. Not really. Not beyond answers.
Mom came in and told me Elissa would be coming every day now to help me practice walking.
I nodded, still caught in the thought of "something bigger."
The next day, the practice began.
To try, I had to detach from the machine.
I pressed the button.
And the world collapsed.
My chest tightened. Breathing turned heavy, strangled, as if someone had wrapped their hands around my throat. My legs were nothing—absent, numb, like blocks of stone I couldn't command.
I fell.
Elissa rushed forward, lifting me back into the chair. Her face was red from the effort, but then she laughed.
"What was that? You can't even budge an inch without the wheelchair. It was horrible!"
Horrible.
The word pierced deeper than she knew.
No one had ever called me that. Not directly. Mom always said I was "different." And "different" was supposed to be fine.
But Elissa's laugh told me something else.
If I couldn't walk, I wasn't just different. I was horrible.
The thought twisted in my chest until it became fire.
And in that fire, I decided.
Then the expected happen
By the next month, I was walking like any other child.
The day I walked, my mother was happy. My father—who was away—called online, his voice full of pride.
The doctor said it was a miracle I had improved so much in a month.
But it was no miracle to me.
I had learned something about what it means to be human.
That even for the smallest things, like walking, we can bleed and burn with everything we have—just to not be "horrible."
For a moment, I thought I had done something great.
That thought shattered within a week.
Now my mother wanted me to run.
To play with other children.
To help her with chores.
To be more, always more.
My victory vanished beneath their new expectations. Walking became nothing. Forgotten.
When my father came home a week later, he hugged me the moment he stepped inside. He greeted Elissa. Then, with a voice that left no room for doubt, he announced:
"Elissa will become the daughter of this family."
I froze.
Everyone else… didn't. They accepted it calmly, like they had known all along.
I turned to Elissa.
"Did you know?"
"Yeah… kind of." She gave a faint smile, but it was heavy, like she was hiding something.
"Why?" I asked my little brother.
"They told me yesterday," he said. "I was shocked too… but don't you want it?"
"But what about—" I started, but my father cut across me.
"Don't you want it too?" His voice wasn't a question. It was a declaration.
I fell silent.
Her words echoed in my head: to be the strongest girl of her age.
And I thought of the mother she always spoke about. A mother I had never met.
Why would she leave her? Why would my family agree to this so easily?
Did they all know something I didn't?
I, who knew nothing of the world outside this house, could never keep up with them.
Unless I found out for myself.
A thought burned through me, sharp and undeniable.
I must find the truth.
And with it a new hunger was born
A very humane hunger