Lately, my life has gone through a couple of changes, and I'm not talking about ordinary changes, like starting a diet or quitting one. No, what happened to me over the last month was... uhh, I don't know how to explain it, but I wouldn't recommend it even to my worst enemy... well, maybe I would, but that doesn't matter.
It all started the night I accepted that job.
Yeah, I have a job where I actually get paid, and paid very well. I'm sure that puts me far above most teenagers my age in terms of maturity. Or at least, I like to think so sometimes; it helps me avoid thinking about how horrible my job really is.
...Ever since I started this job, I can't stop remembering how happy I used to be. If only I had done things better back then, I wouldn't be in this kind of trouble.
Back then, I couldn't stop thinking about how insignificant my existence was to everyone else, and as time went by, that idea led me to believe that my life had no value at all.
Haha, I know, I know. Even I have to admit that sounded pretty depressing, and honestly, I wouldn't find it strange if, from this point on, you started thinking of me as someone who's sad all the time after hearing me say something so negative about life in general. That would be understandable, but please, listen to my story and try to put yourself in my shoes; after that, you can judge me however you want.
I was born on Fandret-9, a small world among the hundreds of thousands of worlds controlled by the great Terran Empire. I was literally a speck of dust drifting through a vast universe, and although that might sound intimidating to many people, the truth is, it never really mattered to me. I didn't mind being a speck of dust, because I knew that everyone I loved, and everything I cared about, were specks of dust too, in their own way.
I spent almost my entire life in a small town called Banderling, located north of Hervan National Park. It was a beautiful place, surrounded by trees so enormous they were as tall as mountains, and filled with kind people. Maybe that's why, at that age, I believed the whole world was just like that town: small and full of kind people.
But... on an ordinary day like any other, something happened that forced me to abandon that idealized view I had of the world.
Without anyone seeing it coming, a superhuman appeared out of nowhere, destroyed the entire town center, and, without a shred of mercy, killed more than fifty people.
...Haha, yeah... that sounds rather unserious when I put it that way, but... it's difficult to describe everything that happened that day with words.
I... turned out to be very lucky. I survived that massacre, and on top of that, I didn't lose any of my loved ones or anyone especially important to me, except for one friend, the only one I had during those years...
It was unfair.
All those people were murdered in such a brutal way by a lunatic who didn't even live anywhere near the town. That bastard simply chose a random town full of humans with the sole intention of killing as many people as he could.
Later, after an agonizing forty minutes, the superhuman was stopped by heroes dispatched from Virelius, the city closest to the town.
The whole situation was very confusing to me because I was only about five years old back then, and at that age I couldn't understand how anyone could do something so horrible. However, a few days later, my parents decided it was time to teach me a little history.
Many years ago, driven by their thirst for knowledge, humanity set out on a journey to expand its dominion across the galaxy and uncover the mysteries it held. Their ambition was so great that, in less than six hundred years, they managed to completely colonize more than ten star systems, acquiring new knowledge from every planet they discovered, knowledge that advanced their goal and paved a prosperous path for humanity.
Until, without anyone realizing it, the worst thing that could have happened to a race as arrogant as humanity back then came to pass: they found intelligent life.
They called themselves the Vultark, a species older than humanity and far more powerful.
No one knows for certain how the conflict between the two races began. What is known, however, is that humanity was the one that struck the first blow and started the war... or rather, if that slaughter can even be called a war, because for one hundred and fifty years, humanity failed to claim a single victory.
The Vultark never attacked personally. Instead, they sent their soldiers, savage beasts without reason that humans eventually came to call monsters. They became the greatest threat humanity had ever faced, and before long, the worlds humanity had once conquered began to fall one after another.
Despite humanity's overwhelming numerical disadvantage, humans managed to survive the first waves. Even so, no one was willing to celebrate those apparent victories, because the damage humanity suffered was something that could never truly be repaired.
In an attempt to create a counterattack against the monster invasions, every government on every surviving human world launched countless projects and research programs in hopes of creating weapons capable of changing the course of the conflict. That was the moment humanity changed its history forever.
On one of humanity's last remaining worlds, whose name has long since been buried by time, inside a laboratory so dark that not even the light of its own sun dared enter, a virus was born, and it was given the name Gravisoma.
In time, that virus spread across every human world, infecting hundreds of millions of people. Those infected developed Gravism, also known as Crushing Death, a condition of sudden hypergravity that compressed their internal organs as though the weight of their bodies had increased tenfold.
The only way to avoid infection was by wearing heavy masks known as Gravity Stabilization Masks (GSMs), devices designed to filter Gravisoma particles suspended in the air. For that reason, humans were forced to wear them every time they went outside.
Just when humanity seemed doomed to extinction, a small percentage of humans developed a kind of resistance to Gravisoma.
Those individuals were used as laboratory rats by ruthless scientists. They analyzed every part of their bodies in search of a cure for Gravism, or at the very least, a way to lessen its effects, but despite their countless attempts, they found nothing that distinguished them from ordinary humans... So, if they couldn't find the solution within them, they decided to turn them into the solution.
That was how the superhumans were born, beings who represented a far more evolved version of humanity, possessing enough strength to destroy moons with a single blow and enough speed to cross entire worlds in a matter of minutes. The superhumans became humanity's greatest weapon, and also its last hope for survival.
With the superhumans fighting alongside humanity, the war against the Vultark took a new turn, one in which new victories for humanity were reported every single day. Before long, humanity changed its name to the Terrans, in honor of Terra, the world where our species was born and which would now represent all the descendants of those who had once inhabited it.
However, despite surviving so many catastrophes, as time passed, the human population throughout Terran territory declined drastically, while the number of superhumans continued to grow without end.
Today, twelve thousand years after the beginning of the war against the Vultark, the conflict still continues. Meanwhile, the very species that started it now stands on the brink of extinction, brought there by both natural selection and the discrimination of those they once called brothers.
"Many people... simply because they were born strong, believe they have the right to decide the fate of those who are weaker."
Those were the words of my beloved mother, who avoided looking me in the eyes as she spoke.
When I looked at her face, I noticed an expression filled with sadness and guilt, two emotions I never would have expected to find in my mother, who had always been so cheerful that even the smallest things, like the ants in the garden crawling through the grass, were enough to make her smile.
Even the weakest superhuman is hundreds, perhaps thousands of times stronger than a fragile human could ever hope to become. That was the conclusion I reached after listening to the long history lesson my parents gave me, and it made me feel... small, because I realized I had never been a speck of dust like everyone else; I was a speck of dust surrounded by giants.
Once I realized I could never compare myself to those who had been born blessed, I decided to change the way I lived to fit what I believed were the proper standards for a fragile human like me. I stopped trying at school, became a loner who never stood out at anything, and eventually abandoned every aspiration I might have had for the future.
...I know, I know, that sounds incredibly stupid on my part, and I didn't realize it until after I turned fifteen, because at that age every human must choose one of the so-called "Paths for the Terran Future," where they have to decide whether to become a miner, enlist in the military, or pursue an academic career in one of the great cities. Since my grades only allowed me to choose between two of those three paths (both of which were practically a death sentence for someone as useless as me), I had no choice but to take a much more difficult route.
If I truly wanted to enroll in an academy with the garbage I called grades, I had to leave home and move to a city whose academies accepted students through entrance examinations, where I could compete for a place by passing six entrance exams spread across six months. In simple terms, I had to move away and give it everything I had if I wanted a future.
So... that's exactly what I did. With my family's help, I got an apartment all to myself in Regulus City, a megacity designed to accommodate both humans and superhumans.
The months went by. I had already completed three exams with acceptable scores; I only had to keep it up for three more months, and all my problems would be over.
...Mmm... it would have been so easy.
I don't remember much about what I was thinking back then, but... maybe... maybe that's how I felt... No... I don't remember how I felt, but without a doubt, that's what led me to do something so unbelievably stupid...
It was around that time that I... made a mistake, one I refuse to talk about, but one I'll never forget, and I'll never forget the way I found out about... the other thing either.
I was in my apartment and... I wasn't feeling well. My whole body ached, and it was becoming difficult to breathe. As my condition only continued to worsen, after enduring the pain for an entire week, I finally decided to see a doctor.
.........
......
....
I had wasted most of my life. I had no friends, no talent, and no ambitions; I was a worthless fool who deserved to die. I shouldn't have been surprised that my fate was leading me to exactly that place.
Those were the thoughts running through my mind when I heard those words from the man in the white coat.
"I'm sorry to tell you this, but there's nothing we can do. I'm truly sorry."
At the age of fifteen, I contracted the Gravisoma virus, which caused me to develop an advanced stage of progressive Gravism. In other words, my time was running out.
Every day it became harder to get out of bed. Sometimes I was so exhausted that I wouldn't even get up. Every time I did something as simple as walking, I could feel my bones cracking with every movement and my muscles burning from overwhelming exhaustion.
During that time, I barely spoke to my parents or my siblings; I only told them how well my entrance exams were going because I couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth: that I was going to die. For years, all I had ever done was give them reasons to worry about me, so I didn't have the courage to tell them the truth. I no longer wanted them to worry about me, I didn't want to become a burden to them, and above all, I didn't want them to pity me.
I... couldn't even feel alive anymore in such a pathetic state.
Although, if I thought about it... I hadn't felt alive for a long time before that...
Sometimes I thought that if I had died at the hands of that superhuman alongside the other people of Banderling, I never would have felt as empty as I did back then.
The days passed as usual, and while my health continued to worsen, I spent them lying on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by empty beer cans I had gotten thanks to the help of a kind homeless man.
Everything that happened after that is a blur.
GRRRROOOOOAAAAAAR!!!
I wanted to feel alive, to be happy again, like I used to be... like long before all of this.
That was a phrase I kept repeating to myself.
I wanted to feel alive...
I wanted that...
GROOOOAAAAAARRR!!!
And now, I have to take responsibility for what I wished for.
I have to keep moving forward.
¡¡¡GRROOOAAARGH!!!
"Shit! At this rate, it's going to burst my eardrums."
It's... difficult to have a conversation with you when there are so many things going through my head. I suppose that's also why I pause so often when I speak... and when I think.
Sigh...
Anyway, there's no point in complaining about my new job anymore because, in the end, I can't deny my responsibility in all of this. I'm here because I chose to be... and I'm still alive because my bosses allow me to be.
GRRROOAAAAAAAAAARGGG!!!!
....No, you know what? Forget that. If I'm still alive, it's because I chose to be.
My bosses are useless!
If I'm still alive, it's because I decided it.
Staying alive has become my greatest caprice, and I'll cling to it, even if I have to face any superhuman, monster, or anomaly.
I'm going to live, I'll survive, and I'll keep on living.