Chapter 274: New people

"Myles, come and sit down."

The man spoke calmly, sipping his tea. There was something almost pleasant about the way he said it, as though he were inviting the little child to discuss the weather or asking him to look at something interesting outside.

The little child approached and sat opposite him.

Yesterday, he had finally been told everything.

Humanity was approaching its end. It was only a matter of a decade before the world became something unrecognisable, before the conditions that sustained human life deteriorated beyond repair. The suffering would be immense.

There would be no immediate end, no clean disappearance. People would remain alive long enough to witness the collapse of everything they had built, and many would die slowly, in circumstances that were difficult even to imagine.

His uncle didn’t really explain what he went through to get to this point, he just explained him that both him and his sister got kidnapped and experimented on. From then on, he didn’t provide any more context.

Of course, as predicted, the two of them were only partly biological humans. The child expected as much, as he has inhumane capabilities.

The only difference was that his uncle was once a complete human, while he, on the other hand, was born foundmentally different.

So that makes the man a first generation, while he is a second generation.

His uncle had explained it all and, the solution, according to him, was to destroy everything.

The little child understood the reasoning. If the humanity was going to end regardless, if humanity was going to be subjected to years of unbearable suffering, while slowly witnessing the mutation of their entire species, then perhaps destroying it beforehand was a mercy.

It was an answer to a problem with no other solution.

He did not particularly object. After all, he would die either way. A second generation like him wasn’t going to survive that shift.

It was a simple conclusion, and one that had not bothered him yesterday. Yet, since waking that morning, he had found himself thinking about it repeatedly.

Death.

He had never given the matter much consideration. His body was extraordinarily resilient, his strength far beyond that of an ordinary human, and his expected lifespan was not particularly short.

There had never been any practical reason to imagine himself dying.

Even when his uncle sent him to observe ambassadors, entrepreneurs, property owners, and other influential people, the little child had never seriously considered the possibility that one of them might kill him.

He was stronger than nearly everyone he encountered. It was difficult to imagine a situation in which he would be unable to protect himself.

But that was different.

This time, there would be no one to protect himself from. No opponent to defeat, no obstacle to overcome. The world itself would cease to exist.

He would die.

The little child stared at the floor.

He knew a considerable amount about death.

He knew what happened to the body when its vital functions stopped, what happened to the brain, and how the remaining biological processes eventually ceased. He had read about burial practices, cremation, and the different ways people dealt with the bodies of the deceased.

But none of that answered the question he had begun to consider.

What happened afterwards?

Nobody knew, not conclusively. There were countless beliefs, theories, and religious explanations, but no one had been able to establish what happened to a person after physical death.

Some believed in heaven, others in reincarnation, and others in entirely different forms of existence.

Even in this era, when religion had become less prominent, people continued to imagine that something awaited them beyond death.

Perhaps it was natural to want there to be something.

And, in nearly every version of that something, people were eventually reunited with one another.

Families found each other again. Lovers met again. Those who had been separated by death were no longer alone.

The little child lowered his gaze further.

Would that happen to him?

He was not human. At least, he had never been able to establish that he was.

He had abilities that no human possessed, a mind that did not function like theirs, and an emotional life that remained largely inaccessible to him. His uncle had once been a human, so he’d still count. He can love and be loved, so why wouldn’t he reunite.

If there was an afterlife, would he be included in it? Would he be able to find his family? Or would he be somewhere else entirely, separated from everyone he had ever known?

Perhaps there would be nothing.

Perhaps there would be an eternity in which he remained exactly as he was, with no one to recognise him and no one to love him.

The thought was unfamiliar. He could not properly understand why it bothered him, or even whether it was bothering him at all. It was simply something he could not stop returning to.

"Uncle, where do you think your sister went?"

The man stopped drinking.

His eyes widened slightly before his gaze dropped to the table. For a moment, he did not answer. Then he brought one hand over his face, his fingers pressing against his forehead.

"Her beautiful soul," he murmured, "is in heaven."

Heaven.

So that was what he believed in.

The little child considered this for a moment.

"Will I also go there, when you destroy everything?"

Silence followed.

The man slowly lowered his hand.

The little child raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer. His uncle, however, did not seem inclined to give one. Instead, he pushed his chair back and stood. He walked around the table, then reached down and took both of his nephew’s hands.

"Listen carefully, Myles."

He knelt in front of him.

There was an unusual brightness in his expression, something the child had not seen in a long time. His hands were warm around the child’s smaller ones.

"You mustn’t have such foolish thoughts. That is partly my fault, for not telling you everything yesterday."

The little child tilted his head.

"Everything?"

"The world," the man began, his voice becoming almost cheerful, "I won’t be the one to destroy it."

He smiled.

"That, you will do."

The little child went still.

"You have the power to do this, Myles. If you continue cultivating your abilities, if you keep growing stronger, then you will be able to accomplish it easily. Such powerful abilities, you are going to be the strongest out of everybody."

The man drew him into an embrace.

For a moment, the little child’s hands remained suspended beside his uncle’s shoulders. Then his fingers twitched.

His eyes widened, ever so slightly.

"You were right," the man whispered. "You are not human."

This time, it was a truth.

There was no correction following it, no insistence that the child was merely unusual or that his differences did not matter. His uncle was finally acknowledging what he had always known.

The little child was not human.

He felt something tighten inside his chest. It was not quite fear, although it seemed to resemble the physical descriptions of it he had read. His throat felt strangely constricted, and he found that he could not immediately formulate a response.

"So you will be the one to do this," his uncle continued, pulling away just enough to look at him. "And once you do it, you’ll become human too."

He stroked the child’s head.

"Do you understand, Myles?"

The little child stared at him.

"Destroying the world will make me human?"

"Yes."

The answer came without hesitation.

The man smiled again, his thumb brushing over the child’s hair.

"Think about it. You will be saving humanity. All those people who would otherwise suffer, all those innocent souls who would have to endure the end of the world. You will spare them from that. You will give them a peaceful end, and in doing so, you will finally become one of them."

The little child listened.

It was a strange proposition. He had always understood that being human was something he lacked, although he had never been able to determine precisely what was required to obtain it. He had tried to imitate ordinary children. He had learned to smile, to speak gently, to ask for affection. He had even attempted to hug his uncle without being instructed to do so.

None of it had worked.

Perhaps he had misunderstood the process.

Perhaps being human was not a matter of learning how to behave like one. Perhaps it required something considerably more significant.

If he could save humanity, then he would have done something no ordinary person could accomplish. He would have given them something they could never have given themselves. And perhaps that was what his uncle meant. Perhaps the act itself would change him, would make him worthy of belonging among them.

There was another possibility, too.

If he destroyed the world, then there would be no one left to point out how different he was. No one to compare him with other children, no one to remind him that he did not cry or laugh or love as they did. He would no longer be an exception among humans.

He would have completed the purpose for which he existed.

And then, perhaps, he would be allowed to die as one.

The little child lowered his eyes.

"Then I won’t be alone?"

His uncle’s smile faltered.

For a moment, something passed through his expression that the child could not identify. His fingers stopped moving through the child’s hair.

"No," he said eventually. "You won’t be alone."

It was not a particularly convincing answer. His heartbeat had changed, and there was a slight delay before he spoke. But the little child did not question him.

"Don’t think about foolish things like death, Myles. You are the one who will save humanity. And then you’ll die, just like everyone else. You must do this, yes? You need to do this."

The child’s throat tightened again.

That’s right.

He wasn’t human. He wasn’t, and he couldn’t possibly be. But that could change. There was a way to become one, a way to finally cross the distance between himself and everyone else.

If destroying the world meant that humanity would not have to suffer, then perhaps it was a good thing. If it meant he could become human, then perhaps it was something he should want.

He had spent years trying to understand what his uncle expected of him. He had memorised expressions, practised gestures, and performed actions whose significance remained unclear. He had wanted to be loved, though he had never understood why that particular outcome mattered so much.

Now, his uncle was offering him an answer.

A purpose, something he could accomplish, something that had to happen, and that only he could accomplish.

The little child looked up.

"All right, uncle."

The man’s face softened immediately.

"Good boy."

He embraced him once more, holding him with an affection that felt almost unfamiliar.

The little child did not return the embrace immediately. He was still thinking about heaven, about death, and about whether he would be permitted to meet the people who had already died.

"Now," the man said, finally releasing him, "we will go and meet with a friend of mine."

The little child looked at him.

"There’s someone I want you to meet. He has a boy under his wing. He’s just like you."