Parental affection may be one of the most if not most vital foundational components of any living being in their development. Those early years of life are some of the most impactful for the whole life, as much of change in truth is the mere addition of what already is rather than a true reconfiguration of what was.

From foundational skills such as walking and acting to more conceptual morals pertaining to love and responsibility, many traits that are not questioned due to being so rudimentary are attributes sculpted largely by the ones who raise those people.

Grown adults with years of maturity, having met innumerable acquaintances and mentors, having experienced uncountable events, tragedies and miracles alike, those who have lived such richly momentous lives could drastically differ all simply by the first few years where they hardly had the ability to do anything. For the way an infant was raised can judge how that very same being will raise their own, an implant sown in from near birth, one difficult if not impossible to modify, for we may not even recognize the influences it had on us.

Parental affection can be demonstrated in a myriad of ways from verbal to physical to even the mere presentation a parent has, how they carry themselves and the way they shape their faces.

A prime example was of the two adults standing over their own, one a mature woman adorned in a white dress with a majestic decal pattern composed of flowery stems and petals both pink, intricately weaving through the dress in a way that exuded the tranquil aura of nature, and the other a similarly aged man ornamented in a spotless white suit: blazer and matching dress pants which present a professional and equally pure presence, who similarly to the woman had long brown hair although hers of a much lighter grade and was much longer as well as gracefully smooth.

Both of them had bright genuine smiles on their faces with shining white teeth, smiles so wide and filled with pride that their eyes were nearly shut. They spoke words, although those words were muddled and tuned out, yet the tones themselves tell of pride and excitement. They celebrated their own with cheers and joy inside the home’s living room wrapped with beautiful white walls featuring gold streaks, made comfortable with white soft fur carpets across the floor and furnished with rich antique artifacts.

Past the living room between the adults was a dining room by the design of the antique wooden table inside the otherwise spacious room, illuminated by a majestic chandelier above with realistic flaming torches which dangle over a glorious white layered cake with golden streaks intertwined.

The two adults smiled inside the shining white home, pure of heart, ecstatic for the child’s milestone day, congratulating with delight sincerely expressed in their tones and faces, providing such genuine and sweet affection.

Behind the two overjoyed adults in the living room flashed a red light immediately followed by the entire room engulfed in orange flames, scorching the white fur carpet and the white walls, all emitting from a red blaze behind the adults, both of whom spontaneously were now facing the other way, their voices no longer tender and sweet but rather aggressive and intense, their focuses suddenly shifted as flames crawled to the dining room where the cake was.

With sporadic, disjointed movements the woman had been turned once again to face the child, but now with an expression of pure desperation and fear as she shouted at him, reaching her hand out to the child in hopes of bringing them to safety. The fire had already far worsened, coming to the dining room as they had already spread over the table, ravaging the white cake thoroughly and continuing further through the home.

That is until another red blaze flashed from behind coupled with a sudden enraged shriek of a young boy, to which the woman suddenly staggered forward as a metallic blade emerged from her forehead, shaped similarly to a kitchen knife, and with the blade’s protrusion also emerged crimson splatters along with pinkish guts, spilled over the burning rug as she released a final, desperate cry, just barely unable to make the reach to the child.

Right in front of the child, the woman collapsed to the burning ground, her arm still stretched in attempt to reach out, stopped short as the body drops to the ground, the arm still held up in the air targeted straight for the child, as though still trying to reach to him despite pierced with the blade.

As the woman dropped, beside her the man turned towards the child too and sprinted towards him, hastily clutching onto the child’s hand, to which the child was thrusted backwards and compelled to begin running back along with the man, away from the one sight the child retained. That sight of the burning room with the woman’s corpse, but more specifically that of a boy about fourteen years of age, dressed in a black shirt and shorts with short black hair, both as with his latino skin soaked in crimson, crimson like his irises which glared and blazed as he held the kitchen knife also covered in red. The boy’s whole body constantly emitted a great crimson flame, a violent flame red with unhinged dancing flames, flames that at the tips become a more naturally fiery orange, and it is those tips that then spreaded into the fire that consumes the home, the home no more.

Concurrently with the devouring of the final remnants of the cake; concurrently with the spread of the fire that crawls through the doorway separating the two rooms; concurrently with the raging red blaze over the boy holding the knife; concurrently with the falling of the woman’s reaching hand open and desperate as her arm finally gives out; concurrently with the flames devastating the wooden table sitting below a mirror with a golden frame on right side of the open doorway into the black night fogged by a nanite dematerializing cloud while on the very other side of the doorway more of the inferno covers a cracked framed portrait of a family composed of a woman, man, and three boys all in a vibrant forest; concurrent with the downfall of the home ran the child also about fourteen years of age with majorly similar features to the other boy albeit for having blue irises and a white pair of shorts and shirt; dragged out into the dark night away from the firestorm by the man in the white suit, the boy just stares straight forward with a horrified, traumatized expression, unable to get one word out.

The expression could be described as that of a dulled lifelessness, for in such an adversely horrid, uniquely disturbing experience of a caliber far from any of the memories he had, memories of a peaceful life with these peaceful people, memories of simple times conflictless, there was no precedent of reaction here. In such a dense blizzard of anguish and terror, all occuring simultaneously and fed into a funnel that had never been used before, there was no reaction, rather just pure blank insipid.

Mouth only slightly parted yet still making no sound, blue eyes expanded fully in shock tinted in red by the hell before him, the young boy could do nothing but follow the path he’s dragged into as he stared back into the wreckage of the old, into the collapse of his former life. That was where the chase had begun, a chase that would have him running his whole life, a chase that would consume multiple of his lives.

For even many lives beyond, when his youthful face is now wrinkled and pale, for when his bountiful black hair is now diminished into four tight strands of scarce white hair, the one attribute on his face that remained unchanged was that cold dullness in the eyes, the hollow in his soul. Regardless of if it was by drastically changing experiences or ones exhaustedly repeated, that deadness was prominent in his blank azure eyes as even decades later he finds himself staring into the void.

That emotionless mask is transformed upon a question asked from beside him by the familiar mature feminine voice of his friend: “Wait Medit…where exactly are we going?”

From receiving that question, he glances to the side with a curious expression.

Next to Meditat, in the black leather seat functioning as the front passenger seat in the black interior of the pod slouches Dana, dressed in her usual black dress suit over her exposed white tank top. Behind her head which faces the driver is a crystal clear window screen displaying the boundless cosmos, the black void painted over with purple and blue nebulas and sprinkled with white stars, for once more in the infinite highway they travel.

After making eye contact with the driver, Dana glances forward again, breaking the contact and anxiously elaborating, “I-uh…was just wondering…seems we’ve been just driving for a while now and I don’t know if we discussed the next destination, sorry if we did….”

Sitting at the driver’s seat with a perfectly professional posture, Meditat glances ahead as well with a sharp, iron glare before answering simply, “Earth 99.”

“EXCUSE ME, WHAT?” suddenly shouts the raspy decrepit voice of the bald old man who leans forward from the back seat of the black interior, sitting right behind the driver and using that positioning to grab onto the seat’s edges to jolt himself back and forth.

“I still have the list, there’s still more than plenty stops on that! And I thought we had a deal, if we last one day on the last one then we keep using my list, and we did, and it wasn’t my fault for why we had to leave! Come on man, you can’t just do that way! And I can tell you need my help getting a list out, I mean Earth 99, what kind of shit is that?? I can’t tell if you picked a random number, I mean on paper it sounds like my kind of place sure, lawless and underground in a literal sense but also it just doesn’t have the right freq, it’s not fun it’s just depressing. Come on, this is some sort of dry joke isn’t it? You got to use my list,” he continues to plead, clearly agitated by Meditat’s ignorance to the list he had put some amount of time into with varying degrees of usefulness and varying levels of success.

Assaulted by the barrage of angry comments, Meditat releases an exhausted sigh, one of fatigue over a sleepless eternity, which he was fighting multiple fronts continuously during.

After lowering his head and raising it back to focus on the cosmic road, he elucidates “I know the deal we had, and if we had to leave for any other reason I would’ve continued to use your list. However, I’ve made one fundamental mistake in the design of this plan, for all this time I was focused on finding a hospitable world for us to be able to function without severe problems, when all that has done is put us out in the open for easy targeting. That is why I forged a list of my own, one built with the specific condition of seeking the least desirable planets to visit, ones with a natural barrier that will keep us out of sight. I was to make plans and navigate, and that is exactly what I am doing.”

Groaning loudly like an angsty child despite him being of the greatest age, Ekitai relinquishes his grip of the seat, falling back into his own to which Kokei nearly jumps, startled by the sudden backwards thrust. She glances at Ekitai –who still in angst grabs a flask of purple liquid from his overcoat’s inner pockets and begins taking a swig to cope–, and upon assessing the situation her expression tapers and she returns her gaze at the window, away from the talk.

Suddenly however, Kokei nearly jumps again and she turns her focus from the window and to Dana, leaning forwards and desperately crying, “Wait! Our stuff, did anyone remember to pack it?? Shoot shoot shoot I was so focused on…oh no no no…wait all my stuff was in my room!”

Following right after, Ekitai spits out his purple concoction in a stream –at an enraged Meditat who wipes his jacket’s sullied sleeve–, throws himself off the seat and leans forwards again, joining in the protest: “Wait, she’s right, we left everything back there! What if he gets a hold of my supply, I mean that stuff is dangerous, I just gave him a bunch of weapons! You have no idea what that stuff is capable of!”

In front of the frantic barrage, Meditat wipes his sleeve a few more times before having it flash blue below the purple stain which disintegrates the remnants, and upon cleaning the mess he lets out a soft disgruntled sigh before calmly inquiring, “Ekitai, are you on low supply yourself?”

Perplexed by the chosen focal point, Ekitai’s eyebrow raises and he tilts his head, calmly answering back: “Well…no…honestly I should be good for a while now…wait but what about hi-.”

“He won’t do anything with it, don’t worry about that. He’s the last man in the Superverse who needs weapons. I've read what your concoctions are capable of and the destructive power of what he is already able to manifest renders your work obsolete,” Meditat callously clarifies with no emotion in his voice despite the brutal insult Ekitai physically recoils from.

After lowering his head from the harsh reality check through the skull, Ekitai remarks softly, “Well, ouch, okay,” before taking another light sip from his flask.

All the sudden his head flips up as the synapses awoke, and he releases another stream of purple spit –which is immediately blocked by an instantaneous blue flash from the target’s leather shoulder– to exclaim in bewilderment, “Wait, you read what?? How, that’s my most precious data, it’s my secret sauce, what were you doing hawking over my stuff?!”

Sighing again as there’s no end to that supply to both the complaints and spit, Meditat shakes his head while keeping his attention forward, and he glosses over: “I could hardly tell it was encrypted, anyways for now backtracking is strictly forbidden, that is the worst move we could make. We will deal with that later, for now: priorities. We will be arriving at the Earth shortly, and I have already scouted out an area and residency we can stay at. I’ve established stations at every one of the twenty Earths I’ve chosen as our most fruitful options, so the research is done. As I said, I formulated the plan as I agreed upon doing.”

Upon specifically overhearing mention of the fulfillment of the driver’s responsibilities, Dana tosses her head towards the window and away from Meditat, staring straight at the screen with a damaged frown, understanding the change in tenacity that her friend is applying with the worsening situation, one that he himself is clearly sinking in.

At the back of the pod, Ekitai glances at the window beside Kokei who had resumed watching it with no method of retaliation, and so he too watches them glide past a distant Earth. Upon a keener glance, he notices that while they fly past the dark half of the Earth, the part cold at night, there are hardly any visible lights emitting from the surface, a strange property when many Earths ironically gleam nearly as bright in the night.

He then faces forward with precise comprehension of why such phenomenon was the case, and he addresses it so: “I see that you’re not as worried about friendliness…and usually I’d be all for going into an unwelcoming place because that’s where the fun is, but isn’t it bad for you guys that we’re going into a world that hates, and I mean hates outsiders? I mean, they’re one of the worst victims of the turf war, they’re one of the most aggressive towards anyone coming in. I mean hey, I normally wouldn’t be complaining because hell yeah violence, but as I said, this Earth just doesn’t strike the right switches. I mean, I don’t even think they have pods there, at least any that can get into space, so we’d be standing out real bad.”

At the front of the pod, Meditat huffs nearly silently before explicating, “Yes, that is precisely the reason. Ekitai, you of all of us should be the last to complain about the world's tidiness. You always had an option from the very beginning, do not compound difficulties. Now if that is all, we are arriving now,” to which Dana shifts her gaze to the windshield ahead in intrigue, her gaze sharpening as she peers through the vacuum.

Past the windshield ornamented with holographic gauges of maps and speedometers, right in the center is another Earth gradually becoming larger in view, an Earth that even from so far away has visible distinctions in that it very much lacks the same green that others do, being substantially brown in land if not entirely, and the swirls of cloud are instead more foggy gray patches that loom over the land and grayed water.

Out in the cosmic landscape, the matte black pod races towards the brown Earth far at the rim of the Superverse, silently drifting in the vacuum, its black body slightly obscured by the abyss surrounding it for the wrap is hardly discernible against such similarly hollow environments.

The pod against the brown and gray world does become more distinctive however as it makes its entry into the atmosphere, sinking into the next planet.

Through the windshield, several messages pop up on the right edge of the screen with various symbols on the left end, the top reading: ‘WARNING: LETHAL RADIATION READINGS DETECTED,’ neighbored by a hazard symbol, and the one below reading: ‘WARNING: LETHAL AIR POLLUTION DETECTED,’ neighbored by a symbol of what seems to be a cloud.

Beyond the screen however, the entire environment becomes covered from a dense dark cloud that the pod submerges into, not as beautifully white as that on the former Earth, but dirtier with even an unnatural green tint.

In the back of the pod, Ekitai queries anxiously whilst placing his flask in his inner pocket, “Uhm…just asking…do you actually know how to get in? Because it’s not that simple, and they’ve been sealing off the fissures so trying to get in has only gotten harder, and also there might be pirate factions around. Need help on the wheel?”

“No, I ran the simulations, I’ll be fine Ekitai,” simply rejects Meditat, to which Ekitai lowers his head and disappointedly comprehends, “I see.”

In front of Meditat, the windshield displays the front view of the pod as it slips through the upper layer of the clouds, revealing the world beneath to be a dark brown land with not a spec of green on the surface, dimly lit for even on the dayside there’s hardly any light able to reach through the smoggy lid. What can be seen on the surface even from so far above however are colossal craters embedded into the earth as well as what appear to be dark gray buildings many of which themselves emit the smog.

From outside tells a fuller story, a barren landscape where dark heavy clouds loom on various levels above the surface, some even sitting on the ground. Streams of the thick murk erupt consistently from scattered gray towers and fortresses, colorless and dull, the only remnants of civilization on the surface, neighboring the great craters some of which spread for miles, impact zones of weapons with untold yet slightly understandable power.

Not a spec of blue is found in the air, for even the gray sky is obscured by the immense density of the clouds. Especially below the lid, it’s unsure if the cyan sunlight is reaching through, for there is no distinct color but rather just a slight gray shine over the planet.

This scene is all that can be perceived from as far as the sights of the black pod permits, the pod as the singular moving object from one horizon to the other, diving straight down from the clouds like a meteor, straight into the dead world.

Inside the plummeting pod, the four sit tight, unaffected by the total free fall from the temporarily operating artificial gravity keeping them from falling forward. Meditat keeps his keen glare ahead as does everyone else, although with more astonished expressions, observing the tarnished lands.

Among the four however, Meditat does not give himself time to meditate on the condition of the planet’s surface, for instead he focuses on his true destination even further in. That ferociously determined glare says it all, a tint on his irises even with such little light, for such a dangerous route was one that truly requires his full attention.

What the driver eyes on is past the pod’s windshield, far through the haze and gloom both aimlessly drifting and streaming from fortresses, far into one of the monumentally titanic craters both in width and depth, deep in that crater far deep until the very pit by the center, into the center of the pit specifically a spec amongst the rubble and rock.

A dot that could very well be mistaken as just more rubble, the center of focus is in fact what from so far away is only presented as a miniscule aperture, a pinhole completely impossible to recognize from such a distance with naked eyes. While in reality the hole isn’t truly tiny, it is still concerningly tight, not many feet in radius, especially not for moving vehicles.

All the way up to the seeker, Meditat tightens his glare, his body facing straight down, the pod completely ninety degrees facing down.

At the border of the immense crater are several smoking strongholds, small from the sky but in actuality rather grand in scale, many being multiple stories tall, some even accompanied by towers around the outer corners.

Recognizing the present danger looming around the entryhole, one that could not so easily be sneaked around but instead had to be passed before it could follow, Meditat contracts his glare even more, tightening his control of the pod by the cognitive wheel.

Plummeting straight towards the ground, already in the atmosphere, the pod’s engine roars even louder as it accelerates more so, zooming like a black bullet into the wasteland.

Clutching onto the walls of the pod, Dana winces as the ground nears more and more only at faster rates, for yet again the driver has chosen a terrifying method of reaching a destination, one that could very well end in the complete obliteration of them all including her. Her green eyes become gold in a flash, bracing for what comes next.

Closer the ground gets, more features of the strongholds become clear from the pod, and yet the vehicle still shows no deceleration.

In the back seat, Kokei isn’t even looking ahead, but rather shutting her eyes and covering them with her hands, unable to bear the sight especially after all she’s still processing, experiencing yet again another dance with death and having to once again sit through it helplessly.

Soon all that’s below the pod is the crater itself, which while it is miles in length, such enclosure of space spells the shrinkage of distance.

Too in the back, Ekitai takes a deep breath diving in, having become accustomed to this style of driving, and just watching the show, slightly drooling down his parted purple-stained mouth.

Even now the pinhole in the center of the crater becomes visible to the rest of the group, even if hardly detectable, for truly even on the surface the hole was not very wide, not enough for even many pods to enter through.

In spite of it all, only unwavering persistence exudes from Meditat’s face as he peers straight through his singular opening, his single shot to pass through, knowing that regardless of all the simulations there was no true easy way to have secure his success in this instant, for only now can he dictate his survival as well as that of the group.

Roaring over the silence like a beast, the pod bolts straight into the crater, passing the main surface, and not even a second later the matte pod at the incredible rocket speeds it slides straight through the tight fissure, just barely large enough for the pod to pass through.

In truth, what occurs next is hardly perceived by the passengers in the pod, for at such immense speed and with such precise movement, no normal human could process the maneuver, for the only passenger able to get a glimpse of the traversal is the one at the front.

Yet able to not only comprehend but even act within fractions of time, the driver’s azure irises constantly bounce around like a camera, his movements sped up by his holosuit capabilities, yet his mind completely operating by itself, as is. He watches the world through a blue tint that illuminates his entire perspective, allowing for perfect clarity of every individual pebble in the tunnel otherwise secluded from light.

Past the windshield is a tight rocky tunnel, an underground path with little open space besides what the pod devours, leaving little room for miscalculations. Diving farther into the tunnel, the driver manages to detect an upwards curve, one that if not followed would lead straight into a crash. Yet coupled with his enhanced movement and his own mind, he drives the pod to tilt up at the exact precise angling of the curve, perfectly following along with the turn until the tunnel straightens, which he follows.

In the back of the pod, both Kokei and Ekitai are entirely frozen in time, unable to move, unable to even know what is around them.

Next to the driver, Dana’s golden eyes also observe the tunnels, able to move as well freely, albeit noticeably slower compared to the driver’s. Her own brain’s processing speeds are enhanced with computerization, the only passenger comprehending the maneuver only sits and watches with wide eyes.

Up and down, the pod follows the intentionally complex route, even having to tilt to make a downward spiraling curve, for even at slow speeds other drivers would find difficulty in traversing the tunnel.

Diving deeper down, the pod continues to take strange twists and turns, its engine still racing although the sound of its own roar is hardly able to keep up with its movements.

Slithering through the network, the matte pod follows another straight drop, however further down the drop the tunnel converges into a much wider one, multiple times so, and not only that tunnel but multiple others as there are openings along the walls leading into other paths, all of them equally more difficult to pass through.

Within the core tunnel, the convergence of all paths reconnecting from their many separate anyways, the matte pod descends without light, for the world to the driver is only illuminated with the blue tint.

Down at the end of the drop is another curve that horizontally straightens the tunnel at the end of the convergence, which the pod follows all the way down.

Upon reaching the bottom of the main root, the pod traces the curve to perfectly raise itself up, pursuing the path into a wider albeit enclosed tunnel, one no longer joined by others. Instead, this sole tunnel leads further into the distance, although at the very end of that distance is a bright light, an end.

With a new source of light, the driver no longer needs to see through blue, and he lets the pod bolt all the way to the other end.

At the head, the pod races all the way through the final remainder of the tunnel, past all the pebbles and rocks composing the inner walls of the rugged mine, out of the deathly maze and into the final stretch, into the light.