2SHIT FUCK TITS I HATE- GAHHH I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE LATE, I KNEW IT, RAAGH I'M THE WORST. I'm sorry, I actually wanted to make this a weekly thing, but I just kept procrastinating and procrastinating and then it became a month... I'm sorry. Jeesh, I am not motivated enough for this stuff.
Ok so I actually hate this chapter. I kind of have a ton of ideas for later bits, but not for this first part. If I'd had the foresight I would have combined this with chapter one, but I wanted to get chapter on out so I didn't... basically I really struggled with this chapter. It was hard to get this above like 300 words.
When Sacha woke it was all at once, with a blissfully rested feeling he couldn't remember ever having truly felt before. The warm dawn sunlight shone down on his face, utterly unlike the cold light that sometimes managed to filter down through the filth of the colonies.
He glanced to his left and considered Ethan, the strange boy who, against any possible reason, had compromised his own position to hide and shield Sacha. If their positions had been reversed, Sacha didn't think for a second that he would have offered Ethan the same courtesy.
Sacha came back to himself. He had waited too long already, to wait any longer to leave would be the foolish. Sacha slid silently from the bed, careful not to wake Ethan. He glanced down at the sweater Ethan had made him wear. It was far nicer, and more importantly far warmer, than anything he had owned in his life.
He'd take it. Ethan clearly wasn't suffering for much. Surely he could spare one goddamn sweater. From the corner of his eye Sacha glimpsed the first aid kit. He considered it for a moment, before grabbing and slipping out the window into the dawn.
Ethan woke gradually. He knew without looking that the other side of the bed was cold, that Sovet had gone. He hadn't honestly expected anything different, but he had still hoped the other boy would be there when he woke up.
Sovet was everything Ethan was not. There were the obvious differences of course: Ethan was comfortably situated, while Sovet was obviously painfully poor; Sovet was dark with ethnic mixing, while Ethan had the pale complexion of the genetically enhanced. But Sovet also possessed a sort of wild freedom, incredibly compelling and seductive in its siren song.
Ethan envied him.
If ever such a sense of rebellion had existed in Ethan, it had long since been beaten out of him by social convention, not to mention his father's violent objections to any sort of "deviant" behavior or perceived defiance. Anything that might tarnish his image, at all damage his chances of political success, was not tolerated.
Difficult as Sovet's childhood may have been, full of poverty, starvation, conflict and disease, Ethan would have preferred it infinitely to his own stifled childhood, his father's physical as well as psychological abuse, the knowledge that no matter what happened at home, his father was a public figure and so Ethan's whole family needed to maintain their perfect, all-Earthian mask whenever they were outside. His whole life Ethan had wanted nothing more than to escape from his father's influence, to be free of the vast shadow his father cast over his life.
Ethan continued to ruminate on Sovet's enviable freedom, the differences in their childhoods, how Ethan's life might be different if he too had grown up in the colonies, of how he could possible escape.
The colonies, freedom, space…
Space.
Of course! Ethan couldn't imagine why he hadn't thought of it before. For all his father's power, his reach didn't extend into space, not really. Space was the newest incarnation of the ancient "Wild West" myth, lawless, essentially untouchable by the politics and bureaucracy planetside.
Ethan threw himself back onto his pillows, kicked his legs, strangely excited by the far-off future this new idea might offer him. The thought of finally being free, of being himself, was exciting, but he'd have to play his cards close to his chest. If Ethan's father heard of his son's plans, he would hardly approve- not that he approved of anything Ethan did. But never mind. Ethan had his promise for the future, and it filled him with an excitement unusual in his dull, controlled life.
In a place far away, and yet not really so far at all, another boy was contemplating similar thoughts. All his life Sacha had been pinned down by hardship. For as long as he could remember he had been starving, cold, orphaned, and unable to escape the shithole colonies, where any future one could have ended in a miserable death.
Sacha had taken the first step: he had escaped the colonies, made his way to the motherworld. In all honestly the slum he had eventually settled in was barely better than back home, but the new and exciting world of possibility open to him gave everything a silver veneer and a golden glow of opportunity.
With his newly improved position Earthside a gamut of opportunities had opened before Sacha. He could do things he would never have been able to before, such as finally and truly escape the confines of his existence.
Where better to do that than space?
Sacha had been born in space, of course, in the colonies, but space truly was the one place where the grip of bureaucracy might slacken, a vast and unexplored nothingness filled with wonder. Sacha shifted in the tiny corner he had conquered for himself, trying to become comfortable. He could hardly imagine being truly his own man, able to live his life rather than scrounge and fight for every single scrap that passed his lips.
Sacha wanted security. Almost more than anything he liked the idea of going to sleep and waking up knowing he had been safe, that he had a meal waiting and comfortable conditions that no one could take. Stability needed a job. A job in space. The military. The military certainly seemed the best choice. It was secure, it had benefits, Sacha was certainly good at fighting, and best of all the military operated in space.
There is a certain satisfaction that comes with certainty for the future. In the way of his decision, Sacha was infused with this warm glow, secure in the knowledge that he had a plan and that it was almost certainly attainable, if he only worked at it. Comfortable in the security of his knowledge, Sacha settled back into his corner of ratty rags and slightly insulating filth, one hand on his makeshift knife, and allowed himself to relax, though not fully (never fully) into sleep.
Yeah, so that was that. Sorry. Honestly I hope the bits after this that I actually have ideas for go a bit better. Also reading back over my stuff I've decided I basically hate my writing style... I don't think there's any Russian bits in this chapter. Also if you missed the edit to last chapter, Cain is now 14 and Abel's 15. Thanks for reading!