Illumination
Chapter One: Jewel
Even though I am fated to fade away,
as long as you are alive life will go on for all eternity…
Life goes on, continuing beyond the night
Into a tomorrow filled with light.
Mankind lead their world to destruction with no way back. Earths stability grew weak, the death of the only known mother planet came closer with each passing day. It is the year five thousand. With no other alternatives, they will need to find a new home, a new world, a planet somewhere else far away to call home.
Nozomi, the girl of hope, stood on a hill gazing into the endless space before her on the verge of a new dawn; planning and calculating out mans next move. A soft breeze danced gently with her hair as she scanned the horizon. Every burden of mans sin and miscalculations and even life laid on her body, her mind and spirit, if she still had a soul. She had been tampered with at birth. Nozomi's mother knew that herself and her unborn child were both dying of a new common disease that had already infected a numerous amount of people in this age.
There was no cure to save her or the child so in a possibility to rid themselves of the disease she gave herself and child to scientists who had recently spread news that they were in need of live bodies to test on. She prayed her child would live; when the scientist went to work her body; inconsolably, could not be cured due to the amount of the disease in her body so she was frozen in time to pause the affects of the ailment until they found the specific antidote she needed. Her last words were for her unborn daughter and they were words of hope. An hour later Nozomi, which the scientist had named meaning hope, was indeed saved and cured of the disease but also overcame much more in the process.
She was the new age of human beings. Nozomi's body was altered to handle and think beyond what the normal capacity of person could ever accomplish in his or her life. This girl's young existence had been shared with the machines of research that were bound to her, prodding, adding and ripping apart her body. Testing what was never tested before on humans.
She was in spite of that still beautifully unique. She had a face all her own compared to the normal people around her. The only real human like features was her hair and her profound watery blue eyes but what laid underneath her was not as well alike. Her girlish being on the outside appeared to be so fragile, like droplets of water collecting in a delicate crystal basin. Her complexion was so pale that when light touched her it set the air around her alight and created a radiant glow. She was the jewel of man, their hope.
"Nozomi," a whispering voice requested, carried on the breeze of the dawning day, "Tell me what you see"
"I see a dying star." She replied holding her hand over her eyes to shield the rising suns light.
"Nozomi that is our star, the sun, you have to look farther than that." But Nozomi was no longer interested in what this voice said. Birds flew over her head catching her eye and she innocently went bounding after them. "Child!" The voice called harshly. "Come back and tell me what you had seen in the night sky, stay right there and search until you find what you have been told to."
Nozomi slowly turned her head back to the voice; the warm breeze grazing her cheek as she brushed her long thick blonde braids over her shoulders saying with the tiniest sigh, "I cannot now"
"Then come inside"
"I do not wish to come inside." the girl spoke sweetly, "If you want me to come inside then come out here and make me." she grinned. Somewhere deep inside Nozomi knew she would be punished, maybe they would alter her brain and make her obey their rules. She shook her head, no she had broken much greater rules before and they still had not altered her to be their slave. I can still have some control over my fate, she told herself.
A small robin perched herself on the child's shoulder and began to nip at her hair playfully. "Hello." Nozomi warmly welcomed to robin to perch on her finger. "What news do you bring?" she asked the bird. The bird chirped away frantically.
"Tell me Nozomi," the bothersome voiced inquired again, "what does the bird speak of? Is it about the condition of earth?"
"No," she lied. Every time she would tell the voice that earths creatures spoke gravely of the earths ending she would be forced to stand outside looking out into the sky for a week straight.
"Are you lying?" Some how despite how hard she tried the voice always knew.
"Sir!" A woman saluted a man decorated in badges and ribbons, "How far along is Operation Illumination? Have there been any news from the scientists, any news on finding the new earth?" The woman stood before a large consul inside a massive building that linked the earths forces together.
The man she was speaking to was the leader of the earth forces, clearing his throat he replied, "No, in fact there has been no news for a longer period of time then we have expected"
"Then," she paused, her mind seeming to battled with her emotions, "perhaps it is worthless to believe that this will even be successful! We should act now instead of wasting our precious time." She said, emotions winning and therefore raised her voice in stress and concern.
"Give it time Leiko," the older man told her, folding his hands in front of his mouth, "there is still hope"
"Sir," she held back faintly; her face relaxing.