Chapter Text
I was born on an extremely hot night in August, year 2126, exactly ten minutes after my homozygous twin brother Thomas.
Tommy, as my mother used to call him, was my anchor throughout my childhood, a robust tree against the uncertainty of the present; whether it was for a slight shyness or because of the squalid family environment, I suffered for years of mutism.
My mother, who had decided to keep us despite her unwillingness to live as a single parent, had accepted my fate without objecting; there was certainly no money to pay for a speech therapist, and even if there had been, my mother would have chosen to save it for future use.
"Accidents, Jake, come like lightning; when you least expect it you need insurance," she always said with a chuckle, as if I knew the meaning of insurance at the age of four.
Tommy followed me like a shadow, the lively mind of a ten-year-old in the body of a four-year-old; he taught me the words we learned at school and repeated them to me over and over, inciting me to create sounds, to imitate him. Sometimes before sleeping he would try to read the only storybook we had available, I still remember his small and chubby fingers following the letters printed on the colored paper slowly, improving his rhythm and cadence page after page.
"Thomas is a genius, a natural talent" the teachers had said during the first week of lessons. And it was true, undeniable. Thomas was the best in school: he did mental arithmetic when everyone in the class was still learning numbers. I used to sit near his desk, looked at him with admiration, 'my brother is the best!' I wanted to scream at the whole world, obviously I couldn't do it.
I still remember my mother's eyes filled with joy and pride, the sense of happiness for my brother who always worked so hard, and yet he always found time to be with me despite my inability to get a single word out.
Tommy never made me feel alone, even when the Government offered him a scholarship to enter high school - even though he had just finished elementary school. Tommy always had time for me, he helped me not to stumble with the words that now slowly came out of me, although with little naturalness.
Tommy stayed with me when I had to do my homework, he even brought me the dessert they offered at his school cafeteria sometimes - perhaps because he knew I hadn't eaten yet or because he knew that I loved chocolate desserts; sometimes he would read to me some books borrowed from his school library, his calm and low voice always got me to sleep in no time, whether the book was interesting or not it made no difference.
I wasn't at bad at school and I wasn't a stupid kid either, I was just... normal, with no hidden talents to show to an ever-disappointed mother, or a neighbor who followed my stuttering with a look of pity towards me.
I was a fast learner, trying to keep up, unable to catch up with my brother no matter how hard I tried.
I even tried to envy him, to be jealous, to look down on my brother and at his academic achievements that seemed inhuman to me, but the fact is that Tommy was the only person who really mattered.
At least that was until the moment he won another scholarship, four-hour flight away from me.
At fifteen years old I always liked to keep to myself, the mutism and stammering that disappeared had given way to a sarcastic and suspicious personality; Tommy was almost always away from home, there were always new school courses, new planets discovered and colonized. He never had time to call or text.
And I understood it, I accepted it. When I could hear him he always told me something interesting about planets that I only knew from the news on TV, he talked about luminescent plants and mountains that flew in the sky as if they were made of cotton candy, so light that they seemed fictional. And I laughed because I knew Tommy was happy, he was in his habitat made of books and data on his PC of some new alien life form.
I was happy because at least he had managed to escape from this hell I call home, I was happy because - even if he was far away from home and from me - his tone of voice when he called me sounded so much like a child during Christmas.
I was sixteen years old when it appeared.
Glossy black and sharp characters on my skin as if there was someone injecting ink into my veins. I found the Soul Mate mark printed on my arm one morning before going to school, I stared at those words so much that I thought I was consuming my skin just by looking at it.
"You should go away"
I thought a lot about those words, these words that I still have in my arm that don't seem to go away, they mark my skin like a curse, like a mockery that makes my stomach boil and inevitably gives me hope.
As soon as it appeared I rememeber I had to call Tommy; he hadn't answered the first two calls - obviously - but at the third he replied, complaining with a sleepy voice.
He had been surprised, almost shocked. Despite the identical DNA, Tommy had immaculate arms without any marks, no phrase from his Soul Mate.
It was common that some people didn't have it, I had studied it in school during Biology: if one of the soulmates dies before having the chance to meet the other one, there will be no Soulmate mark at all. Many people didn't have any marks and still went about their lives as if nothing had happened. I hoped that Tommy wasn't the first to die, hoped that he lived a life without a soul mate but remained alive for many, many years to come still.
' You should go away ', nice words, huh? I thought about it so many times, so many that I thought I was going crazy. In what context could I meet my soul mate? Was it a warning or a phrase dictated by concern? How could I respond to such a sentence? Should I have responded with hatred, or anger? With irony or sarcasm?
I feel stupid to say this, but I think I spent my high school years thinking about this mark on my arm, this phrase, I spent hours and hours imagining the hypothetical face of my Soul Mate, the voice, the eyes.
It was electrifying, it was a feeling impossible to describe with words; it was like having adrenaline pumping before jumping into the void, it was like being faced with the realization that sooner or later I would meet you.
Yes, I say "you" as if I already know you, I talk to you in my head as if you were already a real person, alive and imprinted in my mind.
And you are, in fact, I just don't know what you look like.
Despite this, I keep talking to you as if you were here, as if you could somehow listen to me, as if I could comfort myself with the idea that you really exist, who knows where.
At first it was strange, it was an almost impulsive need. When I left school to enlist, it was such a stressful time in my life that I actually thought I was going crazy.
Tommy was further away than ever, talking about a project called Pandora and how they were building an avatar of him - a kind of alien copy based on his genetic code - before he could leave on a planet distant 6 years away.
I have to say I was expecting this, you know? Tommy was a shy person, he loved books and studying with an indescribable passion. I also imagine that the fact that he didn't have any Soulmarks prompted him to leave, because he felt that other than me - on our cursed Planet - there would never be any connection that was really important to him.
And I felt so lonely that even the very idea of you gave me comfort, gave me hope.
After training to be a Marine, they moved me to the war battalion in Venezuela. You can't even imagine what I saw during my three years in that hell.
Because that was Hell, truly, they called it the Great War for Desertification, I considered it more a war where whoever won was able to grab fertile ground for a population that was too large. Our faction won, or so I heard, I only remember the heartbreaking screams and the ground wet with blood and rain, the sickening smell of explosives and brains.
And I also remember my last day in that godforsaken camp, a fall so high my spine literally snapped like it was made of plaster. I spent so many nights looking at the ceiling of the infirmary and thinking about you, how you could see me now that I no longer had the ability to walk, to run, to be independent or maybe keep you safe. I thought it was the worst time of my life, I really thought it, you know?
After the infirmary and the two weeks in the hospital they sent me home, a small pension for three years' work as a Marine, absolute crap, really. I had so little money that I was often forced to eat once a day, I even sold the shack that my mother called home since she was no longer there and I no longer wanted to see those rooms that reminded me so much of poverty and family hardship.
I say I thought it was the worst time because it really wasn't like that. I just remember getting into a fight with someone in a bar, with an asshole who had spent all night harassing a girl whose pants were too short and her face covered in bruises and fear. You know I'm impulsive, you know that even if I don't have functioning legs I cannot help it, I have to react, I have to do it.
The result is that they threw me out into the street like an abandoned dog, throwing the weelchair across the sidewalk not so kindly. But that didn't matter; the rain fell on my eyes and face like a caress, and it got so heavy when I tried to think what I could do with my life... the only thing I could do now was drink and spend the rest of my money on cigarettes.
Then I heard footsteps close to me, someone asked me if I was Thomas Sully's brother, the news that my brother was murdered and died at the age of just 22. So many dreams in the drawer, so much talent in his head that I didn't feel anger or sadness at the news. In fact, it was like going into a trance, even when they showed me Tommy's body in a cardboard coffin (because wood was too expensive, nobody used it anymore - oxygen was barely enough for the 20 billion inhabitants of planet earth) I didn't shed a tear, my emotions were bottled up on my stomach and I couldn't get them out.
It was like I couldn't feel anything, as if my heart was frozen and put in a constant grip, as if Tommy hadn't really died but was still here, despite the fact that my rational part had seen his corpse, his face so similar to mine that it was like seeing my own death in a dream. Two RDA Agents didn't wait a minute longer to make me a request, they didn't even offer me condolences now that I think about it.
They made me an offer to travel to Pandora—yes, the very planet Tommy had chosen to go to—and to use my brother's avatar instead of him.
The pay was good, they told me as if the idea of a high salary was something I would consider. As if I could do anything with a little money in my pocket when the void swirled inside me, ate my intestines, and gnawed at my liver.
And that was the only day I prayed to a non-existent God, I prayed without tears in my eyes, without hope in my chest. I prayed for you to come to me because I couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't survive like this anymore, not now that Tommy was gone.
I stared for a long time at the damp, moldy wall of my suburban apartment as I prayed — and kept thinking that my room was as big as a prison cell. And that was also a bit how I felt about it. Trapped. Locked up.
Perhaps it was precisely because of that feeling that I didn't think so much about the consequences of my crazy act: accepting a journey to a planet not even remotely colonized, far from everything I knew. I had nothing to lose, I didn't even have the hope of finding you anymore - one way or another.
Thus began my journey into the unknown. It started with a nurse with a tired face and patches attached to my temples, the cold of that room made me shiver.
They called it "Cryosleep", I had only read the poster on the wall that said that they would freeze me for six years, preventing me from aging, along with others like me who had had the same very smart idea as me.
I don't remember anything about the trip, of course. I just remember feeling claustrophobic when I woke up, the feeling of a panic attack on my skin like it was waiting another minute to eat me alive. I felt trapped, again. This time, however, in a tin box slightly bigger than me.
“Did you sleep well, little star?” the cryomachine opened and a man in an emerald green surgical mask looked at me in amusement, as if I had gotten a restful sleep after a day at the spa, instead of considering my excruciating back pain and throbbing pain in my neck caused by induced hibernation.
I could only grunt and think about how much white light there was in that damned ceiling. It was so bright that I stayed for minutes with my eyes closed, squinting as hard as possible. When I looked down at my arm, the mark seemed darker than before, the “You should leave” cheekily stood out despite the many needles on my skin.
And I smiled for the first time in six years, after a dreamless sleep.
You're still here , I thought euphorically and really near to a nervous breakdown, you're still alive, wherever you are.