How many days had it been here? How many times had the clock hand clicked? Too many. Genesis was going insane inside of this White Space.
A few moments ago it seemed as if he was just getting out of bed. Being awoken by his mother. Genesis still remembered, her bright smile, her hazel eyes and beautiful tan skin. Even thousands of years couldn't make him forget the person who cared the most about him.
Now Genesis sat against one of the walls of the White Space. He scratched at his black hair in frustration. He was on the verge of crying. What did he ever do for the human race to depend on him?
Genesis already knew the threat was real. He looked outside through an alarmingly small window. And through the window, he caught glimpses of the grey, rocky terrain of the Moon.
He still had so many unanswered questions. How would he get food or water? How would he get sunlight? How could he get any necessities at all?
He had read the note countless times, yet still could not figure out how. Genesis truly thought he was doomed. He against a wall and was wallowing in his sorrows.
Then he looked up against the lights.
'This place must get power somehow. From the Sun probably. If the person who put me in here afforded to make an entire house constantly powered with solar energy and cyrogenic chamber that prevented aging. Then they surely wouldn't want me to have died. If it really was my father then, he'll make it some kind of puzzle.'
Thanks to his superior intellect, Genesis came to a decisive conclusion. He stood up and faced the walls. He sighed as he knew this was going to take a long time.
Genesis walked the perimeter of the White Space clicking on every secret button he thought was there. Until he clicked on a panel of white that was slightly more outstretched than the others. When he did, he could hear gears turning and the sound of an old hinge squeaking.
Before his eyes was a room. Fully equipped with mats, weights and a lone treadmill.
'What the hell? This isn't food.'
Genesis thought, confusion overwhelming.
He kept searching if there was to be a dojo to train there had to be fuel for his body. Genesis's quick eyes searched along the dojo's walls, ceiling and floor. Until it rested on an out of place section of the left wall. He walked over there and saw it, basking in underwhelming glory.
It was an automated food dispenser. And it looked ugly. Genesis didn't even trust it. If it did dispense his food, then he might not eat it at all. Genesis's father was not the best designer.
Genesis's thirst was at the most it had ever been. It had been thousands of years after all, and if the food was bad he could sustain himself enough on water. With a scratchy throat he called for water. And like magic, with a couple of mechanical clinks, a water bottle was dispensed.
Genesis was ecstatic. He snatched the bottle out of the dispenser and drank it fast. Genesis decided the water looked and tasted like water enough and decided to try his luck with food. And after his first bite of a porkchop Genesis couldn't stop himself.
The gluttony was so grand that Genesis had an entire feast before him. It contained all the foods he had wanted to try. There was no table so Genesis ate on the mat. The first bite of his food made Genesis moan in pleasure.
He then took a second bite, then a third and another until there was nothing left. His hands were greasy, the mat lined with visible blotches of lobster butter. Genesis then asked for a napkins to clean up the mess he had made.
***
It took Genesis about half an hour of wandering around the house sized White Space for him to finally find a bathroom. It was the most basic bathroom he had seen.
With a mirror, two cupboards at the bottom of the sink. The bathtub was at the left most side of the room if you were facing towards the mirror. And the toilet was in the middle of the cramped space.
His father really wasn't the most considerate designer. He gave Genesis basic necessities and decided that was all he needed. Genesis looked at himself in the mirror, his obsidian hair covering his eyes. It seemed that his father's technology wasn't supreme. It had managed to stop his aging but not his growth.
In the cyrogenic chamber he had grown a sort of mane. His long black hair twisted and tangled all the way to the middle of his spine. Yet, his face remained smooth.
'My father disliked beards. I think.'
Other than his hair he still looked the same. Handsome, but he still could be called ugly. Eyes shaped like phantom colored jets. With their same judgemental look.
The ebony in his eyes were all consuming, utterly black. But his undereye area had the same unhealthy look, with lines. Each line telling tales of rest he did not claim at night. To the "mental training" his father forced him to endure instead of sleep.
His nose and lips weren't anything special. They complemented his looks sure, but they didn't tell like his eyes did, they couldn't lie as well either.
Genesis removed the shirt he was wearing for millennia to take a shower. He looked at his body and noticed that he was bigger than before. A few thousand years ago Genesis was just in the middle of five foot range. Now he was courting six.
His muscles were also much more defined. As if he had trained in the cyro chamber. Genesis then turned on the hot water. He now needed time to think. Maybe a good warm bath could help his shivers and help him comprehend the fate of world is on his shoulders.
As he got into the shower. He almost slipped on his long mane of black hair. He groaned as he got up and slowly descended into the tub.
He let out a soft sigh as he was now facing the ceiling. Just a bathtub, warm water and his thoughts.
'What the actual hell am I doing? I, Genesis am supposed to save the world from mass extinction. Why me? Choose anybody else. I'm not cut out for this. Just because my father was a renowned scientist and my mother understood psychology better than most. I'm elected to be the messiah.'
Genesis sunk into the bath, his nose barely above the water's surface. His eyes closed, leading him to see nothing.
'I thought I'd just live my life. Making mistakes along the way, the end goal being happiness and what not. But now this. I'm not even sure if that letter was even from my father. If so then he discovered time travel much earlier than I would have thought.'
That final thought led Genesis's brain to start spinning. As if he was a machine and the brain the driver gear.
'There's no way it wasn't my father. I noticed the clues he left me. The way he would always emphasise on his handwriting when he was still alive. Nobody else in a thousand years could mimic handwriting so repulsive. On top of that I saw that same complex signature. It has to be him.'
'If it was my father that means it must be true. My dad isn't one to give up. He must have spent centuries trying to stop the end of the world. But he couldn't. He needed a better version of him. Me. He must have needed an infinite amount of time for everything. He meticulously planned each step for me to do this one thing. So I have to be ready.'
'But I'm not ready. And I don't think a dojo will get me ready. Plus, I don't owe anything to my dad. He was in half my life and probably faked his death so I could fulfill his sci-fi fantasies. He's probably watching from some secret camera as if this is one of his books. But it's not.'
Thought after thought Genesis kept coming closer to revelation.
'And I can't let it be. Because this isn't fantasy it's happening, I saw the moon it really is happening. If it's real that means I can't hold grudges. All my father's actions have reason. That's the only way he functions, with reason. He must have tried billions of ways and this must be the only one.'
'And as the only one. I must be what I don't want to do. This is bigger than what I want. This is for the survival of humanity. I must be the miracle child I was born to be. The one who can stop this tragedy from unfolding. I must, for my goals and the world's.'
"Out of a billion I need to be the one."
He rose from the water coughing. Not for the water that had reached his lungs but because talking after being frozen for thousands of years was extremely painful.
It took Genesis less time to find the towel room. Which was a basement of the bathroom. In the basement was a massive shelf that stretched on forever and a ladder that did the same. The shelf contained rows upon rows of towels. He chose a towel he liked, which was none of them because they were all the same, pure white.
After drying off, he found the laundry room without much difficulty since it was the door next to the towel room. Inside was a classic pair. An oversized washing machine and an even bigger dryer. On top there was a note, in that same ugly handwriting.
"Use sparingly. The washing machine and dryer use a lot of solar power."
Then in brackets at the bottom it read.
"If you haven't found the library yet, which if our calculations are correct, you haven't then stomp around near the cyrogenic chamber. You'll need the library for your success, Blotch."
'I haven't heard that name in a while.'
Blotch was what Genesis's mother used to call him. It stopped as he grew older but the name still brought happier memories. Blotch brought with it memories of warmth.
Genesis loved his mother a lot more than he did his father. Maybe because his father was supposedly dead and his mother was still there for his every need. Also because his mother didn't fake her death.
'So she was in on it too. She loved that man too much. They loved each other a lot. Dad just never showed it. Everytime I think of them together my mind scrambles. How could something so warm and safe connect with another so cold and lone?'
Genesis wore the laundry provided by his father which was an all black tank top and shorts. He then grabbed another shirt and tied his hair up in a bun. He exited the basement and went back into the cyrogenic chamber.
After the twelfth random stomp, a set of stairs opened. He walked down the stairs with a sort of fervor. What does my father's library? As he descended he saw the gleam of incandescent lights, much softer than the fluorescent ones in the White Space.
There was a singular table. Surrounded by rows upon rows of books. Between those rows were conveyor belts that stretched beyond human comprehension. All the books of the past, present and future were all in this library. This place was a stream of knowledge. Forever telling tales, some true other fictionals, both here.
"I could spend forever in here!"
***
How many months had it been? Genesis was punching his anger out at the punching bag. He was scared. There were too many questions left unanswered. And the theory that this was some twisted psychological experiment was still possible.
But he wasn't really scared of being tortured as much as failing. He had never gone back in time before. What if something happens? What if he fails and the world falls? Because of his inability.
His punches got harder, more aggressive until the bag broke. This was his sixth one this month. His sweat soaked him as he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked older now more raw. More of a beast, he had kept his long hair as he still couldn't find a safe way to cut it. He was still fifteen, at least he thought he was.
He was disappointed not in anyone. There was nobody. No one at all. No one. No one to help. No one to cry to. Everyday those were the two words that rung in his head. No one. And there was no one to prevent the seed of insanity to sprout into a detrimental flower.
An ugly flower. A secluded flower.
He decided he was fed up with this. Genesis was not going to go insane inside a white room. That was a tragic way to go. If he failed his parents would know he tried. But he needed to look at both ifs.
His steps were heavy. They were made each with their own degree of hesitation. Of fear. Of anger. But most of all of humanity. Genesis had never been more glad that it was his mother who took care if him. He stared at the pod in corner of the room.
It's touch felt familiar, yet repulsive as his cells screamed in primal fear. This thing was danger. But compared to the endless fluorescent lights and the library he barely used, because he could figure out the end of the story quarter way through the book, taking this pod would be heaven.
"I guess it's time to see what heaven looks like."
Genesis strapped himself inside the pod. After following the instructions he so clearly knew yet never put into use it was time. The countdown was metallic at first.
The first nine seconds sounded like an artificial voice. The last second was like a promise. The final one they both said in sync. A promise and apology. He could see his mother's tears and the face his father rarely made. The indicators that told him that they really did try their best.
The salt in her eyes told Genesis that if he gave them a second chance they wouldn't waste it for the world. His father's nervous but brave face did something Genesis could never think his father could do. He apologised. It wasn't even his fault they had tried all possible outcomes. Who knows how many eons they spent trying to save the world so that their baby boy could live a normal life. The image left his vision but was stuck in his heart
Genesis felt ready in that moment. It was the beginning of a bigger challenge than him. A grandiose problem that puzzled the greatest minds. He just had to add the right numbers to find the solution. For now the solution was uncertain. Like a gray concoction which could grant immortality, yet also the chance to kill instantly.
Genesis just had to brew the cauldron the way he needed to.
Kaleidoscopic light surrounded Genesis. He saw everyone's faces. The face of every human being that had ever existed on the planet.
This was their shout of objection towards being consumed. Genesis was their herald, their hero to bring forth that shout into an unforgettable roar. And now with everything on the line. Genesis was willing to roar.