0.25% Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos / Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End. Part 1/December 31st, 1999. The whole world stands upon the precipice of a new millennia. While some look towards the coming era with endless hope, others wait with anticipation towards a prophesied end.
The clock ticks down towards midnight as a woman screams in pain whilst going through labor. In the final seconds of the year, the cry of a baby is heard for the first time as the clock strikes midnight. The delivery was not easy, and the expectant mother lays powerlessly on the hospital bed. Using what remains of her strength she reaches towards the Doctor who wears an expression of shock on his face.
"Please, let me see my baby..."
Her call breaks the Doctor from his thoughts, as he congratulates her on the new birth. After signaling towards the nurse, he exits the room to make a phone call.
The nurse, wearing an expression similar to the Doctor, hands the child to the new mother. "It's a boy." she says, her voice trembling.
The woman holds her child for the first time, and catches a glimpse of his face. Shock briefly seizes her as she stares at her newborn son. "My baby...w-whats wrong with my baby...". As the shock fades she begins to tremble, unable to express the anxiety growing in her heart. She begins to weep as an agony far greater than the pain brought by childbirth settles into her heart. "My child....my son..."
Other than the crying voice of the mother, the rest of the room maintains an eerie silence. None of the nurses can explain the phenomenon they've all just witnessed. The child cradled in the arms of this unfortunate mother is something beyond any of their combined experience. Instead of the rosy skin of a newborn, his complexion is so pale as to be transparent. You can clearly see the veins pulsing in his small limbs. Yes, they can see the blood visibly 'pulsing' through his body with a tiny glowing heart as its source.
As the crying of the new mother begins to fade, she looks into the closed eyes of her newborn son with a mixture of pain and love. "I will love you no matter what...Vahn."
The baby, as if hearing the voice of his mother trembles slightly as if in acknowledgement. The glowing heart within his chest beating in a fast and strong rhythm.
Through the worry and anxiety, the mother shows an affectionate smile as her eyelids begin to close.
The instruments hooked up to the mother begin to sound, alerting the nurses to action. The baby begins to cry as one nurse removes him from the arms of his mother. The Doctor returns into the room with his team in an effort to resuscitate the young woman. After two hours of emergency treatment, the young woman finally succumbs to the wounds sustained during the difficult birth.
Thus the new era greets life with death.
With the birth of the child and his unique characteristics, he quickly caught the attention of the media and Doctors around the world. Many wanted to understand the nature and physique of the child, whilst others began spreading rumors of the birth of a new messiah.
After a series of tests they quickly discovered that the child's blood had a unique mutation which enabled the cells within the blood to store a previously undocumented form of energy. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the blood they were unable to store it outside of the child's body for more than 24 hours before it lost the unique properties and turned into a black mass of particles similar to ash. The child was quarantined for further tests as the media and populace waited with baited breath for any news related to the child.
As test after test were performed and media coverage of the event began to spread globally, all news of the child suddenly ceased overnight. In an outrage at the spontaneous lack of news, people began to gather en mass around the hospital in an effort to pressure the staff into disclosing what had happened. After several days, an official statement was made by the hospital administration saying that the child had been moved to a more secure facility where he would receive care from the best scientific minds in America until they were able to verify if the child's physiology was a threat to normal people. The crowd, further incensed by the turn of events began to rally together claiming that the government was hiding away the child to hide an undisclosed truth. Some more radical groups even claimed that the child was an alien, and the government kidnapped him to dissect and analyze his body in some secret underground lab in the middle of a desert.
Several groups began to form after the announcement. They would protest outside government institutions in several states trying to pressure politicians into disclosing information about the child. Though the media had seemingly been silenced, the internet was exploding with several conspiracy theories. Hundreds of thousands of online users began to rally together and petition for full disclosure of any information related to the child. As months grew into years, the size of the groups increased to the point they were able to elect representatives that would allow them to gain some insight into what had happened to the child.
After four years of effort and the change of a President, the populace was once again exposed to news regarding the child. They were able to learn the child possessed a mutated blood-type that emitted a unique form of radiation that was able to revitalize cells and even break down other mutations and abnormalities within the body of test subjects. Mice that were injected with the blood were able to show an instantaneous increase in vitality, with any previous genetic defects seeming to repair themselves. After preliminary tests were concluded, the scientists had moved on to conducting experiments on chimps that had cancer as well as a variety of other ailments including Alzheimer and Huntington's Disease. The team was surprised that in every instance where the blood was introduced into a patient, it was able to completely remove the ailment after just several hours of incubation. Follow-up tests showed that not only had the cancer cells been removed, but any tissue within the area that had sustained damaged
Upon hearing of these discoveries, the populace was in an uproar. Around the world cults and religious organizations began to tout the child as the son of god, the messiah, or a prophet. Many organizations began to demand that the child be turned over to their respective groups so they would be able to raise the child within the proper environment instead of a lab.
Other groups included the various members of the scientific community from around the globe. Many countries wanted samples of the child's blood to conduct their own experiments. They eventually even banded together in hopes they would be able to pressure the United States government into turning ownership of the child over to an international group dedicated to the purpose of studying other potential uses the child may have. There was even a movement to try and justify cloning, or even forced extraction and breeding of the child's sperm.
Pressure continued to build over the years as everyone wanted access to the child, now known globally as Vahn Mason.
The child himself however had very different thoughts going through his mind....