The year was 2050, but the rain falling against the reinforced transport bus felt as ancient and bleak as time itself.
Samuel Mallory Reeves stared at his reflection in the bulletproof window. At nineteen, his face still held the lingering soft lines of youth, but his eyes were entirely hollow. He was boarding the transport to Merrifield Prison—the most secure, inescapable facility on Earth.
A kill count of over 351,000 people across four countries and seven islands usually earned a person a death sentence. But the international tribunals had balked at his age. To them, nineteen was too young to execute. To Samuel, a lifetime in solitary confinement felt infinitely worse.
"I hope I die soon after all of this," he muttered under his breath.
"Move it, boy!"
A heavy boot shoved against Samuel's calf. He stumbled slightly, then glanced up. Standing behind him was a weathered, muscular inmate whose face was etched with scars. The man looked roughly the age Samuel's father would have been.
Samuel didn't say a word. He simply turned back around and kept walking down the narrow aisle of the bus.
"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" the man roared, his chains rattling violently as he stepped forward. "DON'T IGNORE ME LIKE THAT!!"
Samuel ignored the shouting, his mind drifting inward as the chaos faded into a familiar, cold numbness. How did my life end up here?
The memory hit him with the sudden clarity of a sensory overload.
He was seven years old again, surrounded by the scent of lavender and lemon of the therapist's office. He was looking at his mother. She was stunningly beautiful, but her honey-blond hair—the exact shade Samuel inherited—was disheveled. The neuropsychologists had told her that Samuel was incapable of feeling empathy or emotion for anyone on Earth except for her. She had looked at him with an expression of profound, agonizing sorrow, knowing the world her son would have to navigate.
The memory shifted, fast-forwarding two years.
Nine-year-old Samuel stepped off the school bus to find his home completely ransacked. The front door swung on broken hinges. The immaculate cleanliness his mother had pridefully maintained was entirely gone.
Instinct drove him toward the basement door—the one place the man he was told to call "father" had strictly forbidden him from entering.
Samuel threw the door open and rushed down the wooden stairs. The sight tore something open inside his chest. His mother lay on the concrete floor, beaten and bleeding, while his father stood over her with a kitchen knife.
A blinding red haze took over Samuel's vision. Before he could process the thought, his small body lunged forward with a feral, unstoppable rage. He fought with teeth and nails, completely blind to his own safety, intent only on destroying the threat to his mother.
When his mother finally stirred, gasping for air, she reached out to pull her son away from the lifeless body of her husband. But in the chaotic frenzy, the kitchen knife caught her deep in the torso.
The rage vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying reality. Samuel collapsed beside her, tears streaming down his face.
"Mom... Mom, what should I do?" he sobbed, pressing his hands against the wound. "Please tell me. You won't die, right? You said you'd never leave me."
"Don't cry, Samuel," she whispered, her voice weak but forcing a cheerful, reassuring smile as she wrapped her arms around him. "Mom won't die..."
A minute later, her grip went slack. Above them, heavy, thunderous footsteps echoed as the police breached the house. When they kicked the basement door open, all they found was a nine-year-old boy sitting in the dark, staring blankly at the ceiling.
"Keep moving, Reeves!" a guard shouted, a heavy hand slamming onto Samuel's shoulder, snapping him back to the present.
Samuel didn't argue. He moved to the very back of the transport bus, taking a window seat. He carefully scanned the remaining passengers. He noticed two muscular men with matching, intricate tattoos sitting near the angry older inmate from before—clearly a faction. Then, his eyes brushed past a young woman a few rows ahead. She looked incredibly familiar, though he couldn't quite place where he had seen her face before.
It didn't matter anyway. Samuel had already made his terms clear during the sentencing. He had promised the court that he would kill anyone placed in a cell with him within the first ten days. The authorities took him at his word; he was destined for permanent solitary confinement.
The bus engines roared to life, a low, futuristic hum that vibrated through the floorboards. As the vehicle began to roll out of the heavily guarded courtyard, Samuel looked out the window into the misty horizon.
In the distance, past the perimeter fencing, something strange was moving.