Chapter 1
May Fourteenth, 2002
Joe remained standing in front of the door for a long time, still without ringing the bell, still without attracting attention, exactly the same as how he had fled a long time before, quietly, not alerting anyone, taking off in the cold night forever... or so Joe himself had thought. Because now he was standing there in the driveway of his father's house, totally ashamed and disgusted with himself after eight long years.
He sucked in a breath for a few moments as he felt his chest drop as his stomach turned. The idea of taking off a second time seemed like a good one, but all it took was for Joe to forcefully close and open the eyes to forget about it.
Raising his arm and holding it close to the doorbell, he reached out a finger and finally knocked, waiting for the door to open. He had contacted his father, so the man knew very well that Joe would be standing at that entrance, but even so, Joe himself had his nerves on edge. He waited even longer, just a minute or two, but Joe felt them like years and maybe decades or centuries. The door finally opened, revealing an old man whose name was Rick Deckard, Joe's father.
A boy appeared running to the door with a slight smile, from which he was missing a tooth due to his small age. Joe felt all his blood run cold when he looked at the little boy, he seemed an exact replica of him when he was a child, he was terrifying and cute at the same time. The boy stopped short, startled for the same reason as Joe, looking down at him with wide eyes.
The little boy clung to Deckard's arm without taking his eyes off him. Joe felt his legs go weak from the shock of what his eyes were seeing, that little boy, his Noah his, The Noah for whom his beloved Joi had given her life, the child he had abandoned alone one morning in his father's house, like a coward, like an animal without a soul. He didn't really know what to say, the words slipped through his fingers like sand. Deckard preferred to speak first, although he was silent out of nowhere, it was just a simple sigh that he emitted. Noah frowned and moved a little closer to his grandfather.
"Who is he, Grandpa?" the kid murmured in a childish voice while looking at the old man. Joe was silent again, he couldn't believe that this was happening.
