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Prologue

Cody P.O.V

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person with a life as chaotic as my own was. On the outside, it seemed like I was a weird guy with wealthy parents. It was true enough, but that wasn’t the entire story.

It was just the facade that I let the rest of the world see. The world probably wouldn’t be able to handle the truth if they knew everything that went down when no one was looking. What happened behind closed doors.

Not that much happened anyway. It was usually just me in the apartment. My parents were usually too busy to come home. Aside from jobs that brought in enormous incomes, they both had a unique side-hobby that kept them away from the apartment. Kept them too busy to visit their only child. If I didn’t see them every couple of days, I’d think they were dead.

Sometimes, when people ask, I tell them my parents passed away, just for a quick laugh. Considering how little people saw me with my parents, some people would believe it. Half of the time, I believe it myself.

It wasn’t like my parents were the kind you wanted to be close with either. They were definitely perfect for each other. My mother runs a huge cosmetic business, creating some of the most popular and expensive makeup in the world. My father was a scientist and engineer, assisting in the creation of some military weapons. Both were incredibly powerful and successful people. It made my life even more difficult than it had to be. It was hard to live in the shadows of wealthy, successful people.

There were expectations placed on my shoulder that I knew I would never be able to live up to. I would never be able to create the next line of top cosmetics or build the next weapon. I don’t know why they placed such high expectations on me, knowing I wasn’t in the slightest like either one of them. I understand wanting what’s best for your children, but their hopes were a bit too high.

I glanced around the living space of our large apartment. It was a multiple-story apartment with too many rooms, too many bathrooms, and not enough people to fill up the space. Huge bullet-proof windows showed me everything, revealing the inner chaos of the city. If I glanced down, I would be able to see the cars and taxis speeding along. This type of view was impressive, but seeing it every day made the once amazing image dull.

The entire apartment screamed expensive. The items I was surrounded with made me fearful. I was always afraid I’d break something that would cost more than my life. The last thing anyone wanted was to fall into debt with millionaires.

“Liam?” I asked out loud, waiting for the voice of a custom made AI to reply.

“Yes, Cody?” The realistic sounding voice filled the air. One of my father’s inventions, Liam was an AI that was like an Amazon Alexa, except smarter. He basically controlled the house and how it functioned.

“Can you call mother?” I asked him, knowing he was already dialing mom. In front of me, the small slab that the television was hidden in, slid open. The tv rose from the cabinet soundlessly. The screen was already lit, indicating it was calling mom. Within seconds, my mother’s face appeared on the screen, an aggravated look present on her face.

“What is it, Dakoda? I’m in a meeting,” I cringed at the use of my real name. No one except for her and dad called me that, and she did it solely to urk me. “I birthed you and named you, I have the right to call you what I please,” I hated when she used that argument.

“I was wondering if you were coming home tomorrow,” I asked casually. Tomorrow was Thursday; she usually came home on Thursdays, stayed until Sunday, before leaving on Monday. The look that appeared on her face made it clear she saw this entire conversation, what little of a conversation that it was, as a waste of her precious time.

"Yes, Dakoda, you’d think you’d have learned the schedule by now,” My mother said snidely, making me roll my eyes. She was the one who didn’t come home last time and left me wondering if she was dead. In a lot of ways, I was like her. I was not too fond of it, but it was reality I resembled her a great deal. I shared her face structure, the circular shape I learned to accept. I had the same ash brown locks, although mine was slightly wavy, where hers was straight. I got her cold personality, something she personally passed on.

“Says the woman who didn’t come home last week,” I mumbled, looking away from the screen. I knew if I looked that I’d see some business associate that I didn’t particularly care to recognize.

“Not another word Dakota,” Mom scolded me, attempting to look motherly in front of her business partners. I was lucky that she wasn’t always like this. The stress from work caused a lot of her attitude problems. Not that I was ever really close with my mother, I wasn’t really close to either of my parents. “I’ll see you Thursday night,” She said before hanging up, the screen going black for a couple of seconds before commonly used applications like Netflix and Youtube appeared on the screen as options of use. After fifteen seconds of me not touching the tablet remote, the television shut off, disappearing from view.

I sighed, knowing I probably bothered her. She didn’t like being interrupted, and that was exactly what I did. I pulled my legs to my chest, squinting at the broad view of the city.

“Liam, lower the blinds, please,” I asked, getting a headache from the brightness of the sun. Quickly, the blinds lowered, blocking out the sun and allowing the entire room to fall into darkness. I have photophobia. No, it was not a phobia against getting my photo taken, that’s more of scopophobia . . . or just camera shyness. Photophobia is a sensitivity to light. I’ve had to deal with horrible migraines simply because my eyes were too sensitive to the bright lights. I was given pairs of shades, medications, and more, but none of them seemed to work in the long run.

So I avoided light as much as I could, which was rather hard as I couldn’t stay hidden up in my bedroom all day. I was lucky that school was out today for some stupid holiday. Oh well, if my school wants to celebrate Columbus Day, they can go right ahead. It was one of the few days of the week that I wasn’t required to wear a white button-up and black trousers. Can’t forget the dreadful tie. At least we didn’t have to wear blazers. Most of my closest was full of white dress shirts, and I had more than my fair share of trousers. Why my parents wouldn’t let me be homeschooled was beyond me. I’d probably have my diploma by now. But no, I have to attend a posh private school filled with spoilt teenagers dressed the exact same.

A place that I didn’t fit in.

In the darkness of the living room, I sighed. I climbed off the couch, knowing my way around the room with ease. Nothing changed. If we purchased new furniture, the placement was the same.

The sound of helicopters flying nearby caught my attention. This city was always busy with something going on, but curiosity got the best of me. I glanced over towards a small tablet installed in the wall, knowing it was Liam’s base system. “Liam, play the news, quickly,” The television rose once more, quicker than the previous time, the television starting and changing to the news where news reporter, Helene Huesmann, was holding a broadcasting microphone in her manicured nails. She was standing outside of a huge building, and nothing important seemed to be going on. I sighed, thinking I turned the television on for nothing and was about to tell Liam to turn it back off when a massive explosion happened behind Helene, a few buildings away from her. Small bits of the building flew towards the ground, people getting crushed live on camera. A cloud of smoke began to pour from the building in large black floods.

People ducked and ran in fear, screaming loudly. My eyes were locked on the area of the explosion. Like I had thought, a man wearing thick black layers was flung from the building by another male, one wearing tight, bright red spandex. The one wearing black crashed against the building directly across from the one he was flung from. His attire hid his identity, but everyone knew his name.

He was known to most as Nihilo, but I knew him as dad.