CSS 102

CSS 102

A boy and his father, two walked down a hallway. A son and his dad, tiny fingers latched onto his loose grip. Innocence and experience, frail expression. Responsibility and burden.

At just fifteen years of age, my father became known as "The Researcher" by everybody in the Submokitna. They called him a prodigy, a heaven-sent entity that toyed with medicine and science as if they were nothing more than one plus one, a true god-child. What made him so renowned was his discovery of the Tariksia, an aspect of the world now dubbed in slang as the 'god-particle' for its innate structure which resembled absolutely nothing in nature, and yet, it has done everything nature cannot. That was...the assumption at least.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit..." The Researcher clawed at the roots of his hair, "No no no, you weren't just supposed to fade like that..."

I was practically begging it to show me a sign at this point, some sort of signal to embrace me, to warmly whisper to me that all hope was not lost.

There were tardy files scattered all over the table in a manner of complete disorganization comparable to some sort of indecipherable AI-generated image. In the middle of all the mess was a small circle no bigger than the size of an unfertilized egg.

I was well aware of how pathetic I looked, whimpering with clasped hands around my creation like a child over a soiled treat, but I had run out of options. My line of work as Submokitna's Researcher was on a tightrope after all. Oh my Lord, my God The Obsessor who rests beyond the domain of infinity, if there is such a way...let an explanation of sentient understanding come to me.

"Thank you, haha, thanks..."

I knew it, I should've stayed in my room.

"As expected from The Researcher's son!"

Talking to people is difficult, the amount of concentration of meticulous prediction needed to execute and excel in conversation is something I was never able to achieve. I blame my father for that.

"Congrats, "The Scientist", ha!"

Along with some pats on the back, I was awarded a name at the age of fourteen for a creation of a universal equation. I beat my father...in a way...alright that's...hmm...now what?

"T...that's it!" The Researcher went on a laughing frenzy for a good two hours, and to be honest, it scared me.

For the past few years, after I became The Scientist, I couldn't think of anything else I would pursue other than to surpass my father in the one thing he had been chasing his whole life: The Tariksia. I distinctly remember coming across an old artifact of the modern era during a world-down excavation that details numerous fables surrounding a son surpassing his father. I became obsessed with rejuvenating a lost tradition.

"Witness a turning point!"

My father had officially lost his mind. It was slow at first, but now I was forced to live with his mind-numbing scientific breakthrough one-liners as if he had just rediscovered the Tariksia every day only to forget about it the day after. I felt like cruel reality was looking down from the heavens above, stuffing down unmatched shame as a son, scoffing at my achievements, trampling my name in front of The Researcher.

""The Scientist" hmph, yeah right, find someone else to take that job away from you because you are clearly not capable of being it."

That was not what they said, the people of Submokitna do not conform to unnecessary emotions that hinder progress, it was simply a product of my own mind. But I could tell! I could look at their face, staring at the way wrinkles form around the mouth and eyes whenever witnessing my form, witnessing how they poff their freshly ironed lab coats as if to erase a part of me that parasitically latched onto their backs.

"Oh my god...my god, my lord The Obsessor!" For the first time in Submokitna history, I cried, becoming the only one who shed tears.

Before his irregular heartbeat started to become apparent, I had always questioned The Researcher's peculiar affection towards the thing he calls 'The Obsessor.' I had attempted to ask him about it once, but he frequently shrugs it off, deeming it as a 'personal religion' upon which I should not intrude.

"..."

There was this...feeling inside of my chest...buried deep within the heart, with the perfect mixture of tridenaline and uphorium; I held one of us inside the pockets of my own arms with the emotion the modern era called 'joy'...ecstasy is a better diction. Babies...ah yes...newborn from the womb, that's what they are. I lifted his minute body into the sterile atmosphere, and with a holy sense of pride, I bore my eyes into his own dark pair. My son stood in the corner of the room with a traditional pad and pen in hand, silently congratulating the successful experiment.

"The first of August." I scanned it down on the report sheet.

The was too much blood on the floor, even those of the modern era wouldn't consider this a normal birth. But, at that moment, I realized that I did nothing to help myself; instead, I did everything just to help The Researcher complete the Tariska into a manageable form. I'm not too sure how to describe this; A bitterness lingered within, and yet, with all, nothing...just empty space as if I was nothing but empty space. He just seemed so...happy in the moment,

I want that.

“There is a certain panacea for everything, a fabled elixir of sorts, one that can take the shape of any piece of medicinal product of the past, present, and the end.” The Researcher said to his son as he was bent over a knee, running his fingers through the boy’s grey hair, “Just remember that…when I’m gone, it doesn’t mean that I’m gone forever…”

The boy, who so tightly held onto a stuffed penguin, nodded with uncertainty to his father’s words. He was only in his late single digits, of course, how can he comprehend the literature of the elders? That was only possible in the myths. The boy rubbed his eyes as he bore witness to the final time he ever looked at his father the way all children look up to theirs, walking away like some harmless spider in the cold metal hallway.

I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it. What The Researcher had accomplished was the combination of the Tariska and its key being a soul in the form of his latest creation. I shuffled around the Submokitna with bags under my eyes...in the twelve years that I had become The Scientist, I've noticed nothing less than exponential growth in the discontent of my appearance with the rest of Submokitna. The Researcher had left us, maybe that was another catalyst for their animosity because they can't stand to look at the failure's eyes. But his creation, the Tariska bonded soul, however, was the new god-child.

“1…8…78.”

The boy murmured in the darkness of a small bedroom cubicle bed, dangling his stuffed penguin over his face with each of its flippers being pinched by the indexes and thumbs of the boy’s sore fingers. He turned over to the floating board on his right, a single stream of white light had been activated for the last nine years. The boy impatiently released himself from the comfort of the mattress and sat back down onto a reverse chair as he pondered how he was going to achieve what his father couldn’t. 

The Panacea, how could I have not noticed it sooner? The Researcher's entire purpose was not centered around his 'discovery' of the Tariska, no, the Tariska was his creation, a foundation for another greater motive. A motive that was passed down not to me, but to him.

“1…8…78.”

The boy studied the equations. Hard. So hard that his eyes became numb and anything else he applied his vision onto would be met with hallucinations of equations that weren’t even lightened down on the lightboard. 

“1…8…78, Panacea.” 

The boy rambled lines upon lines of undecipherable languages, switching tabs and interests through the panel of the lightboard; his focus was so intense that he failed to realize he had already been shot dead.

“1…8…7-” 

The boy turned around to see what was left of his body, slumped down on the concrete floor beneath him, a gaping hole in the head like a red well. He looked up only to see his brother, The Scientist, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand, the other hand, gripping a-

“A glock?” The boy chuckled, “1…8…78, Isn’t that too old fashion?” 

“It’s been nine years…” The Scientist scratched the back of his head, pieces of snow-white hair laced the bed, “Give up, you haven’t been outside since the modern era.”

“And your sense of humor has not evolved since the execution of The Mediactric.” The boy giggled, “1…8…78, Panacea.”

The Scientist shot the corpse three more times before blowing the barrel and then proceeded to unload the rest of the clip into the boy's heart, “Get outside in the next hour before I’ll stick your glutes in a hoverchair for the rest of your sixteen years of your expected life.”

“I already found it…” The boy suddenly said, stopping the Scientist from completely walking out of the room. 

“...What?”

“The panacea…I already found it…” The boy giggled again, “Nine years ago, I found it, already…1…8…78…” 

“What the hell are you talking about?!” The Scientist kicked the corpse into the wall, relentlessly beating it with a fury the boy had never seen from his brother, “Fath- The Researcher was a delusional man and you know it as much as I do…there is no panacea, and the project…everything was a waste of time because of his obsession!”

“No, you don’t know…” The boy now stood laughing, “Father never died, he was never gone, like all things, they only transform, everything, from one origin, from one entity, everything…”

But I did know, everything, I just didn't want to believe it.

The Scientist slowly stood up, his eyes grim with a disparity, a fatal realization of who the boy really was. 

“The Panacea...The Obsessor…The Child-God...” The Scientist growled, "The moment you had the Tariska implanted in your soul, you were already...already all of them..."

“The 1st of August…3078,” The Obsessor pointed at himself with a grin, “Panacea.”