The Chosen and The Accursed - Prologue. Prologue

May 16, 2120

"You really are just a waste of space!" Her shrill voice tore through the humid mid-afternoon air "I can't believe you!!! How daft do you get? Can't you at least TRY and do things right once in a while? I swear you're just...why do I even bother!!!"

I tried to keep my composure as she berated me (yet again) for something that was completely out of my hands. This was a habit of hers, telling me I was no one, I was worth nothing. She was the only person I had though, the only support system I could rely on.

"I'm sorry mom. I'll see if I can--"

"Don't bother Kevin. I'll transfer some money to your account. I think it's time you re-considered moving back home, I can't afford to pay my mortgage and your rent."

The picture folded into itself and the com link went dead. Mom was done.

I looked around my apartment; the once well-decorated, well lit, homey place had turned into a cold, drab, money pit. I had slowly sold off anything of value, anything that would cover a bill or the rent, or some spare change for bus fares and food. I was a high school graduate in a job market that kept asking me for a college degree.

How did I get here? Dead end job after dead end job?

I raked my hands through my hair, the thought kept running through my head. I had been poised to be successful. I was intelligent, savvy, and easily adaptable. I had all the parts to be whatever I wanted to be, to reach any goal I could set. I was lazy though. I was a procrastinator, I made endless plans that never came to fruition, great ideas never put into place. I was a product of too much praise and no self-motivation, I wanted it all but was unable to work hard for it. There had been times in my life I had made the obviously wrong decisions. I had allowed myself to be swayed by others because I wanted to fit in.

I had been ostracized my entire childhood, left in the corner to play by myself, made fun of by peers and adults alike. As I grew older I wanted to be a part of something, so I allowed myself to become whatever my "friends" wanted me to be, all the while making my own existence miserable. I was bullied into bullying myself, ignored into ignoring my own desires, excluded into excluding myself; and even so, I never felt a part of anything, I just felt more alone, more a stranger, more apart.

The tipping point had been high school and believe me, I know how very cliché that sounds. Unfortunately, for me it was an inescapable reality. I let myself fall in with "friends" who would rather skip class and do drugs, steal, and lie than do what they were supposed to do and as always, I adapted to them. I became just like them and dragged myself into a dark pit of addiction, self-hatred, anarchist beliefs, and anti-social behavior.

I think this is when the chasm between my parents and I began to form. My endless stream of disrespect, my disregard for them, my lack of interest in a healthy relationship, my lack of desire to be around them or my siblings. I managed to fully alienate myself from the one group of people who had always accepted me regardless of whom I'd become that week.

Then, half-way through my junior year the shit really hit the fan. I was popping enough Ecstasy to keep my dealer in a very good lifestyle. My boyfriend was the dick everyone rode, from the cheerleaders to the old "generous" men in dark alleys. I was that kid; the one whose life has gone from their eyes, whose days blur into one another, I felt nothing because I was too busy "feeling the universe" around my high. I was left feeling emptier and more dejected each time my high broke, so more Ecstasy was needed.

It was in one of these dark allies, right beside my "loving boyfriend" that I realized how far down the rabbit hole I had come. As I felt the cum of the "generous" old man fill my mouth, I realized I was a whore. Giving blowjobs and "rides" to get my fix, and all the while the boy I thought I loved was right there, beside me, leaning against the wall as his client fucked himself silly on his cock; the same cock I would ride later, the same cock I would drink from later, and he was unprotected, just like me.

The realization of the circumstances of my so-called life hit me like a gallon of ice-cold water. These moments of clarity are rarely achieved without drugs, and they're even more uncommon before one hits the true bottom of one's depravity. I spit out the load in my mouth and collected my $80. I kissed my boyfriend and made my goodbye, unbeknownst to him it would be our last.

I'd heard of a clinic in upstate Pennsylvania, where teens could get addiction treatment and it would be covered by the government. I hailed a cab and got myself to the train station. I called my mom from the train, it was the most heart-breaking phone call I've ever had to make, and it was definitely the last nail in the coffin of the remnants of what had once been a beautiful relationship. I sobbed as I aired out all my dirty secrets; my homosexuality, my drug addiction, my prostitution, my stealing, all of it. I knew with every word I was breaking her heart, and hardening it against me. I knew that I would return to a different home, if I were welcome to return at all.

Rehab was hell. There simply is no other way to describe it. Withdrawal was an agonizing experience, filled with vivid nightmares and a thirst that no amount of water or coffee or anything would satiate.

"You have to hang on Kev, you have to work through this so you can come out on the other side of this" Elena, my sister, was the only one who would visit me "I promise it's worth it, you have to do this for you, for Mikey, and for me. Mom and Eddy will come around, just wait and see"

Mikey, my younger brother. The poor kid had been born right before my tailspin, I barely knew him. I had been too self-absorbed to pay him any attention. Eddy was my step-dad; his full name was Edgardo, but no one called him that. I had called him dad for a long time, until I simply didn't. It was part of disconnecting, part of pushing everyone away. Elena, the perfect child, the perfect sibling, the loving mother, the focused entrepreneur, the successful business woman. She had tried so hard for so long to break through to me, but I hadn't made it easy, and I had paid no attention.

"Lena, please...get me out of here...I'm dying!!"

"You're not dying baby, you're just being reborn...this time around you're aware" she stroked my tear covered cheek "just a few more weeks."

The rehab program was supposed to last a month. I was there for that entire summer. I had consumed enough Ecstasy, marihuana, coke, crack and cigarettes that my system had become utterly dependent on foreign substances to function. I felt foggy so often that when I was finally through to the other side I felt like the world was too bright, too loud, too active. Then I saw the trees, and the clouds, and the sky, and the people, and I asked myself what exactly I'd been running from? What had frightened me so much that I sought to escape? What darkness had I been facing that I would search not for light, but for a deeper darkness?

Myself. All this time I've been running from myself, from facing who I am, whom I was becoming.

I remember standing beneath a weeping willow on the grounds, and crying. Crying for my lost innocence, for my wasted teens, for my impaired health, for the loss of my loved ones, the loss of whom I thought I could be. I cried until the azure sky turned orange. I watched the sun set that evening, and I vowed I would never go back to that person; I vowed to be a better version of myself.

The years sped by and suddenly I was standing by a coffin. My younger cousin laid inside it, dead at 18. Her life was just beginning, she had found her stride in this world, she was doing what she loved in spite of the circumstances around her. She had been a point of light, giving of herself, loving, caring, strong, and loved by anyone who got to know her sparkling personality, her charitable heart, her contagious spirit. Here I was, a wasted man, a disappointing son, a failure. I was wasting space on this earth, doing nothing of use or value, and this beautiful little lady, with all this promise, all this valor, here she lay; dead.

Her death was a blow I didn't expect, it hurt every part of me. It devastated what I had come to define as fair, and it shook my faith. In the time since I'd left rehab I had led a minimally noticeable life. I had found good friends, I had settled myself as an independent man, and I had managed to create a routine that was normal. I had found my own version of God, and I had cemented my spirituality based on my own beliefs, a mix of pieces from different religions, creating a sense of finality to the darkness of my teenage years. I had found a way to be happy sans drugs. Steffi's death knocked the wind out of my sails. It shook the newly-built foundations of my faith, and it made me question the God I had so eagerly allowed to heal me. It caused me to question why the God I loved would take her and leave me behind. It made me question what God would be so cruel as to extinguish a bright flame in favor of a flickering candle.

Years later I was able to rekindle a healthy relationship with my spirituality. I accepted God's decisions to be ultimate, and became certain in the belief that regardless of my opinions on the matter, God knew what was best for everyone. I found my stride job-wise, holding simple positions, in small offices which covered my necessities. My boss took notice of my mind, of my eagerness to learn and move forward and I was given chances to prove myself, and granted promotions when I proved myself worthy of them. Then financial hell struck the entire country like it hadn't since the early 2000s. The job market went to hell and small businesses struggled to make ends meet. I moved from office to office, finding a job and then suddenly being told the owner could no longer keep the place running.

And here I was, at a dead end job on the docks, running out of options, out time, out of everything. I stood on the edge of this precipice, looking out over the edge, and I wondered which one of the many awful decisions I had made in my life, quitting college, doing drugs, quitting college again, selling myself, stealing, skipping class, etcetera was the decision where it all changed. I wondered what would happen if I could change just that one instant in my life.

God, if you're out there, if you're listening, if you're aware of my heart and mind. I ask only for a second chance...