2 Jack!

Time passed as Jack waited for something to happen. Like a third-rate villain entering this VR scenario while clapping his hands in slow motion before saying something like, "Well… well… well… if it isn't the great and mighty Lucky Jack! What happened here? Were you by chance finally captured by the Frost Group? Oops, that was not a question, that was something I already knew. You see, I was sent here… to make you feel like death was the better option. Just like your sister. She, unfortunately, passed away. Fortunately enough, you somehow managed to survive. So, you and I are going to be in here for a long… long time," and then proceed to carry out all sorts of torture tactics to inflict pain, before healing him up as though nothing ever happened. After all, this was a VR scenario, just like Tether!

However, nearly twenty minutes into the waiting, nothing happened.

Was this truly not a torture chamber? No! I need to stay strong. This is also a tactic used by them. They will feed you a tiny ray of hope, and as soon as you begin to rely on it, they will snatch it away to give you a greater sense of loss.

"JAAAAaaaack! Come down and eat your breakfast. You need to prepare to head out to school!" Out of the blue, Jack heard a voice that was so familiar he could instantly recognise it, despite not having heard it for over a decade.

'Mom'

Jack rushed out of his room in his pyjamas as he almost flew down the stairs and reached the kitchen, where he saw the figure of the one he missed the most in his family. His sister was more or less alive for most of the time while he was alive, while his father didn't have too much of a relationship with him. After all, he was the son of his mother, not his father. His biological father had died before he was even born, apparently while serving in the army or something like that. He was a real mystery to him even 20 years into the future.

However, the one in front of him was his mother, cooking breakfast, standing right there in the flesh!

Jack could not hold back his tears anymore as his eyes turned red. One after another, drops fell onto the ground as his body lightly shivered from the intense emotion of seeing his mother again. The feeling of seeing your dead mother, being not-so-dead in a non-zombie way, was enough to make a grown man cry. And he was not even a grown man right now, just a 13-year-old boy.

"Big Brother?" A sweet angelic voice came from behind him. A voice which Jack had missed so much as well, since her voice box too had been slightly damaged in the 'accident'

It was Freya, his younger sister, and the first child his father and mother had together.

Without thinking about it, Jack fled the scene, making sure neither his mother nor Freya could see his face.

In the bathroom, Jack switched on the shower and sat in the bathtub, not having the time nor the care to take his pyjamas off as he cried his eyes out. Not only were his tears of joy, but also of fear.

He was scared.

Scared that all of this was just a dream, or worse some sick joke created by the Frost Group to make his remaining life worse than just death.

Jack was praying to every god that ever existed in the history of humans that this was not a false reality. He prayed that everything was true. He prayed and prayed while crying until he could cry no more, and then cried some more.

Nearly 20 minutes later, he exited the bathroom in a fresh pair of clothes which had been prepared for him by his mother, for when he finished taking a shower.

"Hi, Big Brother!"

"Ah! Jack. Good, you came out! Or else you would have run late for your school, and even made all of us late!" His mother berated, while his father simply nodded at Jack, who nodded back at him before sitting down at the table.

"Do not worry so much mother. At most, I will only be a little late for school, plus, the night school always starts a bit late." Jack said.

…

After the invention of controlled nuclear fusion reactors, humans finally began to take their first steps into interstellar travel. After all, up until now, it was incredibly hard for humans to travel past the solar system due to the limitation in energy. Without enough energy, it would simply take too long to reach a given point in space. Without enough energy, it would be impossible to even think about protecting passengers from the galactic cosmic rays including the high-speed photons and nuclei which have been torn apart from the atom structure.

However, with this new source of energy with the equivalent of having a miniature star as your source of energy, such things were possible.

First came the radiation protection force field, quickly followed by actual force fields which could physically stop objects and even high-powered laser attacks. Of course, such technology was only restricted to those large spacecraft which could hold a fission reactor.

But the single greatest leap humans had since the invention of fusion reactors, was the software to predict and locate naturally occurring wormholes.

Of course, using the naturally occurring wormholes for anything other than sending junk through was pretty much useless. However, such naturally forming wormholes often left behind tiny cracks and weaknesses in the spacetime of their location.

It was like someone coming up to a mountain, and deciding he did not want to go around it. So he dug a tunnel through, but also made sure to fill up the mountain behind him as he made his way through. Unfortunately, the person left irregularities while filling it back up, leaving tiny cracks behind.

With the new software, Humans could use the newly gained fusion reactor energy to burst through those cracks and reach the other side, essentially creating 'jump points' in space-time itself.

Enough with the scientific, and not-so-scientific jargon.

The point was, that after all of these discoveries, humans finally began interstellar travel, to planets of other star systems, star clusters, and eventually galaxies. At this point, humans had become an intergalactic species, which unfortunately came with its own downsides.

The Humans soon discovered the harsh truth that no one wanted to hear; they were not alone, and the newcomers were definitely not friendly. Being of various races soon came into contact with the human civilisation, almost each and every one of the wanting nothing but to kill not just humans, but each other as well.

The humans were forced to finally come together as a species and form the United Human Council, which consisted of the most powerful and influential humans in all the human worlds. They dissolved the various continental, and planetary governments, forming their own government and army in order to not just maintain stability among the human race, but also defend against outside invasions and on the rare occasion, strike back.

The war between the countless races continued to this day, giving large groups like the Frost Group enough power to do whatever they wanted in their area. After all, they were also working for the stability of the human race.

Of course, it was not like the Frost Group did not have any enemies within the council, but that was a matter for another time. More importantly, due to the intergalactic expansion of the human race, they no longer followed the system of the old mother planet called Earth.

They restarted the gal lender to start from the date of the formation of the United Human council. Another effect of this was that everything stayed open throughout the day as well as night, people working in shifts to keep things running smoothly. The reason was simple, because you could not have almost 80% of the population of one planet sleeping while another planet was under attack by an alien invader!

As an effect of having no off-times, even things like schools were required to have two sessions of teaching, where the syllabus taught in the morning would be repeated in the night, so as to allow the children to match their parents in their schedules. And Jack's parents both had work during the nighttime. His mother worked in a restaurant just a few blocks away as a waiter, while his father worked in a company involved in research and development, as well as manufacturing of new technologies, both during the night cycle of the planet. This meant that the entire family went to sleep during the daytime, and woke up during the night time, with breakfast being at 8 in the night when they woke up, and dinner being at 7 in the morning before they went to bed.

…

After eating his breakfast in an odd mood, Jack left with his sister, heading towards his school. As he was walking along the familiar route he had been taking before his life took a turn for the worse, Jack had a slight smile plastered on his face as his sisters skipped along by his side.

Soon enough, they reached the school and began attending the night lectures.

…

Over the next 20 years, so many things would happen so quickly, that the entire 4000-year history of the United Human council would seem like a joke. After all, for almost all of the 4000 years, humans fought a battle against the other races of the universe, advancing rapidly in technology related to warfare, but lagging behind in other technologies which were categorised as non-essential.

However, within the next two days, a change would occur which would completely alter the course of the future for all the various races in the universe. It was the release of 'Tether' by 'them' throughout the universe. The various benefits 'they' offered caused the battlefield between races to shift from the real world to the Virtual world of Tether.

But just a little while after that, his parents would be killed off, and he would have to give up his home. He would lose his sister's legs to the Frost Group, and finally be taken in by an elderly couple who he met at the hospital by chance. They had just lost their son and daughter to a foreign disease and ultimately were not even allowed to touch their bodies due to the quarantine restrictions.

Jack did not care if he was taken in by them out of kindness, or to replace their dead children, after all, they did take excellent care of him and Freya. He truly had no complaints with them, considering them to be his second parents. This was why he felt even greater pain when they passed on while he was in the military, resulting in him losing his will to go up the chain in military command even though he was given the option to. Instead, he decided to hide away in the Virtual Reality called Tether, and coincidentally came across the stone.

…

"Jack? Jack! Wake up!" Jack was brought out of his reminiscence by a whispering voice.

Taking in a slow and deep breath, Jack opened his eyes and noticed Ms. Rose glaring daggers at him.

"Jack. Meet me at my office after lectures!" She stated before turning around and pointing at the projected screen and continuing to teach.

"Sheesh. You sure are great at causing trouble Jack." A voice from his side whispered.

"Yeah. But Jack, what happened? Why are you so sleepy?" Another voice form his other side whispered.

Looking over, Jack saw two faces he never wanted to see again.

One of them was his childhood friend Max, a short yet muscular guy with an incredibly shy personality, with Jack being his best, and pretty much only friend. Max was someone who had greatly supported Jack after his parents passed, but after gaining the stone, Jack had grown overconfident and felt like he had left Max behind.

Still, when his life was truly in danger, Max was the only one who had helped save his sister. Out of shame, he did not want to meet him again.

Perhaps what he did in his previous life was so wrong that nothing could ever fix it, however, in this life, the least he could do was not make the same errors, and instead make sure this shorty lived a long and happy life.

The other person, who was sitting to Jack's left, was Ava. She was… well someone whom he had spent almost the same amount of time as with Max, and he had grown pretty close to her. Of course, he had tried, but instead became her best friend as well. The reason he did not wish to meet her? Simple, because on the day that his parents died, she had come over to console him, but they ended up getting each other so drunk that certain things happened, and she left his life for good right after that.

Plus, he could not even tell the police about this, well because they were both underage for drinking, as well as the other certain acts they performed.

He did not have the courage to face her if he ever met her again.

Yet, here she was, completely oblivious to what had happened.

"Ha… guys, let's meet out after school. I have a few things I need to talk with you about." Jack whispered.

"JACK! ONE MORE WORD OUT OF YOU AND IT IS STRAIGHT TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE WITH YOU!" Roared Ms. Rose before pushing up her spectacles which she wore for fashion instead of due to having an issue with her eyes.

"Yes Ma'am!" Jack said.

"Those were two words" Ava said, before the whole class began giggling

With anger causing her white face to turn red, Ms. Rose barged out of the class, causing the whole class to burst out laughing and whistling.