Stevan Ciracio:

August 1st, 2032:

I could feel the dry air blowing past me, as I swept the deck of the troopship I had been assigned to, everywhere I looked there was only ocean for miles on end, with no other land or structure in sight, apart from the other troopships around us that is. After graduating from training camp, I had been assigned to this ship with the goal of arriving in India as soon as possible to serve as reinforcements to the troops that had already been stationed there.

I remember my days of naivety when I thought that the world would end because of some kind of supernatural apocalypse, or that natural disasters would become so prevalent that countries would collapse. Surprisingly it never came to my mind that humanity would end up destroying itself, it's already been two years since the war for water started, and time seems to have already started to run out.

My name is Stevan Ciracio by the way, as for why I'm currently here, it's a long story. It was the summer of 2030 when the end of the world began, and I had just graduated from the 12th grade as one of the valedictorians of my class (I graduated early). At that point in time, I felt like I was on top of the world, finally being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it came to securing my dream future.

I had been born in the city of Lima in Peru, thankfully, unlike most children there, I was born to a loving and rich family (rich within our neighborhood), and was spared from the hardships others had to face, not only when it came to education, but also normal life in general, leading to me dreaming big, wanting to make it big in the future, and study college in the US through my own merit.

And although I had managed to reach my temporary goal of becoming a valedictorian during high school, it didn't come without challenge. When I was in the 9th grade, the local media discovered the fact that my father had apparently been having affairs with other women, and even had another daughter recently, a fact unknown even to me.

As for why the local media cared about my father, it was because of the fact that he was the mayor of our town, and he was running for a re-election campaign, so the media wanted to get their hands on all the dirt they could, most likely trying to get both higher ratings and money from my father's political opponents.

Looking back on it now though, it made sense that he was having multiple relations with other women, he had already had two children by mistake before he met my mother, and he was always a little tight on money due to the child support he had to pay, I should have guessed that he would go back to his old habits.

Regardless, at the time, I felt extremely hurt, not only for myself but also for my mother, despite their differences, I knew that deep down, at least my mother actually loved my father, it's just that it's a blur whether he reciprocated those feelings back. Regardless, once the news was out, my mother decided to file for divorce.

Even though he did hurt us, I at least still believed that he would deal with the consequences fairly, I was a fool. Once news got out, he knew that his political career was over, after all, he had based his platform on the value of family, and how important it was to have more faithful and respectable families in our neighborhood, with his plan centered around giving benefits to families that fit the bill.

So, with nothing left to lose, he grabbed all of the money that was saved up for my college fund and ran away to California with his new family. It would have been manageable if it was only that though, but he also took away the second most important person in my life, my paternal grandmother.

She had always held hope that her son would change for the better and that he would follow the footsteps of my paternal grandfather, becoming a fair and respectful man other could admire, needless to say, when she heard of the news, she became overwhelmed by grief and disappointment, eventually having a heart attack and being rushed to the hospital.

I remember sitting next to her in the hospital bed, and begging her to not let go, that I still needed her to stay with me, that there was still a reason to fight, the last thing I remember her doing was grabbing my cheek with her trembling hand, and telling me that I was the only reason she didn't regret that having my father and that she would be waiting for me in heaven with my grandpa.

I had to go to therapy for a while after that, as I had already started to consider killing myself, but wanted to stop myself, the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt my mother even more than she already had been. Thankfully, my best friend Josue was still there to help me get back on my feet, he was the only person there for me at that time, as my mother was already dealing with her own problems.

The funeral was held a week after my grandmother's death, it was the first funeral I ever went to, and it was for the last person I wanted it to be for. As for my father, that bastard, he didn't even send flowers, I could no longer recognize him anymore, neither as my father or a human, for no human would be so indifferent to their mother's death, especially when said mother did nothing wrong.

It was then that my goal from the future changed, it was no longer to just make it big and move to the US, but also to use the money I would have to make sure to make both him and his new wife's lives hell on earth, just them though, I felt compassion for the little one. All of my father's children turned out to somehow be good people that succeeded in life, with my stepbrother being a civil engineer while my sister was a surgeon, sadly though, they had yet to make it out of Peru.

Regardless, they had always been good to me and did not hold any grudge against me, so I felt that it would be unfair to treat my father's new daughter differently. That was it though, I wouldn't lessen the fate of her parents, especially because I knew that there was no chance they would be good parents to her.

I knew because my father, no matter what child it was that he was near (even his own) was always cold and indifferent towards them, as for the mother, she seduced a political figure to get money, I'm pretty sure that disqualifies her from being a good person, which in turn makes me seriously doubt that she would be a good mother.

Finally having a new goal in mind, I began to work even harder than I did before in school while also trying to get into as many programs that would look good in my resume. As for any free time I had, it was dedicated to applying for grants, as I now had no money saved up for college, and chances were I wasn't going to get much in the next three years.

Eventually, I managed to make it, I had reached the most important part of my plan, getting into a good school in the US, although I wasn't accepted into MIT, I did manage to make it into the University of Pennsylvania, as I looked at that letter I trembled with happiness, things finally seemed to be going my way for once, little did I know, that my situation would be changing soon.