Jason's Life Prior
Jason could hardly be called anything other than a genius. In fact it would be more accurate to call him a one in a trillion prodigy!
Whether it be talking in complete sentences by the time he was 1, earning his PhD by the time he was 16, or curing cancer 2 weeks after he turned 22, it seemed everything he did either revolutionized an area of research, changed many people's lives, or was groundbreaking in one way or another.
In fact it seemed the only thing he couldn't do was get along with people. Well that or get a girlfriend...
If you asked him he'd tell you "I don't need leeches in my life" and walk away with a self righteous grin on his face.
In actuality though, looking back, it wasn't hard to see how lonely his life had been.
His family name was Sansa, but he never used it unless he absolutely had to. That was his father's name, and he hadn't spoken to either of his parents in 6 years.
Their relationship was great at first, Jason was born into a lower middle class family in the northeastern part of the United States. They never had excess, but they always had a roof over their heads and food on the table.
When his mother and father found out they were expecting a child they were both elated! They had been trying for years after all and when Jason was finally born, both his parents cried tears of joy!
'If only I hadn't been born a genius' Jason often thought to himself
'Maybe I could have had a real family'.
It all started to change about the time he was 5. His parents were called into his Kindergarten teacher's office as she explained just how unusually precocious Jason was. He had learned the entire curriculum on his own in only about 3 months.
After explaining just how unusual that was, she strongly urged his parents to advance him to the next grade and so, after careful consideration, they did just that.
Everything after quickly devolved into a perpetual cycle of expectation, pressure, overexertion, then success. To make matters worse, every single time he succeeded it only proved to strengthen his parents expectations.
He was placed in every extra curricular, paired with every tutor they could afford, and blitzed through grade after grade so fast he never had the chance to get to know any of his classmates.
Things only became worse when the scholarships and endorsements came flooding in. After that, the only thing that allowed Jason any free time (That being that his parents couldn't afford many of the programs they wanted to put him in) disappeared without a trace.
And so his last chance at a somewhat normal childhood was lost forever.
Anyone looking from the outside in could tell you that Jason had gone from a beloved son to the golden goose that would "Elevate the family" Or at least they would have if his parents had ever let anyone other than mentors anywhere near their prodigy.
His schedule was: Eat, Study, Research, Practice, Study more, and sleep.
He had always known something wasn't right, but during his graduation party when he heard his mother say to a friend "It's about time! Now we can finally start making back the money we spent on him! We're going to be rich!", the veil of a loving family who only pushed him to succeed because they loved him vanished.
What replaced it was an indescribable feeling of betrayal and disgust.
There was nothing left to say, and so Jason left. The only reason his parents knew he was alive at all was because every now and then he did something noteworthy enough to make the news. Otherwise they never heard from him again
He had hoped that without his parents forcing him to work without break, he might finally find some peace.
But as it often is, reality was cruel. After all, what else did he know? Even if he had free time he wouldn't have known what to do with it. His whole life was nothing but research and practice up to this point.
So, even with all the "Freedom" in the world, there was nothing he could do but continue to study and research every day.
There were several notable achievements in his short life, each one drastically improving the quality of life of the entire human race!
He slowed human aging astronomically, revolutionized infrastructure, and taught many university classes which would always be filled with nothing but the brightest up and coming minds.
To Jason however, all these achievements were just a staggering reminder of how trapped he was.
That was until he was hired on a project to bio-engineer crops with the goal of helping alleviate world hunger.
Their idea was simple, use a stimulant to cause living plants to rapidly expand the amount of cells produced in a short time frame. What seemed to be one of their biggest failures in that project actually turned out to be their greatest success.
Unexpectedly, while the stimulant they had tried was absolute crap at growing the size of crops, it was amazing at neutralizing the mutation of every known form of cancer cell, removing the disease from the body entirely within a week! To Jason though, that was only the cherry on top.
After all, this was the first time in his life he had managed to find himself in a team of researchers similar in age to himself.
The group consisted of 5 researchers ages ranging from 20-27 with Jason being the youngest at 20. Each was a genius in their own right, and since they were so close in age, for the first time in his life, Jason found himself enjoying his work.
They'd talk about their lives, make friendly jabs at each other, and even get together after the work day to eat, relax, and enjoy each other's company. Even though he was incredibly awkward, most of the group eventually started to treat Jason like a little brother.
Even more amazingly, shortly after their accidental breakthrough one of his colleagues had actually asked him on a date!
A few dates later and things were actually going well! They were both kinda awkward, and she was even his type! Over a few weeks they got closer and closer until finally, one late night, she invited him over to her place.
