CHOSEN (BOOK 1- A HERO IS BORN)

PROLOGUE

I often find myself wondering, “Is this world worth saving”, or “Is it worth it to help other people at the expense of yourself ?”, and usually my answer is a solid NO!! I know what you’re thinking, “ I must be the most selfish person alive”, right? Well maybe you’re right about me,… and maybe you’re not but before you judge me you should at least hear my story and if you still feel the same way,.. then fine.

My name is Justin Jackson, I’m 15 years old and what I’m about to tell you might seem sad so brace yourself.
            

It all started 12 years ago in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City. My parents , Joe and Sarah, were scientists at HTI (High Tech. Industries) which is a place for the brightest minds and is the tallest building in Manhattan, maybe even the  tallest in New York.

My parents were great at their jobs, especially my father, who developed things to help other people and was well respected among his colleagues and was seen as a genius to say the least.
             

Then all that changed  when my father, out of nowhere….just snapped. Before then the main focus of his work was energy and using it to find ways to make humans better, finding something to stop humanity from ever getting sick, seemed harmless and noble.

Until he stumbled on a type of energy, a type yet to be discovered by man. They told me he strayed from his original goal and started using the energy for illegal human experiments.

He wanted to give normal human beings abilities or super powers, turning them into weapons. which resulted in countless failures. In other words more than half of the subjects didn’t survive the experiments.
             

Then,...on the night of July 15 was when everything changed. One subject started to show signs of developing powers. The experiment seemed to be a success, until the subject started to go out of control and  broke out of the containment pod killing all the other scientists as it made its way on the streets of Manhattan, attacking everything in it’s path.

No man, woman or child was safe that night, It was a massacre.
  Suddenly the escaped subject began to glow and grow in size and in the blink of an eye went off like a bomb. The explosion resulted in many casualties. Guess the success was only temporary.

Yet the strangest thing happened, when the smoke cleared, a crater was left after the explosion. When people went to look inside, their jaws dropped at what they saw. A baby was left behind in the crater after the explosion.

Which didn't make sense, didn't even seem possible. There were people who believed  that this toddler was that monster, but we’ll get back to that.
                                            

This tragic incident was said to be worse than  9/11. Countless people were injured, some were even permanently injured and even more dead. This incident came to be known as the 7/15 incident.

After that night my father was held responsible for all of the deaths and damages but he was never found and after that night I never saw him again until it was confirmed that he died sometime after that. Just like that, his reputation and respect went down the drain. He became the most hated person in the city.
                                            

12 years have passed since that day and those 12 years weren't exactly the best for me and that's because, well, remember that baby that was found in the crater? Well, that baby....was me.

Like I said before, people started believing that that child or me …was that monster, which undoubtedly seemed to be the case. So growing up people didn't want to come near me. Even though over the course of those 12 years I was sent to doctors, so that different types of tests could be done on me. None showed that I was a threat.
                                        

All those tests came back saying I was a normal kid but people were still unconvinced. Not to mention all of that anger people had for my father, was soon directed at us, whether it was because they received permanent injuries or because they lost someone close to them that night.

Soon was directed at me and my mother and that wasn’t even the end of it. My mother lost her job because she was suspected of being involved in what my father was doing, she was even taken to court and sued.

My mother and I were ostracized by everyone. However what really sent me over the edge was the fact that my mother was now a single parent and nobody would hire her. We started moving around a lot but nothing changed.

I’d say that the moving was the reason I didn’t make any friends but deep down I knew that they wouldn’t want to be friends with me anyway.
              
 
  One day, I think I was about 8 years old at the time, my mom fell to her knees and just hugged me. She was behaving  as if she was never going to see me again and she broke out in tears.

“I’m so sorry Justin, I’m so sorry you have to go through all of this”, she cried out as if she’d done anything wrong.
                         

She was trying to comfort me when it was clear she was in more pain than me. I don’t think I’ll forget what I saw that day, I’d never forget the tears in her eyes. Loosing her job and no one willing to hire her, friends who’ve known her for years deserted her.

Even her own sister, my aunt Sophie cut ties with us a long time ago and told her daughter, my cousin, to stay away from us. So it’s no wonder she was in so much pain. 

She suggested that I got my name changed but everyone already knew our faces and Every time people found who we were we had to move somewhere else never staying in one place. We’d be better off living in the car. 
                     

Things started to look up when I was 12 and My mom got a great job that often kept her away from home. So for the last 3 years it felt like I’ve been living alone which I thought would be my only problem until she told me where we would be moving to next or rather again.

“Justin we’ll be moving back to Washington heights” she said, The place where this all started.

I felt like my heart had stopped beating as I heard that. So now I’m right back in the place that I hoped to never set foot in again. I hoped people wouldn’t recognize me but even I knew that was too much to ask. The hatred was worse here than any of the places I was before.

I soon accepted the fact that my life would always be like this and as a result I started hating other people because they hated us. People never cared to lift a finger to help me, I knew they wouldn’t even care if I died, no one ever cared enough to save me, So why should I do so for anyone but my mom and myself?
                                   

Most of all I hated my father the most for putting me an my mother through hell just to disappear and die. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the pendant that he gave me, which was something I never took off. It was some kind of black stone. I didn’t know what it was but I would later learn of its true importance.
                           

  Well that’s my story. This is why I feel the way I do about the world not being worth saving and about it not being worth it to help other people at my own expense. Do you still think of me as selfish? Ha I knew you’d feel that way and that was never going to change… until something happened that would change my life forever. It seems my story isn’t finished yet, This is only the beginning.

Thanks for reading the prologue and it's the very first chapter for the CHOSEN series.

Would mean a lot to me if you guys smash that like button and continued reading.
               
                 

~KEOKROSTOS