"On the day your first take that fateful step into a life you do not know and could never understand, it truly does feel like the world will end.

But for all that might be the case, each and every one of us that still lives today looks back on those days with a smile on their face, thinking of how small our worries were back then."-MG.Elfrieda Cano,2047.

A starless sky. Johann couldn't get used to it, even if it had been standing over him for hours.His life in the Rhine had always seen the stars a constant companion after dark, but now? Not even a single one could be made out, and the moonless sky looked like an eerily empty canvas.

Annie, too, kept gazing up as if expecting the stars to peak out any moment, but the whirling shapes that came with dark clouds were simply not there. The cause for the darkness above was far less natural than clouds blotting out the sky. Light pollution, a constant for anyone who'd spent their life in a city but entirely novel to two people who'd spent their life in villages and refugee camps.

"You really can't see anything,It's like the entire sky disappeared." Annie muttered, looking up in awe.

At least Annie seemed to be enjoying herself. For him the starless skies, jungles of concrete and machines of war were nothing but an uneasy reminder that this was a different world.

A sight left his lips. Annie stopped in her tracks and looked back. Her eyes bore into him with a hint both of curiosity and ever-present compassion.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm...I guess I'm okay."He shrugged.

Annie put her hands on her hips, entirely unconvinced, "You don't sound okay, mister. Come on, are you saying you don't trust me?"

"No, it's just..."

She stepped forward,leaning in, pushing her face so close he could feel her breath, all too hot in March's frigid temperatures,"Just?"

He averted his gaze and let out a muttered utterance, "It's just...aren't you scared? I mean, everything is so different."

She shook her head,"I'm not scared, or maybe I am scared, but it doesn't matter if I'm scared."

"Uh?"

She turned around, looking up at the sky as she walked down the street, "Sure it's scary that there are so many new things happening, and sometimes I want to run away and hide, but this is an opportunity I won't get again."

Annie reached out toward the inky black sky and clasped an unseen something in her hands, "To avenge Mom, Erika, your Dad, everyone from the village. To meet new people who'll become just as important to me as anyone else I meet before and...to see new things, become a different person. I'd never thought I'd see a sky without stars before today, and look, it's as black as if I just closed my eyes. Isn't that great? If we hadn't had the courage to come here we'd never have seen this sky, or had this conversation. Learning new things, experiencing new things, meeting new people...I think that's the only reason I'm still alive."

Johann didn't know how to answer that. He couldn't quite see the world through the same lens she did. If asked if he'd rather go back to the times before the Chron attacked his home, even if it meant dooming the rest of humanity to annihilation, he would selfishly choose that option without looking back.

The difference between him and her, as always, was a gulf he couldn't possibly imagine crossing. Was this just the advantage of an entire year of maturity over him, or a natural contrast between their personalities? He couldn't come to an answer himself, and if he asked she would always tell him they were the same, and wasn't that frustrating? People with talent being modest did nothing but hurt those without it.

"You'd make a great leader," He pondered aloud. "I mean you're always doing things I can't imagine doing, especially when I'm scared and don't know what to do. To be honest? It makes me a little jealous."

Annie stopped suddenly, nearly causing him to run into her back, "Anni-"

"I wouldn't." Her voice was uncharacteristically cold.

"I wouldn't make a good leader."

"Why? I mean, you're great with words, you can always convince people to do what you want them to, and you're always trying to move forward no matter what happens," Johann said. As far as he was concerned she was the perfect match when he thought about what he wanted in a leader.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She stopped, bit her lower lip. He mentally cussed himself out for upsetting her, as if the day's events with the Chron and the military hadn't been stress enough for them both.

"It takes more than that to lead people."

"Uh?"

"There's a lot of decisions I couldn't make, a lot of hard choices I'd freeze in the face of.I'm no good in those kinds of situations, if there's more than one path in front of me you know how I end up being, I'll deliberate over whether to eat white or dark chocolate, to wear a red or black shirt all day if you let me. And if I do that while leading someone..." Her fists closed at her side, tears beginning to build before she resolutely shook them away. "Yeah, I'm no good at leading people."

Memories of the Rhine triggered by her words, her expression, violently ripped through the thin membrane of willful forgetfulness Johann tried to shove them under, and violently pressed themselves against his conscious mind.

Drip...drip...drip. A red liquid falling. Colorless eyes staring forward, unmoving. Red eyes staring directly at him, through him, into him, resolutely undaunted. The implement....dripping! A soundless scream of terror and realization.

Several dry heaves later found him glad to not have eaten anything that day.

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An Airport, an airbase? Did those two words have any difference, still? Regardless, this was where Johann and Annie had been told to go, and where they now found themselves.

A long runway extended out for some three kilometers, so far that in the dead of night he could only see the glow of the runaway lights at very end and not what they illuminated. A dozen, maybe more, planes stood in a neat formation, prepared to take off at any moment. Each was like a bird of prey and a deep sea hunter combined, sleek and aerodynamic and letting out light into the exterior from their own internal luminescence.

"Here we are!" Annie declared, hands on her hips, while looking down the runway. Her every word seemed tinged with a bit less energy than it had a few hours before, and knowing exactly the cause only made him feel more guilty. His problems really weren't something she should have to deal with.

"Which one are you leaving in?" He asked in a half-mutter, not looking her in the eye. It was shameful to avoid her gaze when in just a few minutes they would be separated, possibly for the last time, but he couldn't help but feel pathetic.

"17, you?"

A sigh left his lips, "16."

"So close!" Annie said, a smile touching her lips. If she was frustrated by that particularly close call then she didn't show it, and so he didn't either.

"Yeah...I guess this is it, uh?"

"Yeah, but it's just for now," She said. "After all, neither of us are planning on dying, right? So we'll definitely meet again."

"Right."

She slapped him in the back, more of a light pick me up than anything else."Come on! If you keep being so gloomy I'll end up getting sad too, you know? Just try to smile! I'm sure you'll end up forgetting all about me after just a few weeks."

"I won't!"

"Now that I think about it, you better not!"

"I just said I won't," He said, arms crossed. She laughed and then, much to his surprise, hugged him.

"Take care, you hear me?" She asked. "If your Mom heard I'd let you die she'd kill me."

"I don't think she'd care," He muttered.

"Then do it for me. If I heard I'd let you die I'd kill me."

"Don't...don't do that," He whispered, all too serious for what he knew, or at least hoped, to be a joke.

"Don't worry, it'll take a lot more than that to put me down!" She declared, pulling away from him with an ear-splitting smile. It was meant to reassure him, and he had no doubt she didn't mean it one bit, but it did help just a little. "Now let's go, none of us want to get shot, eh?"

"It's not the way I would want to spend my afternoon," He said. She chuckled, and with one last glance and a wave of the hand they parted ways.

And just like that...they were apart.

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The confines of the Rokh, the supersonic transport that would take him to his new home, were surprisingly spacious. Far from what one might have seen in the golden era of air travel in decades past, for sure, but for a military vehicle it did let some of its prior use as a luxury jet shine through, Johann would probably have appreciated that in any other circumstances.

He trundled along the seats, reading out numbers and letters as he tried to find the one he was assigned. In the end his was at the very end of the plane, and he sat down with a long sigh.

The plane filled out rather quickly but, curiously, the seat beside Johann's did not. That was, at least, until a blond haired man rushed through the doors, apologizing profusely to a staff member that was glaring daggers at him before making his way to the back where Johann was sitting.

He was tall, blond haired, the kind of man that had a face so pretty women would probably find him handsome and most men would want to punch, "Sorry, man. Not to start a fight or anything, but I think you're in my seat."

Johann sighed, looked down at the slip of paper in his hands, and sighed again as he saw that the blond wasn't wrong, looking up and muttering a soft "Sorry" he shifted over into the seat next to the window.

"No problem!" He said, waving away Johann's apology with a smile before presenting that same hand for him to shake, "Phillip Dubois."

Like his father had taught him, Johann gave the man a firm handshake, "Johann Reinhardt."

"Damn, you've got a pretty strong grip for your size. Are you short or just young?"

"I'm fourteen," Johann said.

"So somewhere between the two, uh?Oh, I'm eighteen by the way,"He said, and Johann raised an eyebrow.

"And you're not already in the military?" He asked, the man sighed.

"Yeah, long story short my Dad's a big shot, and you didn't hear it from me but he pulled a few strings to make sure I didn't get recruited until now. Bunch of crap if you ask me. I need to go anyway, why delay the inevitable?"

"Right, that seems difficult." It was a nothing answer entirely devoid of any value, but it seemed to be enough to send the man on a rant

"Right? Right? I mean look at my situation now, I'll have to learn a bunch of stuff most people already know at eighteen for the first time, not just that but everyone's gonna be looking up to me as some sort of authority figure just because I'm older, but that doesn't mean anything, and the worse part is there won't even be any girls my age to date! But this is just what I expected, the European system is..."

As Johann heard Phillip go on and on about everything he found wrong with the EU, the military, his father and everything in between, he had only one thought in mind...

If this is how even half the people I meet are...it's gonna be a long few years.