Legacy of Aerin - Origination

Chapter 1 - The Start of a Legacy

It had been about a month since Aerin last saw his mother. Prior to leaving, she told Aerin she would be back from work soon. In the past, the longest he would expect her to be gone was three days, although one day of her absence felt like a lifetime to Aerin. She epitomized devotion, integrity, and emotional support to him. Despite his longing for his mother's return, he wasn't much different from his usual self, a happy-go-lucky and innocent five-year-old.

The love he felt for his father almost amounted to what he felt for his mother. Even though his father almost mirrored his mother, he would never be as cherished as she was in Aerin's eyes.

Looking more unkempt and sorrowful as time passed, it was clear that the unusual absence of his mother didn't solely affect Aerin. His father had let the house become a mess. It used to be obsessively organized and spotless, and anything to the contrary had been expressly forbidden. There were stacks of papers on the kitchen table which consisted of assorted bills, advertisements, unfinished to-do lists, and his father's frantic scribblings about the possible whereabouts of Aerin's mother. There was even a pair of shoes next to the couch in the living room, and dishes sometimes remained unwashed for over a day.

His father would stay up late at night and wake up close to the middle of the morning. The usually smooth and flawless skin around his eyes looked sunken and swollen. He would often sit quietly in solitude and blankly stare at anything. The slightly off-centered decorative clock on the wall that had a tendency to drive his obsessive-compulsive tendencies haywire was a constant target. In the past, he would go so far as to measure the distance from each wall to the edges of the clock as he prepared to reposition it. Aerin's mother would emphasize that it was fine; that it created integral abstraction and wasn't all that necessary to adjust. Aerin's father sulked and grumbled, but would give in to her musings like always. The clock, however, no longer seem to phase him.

Sporadic tickles and kisses were not common anymore, but Aerin knew his father still loved him. There was an undying level of contentedness instilled in Aerin that allowed him to forgive his father's understandable decline. He knew their lives would return to normal when his mother returned.

Shortly after his mother's disappearance, Aerin and his father noticed an unusual uptick in spaceship activity while walking to the nearest park. The planet, Haraxis, historically had little to no visitations from outsiders. Aerin, enamored by their designs and speed, perceived them as a spectacle worth admiring. His father, however, while being mindful to relate to Aerin's love of spaceships, showed concern over their increased presence.

To this very day, since the initial substantial increase, there were still as many, if not more, spaceships, and Aerin rarely took note of them anymore. He saw the same ones often and the lack of diversity in designs dulled his admiration as time crept along.

His father, still as concerned about the spaceships as he was in the beginning, would sometimes stare out of the front window for hours. He would periodically rush to the computer to browse for information about a specific spaceship he had just seen. When Aerin first inquired about what he was researching, his father informed him that spaceships have an identification number which could be used to figure out who owned them. He mentioned one particular company seemed to come up often, but didn't reveal that name to Aerin.

Because of his father's stress about the spaceships, Aerin wondered if his mother's absence was linked to the increase in spaceship sightings. He also wondered if the mystery company was directly involved and if anyone else was as concerned about the spaceships as his father was.

Despite the changes in household upkeep and his father's sleeping routine, there was still comfort in the fact that his nighttime routine remained consistent. As always, he would start by brushing his teeth and putting his pajamas on. His father would come into the room soon after, tuck him in, and kiss him on the forehead after embracing him. That night, however, Aerin couldn't bear further avoiding the questions that bothered him.