A State of Future Existing

Prologue Part 2

Something I forgot to mention in the last part, the books that this is based off of are set in China. So sorry if the culture doesn't quite line up. Enjoy reading!

Six nights after he'd arrived at his new home, Hyunjin awoke on fire. He cried out, tumbling off the mattress and landing in a heap with a blanket wrapped like a tourniquet around his bionic leg. He lay gasping for a minute, rubbing his hands over his arms to try and smother the flames until he finally realized they weren't real.

A warning about escalating temperatures flashed in his gaze and he forced himself to lie still long enough to dismiss it from his vision. His skin was clammy, beads of sweat dripping back into his hair. Even his metal limbs felt warm to the touch.

When his breathing was under control, he pulled himself up onto weak legs and hobbled to the window, thrusting it open and drinking in the winter air. The snow had started to melt, turning into slush in the daytime before hardening into glistening ice at night. Hyunjin stood for a moment, reveling in the frosty air on his skin and entranced by how a nearly full moon turned the world a ghostly yellow. He tried to remember the nightmare, but his memory gave him only fire and, after a minute, the sensation of sandpaper in his mouth.

Shutting the window, he crept to his bedroom door, careful not to trip on the bag of second-hand clothes Pearl had begrudgingly given to him the day before, after her father had lectured her about charity.

He heard Adri's voice before he reached the kitchen and paused, one hand balancing him on the wall as his body threatened to tip toward its heavier left side.

As he strained to hear, Adri's voice grew steadily louder, and Hyunjin realized with a jolt that Adri wasn't speaking louder, but rather something in his own head was adjusting the volume on his hearing. He rubbed his palm against his ear, feeling like there was a bug in it.

"Four months, Garan," Adri said. "We're behind by four months and Hyun-Ok had already threatened to start auctioning off our things if we don't pay her soon."

"She's not going to auction off our things," said Garan, his voice a strange combination of soothing and strained. Garan's voice had already become unfamiliar to Hyunjin's ears. He spent his days out in a one room she'd behind the house, "tinkering," Peony said, though she didn't seem to know what exactly he was tinkering with. He came in to join his family for meals, but hardly ever talked and Hyunjin wondered how much he heard, either. His expression always suggested his mind was very far away.

"Why shouldn't she sell off our things? I'm sure I would in her place!" Adri said. "Whenever I have to leave the house, I come home wondering if this will be the day our things are gone, and our locks are changed. We can't keep living in her hospitality."

"It's going to be all right, love. Our luck is changing."

"Our luck!" Adri's voice spiked in Hyunjin's ear, and he flinched at the shrillness, quickly urging the volume to descend again. It obeyed his command, through sheer will power. He held his breath, wondering what other secrets his brain was keeping from him.

"How is our luck changing? Because you won a silver ribbon at that fair in Sydney last month? Your stupid awards aren't going to keep food on this table, and now you've brought home one more mouth- and a cyborg at that!"

"We talked about this..."

"No, you talked about this. I want to support you, Garan, but these schemes of yours are going to cost us everything. We have our own girls to think about. I can't even afford new shoes for Pearl and now there's this creature in the house who's going to need... what? A new foot every six months?"

Shriveling against the wall, Hyunjin glanced down at his metal foot, the toes looking awkward and huge beside the fleshy ones- the one with bone and skin and toenails.

Adri stifled a hysterical laugh.

"And his leg and fingers can be adjusted as he grows," Garan continued. "We shouldn't need replacements for those until he reaches adulthood."

Hyunjin lifted his hand into the faint light coming down the hallway, inspecting the joints. He hadn't noticed how the knuckles were fitted together before; the digits nestled inside each other. So, this hand could grow, just like his human hand did.

Because he would be stuck with these limbs forever. He would be cyborg forever.

"Well how comforting," said Adri. "I'm glad to see you've given this so much thought."

"Have faith, love."

Hyunjin heard a chair being pushed back and backed up into the hallway, but all that followed was the sound of running water from the faucet. He pressed his fingers over his mouth, trying to feel the water through psychokinesis, but even his brain couldn't quench his thirst on sound alone.

"I have something special to reveal at the Tokyo Fair in March," said Garan. "It's going to change everything. In the meantime, you must be patient with the child. He only wants to belong here. Perhaps he can help you with the housework, until can we get that android replaced?"

Adri scoffed. "Help me? What can he do, dragging monstrosity around?"

Hyunjin cringed. He heard a cup being set down, then a kiss. "Give him a chance. Maybe he'll surprise you."

He ducked away at the first hint of a footstep, creeping back into his room and shutting the door. He felt that he would have wept from thirst, but his eyes stayed as dry as his tongue.