You should know, before you go any further, that this story of mine is written entirely from my own perspective. It is possible, probable even, that I ought to allow someone else to write my story... but I am a person who needs, passionately, to be understood. And I trust no one apart from myself to tell my own story. However, I may exaggerate at times. I may fudge the truth a bit, even though I don't mean to. I may remember something not as it was, but only as I saw it. Now you have been warned... if you are still reading, then at least you know what to expect.
I was born on Earth, but my parents moved off-world before I was old enough to remember living on the First Planet. My earliest memories are of the inside of many different space stations and transports, most looking exactly like each other. Space design was still austere, white, and (to me) dead looking, back in the early 2100s.
We wandered from station to station because my parents were both trained in space tech. They had their own emphasis and niche, of course, but they could usually find work at the same time on the same transport or station. We lived mostly in provided housing - low-grade, filled with used furniture that usually didn't match - and ate cafeteria food with meal vouchers. It was the life I was used to, and most of my little friends were the children of my parents' coworkers; I was surrounded by people who were all like me, and it wasn't until I was eleven Earth years old that I had any idea at all that other people lived differently.
That year, which was (not by coincidence) the worst year of my growing-up, saw us living on a remote station at the far end of Dardanus Galaxy, almost at the edge of explored space. We were close to what was generally referred to as 'The Black' - that thing that children tease and scare each other with when they ought to be asleep at night. We were close, but not so close that anyone on that backwater station gave it much thought.
