ADAM
I was raised in Paradise.
My Paradise is a holistic gateway spa located in the desert.
It's a spa known to the rich and famous, and unless you are pretty wealthy, there's no way you could afford to stay for a week or longer.
Paradise was initially funded by the wealthy inclined to discover new alternatives to growing old.
Because of this funding top, scientists came on board...but as a child, I wasn't aware of any of that.
Until the age of four, I was carefree, running through the green grass with bare toes, and the only world I knew was within the walled confines of this exotic resort.
I never ventured out of the gates, not until I was at least sixteen years old.
As a child, I didn't need to. As I grew older, sure, I became interested in what was beyond, but I quickly learned life outside the walls was like living in a nightmare.
There was a virus outside the walls that made everyone impure and dirty, and unless I wanted to become like them, I needed to stay where I was protected.
As a child, when you're told something like this, you tend to believe the adults.
I was also told I was special, that I was one of a kind, which explains why my name is Adam.
Ready for a truth bomb?
I'm a direct descendant of the Lillith.
Do you know who she is?
You know, the biblical Adam and Eve, right?
Well, before Eve came along, there was his first wife.
Here's the kicker: she's still alive.
Don't look at me like I'm crazy. The crazy ones are those who raised me and brainwashed me into believing this lie.
The story goes like this: Lilith was created alongside Adam, made of dust, and was God's favorite.
When things didn't go well between her and Adam, she took off, unwilling to share space with him anymore.
Adam pouted and demanded that God provide him with another mate but one he could control better. God did, but not until after He'd sent angels to find Lilith and convince her to return to Adam. They even promised her half of Paradise as her own, but she wanted her own Paradise, not one shared with someone like Adam.
Do you blame her? The guy seemed weak. You know? I mean, he let some woman convince him to eat a stupid apple and lose his own Paradise.
Lilith, she knew better. So she waited at the edge of the Paradise for God to meet her.
Because she was His favorite, He offered her the world, promising there was more than just the garden out there and that if she would help to care for it, He would always care for her.
Unlike Adam, because he sinned, and Jesus, who was born of humans, Lilith was created in the image of God, breathed into life by His very breath, and will never die.
I know, crazy, but Jack, I'm telling you the truth. I swear on whatever you think is holy.
There are whole societies dedicated to Lilith, even though you'll never see her name.
You will see a sigil marked in a tile at the front doors, a circle with what looks like two keys intersecting with a flock of her hair.
If you google Lilith, she'll be called a demon, they'll say Satanists sacrifice babies to her, and other nonsense.
None of that is true.
She's as old as time with the beauty of a twenty-something wet dream.
I've seen her.
I've no idea whether she's the real Lilith, but the woman portraying this myth is supposedly my mother.
Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. Crazy. Deranged. Total brainwash bullshit.
I met the woman twice. Once as a child and once as a teen, just before I went on my first mission.
My childhood memories of my mother are...well, they're everything a child wants to believe a mother would be.
She came and found me one day playing in the gardens. I had a favorite spot beneath a cluster of trees that reminded me of a fort. It was behind all the staff buildings, so out of sight for the guests.
She came and sat with me, not being worried about getting her all-white outfit dirty.
I thought she was an angel.
She laughed and said they were much bigger than she was.
I asked if she'd ever seen an angel, to which she said she has, that she has one guarding her all the time and that one day I'd have my own protecting me.
Cool, right?
I remember Lilith being beautiful in a classical sense. There was a lightness, a brightness, about her that radiated peace.
The whole time she sat with me in my fort, I felt like I was being wrapped in a mother's hug.
Funny, I can feel that hug even now.
Whenever Lilith came to visit, it was always a big deal. She moved around a lot, from property to property, her responsibilities taking her everywhere, but she told me our Paradise was her most favorite, mainly because that's where I was.
I believed her.
I don't anymore.
I was raised to believe I was special.
I was told that I was the first of my generation, a generation of purity the earth hasn't seen yet.
I didn't understand what that meant, but I knew it had to do with all the tests I underwent from an early age. My blood was constantly tested, poked and prodded, and treated for things I didn't believe I was sick for.
See this scar? That's where they inserted a port. I had that thing for years, until my sixteen birthday, when I was deemed pure of body and spirit and was sent on my first mission.
My childhood was...well, I don't know what to compare it to, really. I was loved. I was spoiled with all the affection, I played outside, learned to read at an early age, and was taught a variety of martial arts. I excelled at my schooling, loved all the physical training, but I hated the medical part.
They had a room just for me when it came to all the procedures they put me through. I had no idea what was happening at the time, I honestly didn't. They told me my body was fighting a disease, and if they could figure out how to fight it, I just might save the world.
That was a huge burden to place on a child. I bore it nicely, though, or that's what my father always told me.
The woman I thought was my mother was actually my caretaker.
Her name was Bethany. She was an older woman with silky white hair, laugh lines, and the soften smile I've ever seen on a woman. She was firm but not strict, supportive but not hard, encouraging and loving.
She told me Lilith had given her strict instructions on how to bring me up and that it was her duty to follow those instructions. After all, Lilith was the world's mother, wasn't she?
Looking back, my life was crazy. Who grows up in a cult? Who grows up believing they are the first being in a line of superior beings? God, I was so fucked up, it's unbelievable.
I truly believed I was better than Jesus and Mary combined. My shit didn't smell. My actions were god-like. I couldn't do any wrong because I was the purist of pures in a world full of sinners.
There were no other children, not during my time there. No, let me clarify that. There were babies, but they never survived past the sixth-month mark. They were born in a laboratory, and that's where they lived, in coma-induced stasis, used primarily for experimental procedures.
Yes, the people at this so-called spa were monsters. I see that now. Back then...it was all I knew. It was normal.
You do remember that I said the spa was only for the rich and famous, right? You had to pay for the benefits received at this spa.
All those experiments done on those lab-born babies were for research purposes, but research done outside of official government funding.
The people who came to the spa signed waivers giving away all rights to seek retribution if their treatments didn't work. Still, those waivers also meant they were willing to turn a blind eye to how their creams, gels, and injections came to be.
People don't mind being blind sheep when the benefits are theirs for the taking.