19th May, Space Era Years 101.
The pale morning light of the planet Evening filtered softly through the grey curtains of a modest city apartment. The faint ticking of a digital clock echoed from the silver desk, marking the slow passage of another day.
Captain Aerys Vilozyver, nine years of age, dressed immaculately in his white shirt and navy tie—precisely as he did every morning. Slinging his school bag across his shoulder, he stepped out of the apartment and began his quiet walk toward Wenter Academy.
The air was cool and damp; the hum of passing hovercrafts filled the skies above. Aerys walked in silence, indifferent to the curious glances that followed him. Even on this distant world, everyone knew who the boy with the navy armband bearing the Swastika insignia was.
Halfway to school, he felt a faint wetness at his throat.When he touched it—his fingers came away red.The old wound at his neck had reopened, seeping blood that spread visibly across the crisp white fabric of his shirt.
Yet Aerys betrayed no sign of pain. His eyes remained as cold and impassive as ever.
A young girl walking past glanced at him with timid concern.
"Um… your shirt—there's blood on it."
He lowered his gaze briefly.
"I see."
Without another word, he continued toward a public lavatory. There, he washed the wound beneath icy water, the dripping echoing in the sterile room. He dabbed the blood dry with a handkerchief, adjusted his collar with quiet precision, and walked out as though nothing had occurred.
Upon entering Wenter Academy, all eyes turned toward him.Whispers rippled through the corridor like a tide.
"Is that really the son of Lord Aelyzabeth Thors?""They say he became an officer at eight years old…""What happened to his neck…?"
Aerys gave no response. He neither looked nor listened—his footsteps steady, his composure unbroken.
Then, two sharp echoes of leather boots approached from ahead.Two men in immaculate white uniforms of the SSS (Staatssicherheit) halted before him. They saluted in the Thorsian manner—standing erect, right hand open and raised at a precise forty-five degrees.
"Captain Aerys Vilozyver," one of them declared clearly,"By the order of Lord Aelyzabeth Thors, Supreme Leader of the Centorian Dominion, we are assigned to support and safeguard you during your studies here."
Aerys inclined his head slightly and returned the Thorsian Salute, raising his hand to the level of his temple. He gave a slow nod in acknowledgment.
"Honor to Lord Aelyzabeth Thors—Heil Aelyzabeth Thors!"
The two officers spoke in unison, then turned sharply and departed.
The hallway fell silent. Students stood frozen, exchanging bewildered looks. Some swallowed hard; others stared in disbelief—unable to comprehend why a nine-year-old was saluted with the reverence due a high-ranking officer.
Aerys merely walked past them, indifferent—like someone who no longer belonged to their world.
In the classroom, the teacher, a woman of middle age, was lecturing on "The Political System of the Evening Federation."Aerys sat motionless, his textbook open to a single page, his gaze fixed on the window beyond.
He despised this method of learning—the rapid speech, the forced responses, the shallow laughter of other children.He had only ever studied under his mother's tutelage.Aelyzabeth Thors never raised her voice, never commanded; her words carried the quiet weight of intellect and power.Here… there was none of that.
The teacher called on him suddenly:
"Mr. Aerys Vilozyver—perhaps you can explain the meaning of the word 'Republic' to the class?"
Aerys looked at her for a moment, then replied in a voice cold and steady,
"A system governed by those without power—who insist upon believing that they have it."
Silence enveloped the room.The teacher blinked, forcing a polite smile.
"That is… an interesting interpretation."
A faint chuckle came from a few desks away. Ben Karlstanley, the golden-haired boy, whispered mockingly,
"The son of a dictator calling others powerless—how ironic."
Aerys turned his eyes toward him—just once.The calmness in that gaze was so piercing that Ben instinctively looked away, his smirk vanishing.
No words.No anger.Only silence—so heavy it pressed upon the entire class.
Lunchtime.
Aerys sat alone in the garden behind the school, eating a piece of dry bread and drinking cold milk. No one dared approach him.The faint songs of birds echoed in the pale air.
He opened his journal and wrote a single line:
"They do not understand power, because they have never known responsibility."
He closed the book softly, his eyes lifting to the silver-veiled sky of Evening.
In those eyes, there was no trace of a nine-year-old boy left.Only the steady, chilling gaze of a future ruler—one who had begun to comprehend the world through silence and detachment.
"Everyone must learn within their own sphere.For me—this school is but a laboratory of mankind."— Aerys Vilozyver.
Thus ends Chapter A-VIII.