[ WP ] All people born have a number engraved on their skin , and for the past few centuries , the number has been gradually going down . You are number one

I was treated like I was special the second I was born. # 1. The last of the children born on Earth, to a middle-class family in the heart of New York. I was supposed to be the talisman, the last hope for humanity. I was supposed to lead us into the stars and break the genetic disease that ravaged our planet. I was supposed to find a cure and make it possible to continue the human race again. So the prophecy foretold, in that huge book held deep within the vaults of the UN Building, the last surviving testament the Great Leader himself. I was supposed to be the second coming of him, he who had found the disease eating our DNA, he who had brought the world together under one almighty, omniscient umbrella. I was supposed to be him incarnate once again. 
 
 Time went by and I failed at every turn. I was reviled. I could n't do math well enough; anatomy confused me. How was I supposed to find a cure for the disease when I could n't even name the parts of a cell? 
 
 Riots ensued. `` We're all going to die! Humanity is doomed!'' My parents and the few advisers that remained to keep them safe tried their hardest to educate me, to let me fulfill my destiny. They tried to save the human race. 
 
 The crowds got Dad first. When they came, in the middle of the night on Halloween, my parents thought it was the last two kids in New York besides myself, trick-or-treating despite the fact that they were almost fifteen each. They shot Dad in the chest, for producing the doom of humanity. Mom screamed and Dr. Evans shouted for us to run. Dr. Muller went with us while Evans held the back door against the mob. 
 
 We ran for two weeks in Mom's sedan, keeping me hidden from view. I was n't allowed to leave the back seat, and I could n't take off my sweatshirt, even in the middle of Texas. 
 
 It was only after the miracle birth of # 0 that we were safe. From the deep jungle of the Amazon came the true Inheritor of the Great Leader. She cracked the disease by the time she was 5. She gave humanity it's first commercial space fleet and colonies by 10. By 15, she was granted the title of Queen of Earth. 
 
 And me? I will always be remembered as the Great Failure. The Great Pretender. The Church of the Queen still wants me hung for being the false Chosen One. So I had no choice. 
 
 I ran. Into the depths of space, I ran. Somewhere, lost out in the stars, where no one could find me, where no one could look at that permanent scar on my wrist, that horrible # 1. 
 
 It's lonely out here, but it's better to be lonely than dead.
