It was that very night, that I truly discovered my love for the sciences. My father had procured a telescope, and had set it up on the balcony for us to map the stars together. In the light of a dimmed electric torch we read all there was to know about the stars and the universe. Maps and charts illustrated to me it's structure, but only when I looked up was I left in awe by its size. Before then I had seen the sky, surely, but never considered it.

Those memories stick with me more than the other words he spoke, and I still know to this day the star signs and the planets I was shown through the telescope. Venus in particular, as it rose to prominence in the sky while a deep blue glow on the horizon snuffed the glimmer of other stars.

Yet that was not the only thing my father talked about. Perhaps he had hoped that I would have been interested more in the future he told me about, but frankly, no matter how gifted, a child's focus is not often where one wants it to be – mine certainly was more occupied with the sky. I vaguely remember that during the night he said many things about the world, and the position I ought to claim in it. That intensified as we ran out of books, and stars to watch, and by sunrise it was all he spoke about.

It was at that time I saw it first, and if I did not clearly remember how shocked and confused I felt, I would have chalked it up to tiredness. In that moment I did think it was just a dream – or a sliver of a nightmare rather.

My father had become enthralled in his speech, with more vigour than usual. He retained his composure well, but spoke with less time for thought than usual. About how I would inherit the company, how I would become an upstanding gentleman and scholar, about how I would usher in technologies unheard of. I did not listen much, as I was barely awake at that point and most of his words blurred together into a distant murmur, until I heard a sentence that struck me as odd.

"... it is the duty of those with bright minds to lead lesser peoples, after all." It passed by in a moment, and could easily be overlooked through all his other words. But I glanced up, and saw in the faint, red glow of the sunrise a darkness slither across his temple. Little more than a flash, like a black worm writhing close to the surface before burrowing deeper.

"Well…" My father continued after a short silence, for the entirety of which I stared at him wide-eyed wondering what I had just seen. "The people that find less time and opportunity for such things. Not everyone has the capacity to deal with the difficulties of life, and we should shelter them so they may live peacefully."

I was not very vested in his words, for I stared intently to see if that freakish thing would return, so that I would know I had not gone mad. Yet at the same time, I would rather have hallucinated it – if only it had been a nightmare.