[hider=History demo]Jonah grew up in a small apartment in the city. It wasn't perfect but he had what he needed. His parents, on the other hand, were not quite as okay with their arrangement as he was. Starting from the womb, his parents pressured him to be the golden-child that would sky rocket them to the big times!

Whether it was mathematics or sports, Jonah was told that he had to succeed to make life worth living for his family. He followed every rule but still slipped up, receiving  negative reinforcement when he did so. But, eventually, he began to catch his stride. He started winning soccer games and getting A's on his tests and suddenly the negative reinforcement stopped. He was happy, his parents were happy, everything was better. 

Until he started hating his activities, started getting tired of waking up and never doing the things he wanted. At first, he hated this turning in his stomach because he loved his parents but he still couldn't escape the feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him so mad at them some times. 

He didn't have friends to talk to so he sought knowledge in his books. The library was a short walk from his home so he'd spend as much time as he could just reading. 

He had a love for philosophy and thinking and used ideals he learned to come to the conclusion that what was happening to him wasn't a bad thing, it was just a “thing” and that him giving way to subjective beliefs was what was causing him problems internally. Eventually he began to distance himself from his parents until he didn't see them as his parents anymore, he saw them as just another problem. By the time he was ten years old, he had developed a form of detached apathy, a learned behavior he adopted to keep his emotions in check. Suddenly, he didn't smile as much. He didn't laugh at all and he didn't speak quite as much as he used to. He was only a child but he got better at rationalizing with age and by the time Galatec seized complete control, he was already stead-fast in his thought process. Honestly, life didn't really change when they arrived, not for him any way. His parents went to work and left him with his books, though the material was now more about how to serve the greater good than anything else. They confiscated his other books on philosophical thinking and mathematics, apparently those were “dangerous books that brought about dangerous thoughts”. He grew up in that situation, unaware that everything was different now. He had never gotten outside for anything that wasn't his parent's idea so the world suddenly being different wasn't a horrendous deal for him.

Time went on, and just as he thought, people began to cope with the change. It had been years, and like all things that occur, what was once “horrible” became yesterday. Life was in a constant state of flux and he wouldn't let such a fact break his concentration.

His mother, now a widow after the passing of her late-husband, pushed Jonah to make a name for himself in the new society, she saw that he was different than everyone else now and thought she could bank on it. Jonah agreed because he didn't want to be thought of as expendable, besides, working hard was how he made it through life, keeping his center is how he survived. He had to be rationale and efficient.

And that's exactly what he did. 

He began working as soon as possible, Galatec didn't care about age so long as their workers knew what they were doing. Eventually, he stood out and worked his way up, volunteering for the riskier parts of the job until he was being looked at by the higher ups. He refused to sit idle, not for honor or pride but because he knew that he only got one chance at life, knew what it meant to waste time and effort.

Through it all, he kept his composure. He rationalized everything he saw, closed his eyes and reminded himself about the philosophies he put his trust in because that's all he had to stand by. Maybe he had problems with the blank eyes of some of the other workers, maybe he would be up at night, trying to see why his own eyes still flickered with life, maybe he wondered about the little girl he once saw with the same eyes as her. But that didn't matter, work mattered, staying alive mattered. “You don't get second chances at life.” He reminded “Galatec is in control, there is nothing you can do, don't be illogical, keep yourself centered...” Like that, every day. “What is is, and what is not is not.” They were truths, he could rely on truths. He just couldn't stand with them in his entirety. After all, he was still human.

When the opportunity arose, Jonah volunteered for bodyguard duty, knowing that it meant he'd be given martial training and hoping it would supply a better standing for himself and, by extension, his mother. He was healthy enough, had a strong build from staying fit so he didn't have much trouble being selected. His training went by pretty easily as he took rather well to punching things into submission, perhaps due to some seriously repressed rage?

Whose to say?

After the initial adrenaline of letting loose for the first time wore off, he began practicing more at home, honing his reflexes as best he could. While not a god of the martial arts, he was able to prove himself worthy enough to stand guard for some big shots in the corporation. It didn't involve much, just watching and waiting for anything to slide by, a pretty simple procedure. As time went on, he did his work well, making a small name for himself with the others in his profession. It was easy life really, easier than manual labor though how he trained at home, you'd think other wise. He moved out of his old home and got a small apartment, he felt the connections he had were clouding his judgment. Something about having to see his mother's eyes made him nervous so by 20 he was gone. Before he left, he promised her that he'd keep doing his best, though he didn't see the point in the ritual since he planned to do so anyway.[/hider]

How does it look so far, am I on the right track here?