With slightly misty eyes, James took in the words that would change his life forever. He angrily scrubbed at his face, feeling as if he should be more manly about it, but the emotion he felt inside was almost overflowing. Still dazed by everything that had just happened, he postponed the decision about what to do with the two free stat points he had for later, when he would be more in control of his faculties. The flight, the fight, the consequences all had emotionally exhausted him, and he simply wasn’t in the right state of mind.

For the moment, he focused more on the fifth line. Talents were what made or broke Awakeners, differentiating between those who would be relegated to the back lines and those who would guide the path forward for humanity, pushing back against the madness that had befallen the world eleven years before.

Unfortunately, James had no idea what Thakinesis might be. It’d be the first thing he’d search the moment he got home, since his phone had decided that this was the perfect moment to die.Halfway across Coney Island, James remembered there was more to the System that he had forgotten to check.

With barely the work of a moment and with a mental push, he brought up the status window.

This time, however, he didn’t stop there. “Skills.” He intoned in the quiet of the evening.

SKILLS

LEVEL

DESCRIPTION

Thakinetic Empowerment

1

(Active): Utilize your Willpower to temporarily raise STR - VIT - AGI.

Thakinetic Awareness

1

(Active/Passive): Expand your SENSE to feel other’s wills.

Thakinetic Resistance

1

(Active/Passive): Empower your MIND to defend yourself against foreign influences.

There they were. The powers he had received from the System thanks to his Talent. They would determine his future as an Awakener, and in the confusion and tiredness of the moment, he had almost forgotten about them.

So it’s something to do with Willpower. It would explain the surge of strength I felt when fighting the rats. Yeah, that has to be it. I somehow used my skills without even knowing what they were, and they saved my ass. James hadn’t precisely been trained to battle against monsters, even the lowest rung of them, and his survival being owed to more than just blind luck actually made sense.

Skills were what constituted an Awakener’s power, and once you had them, they became a part of you. He had studied this in school, but always as a nebulous subject. To have it happen to him felt absurd, but the glowing blue window said otherwise.

Awakening only happened to few people, and generally in moments of great distress - though not always. If he remembered correctly from his old classes, scientists believed that around 10% of the human population had the potential to manipulate mana and that they should reach such a number in the next few years.

That James was now one of those privileged few made butterflies fly in his stomach, but he quickly decided to shelve dreams of glory until he got home.

Though he did not intend to hide his status from the Awakener Association, James wanted to get there in due time, after having talked with his grandparents about his future and taken some time to reflect.

Being noticed now would mean having representatives from various Guilds come knocking on his door to quickly make him offers. Not all of them were as sleazy as Callum Wright’s Radiant guild, but enough of them were that he’d need to be very careful.

It took him another fifteen minutes of walking before he finally got to Brighton Beach, where he and his family lived. Meanwhile, he noticed that his mana ticked up until it read 10/10, implying that he had used some during the fight.

Of course, it must have happened when I subconsciously used my skills. They require mana to be used, I know that. But I thought I would feel something… Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, to be honest.

James barely had the time to knock on the door, too tired to look for his keys, before it swung open, revealing his grandmother in all her seventies nightgown glory. Her hair was done up in short curls, and a pair of silver eyeglasses framed her green eyes, complementing them nicely. The worried expression she wore, however, made his heart squeeze.

The woman barely stopped to check that it was him before she threw herself at James, hugging him tightly. “Grandma, you are squeezing too tight.” He complained, but something in him relaxed at the familiar warmth.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The day had been a rollercoaster for James, and his grandmother’s hug was simply the last straw. Almost without his notice, a few tears slipped down his cheeks, and he broke the embrace to angrily swipe at them.

“Sorry, sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“Oh, James.” The elderly woman sighed “I don’t know what happened to you, but you have to know that you can allow yourself to feel. We are your family. You don’t have to hide anything from us.”

Behind her, a gruff voice agreed “We are here for you, James. Whatever you need, even if it is to go fight some punk that took your lunch money.”

That startled a laugh out of the boy, and he composed himself.“Let’s do this inside. I don’t want to make a spectacle out of it.”

Others would have avoided telling the gruesome story of their fight with the monster rats to their sweet grandmothers, but Rosa Summers was made of sterner stuff. As a nurse who had spent many years in the emergency room, especially during the chaotic years following the 2012 Mana Apocalypse, she had seen much.

Larry, his grandfather, grunted in surprise when James revealed that he had defeated two monsters. He wasn’t a soft man, and his quick mind immediately grasped the implications. Unless immense luck was involved, it was improbable for an ordinary, unarmed person to defeat a monster, and since James wasn’t sporting obvious injuries beyond looking a bit dirty, the leap was quickly made.

“You Awakened.” He said, causing his wife to gasp reflexively.

James just nodded, not seeing the benefit of hiding it. “We were attacked near Kaiser Park. I didn’t even realize until the fight was over, but after, it became obvious that something had happened.”

“I’ll drive you down to the Awakener Association tomorrow morning then.” The old man said, turning around to leave.

That was how he had always been, gruff and to the point, but in a way, James was glad for it. Given the day he had just had, a tiny bit of normalcy could only help.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘we’? Who else was with you?” Rosa asked, stopping her husband in his tracks.

The boy grimaced, not really wanting to get into the mess that his relationship with Sally had become. Still, he had decided not to hide anything important, and so quickly told of how exactly he had wandered into the rat’s territory.

His grandparents both had stony expressions, making him worry they’d be mad at him. Quickly, it became apparent that was not the case. “What a foolish girl. I can understand not wanting to get harassed by those guilds hooligans, but taking dimly lit alleys while there is an ongoing hunt for a dungeon is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while. It’d be better for you to let her go.” Surprisingly, the harsh statement came from Rosa rather than Larry.

Even more surprising, it was him that tried to defuse the situation “Now don’t go all mama bear on the boy. He can make that choice by himself.” When it was obvious his wife was about to interrupt, he placated “Yes, it was stupid, but I think he learned that lesson. Haven’t you, James?”

James nodded vigorously. He’d definitely think twice before following pretty girls down shady alleyways.

With an uncharacteristic hard look, Rosa told him that he needed to clean himself, as the blood and grime sticking to him might make him ill. James didn’t put up a fuss. The day’s events had taken a toll on him, and a long, hot shower sounded divine.

Upstairs, he quickly disrobed once he reached his bathroom, taking care not to have his dirty clothes touch the clean floor. He put them in the wicker basket beneath his sink and decided that cleaning those would be a tomorrow problem.

The shower, it turned out, was truly as magnificent as he had expected. The water ran brown, then red, and finally, after almost five minutes of scrubbing himself with a loofah that looked entirely done with its lot in life, clear.

The thought of going down to eat something - his grandmother always had a stocked pantry and a fridge filled to the brim, the consequences of living through the end of the world - made his stomach rebel.

He had already eaten enough during his date, which he was grateful not to have thrown up, and chancing it didn’t feel like a good idea.

James put on his softest pajamas, those he kept for special occasions, the kind that was difficult to find for cheap these days. The baby blue color wasn’t particularly flattering, but since he had an audience of one - namely, himself - he didn’t worry about it.

Instead, he dropped on his bed, a heavy sigh leaving him.

His life had been changed irreparably, he knew, but coming to terms with it was not easy. Awakeners lived entirely different lives than ordinary people, and though their work made sure that society could still run, even after the craziness of 2012, they weren’t exactly present in the average person’s daily life.

Of course, the news talks about them. The Silver Eye guild cleared this dungeon, and Mark Kelly II broke up a ring of smugglers. But it’s not something you think about much beyond that.

With a thought, the System interface popped up, an undeniable reminder that he, too, would now be part of that world.

He still had two free stat points to assign, and though he knew from his classes that it was better to do so as early as possible, as an Awakener never knew when their next fight would come and getting used to the power boost was important, he first wanted to learn more about his power.

That, however, could wait for tomorrow. The Awakener Association served several purposes, and though it had been gutted by Congress and was a far cry from what its founders envisioned, it was still a very useful place for a new Awakener.

Instead, what he wanted to do now was decide what kind of path he’d walk.

James, like all teenagers, had always dreamed of one day waking up with incredible powers. He’d break up crime syndicates, save cats from trees, and heal society.

Unfortunately, now that the prospect of making a difference was real, he felt it wasn’t that simple. He could do things like that by himself, a lone avenger in the night, but statistically speaking, most of those died within the first two months.

That was a hard fact to contest, as it had been corroborated by hundreds of papers from the US’ top scientists. It was something everyone who had ever taken Awakener Studies knew about.

It was also why Guilds swallowed up all up-and-coming talents. Why their power and influence grew every day, as the government’s and the people’s shrunk.

A few, mighty people controlled everything, from industries to television. Everyone knew about it, but not much could be done. They needed those people to save them from the more powerful monsters, be they human or not.

But James didn’t want to simply become another cog in the system. He didn’t want to get assigned a team by a middling guild and spend his life toiling for contribution points.

His father had been an Agent. He’d never been sure of what agency, and his grandparents told him they didn’t know either, but he had worked for the betterment of society and died for it.

He died because the government had been weak and ineffective. But he had also believed that a few good apples still existed and that it was worth fighting so the people’s voices could be heard.

James believed that too.