I was born into chaos and madness. All my life I have trained for one reason and one reason only. To fight that madness. Today was the first step of that fight. Today I turned sixteen and soon Unlocked my connection to the Trinity.
It happened sometime during the night. A sudden shock of pain that tore me from a dark slumber. I couldn’t remember what my dream was about but I knew it was better than what I woke up to. Pain endless unceasing pain. At least that's what it felt like. I thought it would never end. I clutched at my chest trying to squeeze the pain to a stop. My hands felt numb against the searing agony sinking deeper and deeper into my chest. I clenched my teeth against a scream and felt drool fall from my lips. I sat up in bed, swinging my legs to the edge then fell to my knees.
My vision filled with glowing lines of red light and glitching flashes of gray. Looking out at my room, a former broom closet from the Older World housing nothing more than a twin-sized bed and a side table with a reading lamp, twisted out from under me. It caused my head to spin as everything shifted in and out of focus. The red lights grew stronger causing me to close my eyes against the menacing glow. It didn’t help. The lights were not coming from somewhere in my room but within my own vision. The striated beams of crimson and stone began to slide up and down within the blackness of my own mind. I wanted it to stop. It was overwhelming, agonizing and on top of the pain that was still infecting the rest of my body, I thought I was about to die.
I opened my eyes again and reached out to grab the edge of my bedside table. I tried to stabilize myself, pulling myself up to my feet but when my knees buckled underneath I fell and knocked my lamp from its perch. I landed hard on my side and then curled up in the fetal position. I tried to call out to my dad to ask him to help me but all I could do was let out spit and clench my teeth again.
As I laid, curled against the agony that had encompassed my entire self, I felt something enter the room. Not in a physical sense. The door was shut and the hallway lights were still off. No, this was something else. Something grander than the space it allowed itself to enter. A form which had no form. A presence that was not entirely present within my reality. I didn’t need to look around to know what it was. The Trinity had come to me. It did not speak. It did not reach out to comfort me. It was only there to acknowledge that its power had finally Unlocked within me.
[System Notification]
[Connection to Trinity Initialized]
[Uplink Finalized]
[Warden Pierce Connection 100%]
[Neural Link Unlocked]
The pain had ceased. The encumbering presence of something godlike had suddenly vanished from my room. The fast moving lines of light had faded away and I was left staring at the bottom of my bedside table. Broken glass laid on the ground before me as my lamp’s light bulb had shattered when it hit the ground.
I laid that way for what felt like hours. Feeling my heart beat beginning to slow, the sweat that had drenched my forehead and down my spine dissipating away leaving nothing but an itchy feeling. When I felt strong enough I reached up with the back of my hand and wiped the drool that was seeping from the corner of my mouth. When I pulled my hand back I noticed that the spit was a darker color than I expected despite the shadows that filled my room. I had bled from my teeth or perhaps bit my lip during my sudden attack.
My body was shaking now from a cold drift of air that was coming in from under my door. The crawling gooseflesh that made its way up my back caused me to shutter. My body felt sore, my arms weak, and my legs as tired as if I had worked a long day heaving wheat bags with my father. I needed rest. Every fiber of my being told me that I could not go any farther that day. I needed to lay down, put my head back on my pillow and let the dreams ease my pain.
I struggled to put my elbow underneath me, but once I did I was able to roll to a seated position and let my head rest on the cool metal framing of my bed. After a few minutes of heavy breathing and heavier eyes, I managed to gain enough energy to pull myself back into bed. Then a light flicked on outside my door.
I could hear the sound of light boot steps making their way down a long echoing hallway. A shadow appeared under the door frame followed by a gentle knock.
“Ward. Time to get up,” Ian Pearce said, knocking a second time.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Da… Dad…” I tried to call out and let him know I couldn’t move. That I was too tired and that my connection had been Unlocked. When I didn’t answer right away he knocked a third time telling me that the day was wasting away. I placed my hand down and attempted to get in a seated position hoping that it would help me in my futile attempt to answer my father. However, my hand rested on the edge of the teetering bedside table and when I pushed it fell to the side. I landed back on my pillow and listened as the small wooden table clattered to the floor.
“Ward? Are you alright?” Another knock came but this time it was followed with my father opening the door and letting the phosphorescent lights of the hallway pool into my room. I squinted against that light and tried to speak again. “Ward! No… No it can’t be.”
My dad rushed to my side and put his hand on the nape of my neck and helped me sit up. “It’s happened. You’ve Unlocked your connection. I thought we would have more time. At least a few more days. Ward, what do you see? Ward?”
My father had waved his hands in front of my face trying to help me focus my eyes. Its motion was only a blur to me and even his aging eyes a distant horizon. My dad was a strong man despite his stature. He was shorter than me mainly due to his constant arch to his back making him bend over slightly. He was clean shaven and had a bald head that reflected the hallway lights brilliantly. He was wearing his overalls over his sweat stained shirt and had a knapsack thrown over his shoulder. He was the [Master of Harvest] in our community and a lot of people depended on him and right then I depended on him.
“Ward? Tell me, son. Do you see anything? Focus… focus,” My father’s voice began to fade as my consciousness faded with it. “Stay awake. C’mon focus. What do you see?”
I closed my eyes and let sleep begin to drag me away. It was helpless to resist and I didn’t want to resist. It felt good to let the dreams cover me like a warm blanket and let me rest. But, before my mind fell and I let sleep take me something appeared in my vision. A single line of text glowing with red neon. I did as my dad commanded and focused on what it said.
[Welcome to the Fallen States]
It would be another few days before I woke from my slumber, at least that’s what my father told me. He said that it was natural for those newly Unlocked to have a traumatic experience and require extended rest. It was something that I already knew without him having to tell me. A lesson that was drilled into my mind since I was eight years old. A lesson the First Unlocked had insisted every child learn. Once a human reaches the age of sixteen they begin a countdown. The time was unknown. The date of the unlocking, a mystery but one thing was for certain. Every sixteen year old had their connection Unlocked before their next birthday. Mine just happened to unlock the very day I turned sixteen. Happy birthday to me.
“Well everything seems fine. I don’t see anything unusual about his Unlocking. Though it did leave him a nasty scar on his lip. Bad luck I suppose. Other than that he should be okay,” Dr. Matthias let his small flashlight fall from my eyes and placed it back into his coat pocket. He then reached over, grabbed a small clipboard and sat on a small stool beside my bed. “See anything yet?”
“Besides the welcome notification, nothing,” I answered.
“Well that’s not uncommon but if you do start seeing more notifications please let your father know,” Dr. Matthias pulled out a short pencil, sharpened down to no more than an inch of its life, and wrote something down.
“The Trials are in a few days aren’t they?” I asked my father.
He didn’t answer me right away. Instead he folded his arms, looked to the ground and sighed. “Yes. There isn’t much time.”
“But I’ve been training for this my whole life. As long as I do what I was told I should be fine. Right?”
My father and Dr. Matthias gave each other a stern look. A look I knew held answers I wanted but felt I already knew. The Trials were dangerous no matter how much training a newly Unlocked had. I had worked hard in every aspect of my training growing up. Hand-to-hand combat, scavenging, fire-making, armor repair, and even firing a gun. I was good at all of it but that didn’t always matter. The stories I was told about the Trials were different for everyone. No one knew exactly what they were, only that the Trinity awaited those that survived. If you managed to complete the Trials then you received your first Linked Weapon and opened up your Class Pathways.
Dr. Matthias and my dad were among the first people initiated into the Fallen States. They were alive when their homes used to be called United. Then everything changed for them. The entire human race was almost wiped out overnight. The only saving grace was the being known as the Trinity. The only benevolent, if you could call it that, Fallen that now ruled the world above. A world of monsters, chaos and madness. A world that the surviving people fought back against every day.
My father completed his Trials right when the world collapsed. He never told me what happened during his Trial and despite the years of training and hard work, he had rejected the premise of progressing. He was only Level 17 with the highest ranked skill being two stars. His Class Pathway was Scavenger with specialization in Farming. It wasn’t exactly a fighting Class or even a class meant for surviving. It was a support class that he chose to help others. That’s how he Unlocked the title of [Master of Harvests]. It sounded cooler than it was.
Dr. Matthias also chose a Class Pathway and specialization more fitting to helping others. As a Preacher specializing in Medicine he had Unlocked the Title of [Doctor]. Unlike my dad, Dr. Matthias worked on leveling his abilities. He had reached Level 50 and had a maxed out skill at five stars, Pharmacology. He created most of the medicine and aids for The Quarters. Without him most everyone here would have died a long time ago.
“Ward… It’s not that simple,” My father finally said.
“It’s never that simple. The world is madness and so are the Trials,” Dr. Matthias said. “But everyone has to do them. Just keep your head down, keep moving forward and if you hear someone screaming. Run.”