John Smith was an average 16-year-old boy. He was a few inches short of six foot tall. Average. He had short brownish hair. Average. His body looked to be kind of in shape, but not great shape. Average. The only thing at all unique about this incredibly average boy, were his piercing dark green eyes. They were eyes that looked wholly out of place on such an average person. But John Smith was having a wholly non-average day. He would even go as far as to say that today was the worst day of his life.
John’s day started early. Living east of Houston, Texas, he had to get up early to drive all the way to College Station where he was planning to go to university. The second largest university in Texas was in that relatively small town, and he was going with his family to take a tour of the campus. An hour and a half into this two-hour drive was when his bad day started.
John looked in his old truck’s rear-view mirror at his sleeping mother and sister (Natalie but she prefers Nat) in the back seat, then looked to his side at his slumbering father. He sighed quietly. He hated his truck, but it was all he could afford. it was big and loud and barely fit on this tiny road… but at least he had a car. He kept driving. As he continued down the ‘short cut’ that apple maps told him would shave 2 minutes off his trip, he wondered if you could even call this a two-lane road. It was more like a one and a half lane road because if a car came down it going the other way, one of them would both have to pull into the grass on the side of the road to pass each other.
Silently blessing the great god of cruise control, John just watched the road and moved the wheel slightly. But all of the sudden he saw something that made him think he was crazy. It looked like there was a rhino coming right at his car. But that couldn’t be possible, this was the middle of Texas. He slammed on his breaks causing his family to curse at being so rudely woken up.
Coincidentally on a separate plane of existence, said god of cruise control frowned as it felt the imminent danger of one of its devout followers. It started watching what was happening.
As the old truck skidded to a stop. The whole family grew silent. Nat broke the sudden silence and asked, “am I dreaming?” The rhino huffed in anger.
“No, you are not dreaming! What do you see?” came a feminine shout, startling everyone in the car even more.
Amazed she got a reply, Nat told the truth. “Uhm, well… I see a Rhino the size of a van.” A few seconds of quiet passed. Then suddenly the voice started talking again, but much quieter this time.
“… let them go, but they have seen too much. First time in 100 years that I take this form and there are witnesses… They can’t even comprehend druid magic, so they can’t even really see me.” At this point John realizes the rhino is seemingly muttering to itself. “They could write this off as a wild animal sighting… But there is no reason for a rhino to be here at all. Hmmmm. I guess there is only one thing I can do.” John’s face paled when he heard the woman/animal/rhino whisper darkly from in front of his truck.
“No witnesses…”
The Rhino charged the old truck and with supernatural speed smashed the truck into the air. With startled screams coming out from the truck’s occupants, the truck landed in the roadside ditch upside down. No one had any time to do anything. John hit his head and blacked out.
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“Ohh god everything hurts.” I felt like my body just had a run in with an industrial shredder. I groaned and opened my eyes. The world was blurry. After blinking a few times, I drew a shaky breath. Before me was an upside-down hell covered in blood. All windows around me were smashed and I was stuck hanging in the air by my seatbelt and what was left of the steering wheel. The thing that used to be my truck was crumpled around me. I glanced around. I was in the bottom of a ditch and was unable to move one of my arms. Blood ran down a gash on my arm to my fingertip and dripped onto the soaked roof of my old truck. I just sat there and stared below me. How was I still alive with that much blood down there? What was I doing here? How did I get in this situation? The fog around my brain started to clear out and I remembered who I was and why I was in the car.
Where is my family? I panicked. With my left arm limp and bleeding, I struggled to get off my seatbelt, but the latch was jammed. I struggled for what felt like an eternity. Failing to get anywhere with my blood still slowly poring out of my body, I stopped and forced myself to calm down. Taking deep breaths, I listened to my surroundings. Then I heard a terrible sound. I heard my sister crying.
“Why are you doing this?” Nat gasped out between tears.
“You already took my wife and son! You can have me, just let her live!” Dad was begging someone to spare Nat? Wait, they thought I was dead. And mom was gone. No. This can’t happen. Why? Then I heard it. A sickening crunch that stopped my heart.
“Dad!” Nat screamed. There was no way dad was dead, he was too strong. He was always there. I needed to get out I needed to help my little sister. But I couldn’t get out of my damn seatbelt.
“HOW NOBLE! Your fathers last breath was to beg for your life. Too bad. You humans are miserable creatures. Your mages won’t let the rest of us exterminate you, but right now… your time has come.”
“I will make you pay for this. Somehow.” Nat spoke slowly with the voice of someone who has nothing left. It broke my heart.
…
…
Her body slammed into the side of the pickup truck
…
…
Her body fell down into the ditch, open eyes staring at me. Completely still.
…
…
I broke.
I screamed. In my head. I willed her to move, to stay alive, to stay here. She was too young. I kept telling her to move in my mind. Get up. Kill the thing that did this to our family. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. I saw life leave her eyes. No, don’t go! I was still bleeding. My vision blurred. Something popped up in front of me, but I couldn’t see wat it was. I passed out. My sister was dead, she couldn’t move.
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…
…
Then, she did.
From an unimaginable distance away, the god of cruise control made some calls. This situation was unfortunate enough for him to ask for a favor.
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“Where is this alarm so that I can turn off?” I grumbled as I kept trying to turn off the incessant beeping on my right side. The more I struggled the more it started beeping.
Wait.
That’s not normal. My eyes shot open and I immediately regretted it.
“Who put the sun right in front of my eyes!” I screamed at the bright light. I didn’t get a response. I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted one. My location: unknown. Why am I here: unknow- err… Car crash? Maybe a rhino. In Texas. What? I reached up to rub my temples as a headache came on full force. Only one arm went up… That arm found a neck brace. I moved my head… I tried and failed to move my head. The damn alarm was going faster now. “One step at a time” I whispered to myself.
Step one: Current location.
I cracked my eyes, trying to get them used to the sun above me… Okay, not the sun. Just a bright lamp. Eyes opening more I realized that I was in a hospital like room staring straight at the celling. The room had weird blue text boxes that seemed to be floating. Holograms? Whatever, closing my eyes I took inventory over my body. Can’t move my head or neck. Right arm mobile, left… I can feel it, but it seems to be strapped down. Torso and legs… hurts like hell but I guess pain is good. Pain means I am not paralyzed. The beeping slowed down.
Opening my eyes again (slowly this time) multiple blue text boxes eventually came into focus.
They read,
Congratulations you have awoken to the magical world around you. No longer will your vision of magic creatures and places be edited.
I stared at the screen in front of me utterly confused. How do I see the next bo-
Title gained: Overachiever You have successfully killed a creature 10 tiers above you within one minute of your awakening. Effect: Spell learned - Dimensional Storage Space
What the Hell is going on? Have I died and entered a videogame world? I angrily willed all the blue boxes in front of me to just go away. They did. Kind of surprised that willing them to go away actually worked. The beeping continued.
It was a heart monitor. That’s my heart rate. Why do I have a heart monitor? OH just the car crash… That killed my family…
Panic attack.
The heart monitor started screaming as my heart rate shot up. Unknown to me I grasped at my new power just like I did before I passed out. It was this strange power inside me and I reached for it in a panic. It helped center me, calm me down. This power was with me when my family died and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go.
I heard a door burst open, and someone shout.
“Woah there fella settle down now no need to do anything rash. You are in a werebear hospital. We patched you up but you have to calm down. I can take that neck brace off when you lower that threat level of yours.”
“…”
“Ok I’m taking the brace off. I’m just a doctor so don’t take out any anger on me.” With the brace off of me I turned my head to thank him and… He was a bear. Fur and everything.
“Please tell me I am not talking to a bear in a lab coat…”
“…”
“…”
“You have never seen a non-human before?”
“Nope”
“So you are a newly awakened mage”
“If that is what you call ‘trying and failing to not freak out right now at a talking bear in front of me’ then yes”
“Shit”
“I believe that is my line”
“…”
“…”
The doctor/nice guy/bear/??????? ran out of the room. Must be weird reaction to some pain pills. Yep. Nothing weird going on here at all. In a (futile) effort to remain calm, I looked around the room. Hospital beige and white color scheme? Check. Incredibly bright lamp? Check. Calm and collected patient? Nowhere to be found.
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An hour later a (human) woman in a suit came in and started explaining about the world I had ‘Awoken to’. I was in shock. So much shock I didn’t even try to check her out. There was an entire magic community hiding in plain sight. Un-awakened humans just can’t comprehend the magic in the world, so their brains change what they see to be something somewhat believable. It is not foolproof. That explains the rhino in the middle of Texas.
Next, she talked about how all magical creatures could see what their power levels were. Some people even had spells to see other people’s power level. Power levels ranged from 25 as the lowest to 1 as the highest tier. Apparently, power levels were not necessarily an absolute scale… They just gave people and magical creatures a rough idea of how strong they were. Along with that information was some other information like titles and unique pools of energy that different classes and races had.
As soon as she finished explaining the basics (I was going through information overload) she told me some agents needed to ask about my accident and walked out.
As soon as she was out of the doorway two men (burly white dudes) burst into the room. They also wore suits, but these seemed poorly fitted and cheap even to my untrained eye. I told them what happened at the crash. They didn’t believe me.
“How could you have not seen anything? You were there!” Big dumb man number one shouted. Quickly followed by big dumb man number two.
“Sounds fishy to me. There were four bodies! Only your parents were recognizable so there had to have been someone else there!”
Sighing loudly, I responded with absolutely 0% sarcasm.
“Sorry, next time I am trapped in an upside-down car listening to my family slowly get killed I will make sure to try to see more.” They continued to yell and threaten but I tuned them out and tried to wrap my head around what was happening.
Eventually the muscle heads left, and my grandparents came and picked me up. They were my gaurdians now that I was an orphan. I was silent on the trip to their house, but I couldn’t get my mind wrapped around one thing.
Those blue screens that were in front of my face were so weird, almost like a game. Magic, monsters, and probably more crazy things are real. Really real. I was way out of my element and had no idea what was going on.I wish there was a tutorial or something. *Ding* A small sound went off in my head, quickly followed by a blue box floating in my vision.
As a newly awakened necromancer you have three tutorial options available. 1. General magic tutorial 2. Necromancer tutorial 3. A gift from the gods- How to: This mental codex and you.
I frowned, and I could almost hear my mom whisper, “Be careful what you wish for”.