Stepping into his dorm room for the first time, Zach’s attention was first taken by an enormous window against the back wall. It was clear as crystal and looked out over the cliffs to the frigid North Atlantic sea below. His guide, a mousey older student who had clearly been conscripted to his duties, muttered something about a lucky bastard. Apparently the dorms facing the sea were something of a commodity. He could see why.
Murky from the reflected light, dark shadows were broken only by solitary white capped waves, marching perpetually towards the rocks. A green tint between the clouds promised a thunderous downpour in the near future, but for now the scene was at peace.
It was breathtaking.
The rest of the room was more pedestrian, but still beyond anything Zach had ever lived in. Tan shaggy carpet covered the space and the walls were the same grey-blue stone of most of the campus. A stately bed, made in crisp white sheets, sat ready against the right wall whilst the opposite held a large desk and a door, slightly ajar. Within, Zach could just make out the edge of a sink, presumably an attached ensuite.
“Alright, well we’re supposed to give the foreigners a full tour, but I've got an essay that I need to finish. There should be a map of campus in the newbie pack you’ve got. Anything else before I go?”
Zach got the feeling that the boy wasn’t quite honest there, but it wasn’t worth pushing him over. “Nope, seems like the packs got it covered, thanks for showing me my dorm. Oh, any quick tips before the new semester?”
A smirk spread across his features, it promised pain. “Yea, get to training sooner rather than later. You’ll find you grow faster now as an Awakened, and you'll regret not starting as soon as possible when classes begin.”
That was ominous. “Thanks, I think.”
“No worries, maybe I’ll see you around campus.” He turned and waltzed away, down the tiled hallway.
And with that, Zach was finally, blessedly, alone. The last day had been a whirlwind, and the week preceding had been an anxiety and stress induced mess. Awakening was supposed to be a grand moment, the dividing line between those blessed few and the rest, who owed everything to their protection. Hundreds of shows, movies and books that all depicted it as a euphoric experience, almost orgasmic in potency.
Compared to those heights, Zach’s own was dull. He had rolled over blearily one morning, to a glow behind his eyes. Opening them had revealed the text behind, supernaturally illuminated.
Zach Holland.
Class: Hearth, 1.
Rank: E7
Affinity: Heat, Life.
It was almost exactly like the movies showed. Greenish text. 4 lines. Name. Class. Rank. Affinity. It was a boyhood dream the world over incarnate, and yet, as he rolled out of bed that lazy Sunday morning, the only feeling he could muster was annoyance.
The Awakened were respected, loved, adored.
Like the proverbial sheep dogs protecting humanity's flock, they fought against any monsters who dared. The first and last line of defence, their lives were filled with training, growth and preparations all for that inevitable battle.
Zach didn’t want that life.
As rewarding as it could be, as powerful as they would eventually become, the awakened gave more than they got. Longer lives, chained under strict regulations and duties. Incredible individual power, harnessed for others benefit. Inexhaustive wealth, with expenses inflated to match.
Boyhood dreams were better left as just that. But this time, there truly wasn’t a choice; at least one worth considering. The IAA were punishing to those who didn’t register and follow the call towards infinite war against the Tower.
Oh, he could choose not to register, become a Super Villain as they called them. But that life was no dream at all. Constantly paranoid, watching for the slightest slip up. Even then, there were things that you simply couldn’t control. More than one Villain had been found because they walked away from a car crash unscathed. It was no dream at all.
And so he had debated, considered, agonised, but he had registered. Travelled to the closest IAA embassy, and was promptly upended with paperwork, questions and revelations. There was no way he had slept more than a couple of the intervening hours, too busy for the move to Turrim, and the sale of his small apartment. If he could, he would have moved heaven and earth to keep the place, it held far too many memories of his late father for anything else, but there was simply no chance. Long established treaties had foregone the possibility of Awakened owning land in most modern nations, they wanted as little tying the newly awakened to their previous nationalities as possible. Regardless of the difficulty, he was here. The heartland of the awakened for more than half a century. Turrim was built just south of the Tower, so as to never fall under its foreboding shade. It was a town of awakened, for awakened. Containing most of earth's population, it trained, housed, fed, entertained, pleasured, anything that could make the Awakened better at their jobs, Turrim had it.
Those jobs had some variety, but they all revolved around supplying and participating in expeditions into the tower, to cull monsters that would otherwise wreck havoc.
And now it was home. For at least the foreseeable future. Every newly Awakened, whether they had spent their life in the outside world, or were one of the children of other Awakened -and thereby almost certain to Awaken themselves- had to spend two years studying at the Turrim Academy. Learning life skills, history and most importantly how they could survive their forays into the tower. A compulsory experience to graduate.
His new room, despite the fine furnishings, was also a prison cell.
Unpacking was a matter of moments, he truly hadn’t brought much. A couple of small odds and ends got strewed across his desk, and his wardrobe half filled. And then he wasn’t just alone, but also for the first time in more than a day, with time to think.
The last couple days he’d been on a travelator, pushed along according to others whims, it wasn’t an experience he liked. After his father had died -to an entirely preventable condition, if he only took the time to get checked- Zach had done everything he could to take control of his destiny for himself. Spent long hours studying for his future. Cut down on bad habits; now it was all effectively moot, he was back to the beginning again in a different world, where failure wasn’t just a fast food job, but not uncommonly death.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The answer was obvious, but it didn’t make it any easier. There was no real choice but to give everything he could and more towards becoming stronger. No Awakened without personal strength had much worth in the eyes of IAA. The only way to find some measure of personal freedom was to carve it out for himself.
It wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t going to be quick. But what other choice did he have?
It was that same thought that dragged him out of bed early the next morning for a run. Dinner the night previously had been nothing of note, the mess was a short walk inland from his dorm, and at the time he entered quiet enough that he could snag a solitary table in the corner. It was a filling fare, and far better quality than he was used to.
Groggily pulling on some sweats, he walked out into the chilly morning air. Turrim was built along the Canadian East coast, bordering the Atlantic icy waters. This far north, the temperature should’ve been at or below 0, and the days far longer. Apparently some ingenious Awakened had found a way to manufacture a barrier to keep out extreme weather, and filter light into a more manageable daylight cycle. Zach was certainly appreciative at this moment given that seasonal depression was no joke, and he preferred keeping his fingers frostbite free.
His dorm was named Cinereal, after one of the second wave of Awakened who had a unique Evoker class focused on controlling hot ash and cinders. Zach wasn’t quite sure what rank of class it was, but it was unique enough that it must’ve been on the higher end.
It sat on the southern side of the small peninsula that made up the Turrim Academy. Even from here the tower stood looming in the distance to the north. Even from here looking at it filled Zach with a deep seeded dread. The sort of fear that prey feel before predators pounce. It was uncomfortable, and more than a little unsettling.
To the south-west lay most of the town proper, a couple of university buildings and the grand council court, an open pit of marble and granite that looked more like an ancient Greek theatre than the heart of the most powerful organisation on earth. Within the town centre, was the processing building he had been first taken to and a number of shops that the guide had pointed out. Beyond that, Zach wasn’t really sure.
He’d had a quick look at the map before he left and it seemed there was a path behind the dorm that ran the length of the peninsular that would make for a run. Stepping around the corner of the dorm onto the pathway, his first thought was of trepidation. It was fairly wide, made of large stones cut flat, but beyond the path by about a dozen metres was the cliffs. Sheer and more than 100 metres in height, it would take an impressively high ranked awakened to survive a fall of the side. This being Turrim, it was of course completely unfenced, they wouldn’t want young awakened feeling safe would they?
For the most part, the run was fairly straight right up until the last section, where a huge dip in the cliffside pushed the path right up against a three story dorm made of a similar, if lighter, grey stone to his own. Where he would usually run on the right, the extra closeness of the cliffside caused by the dip freaked him enough to stick right along the wall to his left. Enough, so that as he rounded the back corner of the dorm, he slammed into someone coming the other way.
The person was a fair bit shorter than him, and at his 5’ 8’ height that was saying something. Enough so that as they collided, his head snapped down right on top of theirs. The crunch of his nose as cartilage kissed skull wasn’t pleasant, but neither was bouncing back and falling ungracefully to the ground.
Through a haze of tears he finally got a look at his victim, not that they looked it. She stood steady, almost unfazed, about 4’ 11’ with a shock of red hair the colour of fresh blood, dressed in sweats she was clearly thinking similarly to Zach. Overall, she was fairly ordinary looking, and if not for the jarring combo of her hair and neon green eyes she would be lost in the crowd. Eyes by the way, that had now turned on Zach himself with reproach.
“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”
Blinking back tears, Zach grabbed the end of his still bleeding nose before it further stained one of his only sweaters.
“Uh… sorry…”
Zach must’ve looked a sorry sight, because as he spoke, she seemed to let out a stiff breath and relax from her battle ready stance.
“Come on then, get up.”
Her hand stretched out, scarred and covered in callus, Zach debated for just a moment whether to take it before common sense kicked in. The ease with which she hauled him to his feet was unnatural and with a start Zach realised that despite her short frame she clearly had some serious physical strength. Maybe an enhancement power?
“You know your way to medical?”
His voice sounded nasally even to him, “uh, no”.
“Ugh, of course you don’t. Come on then, follow me.”
Turning on her heels she marched off the way she’d come, forcing Zach to take a couple of quick steps to catch up.
It was a relatively quick if quiet walk through the campus to a long squat building. Unlike most of what they’d passed on the way, it had little in the way of windows or ornamental decoration and instead looked fairly plain, if in keeping with the same blue grey stone.
A short wide path connected the main thoroughfare from the doorway. Constructed of glass and stainless steel it quietly slipped open with a short hiss of escaping air to welcome them. Inside it was a fairly typical emergency room, lined in white tiles, a main desk stood directly in front of them curving to either side, where a number of beds lay in two neat rows.
The desk was empty, but almost as soon as Zach noticed, a man wandered out from deeper in the rows. He was a behemoth, approaching his forties and easily 7 feet tall with proportions to match. Thick biceps strained against the navy blue of scrubs, and despite his wrestler-like appearance, he had a kind smile, beneath bright eyes and short cropped dark hair. He looked like someone who appeared in those military ads back home.
“Hey kids, looks like someone’s done a right number on their beak. Well no matter, you’ve come to the right place. Come on over and take a seat, we’ll see what we can do.” Waving one mammoth hand at the first of the well made beds, he wandered behind the desk to fiddle with something unseen.
Zach obliged, shuffling over, taking extra care to catch any still dripping blood along his forearm rather than dirty the clearly well maintained floors. By the time he had moved the dozen metres, and managed to lift himself up onto the bed, his guide was already gone. Clearly she had somewhere better to be than waiting by his side, not that he could blame her. He didn’t think he could have made a worse first impression. Slamming into her only to get injured himself in some grand act of karma, wasn’t his most elegant look.
The doctor, or at least he assumed so by the scrubs, seemed to find what he was looking for and slid on a pair of dainty rimless glasses. They, like most of his wardrobe, were at distinct odds with his burly physique, but Zach supposed that even the doctors in Turrim had at least seen some time in the tower, and besides he wasn’t exactly in any place to judge based on appearance at the moment.
“So I’m Doctor Keaton Matthams, fourth rank Guardian, but most just call Doc Mat.” As he spoke he gently gripped Zachs chin and turned his face side to side, inspecting his injury. “Looks like a clean break, shouldn’t take much then. I do wish you kids would stop fighting outside of the Combat Hall though, the protections in that place are built to stop just this kinda thing”.
Zach nearly went cross eyed, as ‘Doc Mat’ raised his other hand to hover over his face and muttered something faintly under his breath. A soft green light seeped out from the meaty palm before flowing straight onto and around his nose. What it was doing Zach couldn’t quite see, but after a second or two the doctor lowered his hand and turned about face.
In that time, he had completely fixed any and all damage. Gingerly fingering his face, Zach couldn’t feel anything out of place or even a lick of pain.
Clearly the man employed mystical power, at a guess some application of a life affinity, although he certainly wouldn’t bet on it, or for that matter what being a Guardian entailed.
Nevertheless, he hopped down off the bed and followed in the large footsteps of the Doc. Again he was fiddling around his desk, but as Zach approached he saw him reach into a draw and pull out two lollipops, turning and handing them to Zach with a smile.
“One for you and another for your friend, no doctor's visit is complete without one.”
“Oh. No, she really isn’t a fr-”, Zachs stammered response was cut off by a knowing smirk from the larger man.
“Heh, sure kid. Whatever you say. Just make sure you try your best to stay in one piece next time, no showing off for the ladies.”
Unsure as to how to answer that, Zach simply pocketed the sweets and turned, walking back out of the centre and turning back south towards the coastal track.
As much as the entire last ten minutes had left him reeling and more unsettled than he wanted to admit, he couldn’t really find any logical reason as to why he shouldn’t finish his run. And so it was with a sigh, he picked up the pace.