Silver hair wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, my brother loved it, but my parents didn’t. Not that I cared anyway.
After a couple of weeks, I had decided to visit my brother. It was . . . Very nerve-wracking.
The sun was at its highest point in the day, and I didn’t have work so I took a route I never thought I would take again. The closer I got to my old home the worse my body started feeling. It was hell and I wanted to listen to music to alleviate it but I wanted to give my full attention to the one person in my family who still cared about me.
The doorbell was quiet from the outside, but from the inside, I was sure as soon as I rang my brother would come running to open the door, whether he knew it was me or not. My thoughts were confirmed by the click of the door.
I smiled. “Hello again, Peter.”
His unbelieving face followed his body as his ass sped to the ground. He froze. I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day you saw your dead brother appear at your front door.
I couldn’t help but feel bad for what I had done to him so I offered him my hand and pulled him into a hug.
“Is this real?”
“Yes.”
It seemed as if his doubts were cleared as he started sobbing on my shoulder.
He kept mumbling to himself as the tears kept coming through. “You’re here right? I’m not hallucinating right?”
I wrapped my hands around and patted his back, reassuring him I was here. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back earlier.”
While he was still sobbing I saw someone approach. I sharpened my expression. It was him. He simply stood there. The man I called my father.
“…”
He didn’t say anything, he simply stared.
I of course stared back, but at some point, I thought to myself: ‘Why do I even bother.’
I took my brother’s arms walking up the stairs, maintaining eye contact for a little longer before I broke it. I wasn’t going to waste my time with this fucker who didn’t even care enough to worry about me.
----------------------------------------
“And yeah basically that’s what happened.”
The room was quiet for a second after I finished. He shifted uncomfortably on his bed. “I’m sorry that happened.”
“Heh?” I was confused for a second until I realized he felt bad for me. “You don’t have to be, it’s not even your fault.
I rolled my chair towards him and smacked the top of his head. He smiled. It was just like the old days. He had a bad habit of apologizing for things he hadn’t done, something I think he got from me.
My hand slowly drifted off his head as I started speaking. “How’s mom these days.”
His face got even more uncomfortable. “She’s not as bad with me as she used to be with you”
He scratched the back of his head. “I think she felt bad.”
I wasn’t as surprised when he revealed this info to me but it was still surprising. In my head, I never thought these people I called my parents would ever change, but in the end, I guessed my supposed death was what it took.
I shook my head trying to get myself to stop thinking about her. “Well enough about that, you wanna see something cool”
He beamed at me. I had told him about how I was a seedling but I never actually showed him yet so I was about to give him the shock of his life. I activated [ Wind Control ] and got to work by lifting a nearby book to make it float around me. These days I had managed to fine-tune the skill by a lot but I hadn’t really shown anyone but Alex so I was excited to see how he would react.
His jaw slipped as he gazed at me with eyes of amazement. “D-dude, that’s badass.”
I smiled back at him as I dropped the book into my hand. “I KNOW RIGHT!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. These past few months I hadn’t had the time to digest what I really had, but now that I was with my brother I couldn’t help but let out my thoughts. We continued talking for a couple of hours while I told him about my other skills.
It felt nice catching up with my brother but unfortunately, I couldn’t stay the whole day.
“Do you really have to leave?”
I smiled at him. “Sorry but yes. Don’t worry this time I’ll text you at least once a week.”
He pouted at me.
I mocked him “Hahaha, what are you ten years old?”
“13”
“Same difference.”
I patted his head and opened the door to leave before I saw my father staring at me. His expression was blank before but this time there was a slight frown. I frowned back before closing the door. I was never going to get along with that bastard anyways.
The sidewalk felt rough under my shoes. I had lived here once, but now I had somewhere else to call home.
A smile crept on my face unknowingly.
The distance back home wasn’t as great as I had once thought so I kept the idea of visiting my brother again in the back of my head.
Arriving at the door, I inserted my key into the door and made my way to the familiar couch letting my body slump onto it upon arrival.
I heard her voice from the kitchen. “So how’d it go.”
I smiled in her general direction. “It went okay. I saw my brother again.”
I see her head poke out from the kitchen with a smile on her face. “That’s nice.”
I nod back at her, before feeling something vibrate in my pocket. A loud noise starts from my phone and Alex’s.
My brows furrow. “An Amber alert?”
I check my phone. This isn’t an Amber Alert, this is an Emergency Alert. My body stiffens as I read its contents.
BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO YOUR AREA. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
My eyes dart over to Alex in panic, she stares back confused but seeing my eyes she checks her phone. Soon the panic settles on her face too. Tears start involuntary stream out of my eyes.
‘My area?! How big does my area mean?!’
I ran outside to see if I could see something that might widen my horizons on what they meant by ‘Your Area’.
And then I saw it. This wasn’t a missile, this was a fucking meteor. Its seemingly slow descent only helped to make me even more panicked. My thoughts ran back to my brother, this meteor looked like it was going to land pretty close to where he was, could I even make it? I had powers but I couldn’t use them for something like this. My thoughts then ran back to Alex. I looked back at her.
The tears formed faster than I could stop them. “Let’s go to the basement, quick.”
My steps were quick but my mind was in turmoil. Was there really nothing I could do? I opened the door to the basement before I looked out of the window again. The sky was darkening. I wanted to protect everyone but I couldn’t. This thought wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed.
I felt useless.
I quickly wiped the tears off of my face before looking back at Alex, and back to the window. My parent’s house had a basement too, I wasn’t sure why I was so worried but something felt wrong with that meteor. It felt ominous. The size wasn’t humongous to the point where I would lose all hope of surviving but this thing was huge. It felt like it could wipe out the city.
I looked back at Alex, and back to the window.
My parent’s house had a basement too.
There was no way I was fast enough to reach their house. They weren’t stupid I was sure they could survive something like this if they just went to the basement. Or at least I thought so.
No.
I had to think about the things I could do first.
I looked at Alex, this time for a bit longer. She seemed to realize something was going on with me but before she could ask I walked into the basement and closed the door.
I reached for my phone, going through the familiar folders. If something were to happen I had to be ready. I built a queue of songs, before turning my phone back off. Waiting. This was just in case it turned out worse I could imagine.
I felt the disturbance in the air. The ripples being sent out by the meteor . . . I could feel them. My earlier thoughts were proven almost immediately as the ripples were stronger than I had anticipated. It hadn’t even landed yet. I looked at Alex. She was usually emotionally stable but I could tell this sudden turn of events was taking a toll on her too. I doubted she could feel the ripples like I could because she still a little calm.
I stared at her, but this time she felt the need to talk. “What’s wrong?”
I wanted to stay quiet so as not to make her panic but she had the right to know. “This isn’t gonna be pretty.”
My voice was shaky, my legs especially felt like they would collapse at any moment.
Her eyes widened. The panic was now apparent. “H-how can you tell?”
“I can feel it in the air.” I didn’t expand on it but I could tell she took my words seriously.
“I’m gonna try my best to keep it from reaching us inside her-
She started tearing up, I’d never seen her cry. It made me feel even worse than I already was but I walked towards her and tried to comfort her.
“What about your brother.”
‘Ah, she always did have a way to read my mind.’
I stare back at her my expression tightening into a sad-looking frown. “There would be no way I would make it there, even I figured out how to fly halfway there.”
“All I can do is hope.”
A feel a tight embrace all of the sudden. She’s hugged me. It feels warm, I can smell her hair but it doesn’t last long as I feel the vibrations in the air. I push her away and start the queue.
“It’s about to land-” I look back at her and smile. “It’s okay I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”
She looks back at me her eyes meeting mine before I turn away and stare in the direction the crash is about to happen.
‘Peter, please make it out alive.’
I took out my headphones, clicked play, and waited.
> [ Scared, Bitter, Ready ]
> -| Silence | debuff is removed.
> -Focus temporarily increased by 10%
> -Strength temporarily increased by 10%
The buffs kicked in but the impact kicked through faster as I fell down from the ground shaking. I quickly recovered activating [ Wind Control ] to cover the area around the apparent basement borders so as to keep the space up for as long as possible.
As I was struggling to keep the basement in one piece. I felt the top of the house being ripped apart. This time I knew Alex felt that. I want to look back at her, but I was starting to feel the vibrations get stronger.
That was just the first wave.
Despair started kicking in.
“FUCK.” I couldn’t help but scream it. What was I supposed to do here? We were near the outskirts of town and I still felt like everything could collapse around me at any moment.
[ Wind Control ] allowed me to see what was going on above us, but Its area of effect wasn’t great seeing as I couldn’t see past the house but I had a feeling. I could feel there was more coming.
Though I had thought my [ Wind Control ] to be good I was starting to see the limits of the skill, or rather my skill at utilizing the skill. The mental strain of keeping up the skill was exponentially increasing so I decided to give up on the basement as I dragged myself towards Alex. I let go of the wind as I focused around me and her and just focused on the density.
I could feel her breath on my face.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Until I couldn’t.
I felt a familiar feeling coming from behind me and going through my body, and through Alex’s.
> [ The seeds have been scattered. Humanity will now be integrated. ]
> -In 10 days the rifts will invade your home, and otherwise normal entities will be changed.
> -Your survival will be in your hands as the tools to survive have been provided.
‘Ah.’
I recognized the screen in front of me, and at the moment my mind went into overdrive as I parsed through the implications. I immediately understood that what had just happened was an upscaled version of what had happened to me all those months ago.
But before I could think about it further I started feeling dizzy and almost collapsed as my skill momentarily stopped working. I checked my status to see I was running out of mana and fast.
I felt above me with the winds to see the pile of rubble wasn’t as big as I had previously thought since most of it got blown away by the explosion so I used the last bit of my mana to push an excusable amount of rubble on top of me and Alex so at least we wouldn’t die as soon as I inevitably collapse.
The rubble I threw off landed a distance away but there was still more coming down and I was out of mana. I did the first thing I could think of and covered Alex with my body.
‘Am I stupid?’
‘I haven’t even known her for that long and I’m doing this?’
‘Fuck it, whatever. Fuck it, fuck it.’
I didn’t have time to properly form out my thoughts so I just continued covering her until the rubble landed on my back. The pain was unbearable. I was somewhat superhuman but my stats were more invested in Dexterity and Intelligence, not endurance. I felt something in my back cracking before my body almost gave away leading to me falling on my elbows.
Her face was close to mine now, but I persevered waiting for some of my mana to recover so I could get rid of this blasted rubble.
After about five minutes of mind-numbing pain, I felt that I had enough mana to blast off the rubble, and I did. It felt freeing, like a literal weight off of my back, because it was.
And then I slept.
----------------------------------------
The Apocalypse has begun.
My fellow Americans. No, my fellow Earthlings today we face a crossroads in our path.
A crossroads that will forever change our outlook on the world we inhabit and the worlds we know nothing of.
Today an entity of great power has sent us a message. A message that when read has put a lot of you in panic.
But I ask you as fellow humans that we stay calm in the coming days and take on whatever comes our way.
For we are humans, and as humans have survived for millions of years, we will continue to survive for a million more!
----------------------------------------
My name is Alastor Psoglav.
A couple of months ago, I was caught in a freak incident and subsequently kidnapped. It wasn’t fun.
The incident itself consisted of me being blasted away by what people have been calling seeds. It sucked. But even after that, it seemed as if the world deemed that I wasn’t done suffering yet and I found myself in someone pseudo-torture basement. Luckily I escaped, but things had just seemed to get weirder and weirder ever since then.
I stopped my walk facing a door and rang the doorbell and in no less, the 10 seconds the door was opened to reveal a boy with silver hair, one of my fellow kidnappees.
I put on my signature beaming smile as talked “Sup loser.”
He smirked back. “Nothing much, Sir Mike Wazowski.”
I lightly punched him in the arm which got me a mild look of annoyance with a trace of pain. “Why are you so damn strong!”
“Tch, it’s the Psoglav family muscle, don’t you dare forget it!” I said in a fake arrogant manner.
We’d become good friends after our experience and also seeing how we were all seedlings. It was a shallow friendship at first but after months of hanging out, it deepened to the point where we would at the very least know 1 dirty secret from each other.
Adam slowly walked outside to look around. “Is Chizu not coming this time too?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t been able to get her to come these days.”
“She’s still trying to find that guy?”
I nodded.
The guy who had helped us escape supposedly escaped, but we could never find him. Chizu wanted to thank and help the guy who had helped us but after 5 months and nothing back, it was certain he was probably dead.
She somehow found his family and delivered the news but she still hadn’t given up.
I stared back at Adam. I could tell he was worried. She did have a habit of overworking herself. Or selves. She had the ability to create sentient clones of herself so it was twice the work on herself.
He frowned. I could tell he wanted to be angry she was wasting her time on a supposedly dead man, but he didn’t want to disrespect the person to who he probably owed his life.
I let out a small breath as I tapped his shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”
It was bad enough that he so overprotective of his own sister but now he wanted to add another person to his worries, and that just didn’t run well with me.
As we entered I came to the familiar sight of their parents, sitting on a couch seemingly discussing something.
“Well hello Ms. Holyfield”
“Ah! It’s Alastor! How are you?”
I smirked at her as I gave her an over-exaggerated bow. “Wonderful miss, I’ve just come to converse with your wonderful children.”
She follows my lead by changing her tone of voice to copy mine “Is that so? Would you perhaps be interested in a couple of donuts we’ve just acquired?”
I smirk. “Well if it’s from a beautiful lady such as yourself how could I say no?”
Adam probably gave me the stink eye, I didn’t have to see it to know. After getting the donuts though we moved to the spacious backyard where Evelyn was waiting.
I call out to her, as my usual lazy gait carries me to her. “Sup.”
Her focus drifted off her hands where she seemed to be playing with smaller portals. She had to have gotten really good with that compared to our first time. She stood up from the short dry grass and waved her hands at both of us. “Sup.”
Adam seemingly still thinking about my words from inside the house starts talking. “Hey by the way Alastor could you-”
I interrupt “Nothing new, oh also Adam, I will not stop flirting with your mother”
I smirk at him as I continue. “Especially when I get those reactions from you.”
A frown slowly built upon his face only to be replaced by a smirk. “Alright then let’s fight.”
That statement got him a sigh from his sister, but we continued anyway as he removed his shirt and I removed my sweater and my eye patch.
I transformed into my pseudo-werewolf form as my head elongated from my snout and was covered in hair resembling the color from my head. The hair only reached about below my pecs but I could feel the hair growing from the sides of my arms and the base of my shins. My muscles started expanding slightly as I felt them getting denser and thicker. My eye never grew back for some reason, but that didn’t really bother me. My height itself went from my modest 5’8 to about 6’4. I could never tell what it was as sometimes it grew larger.
Adam stayed the same. Lucky Bastard.
I checked my status before I predicted Adam say something about my weird transformation.
----------------------------------------
Status
Name: Alastor Psoglav
Fate: Monster Under The Bed
Class: Brawler lvl. 2
Stats
-Vitality: 19
-Focus: 5
-Strength: 22
--Points: 4
Fated Skills
Active:
-The Monster Within
Class Skills
Active:
-Heavy Impact lvl. 1
-Counter lvl. 3
General Skills
-Earthling Language lvl. MAX
Titles
434th Region Seedling [Generation 0]
----------------------------------------
It was good, good enough to keep up Adam at least. I hadn’t told them yet but I had found a way to increase my level; though it wasn’t exactly on purpose. Whenever I used my transformation skill, it changed me. I was testing the limits of the skill in a nearby forest one day when I saw a deer. I could feel that I was . . . hungry. One thing led to another and the deer lost its short lease on life. After I had killed it though I received a notification that I had killed it and seeing how my level was so low I immediately leveled.
Some animals gave experience and some didn’t. I checked the system multiple times and there wasn’t such thing as an experience bar so I theorized that killing was just one of the ways to increase one's level. Working out increased stats every so often once the system felt that we were going past our limits but those occasions were rare and I had a feeling they were going to be even rarer as time went on.
“Alright let’s play!”
I launched off the ground as my feet seemingly glided over the grass. Carried by the speed of my launch I twisted my body, to go for a kick to Adam’s side. Unfortunately, he blocked it, effortlessly too. I quickly recovered, bending my knee back but not lowering my leg so as to avoid the coming grab that he was probably going to go for, and as predicted he did which led to me releasing my knee for a quick kick to punish.
This was my fighting style. Though my energy wasn’t as endless as Adam’s I was good at forcing option selects, which basically meant forcing my opponents to do certain things to avoid getting hurt or push advantage but getting them hurt anyways.
But Adam, well. He was Adam. He could basically just go through the pain and keep going. He was a perfect counter to me.
Adam’s fist hurt as they collided against my arms. He wasn’t stupid. Even though he barely felt any pain in general he wasn’t so cocky as to rely on that. If anything he just used it as another tool. Overwhelming Grit. That is, he hit, got hit, and kept going.
I backed up, he approached. I realized I wasn’t going to win on the defensive so I committed to setting a trap as soon as my next step hit the ground. I would lean back and push him back with a pseudo spartan kick except I would take the brunt of the momentum and be pushed back thus ensuring my timely escape from his grasp. I executed, he blocked, it went exactly how I thought it would.
Adam looked like he felt used but he probably didn’t think about it further because he immediately dashed at me. He was fast, but I already foresaw this, as I leaned back and carried the momentum from my back-dash into a handstand backflip. It looked clean, badass. Though the badass didn’t last long as Adam finally landed a hit. I was interrupted mid-backflip.
The spar was a long back and forth, but in the end, it never finished because all of the sudden all of our phones started ringing.
Evelyn had been the most surprised though not because of our phones but because of the thing she was pointing at. In the sky. Our eyes followed, and what we saw . . .
Death, Falling.
I assumed our minds froze for a second because none of us could move. How could something be that big? It didn’t make any sense. I would’ve stayed frozen for much longer if I hadn’t known a way out of this. Evelyn. I was hoping she still had enough energy to get us out of here because we were going to need it.
“Evelyn! We’re going to need a portal to get out of here, Adam go pick up your mom we have to get out of here!”
My father wasn’t in the country currently so my mind wasn’t on him, but this thing felt familiar somehow.
It reminded me of . . . The seed.
“Shit.”
Adam came back with his parents promptly as we watched Evelyn get the portal ready. I didn’t want to think about what we would’ve done without her. On the other side of the portal lay a beach, this was going to be far away because as far as I knew there weren’t any beaches nearby. Good.
We stepped through, happy to have been away from the threat.
Evelyn collapsed as soon she stepped through. I grabbed her before she could touch the ground but I realized why she had collapsed. The distance.
I only had one thing on my mind after seeing the object though. "What the fuck was that."
----------------------------------------
The television in this building was loud, but it wasn’t as loud as the thousands of people all around us.
Alex and I survived to say the least, but things changed. The whole world changed. The thing that made me special was I guess not so special anymore. The whole world had it, at least the part that survived. 1/10th of the world died that day. 700 Million. That was how many people died in the minimum. When I heard that number my heart fell. I wasn’t even sure If my legs could support me anymore. The chances of my brother surviving were slim to none at best. I wasn’t someone who doted on my brother but I at least wanted him to survive.
Alex was the same. She had a family. Though she never spoke of them, I was sure she at least had one or two people she cared about.
I squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. But she never looked at me.
I wasn’t a fool, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. She obviously didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone she barely knew but I kept pushing and pushing.
I decided to not think about it further, and start a conversation. “So I guess we’re the same now huh.”
I couldn’t see her face but I could tell she was sad. She answered anyways letting a small portion of her face be seen as she slightly lifted her head up. “I guess so.” She sat quiet a little longer before she unexpectedly let out a chuckle which led to a laugh. Eyes were drawn to her, but she didn’t stop. It was as If she had heard the funniest joke in the world.
I couldn’t help but chuckle along, I was confused, why was she laughing? She spoke once again, repeating her last sentence. “I guess so.”
The chairs we were sitting on were quite close together so there wasn’t much space to differentiate what was close and what was not, but at that moment, I felt that she had gotten closer to me, physically, and emotionally. Maybe it was the suspension bridge effect, turning her fear of dying into misguided feelings of love, maybe she actually did like me, to begin with, maybe, maybe, maybe. I didn’t care.
I just felt that . . .
In that one moment, I felt that everything . . . Was . . . Righ-
“Alex?”
A random voice, in the cacophony of noise. I would’ve ignored it, were it not for the fact that Alex’s head shot up.
“Jason?”
Her hand left mine, as she stood up sprinting towards the man that had called her name. I could see that tears were streaming down her face but I didn’t stand. I was scared. I predicted something like this would happen. There was no way she would be so distant without her having a relationship. I was just an intruder, a delusional intruder.
His lips met hers and at that moment, I knew.
Sitting there had to be one of the most painful moment in my life ever. Well maybe not the most painful, but it still hurt nonetheless. It felt as if every time Jason, no i didn't even want to think his name, Rat. It felt like every time Rat spoke with Alex i was getting stabbed in the chest a trillion times a second.
Jason and Alex, well they were painfully compatible. what felt like a blooming romance between me and Alex now had devolved into me being a 3rd wheel in this stable relationship. I felt like I wanted to kill myself for the first hour of them talking to each other. My expression no doubt failed to show this so as expected they kept going.
While this happened though I started thinking to myself. Why was I bitter? Well I knew why I was bitter, in a broad terms, i was jealous; in layman's terms, well, i didn't really know, i had expected her to be in a relationship because of how distant she was to my advances, but to have it actually revealed felt . . . awful. All i knew was what i could describe it as was getting close to reaching a treasure only to see it getting pissed on and taken away.
"Hey Nate."
My eyes were dead. I hadn't really noticed because of how well dead i felt in that moment. Noises passed through and my mind couldn't even register it. All i could think of was how much i wanted to get away from here.
"Hey Nate?"
This time i'd heard it, but in a passing moment of enmity i ignored it. My mouth didn't feel like moving, i didn't feel like talking. I didn't have to look to see their expressions, the winds told me. Rat looked at me like i was a weirdo, and Alex looked a bit worried and confused. As expected, I was still in love with her.
I thought about it for a second. I knew i shouldn't have been angry at her for being in a relationship because that thought process made no sense, but i couldn't hope but feel it.
"Nate?"
This time i answered. "Hmm? yeah sorry spaced out. What was your question."
She looked at me for a second, i had expected she would see through my act. She was a very perceptive girl after all.
She didn't mention it though. "Oh yeah, i was just telling Jason about how you were a seedling before all of this."
I nodded. How cruel fate was. I was reduced to a mere mention. I knew i was overreacting, or was I? I didn't know what to feel but my face never changed once, i was used to this. Deleting my expressions to hide weakness.
I faked a thin smile, and made a random object float towards my hands before i sent it back.
"Oh wow, dude that's really cool!" Rat said.
I knew i wasn't being fair to this guy for being in love, but i couldn't help but get irrationally angry when i heard his voice. My expression stayed solid nonetheless as i faked another thin smile and nodded.
I turned my head towards Alex. Yep, i didn't think i could take this any longer.
Her eyes met mine, i gave a smile, to which she replied with a slight of confusion.
I stood up. "I'll be right back."
I was lying through my teeth, i was probably never going to come back. I just didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to take anymore of this, no i didn't think i couid stay here for any longer before i started breaking down. As i started walking away i felt a hand on my arm. I could tell it was hers. My feet stopped in their tracks.
"Hey-" she started talking but i knew i couldn't let her finish or else she might change my mind into staying here.
"I'll be back, it's just . . . " I let out a defeated sigh as my eyes bore into hers. "I'll be back."
My eyes wandered back to Rat, his eyes were already locked onto me before i'd decided to stare but i decided to hold the gaze for an extra second before I returned my eyes to Alex.
Her grip on my arm loosened. I felt that she understood a bit of my intentions in that moment. She hadn't gone any further to try to stop me, and that hurt. I was going to leave just as suddenly as i'd entered her life, of course she didn't know that, for all she knew, i was going to come back. Another impulsive decision from yours truly.
My heart stung as i struggled not to look back each step weighing more than the last. It was my fault for getting attached.
I turned on my phone as I went for the usual self-castigating music.
> [ Your fate skill has evolved ]
> [ Passive: Emotionally Enhanced Experience ]
> 1st Stage:
> - When under the effect of emotion, based on the emotion a buff/debuff is applied from a pool of aligned matches.
> - When not in a listening session debuff | Silence | is applied.
> 2nd Stage:
> When in a deep enough hole of emotion instead of mere buffs/debuffs user will be given 1 effect that is multitudes stronger chosen from a predetermined pool that matches the current emotion and/or song. (Once a day)
> [ You’re Running Away ]
> - | Silence | debuff removed
> - | Ant In The Crowd | effect added
>
> | Ant In The Crowd |: Perception of you will be decreased by 100% which will climb exponentially the longer your emotions persist.
My eyes glazed over the notifications, as I walked on disappearing in the crowd.